ARE PRESERVICE TEACHERS COMPETENT ENOUGH? A CROSS-SECTIONAL ANALYSIS OF ELT PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS' PERCEIVED TEACHER COMPETENCES

Teacher quality has gained importance over the years. To ensure the quality of teaching and teachers, the pre-service teacher training programs are of great importance to gain the necessary competencies. In many countries, including Turkey, the ‘notion of a graduate who is ready-to-teach is the norm’. Thus, to gain necessary teacher competencies throughout the training programs becomes of great importance. In this study, rather than looking at competency gains of only senior students -which appears to be the case with most recent research into pre-service teachers’ teacher competencies in Turkey- ELT pre-service teachers’ teacher competencies are examined cross-sectionally with 132 pre-service teachers in different years of study at a ELT department of a state university in Turkey within the framework of the updated teacher competences (MoNE, 2017) presented by the Ministry of Education. A survey method research design is utilized in this study. The data for the study is gathered through an instrument prepared by transforming the teacher competency indicators into Likert-type Can Do statements. The results of the study showed that 2nd year pre-service teachers have the lowest perceived teacher competency and even the 4th year pre-service teachers perceive themselves as not having full competency in all indicators. There is a steady growth in teacher competencies over the years. Professional knowledge related teacher competency domain develop in the 3rd year, whereas professional skill related teacher competency develop steadily over the 2nd and 3rd year and fostered in the 4th year. The results of the study revealed how the students gained and developed teacher competencies throughout teacher training and 4th year students felt more competent just before their teaching career