The Experiences of Neophyte Teachers

Abstract

Teaching English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has lately proven to be a motivating and challenging experience for novice teachers who may face numerous problems at the beginning of their career. The core of this study is to investigate the problems encountered in the teaching/learning process by both novice teachers of EFL and their students. This study seeks to find out what difficulties novice teachers may face at English classes. Based on a quantitative-qualitative framework, the study has a descriptive-analytical nature was carried out with 11 master students at the Department of English - Laghouat University. To collect the necessary data, an online questionnaire was administered to the EFL learners, besides a semi-structured interview carried out with 7 novice teachers of English. The findings revealed that novice teachers face different problems such as choosing and updating the teaching methods that better suit the learners' needs, the lack of library sources, and developing students' motivation and engaging them in learning as well. These all were due to the lack of experience and training in teaching. Moreover, this research found out that students have problems too, from learners’ perspectives, such as the low level of language proficiency and the lack of background knowledge in culture and literature. Therefore, this study recommends further research on those and other challenges, the importance of training, and teachers colleagues’ support for novice teachers of English.