Quality of English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Zambézia Province in Mozambique

TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT

LIST OF FIGURES

LIST OF TABLES

LIST OF APPENDICES

LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION
1.1 Chapter overview
1.2 Background to the research
1.2.1 Linguistic context inZambézia
1.2.2 Portuguese and English in Mozambique andZambézia Province
1.2.3Primary school teacher training in the post-independence years 1975-2017
1.2.4The 10+2 model for English language teacher training from 2002 to 2007
1.2.5 The current trends of primary school teacher training
1.3 Statement of the problem
1.4 Purpose of study
1.5 Research questions
1.5.1. Main research question
1.5.2 Subsidiary research questions
1.6 Motivation for the study
1.7 Significance of the study
1.9 Structure of the thesis
1.10 Chapter summary

CHAPTER 2 LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 Chapter overview
2.2 Perceptions about the concept of quality
2.2.1 Understanding quality in education
2.2.2 Quality management in language education
2.2.3 Quality in English language teaching
2.2.4 The quality of English language teaching in initial training
2.3 Factors affecting quality of the teacher training programme
2.3.1 Knowledge of English and English language teaching
2.3.2 Skills for language and English language teaching
2.3.3 Competences for English language teaching
2.3.4 Professionalism of the English language teacher
2.3.5 The teacher trainees’ motivation concerning the teaching profession
2.3.6 Quality of school infrastructure
2.3.7 Quality of teacher training curriculum and contents
2.3.8 Teacher trainers’ competence and performance
2.4 Goals of learning to teach
2.5 Challenges characterising foreign English language teacher education programme
2.5.1 English as a foreign language in Mozambique: a challenge to teacher training
2.5.2 The challenge of lack of English language skills and competence
2.5.3 The English language policy in education as a challenge
2.5.4Untrained host teachers teaching English in primary schools as a challenge
2.5.5 Quality of teacher training as a challenge
2.6 Chapter summary

CHAPTER 3 BENCHMARKING AND THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
3.1 Chapter overview
3.2 NAAC and COL benchmarking framework
3.3 Communicative Competence theoretical framework
3.5 Chapter summary

CHAPTER 4 METHODOLOGY
4.1. Chapter overview
4.1.1 The qualitative research design and approach
4.1.2 Exploratory research case studies
4.3 Population and sampling areas
4.3.1 Sampling procedure
4.4 Data generation methods and tools
4.4.1 In-depths interviews
4.4.2 Focus Group Discussion
4.4.3 Observation
4.4.4 Document analysis
4.5 Data management
4.5.1 Data analysis procedures
4.6 Ethical issues
4.7 Credibility and trustworthiness of the study
4.7.1 Pilot study
4.7.2Peer review
4.7.3 Direct quotations
4.7.4 Triangulation
4.8 Limitations of the study
4.9 Chapter summary

CHAPTER 5 RESEARCH FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION
5.1 Chapter overview
5.2 General findings on the contexts of the three Teacher Training Colleges
5.2.1 Teacher Training Colleges A, B and C
5.2.2 Teacher trainees’ enrolment and programme duration
5.2.3 Course syllabuses and content of the English language teacher training programme
5.3 Quality of English language teacher training programme: Influencing FACTORS AND STRATEGIES FOR IMPROVING QUALITY
5.3.1 Teacher trainees’ motivation for enrolling in the programme
5.3.2 Competences of the English language teachers in the 10 + 1 model
5.3.3 Gaps in the English language teacher training programme
5.3.4 Inadequate learning materials in the library and English Department
5.3.5Delivery of the English language lessons: nature of activities employed andskills practised for the development of communicative and teacher competences
TABLE 20: APPRECIATION OF THE TRAINING DURATION BY THE TEACHER TRAINERS AND FGDS
5.4 Overall challenges faced by teacher trainers and teacher trainees during the training process
5.4.1 Lack of continued professional development for TTCs teacher trainers
5.4.2 Teacher trainers’ commitment at the TTCs
5.4.3 Lack of constant interaction among teacher trainees
5.4.4 Lack of cooperation among teacher training colleges
5.4.5 Overall programme design for the English language teacher training programme
5.4.6 Changing the language of instruction from Portuguese to English in some courses
5.4.7 Challenges of the overall support by Ministry of Education and English language policy

CHAPTER 6 CONCLUSIONS, CONTRIBUTIONS AND IMPLICATIONS OF THE STUDY
6.1 Chapter overview
6.2 Conclusions of the study
6.3 Contributions of the study
6.4 Implications of the study

REFERENCES

APPENDICES

DECLARATION

I, the undersigned, hereby declare that this thesis is my own original work which has not been submitted to any other institution for similar purposes. Where other people’s work has been used acknowledgements have been made.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

CERTIFICATE OF APPROVAL

The undersigned certify that this thesis represents the student’s own work and effort and has been submitted with our approval.

Signature: Date:

Amos Moses Chauma, PhD (Senior Lecturer)

Main Supervisor

Signature: Date:

Foster Kholowa, PhD (Senior Lecturer)

Member, Supervisory Committee

Signature: Date:

Syned Mthatiwa, PhD (Associate Professor)

Member, Supervisory Committee

DEDICATION

I dedicate this thesis to my wife, Luisa Augusto Joao Ivo, and my children Ivánia, Gracielle and Gregório Júnior.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

First and foremost, I thank God for all that He has done to enable me to grow academically. My sincere gratitude goes to my supervisors Dr Amos Moses Chauma, Dr Foster Kholowa, and Associate Prof. Syned Mthatiwa, for the critical feedback, and their commitment in reading this thesis. I am indebted to the Post-graduate Studies Coordinator at Chancellor College, Dr Esthery Kunkwenzu for her attention during the programme.

I would like to express my innermost and deepest thankfulness to Associate Prof. Manuel José de Morais, my former Principal and Dr. Dulce Maria Passades Perreira, the former Coordinator for Post Graduate Studies and Research at the Pedagogic University- Quelimane Branch, for providing me with a scholarship to pursue the programme. My thanks are extended to my Rector Professor Boaventura José Aleixo and Vice-Rector Brígida D’Oliveira Singo for continuous assistance with my PhD programme.

I also wish to express many thanks to the teacher trainers, the graduate English language teachers, and teacher trainees, whose participation in the interviews made this thesis possible. I am indebted to The Provincial Directorate of Education and managers of the teacher training colleges in Zambézia Province for allowing me to conduct research. I extend my gratitude to Professors Argentil Omar de Amaral, Sarita Henriksen and Carlos Joao C. M. Lima, Armindo M. Tambo and Priest Cristovao Anselmo for encouragement.

My thanks are extended to the Directorate of the National Institute for Education Development, the Language Institute in Maputo, and individual Senior English Language Teachers, specifically Masters Carlos Chaguala, Felicidade Rafael, Alexandre da Costa, Manuel Bana Angelica Livingstone, Joao Cincoreis and António Macumbe Filipe for providing information on the introduction of English in Mozambique. Furthermore, I owe a word of thanks to Dr Lalita Gouri Deb for proofreading this thesis. Finally, I am extremely grateful to my parents Jorge Gonçalves Vinte and Maria de Fátima Candieiro Faria and my family whose prayers and advice have helped me to be a person with positive attitudes.

