The Effectiveness of Teaching Practice in Improving Student Teachers’ Teaching Skills in Tanzania

Abstract

This article is based on the study which sought to investigate the effectiveness of Teaching Practice in improving student teachers’ teaching skills in Tanzania. The study was designed to find how Teaching Practice was organized by the teacher training universities  and whether the Teaching Practice was effective in improving student teachers’ teaching skills. The qualitative research approach was adopted and the study was conducted in Iringa, Morogoro, Dar es Salaam, and Kilimanjaro regions of Tanzania Mainland. A total of 191 student teachers were involved in the study. The findings indicated that the duration spent for the Teaching Practice was inadequate for student teachers to acquire the skills required for effective teaching. Furthermore, the supervision of student teachers during the Teaching Practice was overall, ineffective as the supervisors were not flexible enough to guide, advise, and discuss with student teachers on the strengths and weaknesses revealed during the teaching. Regarding the effectiveness of the Teaching Practice, 76% of the respondents indicated that Teaching Practice was ineffective in improving their teaching skills. Since the majority of respondents indicated that they did not benefit much from the Teaching Practice, there is need for the responsible authorities to review the procedures for carrying out Teaching Practice in order to improve the quality of teachers.

Keywords: Effectiveness, Teaching Practice, Teaching skills, Tanzania.