Recommendations based on the basic tenets of Updated Curriculum Framework toward Pre-service English Teacher Training

The keystone of successful breakthrough in pre-service teacher education underpins understanding relevant educational goals and objectives of policy makers. Therefore, this article reveals aspects of the updated content of Kazakhstani Curriculum Framework for the further development of pre-service English teacher education. Authors depict the basic tenets of updated curriculum and put forward in the contextual model. Authors undergird the best practices of effective teaching such as The Spiral Curriculum Design, Educational Curriculum Framework, Leadership and Management Development Framework, Goal-Setting and Task Performance, and Assessment in Curriculum Framework. Revision of methodological literature gives full description of goal-settings, planning process and its implementation at secondary school system. Along with a description it was analyzed first-year-school teacher feedback of retraining courses to see impacts of curriculum changes on their actual teaching. Thus, authors have compiled recommendations based on in-service teacher feedback, focusing on the key issues of the updated curriculum framework that future teachers might encounter in various school settings. The findings can be used for further study in pre-service teacher education policy.

Introduction

Reformation of education system focused on the best practices around the world has begun to be perceived as a top priority of the government. The Kazakhstani primary and secondary education stages have undergone a significant shift in the tone of quality teaching whereas higher education needs effective alterations compliance with teaching reforms. Moreover, the current state of modernization education system in Kazakhstan involves retraining in-service teachers for improving their teaching skills; however the issue of pre-service teacher education remains virtually unclear. In this regard, the state and society began to feel a real need for specialists who speak not only a foreign language, but who have a solid stock of knowledge of the subject, are informed in related disciplines, are aware of the changes taking place in the world within soft skills, and are erudite in various fields, in general, competent professionals in their profile. The essence of preparation future teacher is likely to create conditions for obtaining Pedagogic Content Knowledge (PCK) in accordance with high-quality teaching skills in the context of updated content of Kazakhstani Curriculum Framework. The strategic document «New development opportunities in the conditions of the Fourth Industrial Revolution» states the need to revise the approaches to training and qualification development for teachers, to develop pedagogical departments and faculties. And specific requirements for the preparation of teachers for work in the conditions of new challenges in higher and secondary education have been identified [1].

In this study we have aimed twofold goals to build Basic Tenets of Updated Secondary Education Curriculum Framework for a clear understanding how it works and analyzing in-service school teachers' feedbacks as essays from training courses for creating recommendations for pre-service teacher education programs.

Main part

To implement a new curriculum framework, a stepwise approach has been carried out from 2015–2016 school years for the first grades. The current school years, the 2nd, 5th, 7th grades have already become involved in this process. It is according to the State Program, until 2021 all school educational stages will be fully engaged. This is a brief view of strategic plan for accomplishment updating secondary education curriculum. So, it is clearly seen how secondary school education has moved forward in school management and actual teaching practice.

The nature of new requirements for the future teacher preparation is creating conditions for their subsequent effective teaching in upgrading overall school system [2]. The keystone of successful breakthrough in pre-service teacher education is taking into account of understanding relevant educational goals and objectives of policy makers. Therefore, the future teachers need to be aware of what Updated Secondary Education State Standard (USESS) is and how it works. Substantial distinction of the updated curriculum is shown in Table.

Expected learning outcomes are specified for the purpose of training for each section. There is a very close relationship between long-term, medium-term and short-term plans. Long-term plans reflect general principles of educational development (development concept); mainstream and development programs; it includes topics of study for one academic year. Medium-term plans provide recommendations for teachers on how to conduct lessons by topic and section, organization of student activities in the classroom, and also include resources (Internet, texts, exercises, video and audio materials, etc.). In contrast to the curriculum, curricula are advisory in nature, so the teacher can adapt activities and choose their alternative resources that meet the interests, level, needs and age characteristics of students. It consists of language goals. Each subject has its own linguistic style; it can be called the «scientific language» of one particular subject. Scientific lan-

guage is the main tool used in teaching the subject's content, thinking and improving the abilities of working with basic concepts in the subject's content. Language goals are important means of learning a scientific language. To build language goals, the following verbs can be used: categorize, select, classify, compare, link, identify, copy, construct, criticize, define, characterize, evaluate, explain, give examples, designing, clarifying, justifying, negotiating, hypothesis, mining, proposing alternative solutions, explaining the reasons, clarifying, speaking in other words, reviewing, writing off, playing role-playing games, summarizing understanding of results, assessments and writing, use for various purposes, write inquiries in your own words, arrange. A short-term plan, or a lesson plan, is drawn up by the teacher on the basis of the approximate template presented at the end of the medium-term plan. When developing a short-term plan, the teacher is recommended to pay attention to a differentiated approach to learning and to take into account the individual characteristics of children. When drawing up a short-term plan, the teacher can be guided by the following recommendations:

•  during lesson organization, teachers must be guided by the goals specified in the curriculum;
•  it is necessary to detail the formulation of lesson objectives (according to the principle of S.M.A.R.T.), that is, to set specific, measurable, achievable goals;
•  all activities included in the medium-term plan should be organized in the lesson;
•  activities should be supplemented at the discretion of the teacher.