ABSTRACT

In 2007 Mozambique adopted a teacher training programme for primary schools with a 10+1 model. The training programme admits Grade 10 graduates who pass entrance examinations consisting of oral and written tests. However, the quality of English language teachers trained under this model is low certain in respects. Thus, this thesis endeavoured to examine the quality of a primary school English language teacher training programme, Moçambique’s Zambézia Province. The study was guided by two frameworks, a benchmarking by the National Assessment and Accreditation Council and Commonwealth of Learning,Quality Indicators for Teacher EducationBenchmarking (2007), and the Communicative Competence theoretical framework by Canale and Swain 1980. The two were particularly used to examine the English language teacher training programme, and the extent to which the teacher trainees in Zambézia colleges become competent in English language teaching. Furthermore, the study employed a qualitative approach that used a variety of methods and instruments, namely in-depth interview, Focus Group Discussion conducted using interview guide sheets, observation based on observation guide sheets, and document analysis. To validate the research results the following research concepts were exploited: credibility and trustworthiness, pilot study, peer review, direct quotations and triangulation through three different groups’ participation and through use of three different methods. The quality of the English language teacher training programme is crucial so that teacher trainees must acquire the necessary communicative and teaching competences. However, results of the research revealed that the English language teacher training programme is adversely affected by five factors, namely low English language proficiency of candidates, short duration of the training programme, lack of teaching and learning materials for different subjects, deficiencies in selection criteria for both teacher trainers and teacher trainees, and teacher trainee inadequate performance in the four language skills. More importantly, the results revealed that there is need to overhaul the design of the English language teacher

LIST OF FIGURES

Figure 1: Hymes (1972), and Canale and Swain (1980) frameworks

Figure 2: Canale (1983), and author’s (2020) frameworks

Figure 3: Teacher Training College A and teacher trainees

Figure 4: Teacher Training College B main building and teacher trainees

Figure 5: Outside environment at TTC C in the basketball field and the yard

Figure 6: A teacher trainee being laughed by other trainees during her reading.

Figure 7: Sample of primary school books in Portuguese language in TTC C

Figure 8: The timetables used in TTC A during the semester2

Figure 9: Illustration of writing problems based on a teacher trainee’s work

Figure 10: Samples of lessons plans with some challenges

LIST OF TABLES

Table 1: Summary of the teacher training’s models in the post-independence years in Mozambique

Table 2: Summary of the factors examined for the English language teacher training programme adapted from NAAC and COL Quality Indicators for Teacher Education Benchmarking (2007)

Table 3: Summary of the target population in sample areas and its sampling

Table 4: Summary of the number of rooms available in TTC A

Table 5: Summary of the number of teacher trainers in TTC A

Table 6: Summary of the numbers of the teacher trainees in TTC A

Table 7: Number of rooms and offices available in TTC B

Table 8: Number of rooms available in TTC C

Table 9: Numbers of the teacher trainees in TTC C

Table 10: The English Language Teacher Training Programme-10+1

Table 11: Appreciation of the quality of the programme by the interviewees

Table 12: Qualifications of the teacher trainers by colleges

Table 13: Description of factors influencing negatively the training competence

Table 14: Appreciation of the English language teacher teaching efficiency and competence after training

Table 15: Appreciation of the aspects which need to be worked out during the training

Table 16: Description of typical problems faced by the teacher trainees

Table 17: List of English-Portuguese false cognates (false friend words) generated during the lesson observations and interactions in the colleges

Table 18: Assessment of the available material for teacher trainees

Table 19: Appraisal of the activities used for communicative and teaching competences by the teacher trainers and FGDs

Table 20: Appreciation of the training duration by the teacher trainers and FGDs

Table 21: Assessment of the language skills practised in TTCs

Table 22: proposals of the curriculum subjects for three-year English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Mozambique

LIST OF APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Interview guide sheet used to the teacher trainers

Appendix 2: Interview guide sheet used to the teacher trainees

Appendix 3: Interview guide sheet used to the graduate English language teachers

Appendix 4: Extract of a Sample Interview Transcript to a Teacher Trainer

Appendix 5: Extract of a Sample Interview Transcript to a FGD

Appendix 6: Extract of a Sample Interview Transcript to a Graduate English

Appendix 7a: Lesson Observation Guide Sheet used in the Classroom to collect data

Appendix7b: Extract of a Sample Lesson Transcript at TTC A

Appendix8a: Letter from the Pedagogic University to Provincial Education

Appendix8b: Letter from the Pedagogic University to Provincial Education

Appendix9a: Letter of Introduction to Provincial Directorate of Education

Appendix9b: Letter of Introduction to Provincial Directorate of Education

AppendixlOa: Letter from Pedagogic University to Quelimane TT College -

Appendix10b: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to Quelimane TT

Appendix11a: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to TTC A -

Appendix11b: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to TTC A - English

Appendix12a: Letter from Pedagogic University to Nicoadala TT College -

Appendix12b: Letter from Pedagogic University to Nicoadala TT College - English

Appendix13a: Credential from Pedagogic University to Nicoadala TT College -

Appendix13b: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to Quelimane TT

Appendix14a: Letter from Pedagogic University to Morrumbala TT College -

Appendix14b: Letter from Pedagogic University to Morrumbala TT College -

Appendix15a: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to Morrumbala

Appendix15b: Credential from Pedagogic University to Morrumbala TT College -

Appendix16a: Authorisation letter from Education Provincial Directorate

Appendix16b: Acceptance and authorisation letter from Education Provincial

Appendix17: Authorisation letter from Education Provincial Directorate

Appendix18: Authorisation letter from Education Provincial Directorate

Appendix19: Authorisation letter from Education Provincial Directorate

Appendix20a: Reseacher’s letter submitted to the Languages Institute in Maputo -

Appendix20b: Reseacher’s letter submitted to the Languages Institute in Maputo -

Appendix21a: Letter from Pedagogic University To language Institute in Maputo

Appendix21b: Letter from Pedagogic University to the Languages Institute in

Appendix22a: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to the Languages

Appendix22b: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to the Language

Appendix23a: Researcher’s letter to the National Institute for Education

Appendix23b: Researcher’s letter to the National Institute for Education

Appendix24a: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to the National

Appendix24b: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to the National

Appendix25a: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to the National

Appendix25b: Letter of Introduction from Pedagogic University to the National

Appendix 42 Letter of Consent

Appendix27: English Language Teacher Training Programme 10+1 - Portuguese

Appendix28: English Language Teacher Training Programme 10+2 for Primary

Appendix29: Proposal of the Curriculum Plan for the English Language

Appendix30: : Author's resume

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

LIST OF ACRONYMS AND ABBREVIATIONS

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Chapter1 Introduction

1.1 Chapter overview

The quality of the English language teacher training programme is crucial so that teacher trainees must acquire the necessary communicative and teaching competences. The quality of education offered in primary schools depends partially on the quality of teaching that occurs in teacher training colleges. Zambezia, one of ten provinces of Mozambique, has three colleges that train primary school English language teachers all of which face challenges that affect teacher training programme quality and English language teachers’ competence. Zambezia, which has 22 districts, is situated in the central region of Mozambique and it is bordered by Malawi in the west and by the Indian Ocean in the East. This chapter describes the background and context of this study. The former is done by describing how English Language is regarded in Mozambique from the time it was introduced to the present with a focus on primary school teaching in Zambezia Province. The chapter also presents delimitations of the study, the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, research questions, significance of the study, motivation for the study and definition of terms.

1.2 Background to the research

Large expansion of primary schools teaching in Mozambique necessitated the introduction of Teacher Training Colleges (TTCs) in 1997 to respond to primary school teacher shortage. In 2002, a training programme for primary school English language teachers was introduced in the TTCs. Within the programme, Teacher Training Colleges train English language teachers for initial levels of English language learning in grades 6 and 7. This is a notable development because although in some of Mozambique’s cities such as Maputo, Beira, Nampula and Quelimane English language subject existed before independence in 1975 during that time it was restricted to Portuguese children andassimilados¹.

Dias (1998) reports that before Mozambique’s independence in 1975, English language was taught from secondary school level but from the time Mozambique became part of the Southern Africa Development Community and Commonwealth Community, English has been taught in the country’s public and private primary and secondary schools throughout the country. While there is literature that explains the existence of English language as a subject in Mozambique after independence in 1975, not many of them explain very well when exactly the English language subject was introduced in secondary schools in grade 7 for the old system and in grade 8 for the new system introduced in 1983. However, shortage of skilled teachers, low salaries, as well as lack of teaching and learning materials have been identified as problems associated with English language teaching in the 1980s. Nhapulo (2013) explains that some of these problems continue to contribute to students’ weaknesses today. The few skilled teachers, for example, prefer working in private institutions to public ones for the sake of higher salaries and better working conditions.

