Abstract:

This study aims to find out the perceptions of prospective primary school teachers about the school to begin first assignment, teacher performance and the multigrade classes. The study is a qualitative study. Participants were determined with homogenous sampling method. The data collection tool was a semi-structured questionnaire. Participants' views were analyzed with content analysis and explained under specific themes. According to the findings, while most of the participants have already experienced living hamlets, villages and towns, they lived in county towns and city centres. The prospective primary school teachers wanted to begin their professions in a school environment where the school have had adequate features and even advanced technology and thought the school should be under good condition in terms of social and cultural facilities. 42% of the participants felt ready to work in multi grade classes, 38% of them indicated that they were ready theoretically but not practically and 58% of them didn’t regard themselves as equipped enough to teach in schools with multigrade classes. The participants’ ideas mostly focus on the inadequate possibilities to get practical education including experiencing in such schools during their university lives. 61 % of the participants indicated that teaching in villages or cities will affect their teaching idealism and performances. Furthermore, the participants made metaphors about the schools with multigrades classes: 9% of the participants made plant-themed metaphors, 11% of them made human-animal-themed metaphors, 18% ones made furniture-themed metaphors and finally 11% ones made institution-organization-themed metaphors. On the other hand, about primary school teaching in multigrade classes 30% of the participants made human-themed metaphors, 8% of them made fairy-tale hero-themed metaphors, 10% of them furniture-themed metaphors and 3% ones made animal-themed metaphors.

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