Abstract:

This study adopted phenomenology, one of the qualitative study patterns, to investigate the pre-service English as a foreign language teachers’ opinions about online practicum in terms of the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats (SWOT) of online teaching practice. To reach the aim, 24 pre-service English as a foreign language teachers who attended an online practicum for 12 weeks, and each conducted at least 4 online English lessons using the lesson plans they prepared, were involved in the study. All the pre-service teachers who voluntarily accepted to participate in this study were senior students at the department of English language teaching of a foundation university in Gaziantep, Turkey. The researchers collected the data through focus group interviews on the Zoom platform. The participants who formed 3 focus groups with 8 participants were asked about the online practicum's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats. The meetings were recorded and transcribed word by word by the researchers. Both researchers reviewed the data for reliability and validity until the results reached saturation (Huberman Miles, 2002).  Content analysis was used to analyze the data, and several themes and codes emerged from the qualitative data. The results were discussed in detail with the implications and suggestions for teacher education programs.

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