Teacher Training in the Algerian Higher Education: Reality and Practice (Joining virtually)
Teacher education plays an important role in Algerian society. Through its 11 institutions distributed in different parts of the country, teacher education schools work on providing both academic and professional training for their pre-service teachers in humanities and exact sciences. As far as English teachers are concerned, they receive a four-years training for middle school teachers, and five years training for future high school teachers. The content of instruction focuses on developing students’ linguistic and cultural skills in the first two years, moving to more pedagogical and methodological competences in the two or three years that follow. The training cycle is crowned as a ‘practical’ training course involving the trainees in real teaching tasks in middle/high schools, in addition to a research paper preparation for future high school teachers.
During the pandemic crisis, the Algerian government announced the closing of all educational institutions and the adoption of e-learning as an official form of instruction in March 2020. Accordingly, Algerian universities shifted from 100% face-to-face teaching during the first term of the year, to 100% online instruction in the second term. In the following two years, Blended learning has been introduced in all Algerian higher education institutions, mixing both modes of instruction based on a pre-established schedule that took into consideration the availability of human and physical resources in each university. These rapid changes have had an impact on the methods of instruction as well as on the quality of the training provided by teacher education institutions.
The present paper aims at shedding light on the Algerian experience with teacher training during the pandemic crisis. The study focuses on the challenges faced by both teachers (teacher trainers) and students (pre-service teachers) at l’Ecole Normale Supérieure ‘Assia Djebar’, Constantine (ENSC), one of the biggest teacher education schools in the country. The tools of data collection include an analysis of trainees’ training reports and a questionnaire for supervisors (teacher trainers at l’ENSC). Results have shown that ‘social distancing’, a safety measure taken by decision makers during the pandemic, has had a negative impact on the students’ training in terms of reduced time for the training, lack of interaction between mentors and trainees, and difficulty in coping with Blended learning.
Dr. Amel Benyahia is a full time teacher trainer and researcher at the Ecole Normale Supérieure 'ENS Assia Djebar' Constantine, Algeria, since 2002. She has also been the head of the English department from March 2017 to September 2021. She holds a Ph.D in applied linguistics and ELT. Her research interests include but are not limited to: teacher education, course design, assessment, learning strategies, and critical thinking.