Teaching methods, approaches, assessment, even goal settings, class management, and the philosophy of actual teaching practice has the dramatically changed in the context of updated school curriculum. The learning process has the following features: the student is not given knowledge in completed form, and the knowledge is acquired by the students themselves, through the collaborative environment organized by teacher, research activity.

In addition to the above, the use of ICT, interactive learning, research methods and timely response to the needs of students are required. So what is required of the teacher? These skills:

•  to formulate learning objectives for results;
•  to build the educational process on the organization of assimilation of educational material;
•  to prepare training materials in accordance with the educational objectives;
•  to use the potential of the information environment for the educational process;
•  to create conditions for high-order thinking (HOT) in and personal-activity orientation;
•  to create an atmosphere of comfort and support;
•  to prepare students for self-education, self-determination and self-realization;
•  to evaluate current results aimed at achieving goals.

The teacher in the light of the updated content must have the following competencies [9]:

•  the ability to engage in their own professional practice at a sufficiently high level and trace their further professional development;
•  an interest in the development of professional knowledge, skills and abilities, goal-settings, motivation for the development of subjectivity and creativity in education, the ability to apply the basics of educational and social psychology;
•  the ability to engage in joint (collective, group) professional activities, cooperate and use professional communication techniques adopted in the managerial profession.

Thus, pedagogical workers have begun to take advanced training courses as part of a renewed education program, since it is impossible to achieve the above-mentioned insights without training. After course teachers started to share with their experience of training in essays that were released on the websites dedicated to discussions among teachers. Here some extracts from their essays «…after 4 weeks of studying at the courses I was very sorry to part with our wonderful group and a trainer. But now the academic year is almost over. My findings?! I saw with my own eyes that it is possible in a short time to rally the group as one. It is a pity that there is no such collaboration in our schools... After even course completion we still communicate. Our group has a common forum in the net, a common e-mail. We discuss many issues on this forum — in September we had a joint drawing up of plans for the lessons, and many other activities regarding teaching practice. We discussed the main points of planning on the forum, and then simply distributed the duties among us to see best samples of lesson plans. Then they interfered with each other. We also worked together on the preparation of summative tasks, and, again, in the forum we discussed who carried out these tasks. In addition, we visited each other's school, attended classes for collaboration and exchanging experiences. So it turns out, it is much more efficient to work! It is a pity that, for example, in our school there is no suchcommon coordinated work. But those teachers who completed courses in the updated program in other subjects (in our school 12 people took courses in the Updated Program — these are teachers of the Kazakh language, Russian, English, and beginnings) — we created a community of teachers in the updated education at school, and now we get together, discuss important issues, and in general we have become a cohesive group. Working on the updated program, I took a lot for myself, made many discoveries, despite the fact that I took three-month courses. Now I know for sure: how to teach lessons effectively; how to organize group work; to distinguish the objectives of the lesson from the purpose of training, despite the fact that they are interrelated and one implies another; the criterion assessment system, the sequence of teaching and their approaches; what is the essence of the communicative approach and what strategies can be used, and a lot more... Gulmira» [10].

Here is another opinion «… A well-designed program of courses and the possibility of continuous cooperation of teachers helped course participants quickly move from theory to practice, making it quite easy to learn a new learning model and see the results of their work. It is very motivating and in the future will allow you to quickly adapt to work in new conditions. From the words of the trainer, I learned that the updated program involves a spiral model of learning, that is, a gradual expansion and deepening of knowledge, which leads to the effective teaching of the subject, the purpose of which is to improve the language competence of students.

The courses helped us teachers improve our pedagogical skills in the context of updating the educational program. We learned to use in our practice a criterion of assessment system, to create a collaborative environment, to use new forms, methods, and active learning strategies. They allowed us to review the role of the teacher and the students in the educational process, as well as get acquainted with the structure, content, consistency, goals and objectives of the updated educational program on the subject. The result of the updated program, students will learn how to study independently and consequently could become independent, selfmotivated, enthusiastic, confident, responsible students with developed critical thinking, and have a good command of Russian, Kazakh and English languages and showing competence in digital technologies.