Passos (2009) notes that before independence, Mozambique’s education system consisted of missionary schools, public schools and private schools. The missionary schools, which were situated mainly in rural areas, catered for indigenous Mozambicans, while the government schools, which were located in predominantly urban areas, catered for Portuguese pupils and the“assimilados”. It was not until 1962 when this limitation was abolished and any child could attend the government schools. Eventually, the church- owned private schools, catered mainly for children of wealthy people such as the Portuguese who believed that their children deserved better treatment than that given to native children.

There is no clear information regarding dates for the introduction of English language teacher training programmes in Mozambique. Even renowned Mozambican English language scholars such as Mataruca (2014), Henriksen (2010), Passos (2009), Mawere (2012) Chimbutane (2009), Delport (2010) and Dias (1998) do not provide information about the history of English language teaching and training courses during the early years (the 80s). Similarly, little has been said about the quality of the English language teacher training courses in Mozambique with particular attention to Zambézia Province.

Bana, Virgüio and Livingstone (2017), three senior English language teachers in Zambézia Province revealed that English language teaching has been implemented in most of the secondary schools in Mozambique since 1985, though it existed in some schools soon after the national independence in 1975. Some schools taught English as a subject soon after independence, and others which lacked English language teachers implemented it later in the 80s. This means that different schools introduced English in different years depending on their ability to recruit teachers for the subject. Many of the first teachers in Zambézia were the ones who had lived for some time in Malawi due to social reasons or as a result of the war, or for other reasons. Some teachers were simply co-opted to teach English because they had some knowledge of the language; these were to undergo intensive training courses later, either within Mozambique or in England.

The three English language teachers, Bana, Virgüio and Livingstone (2017) observe that most of the English language teachers in the 1980s were not trained or qualified as English language teachers. To improve the situation, during the 1980s and early 1990s the British Council used to send untrained English language teachers to England for special training in the field of English Language Teaching.

Contrary to the views of the teachers referred to above, however, the Head ofDepartamento de Supervíselo Pedagógica²and three senior English language teachers explained that English existed in schools before the national independence and the teaching of the subject has never been interrupted. The Head said that what actually happened was that, after independence, some schools did not have English language as a subject due to lack of trained teachers. However, the two of the teachers, Virgílio and Livingstone, who benefitted from the English language teaching course at the Institute of Languages in Maputo in 1983 and 1985 respectively, contend that the Institute started training English language teachers from 1983 and the programme lasted for three years, with the first group of teachers graduating at the end of 1985. Before that, the Institute of Languages used to train interpreters and translators of two languages, Portuguese and English in order to help politicians and distinguished guests in conferences and meetings in Mozambique and outside the country.

With the large expansion of primary schools in Mozambique, there was need to introduce teacher training colleges in 1997 to train primary school teachers and the model adopted was 10+2 under which candidates with grade 10 were trained for two years. These teachers were trained to teach from grade1 to grade 7. Five years later, in 2002, English language teacher training programme for people to teach in primary schools was introduced.

In 2004, pupils from grades 6 and 7 started learning English language with those in cities or urban areas being taught by trained teachers while the majority of the pupils, especially those in the countryside, were taught by untrained English teachers who were being simply guided by pupils and teachers’ course books. Mawere (2012, p. 40) observes that “the newly introduced subjects like English remains with a critical shortage of resources such as textbooks, classrooms and qualified teachers”. Thus, the fact that pupils learn English using untrained and unqualified teachers impacts negatively on their English language competence and performance.

Many studies around the world have been conducted in the field of teacher training, including English language teacher courses for both users of English as a second and as a foreign language. Some of the studies reinforce good training and its effectiveness for quality products at the end of the process. In this regard, the training of English language teachers for primary schools in Zambezia Province in Mozambique needs particular attention. Carter and Nunan (2001) rightly contend that:

the field of teacher education is relatively underexplored one in either second or foreign language teaching. The literature on teacher education in language teaching is slight compared with literature on issues such as methods and techniques for classroom teaching (p.72).

Studies conducted by Mozambican English language scholars such as Mataruca (2014), Mawere (2012), Henriksen (2010), Passos (2009), Chimbutane (2009), Delport (2010) and Dias (1998) do not explain or provide information about how to enhance the quality and competences of the English language teacher training courses in Mozambique and little has been said about the quality of the English language teacher training courses in Mozambique with particular attention to Zambezia Province.

Passos (2009) rightly says that “the goal defined in the new policy in Mozambique is to develop in trainees the competency needed to teach in primary education” (p.36). Hence, competency for the teaching profession or a level of teacher performance, which can be described and evaluated, should reflect identifiable knowledge, skills and attitudes, and appropriate personal attributes, within a specific curricular or professional area.

Mawere (2012) focused his research on problems encountered in the teaching and learning of English language in Mozambique’s public education, and concludes that “the other serious problem cited by majority of ... respondents (85%), was that of not well qualified teachers who are employed/hired by the Ministry of Education and Culture to teach the English in public schools” (p.43). This, as Mustadi (2012, p. 43) observes, “negatively impacts on the learners’ psychological access to learning resources and, in turn, compromises consequently the quality of education and in particular of students produced from such a system”. Therefore, learners progress from grade six to grade seven, and grade seven to grade eight with little knowledge of the English language. Worse still the little knowledge acquired, might contain many language problems regarding grammar, pronunciation and the four language skills namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing. Thus, the second and third Mozambican Education Strategic Plans 2006-2011 and, 2012-2016, respectively reinforce the need for quality education within the component of teacher training.

Koç (2016) in his recent research conducted in Turkey, states that “high quality education is based on teacher quality and continuous „lifelong education’, which is one of the most important factors in teacher training” (p. 457). In order to teach effectively, a good English language teacher must possess both adequate subject matter knowledge and the required skills. “Teacher learning thus involves not only discovering more about the skills and knowledge of English language teaching, but also what it means to be a language teacher” (Richards, 2011, p. 19). Indeed, it is crucial that a good English language teacher should know and be familiar with individual differences and that he or she should play a variety of roles in different teaching situations.

According to Koç (2016), “to develop their subject knowledge, gain the required skills and become knowledgeable about current technological developments, elementary English language teachers must be trained sufficiently to achieve effective foreign language teaching and learning in the classroom” (p. 457). However, the English language teacher trainees in Zambézia finish their programme with very little practice of English language teaching and their oral performance does not reflect positively on a language teacher who should articulate the English language efficiently and effectively. A study conducted in Mozambique and the sub-Saharan region contends that “teacher education presents a critical interfacing delivery, on the one hand, and skills, knowledge and attitude acquisition, on the other hand, in the teaching-learning transaction” (Tahir, 2003, p. 3). Tahir goes further to assert that institutions that are specifically created to manage teacher education programmes have great roles to play in ensuring quantity as well as quality of teachers for any national educational system (p. 3).

There is a strong recognition from the 2012-2016 Mozambican Education Strategic Plan that a motivated, well-prepared and supported teacher is crucial to ensuring that students meet their learning goals. In this context, the quality of training, pedagogical provision and support to teachers would continue to receive particular attention in this plan. Furthermore, the Mozambican Education Strategic Plan maintains that the training of teachers should be considered within the context of professionalism of the teachers and teacher trainers with positive attitudes, competences for English language teaching and the training of the teacher trainees. This implies a greater focus on in-service training and monitoring at school and class level. In recognition of the attention given to pre-service training, this requires curricular guidance centred on the teachers’ competences, supervision by the provincial directorate, educational inspectors, college managers and a greater link between a teacher trainer’s performance in the classroom and his or her career development.

Having looked at the different studies summarised above, which were conducted in Mozambique, sub-Saharan region and outside Africa, the quality of English language teacher training programme in Zambézia deserves a deep reflection. Looking at the language knowledge, skills, competences as well as English language teaching competences from the teachers trained in the three colleges, one can draw conclusion that that the teacher training programme should be enhanced in its quality so that teacher trainees are prepared to handle English lessons successfully in the classroom.

