Videos Versus Role Plays to Increase Counseling Self-Efficacy in Prepractica Trainees

A brief mock counseling session was potentially more risky but more potent than a brief videotaped counseling session as an intervention for increasing counseling self-efficacy in prepractica trainees.     

Why the South African NQF Failed: lessons for countries wanting to introduce national qualifications frameworks

This article examines the South African National Qualifications Framework as a case study of a particular approach to the design of qualifications frameworks, which revolves around the specification of learning outcomes separate from educational institutions or programmes. It shows how an outcomes-led qualifications framework was seen as a desirable policy intervention by educationalists and reformers across the political spectrum, as outcomes were thought to be a mechanism for improving the quality and quantity of education as well as its relevance to the economy and society, for increasing access to education, and for democratising education. All these claims are based on the idea that outcomes statements are transparent. The article demonstrates that outcomes-based qualifications cannot provide the clear, unambiguous, and explicit statements of competence that would be required for everyone to know what it is that the bearer of a qualification can do. This lack of transparency leads to a further specification of outcomes. This in turn leads to a downward spiral of specification, which never reaches transparency, and an upward spiral of regulations, which is also caught in the logical problem of the downward spiral of specification. This model is not just unnecessary, but could in fact undermine the provision of education. The article suggests that while this type of model appears attractive particularly to poor countries, it is in these countries that it is likely to do the most damage.     

Meeting English Language Needs in Teacher Education: a flexible support model for non-English speaking background students

The English language needs of students in teacher education programmes have become an issue of concern. There has been an increase in the numbers of local and international students, the range of their backgrounds and the diversity of their language needs. This paper explores the question of what constitutes effective English language support for students, focusing on the development of provision for a group of 110 overseas-trained teachers undertaking teacher education at the University of Sydney between 1999 and 2002. Data are drawn from focus group interviews, semi-structured interviews with students and staff and student learning journals. The paper proposes an integrated and flexible model of English language support involving content-based units, tutoring/mentoring programmes and self-directed study. Such a model may be useful for English language support for different groups of English as a second language (ESL) students in other contexts at tertiary and secondary levels.     

To the student whom it may concern

In this short piece Stephanie Klein, a final‐year teacher trainee at a college in the USA, talks about dyslexia as seen through the context of her family experience. She provides a highly personal and uplifting account, which accentuates that there is a range of straightforward strategies which students can invoke to address their learning difficulties.