All methods and strategies that we studied were used in the development of a short-term plan, presentation. For the compilation of a short-term plan, micro-teaching experience helped me in the following: to plan individual and group work, it is appropriate to use strategies. Send a package Timeline, poster protection, composing thin and thick questions, Name 10 words about..., Plus or minus-interesting strategy, use differentiation methods: level tasks, teacher and student support others, to make tasks in accordance with the objectives of the lesson and the objectives of the lesson, to determine the descriptors to the tasks.

Thus, we think that it is necessary to continue training teachers and school leaders for the further organization of effective work within the framework of updated school curriculum. With advanced training, I realized that genuinely human joy can be experienced when you see that you have brought joy to another person, and we deliver this joy to ourselves and our students in and after the lessons. I always remember the words of the great teacher V. Sukhomlinsky: «If the knowledge of the teacher does not increase, the students will be doomed to just follow the textbooks, the child will lose the desire for knowledge, destroy his intellectual inclinations and abilities. And if the teacher is always frank with his students, puts passion into the upbringing of his students, his pupils will always respond and understand him» [11]. We can consider that Kazakhstani teachers are on the way of changing of their approach and thoughts toward updated education. And we also can rely on a new generation of pre-service teachers as they could be already prepared to a new era of education.

Discussion

The paradigm of education is changing, we are moving from the concept of «good education for entire life» to understand student needs for life-long education. And if the majority of school teachers has already been trained and is ready for transformation, the situation in pedagogical universities will be different too. Here, in terms of introducing the future educational content of future teachers, there are certain difficulties — this is the imperfection of the university programs, isolation from the updated content of secondary education, insufficiently deep understanding of new approaches to teaching in school and evaluation.

During the analysis of teachers' feedbacks and the university programs, it became clear that it was necessary to focus more on the requirements of the updated secondary education programs: a new system of goal-setting and evaluation of learning outcomes, active forms of interaction. We came to conclusion some courses should be introduced into the programs of the 1^st and 2^d year of the study, that reveal the essence of the updated content, for instance, forms of assessment, criterial assessment, formative assessment, ways toachieve results, how to set goals. The reason is that students at this stage begin to practice in schools, therefore having faced in practice they will understand what goals should be set, what contributes to the achievement of these goals. As soon as programs have been introduced, university teachers delivering lectures on pedagogy or methodology as well as English language teachers must upgrade their qualifications. Nowadays teachers intensively attend workshops devoted to the updated content of secondary education. However it is not the only problem of present situation in pre-service teacher's preparation.

Due to the specifics of the school subject «Foreign Language», in our opinion, the new training model should include such basic components as: social, professional-pedagogical, and personal-psychological. Let us dwell on each of them separately. The social component of the training methodology should orient the future specialist to an understanding of the new role of the teacher in a changing reality, to an awareness of his/her place in society, where he/she is a mediator between society, school and family. The professional and pedagogical component of training involves the formation of communicative, methodological and pedagogical competence based on the variability of modern concepts, methods and technologies of teaching foreign languages, taking into account the individual needs of students and the region as a whole [12].

Conclusion

In the context of developmental education, the formation of the communicative competence of the future specialist requires updating the content of curricula in terms of using active forms of work in a foreign language and methods of teaching it. Methodological competence includes the awareness of professional activity at a theoretical level (a vision of the laws of its activities), as well as a model for the transition of theory to pedagogical practice. However, in reality, the second component of methodological competence is not sufficiently developed. Essentially, before entering practice, it is necessary to include integrative courses in pedagogy and methods of teaching foreign languages, which bring a foreign language as an academic subject to the conditions of professional activity in life.

The personality-psychological component of training implies the development of self-esteem and awareness of the need for self-development and self-education as indispensable conditions for the development of an independent creative person. This will allow developing a positive-critical position in relation to the proposed diversity of content, forms, methods, techniques and means of training on the latest technologies. This can be done with the help of independent work in video and computer classes.

So, according to the specified model of methodical preparation of a teacher of foreign languages, a teacher should know a foreign language as:

•  means of communication;
•  the object of study;
•  a tool for teaching and pedagogical communication, which implies a certain level of formation of various methodological skills.

It is obvious that the following factors should be taken into account in the methodological preparation of a teacher of foreign languages:

•  the teacher's readiness for changes in the education system;
•  readiness to learn all life in the system of continuous pedagogical education;
•  continuous improvement of bilingual communicative competence in oral and written communication;
•  the use of a foreign language in vocational-oriented education.

Students and teachers determine almost everything in the education system, since their dedication, creative initiative and abilities, irregular thinking, the desire for innovations are important characteristics of an effective educational activity. At the same time, the key figure of educational activity is the teacher as the creator of pedagogical education, its content, technology. In modern conditions, the teacher of foreign languages must have a broad education and culture, a high level of intellectual development, be able to conduct social dialogue, ensure social partnership.

References

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