1.2.1 Linguistic context in Zambezia

There are many languages spoken in Zambezia Province. Most of them areBantulanguages, but there are also international languages spoken in the province as well, including the official language Portuguese and other languages spoken by minority groups, for example, the Chinese, Indians and Nigerians.

Nolasco, Martins and Hosokawa (2011) contend that:

until the mid-eighteenth century, the administration of Mozambican territory was made by India (and not directly by Portugal). The Portuguese presence began to be felt only after 1918. It was in this period that the process of colonisation of this region began, for it was during this period that the Portuguese government began to worry about launching a more solid education system (p.114).

The authors mentioned above acknowledge that “in 1962, an armed struggle against the colonial regime was declared. FRELIMO, a group that launched this struggle had to find a language that would serve as a language for communication among its members”, (Nolasco, Martins and Hosokawa, 2011, p. 114). Since these members came from different regions of the country, Portuguese was the language chosen for the same members. This is the main reason why Portuguese is considered the dominant language of power in Mozambique as a whole and Zambezia specifically. First, it was the language of the coloniser, and, after independence, it was the language chosen by the group that took the central power.

As far as teaching is concerned, Portuguese is the language used in schools as a medium of instruction but in language subjects and courses such as English and French the target language is used as a medium of instruction. Mozambique adopted the language and culture of the coloniser. Therefore, Portuguese as a language for communication is the language for national identity. In Zambezia Province for example, no matter the place, the region where one is, whether in town, village or countryside, Portuguese is spoken by the majority. Indeed, some people, mainly young and academicians, speak Portuguese with more fluency, adults and old people in the rural regions with slight difficulties.

Ngunga and Bavo (2011) point out that:

Mozambique adopted the language of the former coloniser as its official language after national independence in 1975. Incidentally, the question of a linguistic policy that reserved a privileged place for the Portuguese language was already suggested during the time of the armed struggle for national liberation when little or nothing was discussed about the future of Mozambican languages whose promotion was considered to be harmful to national unity (p.16).

The researcher agrees with Ngunga and Bavo’s point of view on the grounds that, there are children in urban regions in Zambezia Province who do not speak their local languages, because their parents thought that speaking the local language would have interfered negatively in learning Portuguese and understanding contents of different subjects in primary schools. Such cases occurred commonly in Quelimane, Mocuba Nicoadala and Namacurra districts. Today the interest to learn the local languages is growing among children as the society is changing its attitudes to these languages. It is notable that while the Portuguese language had the advantage of being the most widely spread language in the country, the country still lacked a national language that could be adopted for educational, social and political purposes.

In Zambezia Province, it was only in 2018 that bilingual education was introduced in primary school education with the efforts from the Ministry of Education under support of the United States Agency for International Development ProjectVamos Ler - “Let us Read”. Two Bantu languages were suggested to be taught in primary schools, taking into account the local regions, south and north of the Province:Elomwefor the North andEchuwabofor the South. The question is whether the implementation of the bilingual education in the early grades 1, 2 and 3 will be sustainable or not after the project stops operating in the Province, taking into account that in other Provinces bilingual education is still a dream for its full implementation.

In Zambezia Province, apart from Portuguese the majority of people speakElomwe, some speakEchuwaboand others speak other local languages or variants of the aforementioned languages. However, it seems thatEchuawabothough not spoken by the majority in Zambezia Province, is the most powerful language due to social, geographical and cultural reasons. The language is spoken in the capital city of the Province, Quelimane, where people with better status are positioned over the Province, and in the Southern region of the province. Given that there are regions where most of the children speak their local language better than Portuguese, it is wise to train English language teachers with abilities to interact in a local language to help the learners learn abstract words such as:air, God, through, think,throughout, when teaching language structures and words that learners may only know the meaning in their local language. In addition to the two aforementioned languages, there are other languages and variants less popular in the Province, and little known by linguists, for example:Marengespoken in Milange and part of Mulumbo districts,Manhawua, spoken in Lugela district and some regions of Mocuba district,Emagandjaspoken in Mocuba,Emunygaspoken in Pebane andEnhalingaspoken in Maganja da Costa. These languages are spoken by minority groups in particular closed regions in each of the aforementioned districts. In addition, the languages do not make part in the list of the registered languages in the three national population censuses from 1997, 2007 and 2017. Worse still, they are not mentioned in papers published Mozambican linguists and language scholars.

1.2.2 Portuguese and English in Mozambique and Zambezia Province

Portuguese is the official language in Mozambique since national independence. It does not mean everybody speaks it, because there are people who did not have the chance to learn it or even go to school where Portuguese is the language of instruction. Such people use the local languages for different communication means and purposes. However, Mozambique is a large country where the choice of a national language has failed because of the complex multilingual context.

Portuguese is an inherited language which allows people to interact efficiently and effectively within the country and the PALOP³countries within the political, academic community, social, economics, and religious ambits. After independence, Portuguese continued to be the only official language in Mozambique. According to Mataruca (2014, p. 67), “the first constitutional mention of Mozambican languages was in 1990. Although the 1990 Constitution still declares Portuguese as the only official language of the Republic of Mozambique, it does make provision for Mozambican languages in its article 5, number 2”. English is the international medium of communication, the language of business and of worldwide prestige, and Mozambicans recognise its knowledge as a useful tool for their academic, political and personal purposes. However, in Zambézia context, though people recognise the role of English language in several dimensions, few academicians, politicians, and business people speak the language accurately and fluently.

Mataruca (2014, p. 20) calls attention to the growing interest in English resulting in a dramatic increase in the number of institutions offering English language courses in the country. There are many informal and non-registered classrooms scattered in Maputo city, in the provincial capital cities, and small towns in the country where English is taught by teachers with a variety of teaching qualifications or no teaching qualifications at all. Currently, in Zambézia Province, there are officially two public institutions training English language teachers. The two public institutions are:Universidade Licungo in Quelimane,Licungo University in Quelimane, and the other one isInstituto deFormaçao de Professores-Teacher Training colleges A B and C. Recently, the National Language Institute opened its door for English, Portuguese and French courses for academic and specific purposes, but it does offer English language teacher training programmes as well.

The Licungo University in Quelimane trains English language teachers to the level of Bachelor’s with Honours Degree in two regimes: regular training programme lasting four years to conclude all required course works, and a distance education modality lasting five years for the students. The programme has a major in English language teaching with a minor in Portuguese Language Teaching. TheInstituto de Formaqao de Professores- Teacher Training College is located in four districts, but only three of them train English language teachers for primary school levels. Most of the English language teacher trainers at the TTCs hold Honours’ Degrees in English Language Teaching obtained fromUniversidade Mussa Bin Biquea private university andUniversidadePedagógica,a public university. However, it seems that the dramatic proliferation and the mushrooming of small private schools for teaching English in Zambézia Province, mainly in Quelimane, Mocuba and Gurué districts are happening without the full knowledge and realisation of the local authorities, who should regulate formal teaching and learning. The educational authorities should demand competent English language teachers, adequate teaching and learning materials, convenient classroom, and not smaller backyards rooms.

1.2.3 Primary school teacher training in the post-independence years 1975-2017

Since independence 1975, Mozambique has had several models of teacher training. Table 1 summarises the teacher training models in the post-independence years in Mozambique.

Table 1: Summary of the teacher training’s models in the post-independence years in Mozambique

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Each model of teacher training was adjusted to the country’s economic, political and social situations. According to Passos (2009), when the National Directorate for Basic Education (DNEB) in 1990 was mandated by the Ministry of Education and Culture to guide and coordinate the design, development and implementation of the reformed teacher education programme for basic education, the DNEB organised a task force consisting of various stakeholders at central level to address the reform of pre-service teacher education (p. 35).

In relation to the changes that have occurred in education, Macatane (2013) observes that, in an attempt to overcome access problems and ensure the quality of teaching in public primary schools, many changes have occurred in Mozambican education, among which are curricular reforms and learning methods among others. Nevertheless, the continuous educational curricular changes that have taken place in Mozambique after the national independence have not always been accompanied by the in-service training of the primary school teachers. Neither have they satisfactorily been accompanied and supported by supervisors and education experts from the Provincial Directorates, especially where English language teachers in Zambezia Province are concerned.

