ABSTRACT
This chapter investigates the processes of the practicum (teaching practice) through the eyes of pre-service teachers. The practicum is a social space in time and place through which pre-service teachers develop their technical and social skills, and transform themselves from novices to competent, if inexperienced, teachers. How pre-service teachers learn to negotiate this liminal space filled with stressful uncertainty for them because their knowledge of practice, power and culture in schools initially lacks sophistication is of key importance to them and their future students. At the centre of pre-service teachers’ success in navigating the turbulent spaces of the practicum are effective professional relationships with their school-based mentors who help them to develop effective teacher practices and identities. However, other pre-service teachers, their peers, also seem to offer valuable additional support too. The chapter draws in part on a study of pre-service teachers’ experiences of the practicum in Turkey and England, which collected data in 2011–2012.
