EVALUATION OF THE DISTANCE EDUCATION PRE-SERVICE TEACHERS' OPINIONS ABOUT TEACHING PRACTICE COURSE (CASE OF IZMIR CITY)

The aim of this study was to determine the distance education pre-service teachers' opinions about the teaching practice course. The study was conducted with descriptive method. For data collection, analysis and interpretation, qualitative research method was used. Out of the students enrolled at Open Education Faculty, Department of Pre-school Education and Department of English Language Teaching, 27 students were volunteer to participate to the study. As a result of the study; it was found that some of the distance education pre-service teachers felt ready and enthusiastic about the teaching practice course albeit others did not feel ready enough. In addition, the pre-service teachers mostly mentioned about their expectations for self-development and self-evaluation. The pre-service teachers considered that this course provided them the opportunities to know the students and learning environments, also to prepare the plans effectively, to learn about teaching-learning processes, to manage class and time, to benefit from coordinator teachers and to evaluate themselves. However, they also complained about lack of information about plans and teaching practice files, difficulties in class-management, problems in efficient time-management, indifference of the coordinator teachers, inadequate equipment at application schools; lack of supervision and limited opportunity to have experience. Thus, they suggested that the coordinator teachers should be trained considering these problems also the application should be selected after physical check; besides the pre-service teachers should be supervised and provided accurate samples about plan and field preparation, thus frequent contact meetings should be arranged.