According to Passos (2009, p. 36), the evaluation ofCentrode Formaçao de ProfessoresPrimários-Training College for Primary School Teachers by Passos and Cabral (1989) andInstituto deMagistérioPrimário- Primary Magisterial College by Passos, Navesse and Chiau (2000) “showed that there were problems in the implementation of the intentions of the policy at the colleges”. The strong argument presented is that it is impossible to train competent teachers for primary education without practical work in primary schools and with trainers who have had neither training nor experience in primary education. In addition, the MINED (1998, p. 9) recognised that “the quality of education and training provided in the institutions is often poor.” In line with challenges to improve the quality of education, Swarts (2002) explains that “policy failure can often be attributed to the view that implementation is separate from policy making, which generally underestimates the complexity and difficulty of coordinating the tasks and players involved in implementing programmes and policies.” Therefore, there is a need for educational and language policy makers to consider the real weaknesses and strengths of the reality where the curricula are implemented. Human resources, infrastructure, excellent requirements for candidates to get into the English language teacher training programme are some aspects to take into consideration.

It is clear for many educational researchers and education policy makers that the teacher training programmes in the post-independence period were aimed to respond to the quantitative urgencies of learners and Mozambican contextual needs and were imposed by the government to satisfy the external political forces, which were to intensify teaching, without nonetheless worrying about the quality of teacher training. In fact, an examination of the current teacher training programme shows that it neither provokes positive changes in terms of knowledge of the subjects the teachers are trained to teach, nor enhances the teaching methods from theory into practice in different types of language lessons. Golias (1993, p. 75) acknowledges “the fact that the teacher training curriculum is loaded with theoretical disciplines, taking away the practical character that all teacher training for the basic level should have. The teacher’s concern still continues around what to teach and not the student”.

1.2.4 The 10+2 model for English language teacher training from 2002 to 2007

In 1996, the Ministry of Education and Culture introduced a two-year teacher training programme and the colleges received the names of IMAP. The entrance level for the training colleges was Grade 10. The programme was structured into four semesters of 18 weeks each: three semesters for regular classes and one semester for teaching practice which used to culminate with a teaching practice report to conclude the whole course. In the light of the teacher training programme implementation from 1996, Passos (2009, p. 36) affirms that “the IMAP programme was introduced in 1996 and all applicants had to be at least 16 years old and should have a Grade 10 education, and candidates had to sit for an entrance examination. IMAP was introduced in Zambezia Province in 1997, and it was run at TTC A at the time. However, by 2001 the English language teacher training programme had not been introduced.

So far, for English language teacher programmes for primary schools, Mozambique has used two English language teacher training models from the year 2002 to the present. The first model within this period was 10+2, which worked within the years 2002 to 2007. The English language teacher training programme for primary schools with the model of 10+2 programme lasted for two years and it was only offered in Quelimane. Such a model was later substituted in 2007 by the current 10+1 which is the second in implementation in Zambezia Province and Mozambique widely.

1.2.5 The current trends of primary school teacher training

Teachers trained in the 10+1 model are, generally, expected to teach in primary schools from grade1 to grade 7, while those trained to become English language teachers under the same model are expected to teach in grades 6 and 7, this is because English is taught and learnt from grade at primary schools. It is important to emphasise that the Ministry of Education Strategic Plan (2006 - 2010/11 p. 45) makes reference to quality and competence in teachers training programme and school education by stating that “reform of the primary school curriculum includes provisions for teacher training” (MEC, 2006). Although efforts have been undertaken by the Mozambican government to guarantee the quality of teachers graduating from the colleges and to enhance education quality for the primary school children, tangible results regarding teacher quality and students’ performance in primary schools have been rare during the last ten years.

In terms of numbers of trained teachers, it is evident that even rural schools, which had no trained teachers twenty years ago, now mostly have English language teachers trained either in the colleges or through two-year long-distance education teacher training programmes carried out by the training colleges. What is concerning regarding the fulltime training programme is not whether the teachers are trained or not per se but rather how well trained and well qualified the teachers are in terms of the teaching skills, competences, and professionalism in the subject matter they deal with in the classroom, the school and the society.

The models of teacher training in Mozambique during the post-independence period have evolved with the main objective of responding to the needs imposed by the global financial institutions, in the light of the needs of the country such as the need to eradicate illiteracy, to expand education to rural areas thereby reducing asymmetries of the population and improving quality of education. The duration of the programme of the 10 + 1year model teacher training programme by the Ministry of Education in Mozambique has generated several controversies and debates. Similarly, it has attracted concerns regarding lack of solid English language skills and knowledge by candidates in the previous grades, particularly at the end of grade 10. This is a very serious issue given that teacher training courses aimed at developing teaching and learning methods without taking into account knowledge that teacher trainees bring from grades 6 and 7, where they learned English language as a subject and not as a language for communication.

1.3 Statement of the problem

After spending one year of English language teacher training programme in teacher training colleges, the expectation is that “teacher trainees should acquire and develop knowledge, abilities and attitudes that will help the future English language teacher become confident and secure in the teaching and learning process” (MEC/INDE, 2006, p. 19). From the lesson observations conducted by the researcher, in primary schools during the teaching practices, it has been noticed that although the English language teachers trained at the three colleges get some knowledge and skills for English language teaching, they are hardly confident in teaching English and interacting with other English language teachers trained in different models in the past. Similarly, they shun interacting with people coming from different corners of the world who speak English, besides their performance in teaching is unsatisfactory with many elementary and basic mistakes, glaring language errors, Portuguese language interference and fillers. As a result, pupils in the primary school simply progress from one grade to another with very little knowledge of English.

Passos (2009, p. 6) contends that “The Ministry of Education and Culture recognises that the quality of education and teacher training provided in institutions is often poor.” However, the areas that the Ministry of Education recognises and specifies as requiring more attention do not include the English language teacher training programme. Ironically, the Mozambican Education Strategic Plan from MEC/INDE (2006, p. 43) observes that “well trained and motivated teachers are essential for quality teaching”.

Based on English language teaching practice supervision of teacher trainees in primary schools, the researcher noted that English language teachers trained at the three colleges have difficulties in putting into practice the English language teaching methods and procedures in class. Consequently, English is considered a difficult subject to learn by many primary schools’ pupils. Another implication is that pupils reach subsequent levels without being able to speak the language or to perform positively in English lessons. However, little has been done to understand these problems and, in an effort, to enhance the quality of the primary school English language teacher training programme. Against this backdrop, the study assessed the main difficulties and constraints characterising English language teacher training courses in Zambézia Province. The researcher, particularly, sought to find out aspects which undermine the quality of English language teachers trained for primary schools, and the main difficulties faced by teacher trainers and teacher trainees during English Language teacher training programmes.

1.4 Purpose of study

The purpose of the study was to examine the quality of English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Zambézia Province in Mozambique.

1.5 Research questions

The researcher raised one main research question and three subsidiary research questions that guided the whole study.

1.5.1 . Main research question

The main research question is: What is the quality of the English language teacher training programme for primary schools at the Teacher Training Colleges in Zambézia Province?

1.5.2 Subsidiary research questions

RQ1:What factors affect the quality of English language teacher training courses in Zambézia’s colleges?
RQ2:What challenges do English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees face during the training process?
RQ3:How do the teacher trainers and teacher trainees in teacher training colleges in Zambézia cope with the challenges?

1.6 Motivation for the study

Through the English language teachers debates, many claims have been made regarding the quality of English language teachers trained at the teacher training colleges for primary schools in Zambézia Province. The researcher is concerned that pupils in primary schools do not have well trained and quality English language teachers. It is very hard for the learners to become good English language learners if at the beginning of their English language learning they encounter difficulties and, in turn, carry them over to subsequent levels. During the researcher’s Master’s studies, he had the opportunity to do a course in Quality Management Applied to Education. Through debates in the course work, the researcher found it productive to think critically about his daily work, namely the training of English language teachers, hence his present focus on the quality of primary school English language teacher training.

Additionally, the researcher had been teaching English for more than 18 years by the time of the study. Furthermore, after his Master of Education studies he taught Quality Management Applied to Education Institutions through which he benefitted much knowledge from quality of education debates by Master’s students. These experiences have enhanced his motivation to make a contribution to the quality of the English language teacher training programmes in teacher training colleges in Zambézia Province.

1.7 Significance of the study

The study contributes to a better understanding of the quality of English language teacher training programme in Zambézia Province. The study’s results will hopefully lead to innovations in primary school English language teacher training programme in Mozambique in general and in Zambézia Province, specifically. This expectation prevails in the light of the study’s careful analysis of content, course length, level of teacher trainee preparation, teacher trainee linguistic and social background, and selection criteria of teacher trainees and teacher trainers.

Concerning practice, results from the study have potential to improve classroom practices in Mozambique’s English language teacher training colleges. Furthermore, the study presents practical suggestions for addressing challenges highlighted in this thesis. Finally, the researcher hopes that the study will influence curriculum designers, educational managers, as well as English language trainers to re-think the quality of the English language teacher training programme and the main problems regarding the quality of trained English language teachers in the three colleges in Zambezia Province. In terms of policy, the study calls on curricula designers, educational managers, as well as English language trainers to re-think the quality of the English language teacher training programme and to reflect about main problems regarding the quality of trained English language teachers.

1.8 Definition of terms

Quality- there are many definitions of the term, quality. Eldin (2011, p. 01) defines quality in two ways. Firstly, he defines it as features of products which meet customer’ needs thereby providing customer’s satisfaction. In this sense, the meaning of quality is oriented to income. Secondly, he defines quality as freedom from deficiencies; freedom from errors that require doing work over again or that result in field failures, customer dissatisfaction, and customer claims. The current study subscribes to the second definition.

Training- is the systematic development in a person of the knowledge, attitudes and skills necessary for him or her to be able to perform adequately in a job or task whose demands can be reasonably well identified in advance and that requires a fairly standardised performance from whoever attempts it, (Rowntree, 1981, p. 327).

Competence,according to Westera (2001) can be defined from two perspectives in education. Competence is understood as a cognitive structure that facilitates specified behaviours. On the other hand, from an operational point of view, the concept covers a broad range of higher-order skills and behaviours that represent the ability to deal with complex, unpredictable situations. This operational definition includes knowledge, skills, attitudes, meta-cognition and strategic thinking, and presupposes conscious and intentional decision-making. Thus, this operational definition is applicable to this study.

1.9 Structure of the thesis

This thesis has six chapters including the current introductory one, which has provided the background to the study, the statement of the problem, the purpose of the study, the study’s main and subsidiary research questions, its motivation and significance, and definition of terms. The second chapter, which focuses on literature review, describes different conceptualisations of the concept of quality, quality management in English language education, factors affecting quality of the teacher trainees, teacher education programmes, and the relationship between teacher’s competence and learner’s performance. The third chapter describes benchmarking that influenced the research to examine the English language teacher training programme and the theoretical framework based on communicative competence for English language learning and teaching. Chapter four describes the methodological issues with respect to the qualitative approach, multiple exploratory case study design, sample and sampling, the interviews, observations and document analysis methods and their respective instruments for data generation. Furthermore, the chapter explains how data was managed. The chapter concludes with a discussion about ethical considerations made by the study and the credibility and trustworthiness of the research. Chapter five discusses findings of the study based on the three research questions and the theoretical framework. The thesis is concluded in chapter six, which also highlights implications of the study findings and suggests the way forward for future research.

1.10 Chapter summary

This first chapter has provided the context of the study. The researcher has briefly described important foundations of the topic and the study and has reviewed relevant studies which form part of the background and context of the study before presenting the statement of the problem for the study. The chapter has also stated the purpose of the study and the main and subsidiary research questions which guided the research in the three colleges under study. The motivation and significance of the study have also been presented in the chapter. The chapter has been concluded with a list of the definition of terms. Having done all these, the next chapter presents and discusses various views and perspectives concerning English language teacher training and quality education based on existing documents and available literature so as to identify gaps of the English language teacher training programme.

Chapter 2 Literature review

2.1 Chapter overview

This chapter discusses related literature relevant to the whole study. The first section reviews various perceptions about quality in education in general and in English language teaching in particular. The second section discusses factors affecting the quality of English language teachers with particular attention to teacher training colleges in Zambezia Province. The third section analyses how the language teacher education programmes can be effective with reference to studies that have been conducted in foreign and second language teaching and learning. The last sections discuss the challenges of the English language teacher training programme, where English is taught as a foreign language and the relationship between teacher’s competence and learner’s performance.

2.2 Perceptions about the concept of quality

The term quality is subjective in its interpretation, but its common aspect is that, different adjectives should be stressed describing positive aspects and not even a single negative element should be permitted to prevail. Thomas, (2003) asserts that the concept of quality is difficult to pin down and can be very subjective in its interpretation. Theoreticians have struggled with defining the concept and have, in turn, come up with a variety of definitions, including one that define it as the degree to which set objectives are achieved, added value, fitness for purpose, and client satisfaction. “Indeed, there is a certain degree of confusion as to what quality actually refers to, and recognition that quality in education internationally is not interpreted in a unified way”, (UNESCO 2005, p. 30). Therefore, different authors discuss the issue of quality in education from different perspectives. However, they all talk about problems affecting good performance and positive results in education.

Juran and Gryan (1993) consider two most important definitions of quality as being: “a group of characteristics that satisfy the needs of clients and hence make the product satisfactory; and zero deficiencies” (p. 2). The current study subscribes to the second definition, because it entails not only customer’s satisfaction, but the absence of weaknesses that would lead to corrections of the problems, thus, providing excellent and reliable products to clients such as parents, learners, employers, politicians and the whole society. Quality and excellence, in most cases, overlap synonymously in terms of use in the sense that they generate the same response when they are experienced for educational purposes. In the field of Education, the term quality can be understood as a type of value added in management system, whereby the talent of those involved is used creatively in the on-going development of an organisation and the process of learning and teaching.

Quality is, therefore, something that people see in a given object, look at carefully, and give value for their entire satisfaction. In education, one’s satisfaction should be when students, pupils, teacher trainees, teachers, teacher trainers, lecturers produce excellent results in theory and practice. This means, the learners should perform successfully by translating theories in practice without facing difficulties and challenges. However, the final product of the English language training programme, which is the English language teacher, is not as good as what society wants. Children, parents, the society in Mozambique need competent and well qualified English language teachers. These teachers should have abilities to teach confidently and express themselves fluently and accurately in English with whoever they are interacting, for example parents, school supervisors, subject supervisors, foreigners and their colleagues.

Studies conducted by some Mozambican English language scholars such as Mataruca (2014), Mawere (2012), Henriksen (2010), Passos (2009), Chimbutane (2009), Delport, (2010) and Dias (1998) mainly focus on issues about bilingual education, and problems of English language learning and teaching in primary and secondary school, but they do not focus on issues that can help in fostering the quality of English language teacher training process that can enhance teacher trainees’ oral abilities and teaching competences. The current study is further different to theirs owing to the fact that none of the scholars focused his or her attention on examining the quality of English language teacher trainees and the training process with particular attention to training colleges in Zambezia Province.

Pacheco (1999) contends that “teacher education presents a critical theory of reflective inquiry and of didactic expression to mark a qualitative approach” (p. 65). Therefore, one must, first of all, take into consideration the fact that the English language has been a great challenge and an issue to consider for primary school pupils in Mozambique who, even with Portuguese language as the medium of instruction, face difficulties. Hence, it is necessary to think about the quality of English language teacher training programme by analysing the criteria used to select the teacher trainers and teacher trainees in the model grade 10 + 1 year. The “teaching profession is based on vocational and personal skills and competencies, it involves professional and ethical standards and models, and entails a continuous process of professionalism development” (Bentea & Anghelache 2012 as cited in Agcam & Babanogly, 2016, p. 21). Furthermore, Duatepe and Akkus-sikla (2004) lament that teachers’ negative attitudes towards their profession are likely to negatively influence their teaching practices. To both authors, effective teachers are reported to display positive attitudes about teaching through promoting and participating in a collegial, collaborative work environment, holding their students responsible while accepting responsibilities themselves. The concerned scholars conclude that positive attitudes towards teaching depend largely on the personal beliefs of individual teachers, and their personal experience of pre and post education and training.

2.2.1 Understanding quality in education

The term quality content refers to “intended and taught curriculum of schools. National goals for education, and outcome statements that translate those goals into measurable objectives, should provide the starting point for the development and implementation of curriculum” (UNICEF, 2000, p. 10). However, the quality of education nowadays is a cause of concern to teachers, teacher trainers, lecturers and the society as a whole. Some of the problems are well known and recorded. For example, teachers absenteeism contributes to lowering of education standards, mainly in the countryside; teachers work in more than one school to get enough money to sustain their families mainly in the urban regions; misbehaviour of students in many classes which de-motivate weak teachers; and pressure being experienced by teachers to have high percentages of positive results by the end of a semester or year are strong reasons which undermine the quality of education in Mozambique. Rani (2016, p. 139) in her study in Phangwara advocates that “quality teachers are indicated by their „educatedness’ that they have achieved through their education and training. The teachers are well informed and possess knowledge about facts or figures, and concepts in their subjects.” In addition, it is also important to think about teaching and learning facilities and similar factors that affect quality of education. Moreover, it is significant to reflect on the quality of the school facilities.

According to a UNICEF (2000) study, “the quality of school buildings may be related to other school quality issues such as the presence of adequate instructional materials and textbooks, working conditions for students and teachers, and the ability of teachers to undertake certain instructional approaches” (p. 7). Definitely, there are also other reasons which cannot be ignored such as lack of teaching and learning material with emphasis on primary and secondary school grades, lack of desks in schools in the countryside and uncomfortable classrooms which can be seen in both the countryside and in urban areas. In some areas, poor school infrastructure makes it difficult for students to attend classes during bad weather. This contributes negatively to students’⁴performance and results.

Another challenge is that school managers are not seriously committed and fully prepared in the area of school management and are not democratically fair to their colleagues. If a school manager, a college manager and their deputies do not have exemplary attitudes towards school works, for example, if they only give orders, do not live up to their words, and do not help in orientating, supervising and monitoring work, the teachers will not work and care about their students and the school environment. Another important element, which is sometimes ignored and needs to be considered is the content of the lessons delivered in class and how the teachers go about such contents to help the students learn and acquire the desirable knowledge. Thus, the quality of leadership influences positively in the quality of training through due attention from the college mangers to teacher trainers worries’ towards the teaching and learning process, supervision of the teaching and learning process, regular meetings with teacher trainers and teacher trainees, solving or minimising problems and challenges encountered in the training process.

According to UNICEF (2000, p. 10), “quality content refers to the intended and taught curriculum of schools, national goals for education, and outcome statements that translate those goals into measurable objectives and provide the starting point for the development and implementation of curriculum”. Looking at the primary and secondary school curricula, one can notice how loaded they are in terms of content to be delivered during three terms; most times teachers are not able to cover all the content during the year. The researcher’s focus is on English language content.

Having well qualified English teachers who areturbo teachers⁵also undermine the quality of training and teaching in Zambezia Province. On the one hand, theturbo teachers,most of the time, do not worry about recovering lessons that students have missed while, on the other, some students are not committed to the lessons and they worry little about missing lessons. These factors affect the quality of implementation of the Education Curriculum in Mozambique. Menon and Rama (2006) assert that “the quality of basic education provided to our children is largely influenced by the quality of our teachers in the schools” (p. 06).

While content quality affects the quality of education, it is also important to highlight students’ ability to read and write at both primary and secondary education levels to help students demonstrate understanding of content learnt inside and outside the classroom with teachers’ guidance and to express their views. Unfortunately, in Zambezia Province, secondary schools’ teachers and, in some cases, university teachers complain about students’ inability to read and write mostly when students are asked to produce simple compositions or small essays or to defend small academic papers.

At the TTCs in Zambezia Province, teacher trainees have reading and writing as topics within English language as a subject. The English language course has as its four components the main language skills; listening, speaking, reading and writing. At the Teacher Training Colleges in Zambezia Province, literacy skills are taught as part of language content in a language course where the instructions tend to focus on teaching the language as an end in itself. Such an approach tends to be linear; teaching aural skills first, followed by speaking, reading and writing skills. Menon and Rama (2006) also explain that “teacher shortage and teacher quality coupled with the poor quality of teacher education programmes, both pre-service and in-service, have been negatively influencing the education systems of Nations, reversing years of investment” (p. 2). The twoscholarsexplain that “the quality of the teachers as long been regarded as a professional responsibility rather than a policy issue, and there is need to evolve a framework and evaluation tool to help institutions in quality assurance and continuous improvement” (p. 2). Thus, assuring continuous evaluation, improvement and quality of the English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Zambézia Province is fundamental to enhancement of quality of pupils’ English language learning, competence and performance.

2.2.2 Quality management in language education

While discussing the issue of quality management in language education in Mozambique is a great challenge, it is a worthwhile activity because the subject is yet to attract much researchers and language scholar attention in the country. Heyworth (2013) observes that, “QM⁶ procedures have concentrated on institutions where, in most cases, languages are just one department, and there are relatively few examples of specific quality criteria and standards for language curricula, teaching, learning or evaluation” (p. 282). It is the researcher’s view that problems raised by stakeholders such as parents, guardians, school managers and the society at large regarding the students’ inability to read, write, and speak English and other mistakes such as those of grammar, language interference and other related problems should be discussed and managed by language departments from several universities, the Ministry of Education, teacher education institutions and researchers at the local level. Heyworth (2013) contends that,

...a review of quality in language education faces a number of obstacles and critical issues. QM and the related fields of quality assurance and quality control have been developed largely outside the domain of language learning and teaching, and the theories and practices related to QM are features of a general social phenomenon, which have been applied (p. 281).

In Mozambique, issues related to English language problems can be debated by English language lecturers fromUniversidade Licungo, UniversidadePedagógicaandUniversidade Eduardo Mondlande⁷, teacher trainers in training colleges and relevant staff of the Ministry of Education. Consequently, lack of strong relationships among these institutions and their professionals simply increase problems concerning language education in Mozambique. For example, students, teachers, lecturers, teacher trainers and members of the society and complain about them. Yet very few studies and documents have tried to show where the weaknesses are rooted. Heyworth (2013) asserts that:

a review of quality in language education must look at quality both at a micro level - how we can define, implement and assess good practice in language teaching and learning at classroom level where there are practical operational aims, and at a macro level if the practice is contributing to achieving the social and developmental aims of its educational environment, as well as those of individual educational development (p. 286).

Social, developmental aims and quality in English language education contribute substantially to communicative and language teaching competence. Cummins (as cited in Heyworth, 2013, p. 287) asserts that “in addition to contributing to the obvious aim of acquiring communicative competence, QM in language teaching must have relevance to broader educational aims.” Such educational aims incorporate the value of language learning in cognitive development and its role as a relevant component of successful learning in schools.

Cheng and Tam 1997 (as cited in Heyworth, 2013, p. 288) quote seven models of quality in education; “the goals and specifications model, the resources input model, the process model, the satisfaction model, the legitimacy model, the absence of problems model and the organisational learning model.” These authors argue that a clear combination of these models can offer a comprehensive approach to quality in education. Such models have been applied for the evaluation of quality in language education in their context. By following these models, school inspectors would have evaluated and examined the whole process in which English language curriculum is translated into syllabus, and how this in turn generates schemes of work and lesson planning. These practices can be implemented by the bottom level educational managers, supervisors and inspectors at the three Zambezia Province teacher training colleges, through systematic supervision, inspection and control of teacher trainees’ outcomes as they progress.

2.2.3 Quality in English language teaching

This section discusses definitions of quality in English language teaching as proposed by some English languagescholars. The ideas fit into the context of the English language teacher training programme as well as English language teaching. For Heyworth (2013, p. 289) “applications of QM in education, generally, and in language teaching, specifically, reflect the same distinctions as those found in industrial and commercial contexts.” According to the author, certain elements are related to productivity and efficiency; analysis of processes needed to deliver effective courses, for example, involving a logical sequence from curriculum to syllabus to the planning and execution of individual lessons.

When looking at the English language teacher training model, it is important to analyse every element which forms part of the training process such as the curriculum, English language teaching policy, criteria for selecting teacher trainers and teacher trainees, period of training, continuous development strategies after the course, and school infrastructure. Another aspect is the presence of systematic approaches to assessment with coherent applications of a sequence of placement and diagnostic testing, and both formative and summative approaches to evaluation. The efficiency of staff is fostered by regular performance reviews or appraisals in which individual professional objectives are set.

According to Farmer (2006):

language teaching has been slow to develop practices that respond coherently to clients’ needs and that research has been inwardlooking rather than centred on issues related to client accountability. Language education could be considered as a „service industry like any other requiring attention to the parameters set by a quality assurance programme (p.161).

A TESOL paper⁸ 2000 (as cited in Farmer, 2006, p. 161) establishes quality indicators and performance standards for adult ESOL teaching programmes under headings, namely programme structure, administration and planning, curriculum, instruction, retention and transition, assessment and learner gains, staffing, professional development and staff evaluation. It is important to identify indicators for quality in education as well as for English language teaching in a concerned country so that training outcomes regarding quality can be measured within the same indicators or dimensions. Heyworth (2013) recognises that:

there is a need to introduce standards for the quality of teaching methods, staff, the quality of providers and course delivery, which would, ideally, include specific accreditation for education and a code of practice referring to international standards, selfassessment and training guides for managers (p. 305).

In fact, these principles would be incorporated in behaviour that would include commitments related to integration, professionalism, good relationship among professionals, knowledge and teaching competences, well-structured and convenient curriculum, social cohesion with guardians, ethical aspects and positive learning attitudes and good infrastructure for both teacher trainers and teacher trainees.

Trained English language teachers need to understand and master the content of the English language subject and to communicate effectively with any speaker of the language. They should be able to translate such content through clear instructions about grammar sentences, reading comprehension texts, listening and speaking activities, controlled writing and, sometimes, free writing. On their part, English language teachers need to have linguistic competence, communicative competence, and teaching competence so that communication either in the classroom or outside can be done efficiently and effectively.

2.2.4 The quality of English language teaching in initial training

The quality of teacher training is analysed from the ability to act creatively, competently and positively under given circumstances, using diverse materials in classes for full training and especially in the field of literacy that involves either oral or written language production capacity. Carter and Nunan (2002, p.78) concluded in their research that “learning to teach is not simply a matter of translating the ideas encountered in the education settings into classroom.” This researcher believes that the quality of training depends on the quality of candidates who join the course, the training content, the interactivity of the process, the dynamics of the group using the activities, the trainer’s training style, and material that is used in the training. Agcam and Babanoglu (2016) contend that “teaching is described as a demanding job that requires in-depth knowledge of subject contents, age specific pedagogy and many varied skills such as patience, leadership and creativity” (p. 21).

The conventional notion of translating theory into practice addresses the question of how the socio-cultural environments of schools, school managers, and subject coordinators can mediate the new teachers and transform their input as teacher-learners act in the school. Teaching English as a foreign language in Mozambique constitutes a challenge for the teachers who need to equip learners with knowledge about the subject, and the language skills to interact fluently and accurately with English language speakers from different corners of the world visiting or living in Mozambique. Students, teachers and people in general know the advantages of learning the English language in the Mozambican context and some are motivated to learn it. These are positive factors that can potentially foster learners’ interest in learning and practising the language with guidance from a well-qualified competent teacher with strong qualities.

English language teacher trainees in teacher training colleges come from schools where they had English language as a subject and not as a language for communication considering that they start learn English language subject only from grade 6 to grade 10. This is unlike the other teaching subjects such as Portuguese, Mathematics, Visual Arts, Social Sciences which are taught in Portuguese, a language the teacher trainees have learned since childhood or from the early grades at school. The fact that the English language teacher trainees have had only five years of learning English language before entering college may constitute a weakness regarding the acquisition of oral, reading and writing skills and thus may hamper their mastery of all content necessary for attaining goals of the English language teacher training model.

To Zabalza (1987) training is “the development process that the human subject runs to reach a state of personality” (p. 201). In this perspective, the concept „training’ requires an individual preparing for action to meet certain activities aimed at attaining full perfection. The quality of training of English language teachers for primary education is crucial to the success of learning for primary and subsequent levels, because it helps students to know the language and to understand various kinds of written texts written in English. Good training contributes to the motivation and professional performance of the teacher in the teaching and learning process and, subsequently, it helps to produce successful results. Passos (2009) claims that “to reach the goals fixed by the Mozambican Ministry of Education, it is vital to equip teachers with appropriate knowledge and skills that they need to teach” (p. 75). The quality of education hinges on the quality of teaching that goes on in the classroom reinforcing the idea that quality teachers assure good teaching for the learners in the classroom, which contributes significantly to better education quality as a whole.

Training is, therefore, a long process that requires the use of appropriate strategies aimed at providing greater dynamics in the development of the individual in its multiple facets. According to Malderez & Bodóczky (2004),

the goal of the teacher training has often been described as either „good teaching’ or „being a good teacher’. The latter is really an extension of the first as it embraces the role of the teacher as both a promoter of learning and as a member of professional society (p.13).

However, the question which demands an answer is who is a good teacher? For English language teachers the researcher would rather integrate the previous eight elements affecting the quality of English language teachers. Although responses to questions regarding a good teacher and quality of an English language teacher are very subjective, many scholars acknowledge that a quality English language teacher should be competent in both teaching and daily communication. To Richards (2011) “what we normally mean by the termteacher trainingrefers to instruction in basic classroom skills, often linked to a specific teaching context” (p. 9). Training involves the development of a repertoire of teaching skills, acquired through observing experienced teachers and often through practice teaching in a controlled setting using activities such as micro-teaching or peer teaching.

Richards (2011) maintains that “becoming an English language teacher means becoming part of a worldwide community of professionals with shared goals, values, discourse, and practices with a self-critical view of its own practices and a commitment to a transformative approach” (p.72). Associated with the term professional, the training of the teacher as a pedagogical and educational process that aims to match the process of teaching and learning should be seen as an organisational action of the school environment and always as a follow up of the National Education Policy. The English language teacher training programme is a point of consideration in this literature review and it is necessary to emphasise its importance for the benefit of quality education in Mozambique in general and Zambezia Province in particular.

This study analysed the English language teacher training process at a time of heated debates on the quality of training and education. In this perspective, it is necessary to highlight the knowledge and research as major challenges about English language educational quality. It is in this context that one must analyse the process of training of teachers together with the reality of the teaching process. It is necessary to take into account the didactic strategies and period of experience and monitoring of teacher trainers in the teaching process. However, apart from language proficiency’s contribution to teaching skills, research has shown that a language teacher’s confidence is also dependent upon his or her own level of language proficiency. So, “a teacher who perceives himself or herself to be weak in the target language will have reduced confidence in her teaching ability and an inadequate sense of professional legitimacy” (Seidlhofer, 1999).

Carter and Nunan (2002) observe that, “learning to teach is seen as a by-product of capable teacher-learners and teacher educators, and well-structured designs and materials” (p. 79). Thus, in the broad sense, teacher education has depended largely on training strategies to teach people how to do the work of teaching. Underlying these aspects of delivery, however, is a rich and complex process of learning to teach. Focusing at this level of the learning process as being distinct from delivery mechanism is changing the understanding of teaching education in important ways.

It is therefore, important to observe how the three teacher training colleges cope with the English language teacher training programme regarding the learning models and teaching techniques appropriate to teach in grades 6 and 7. It is also important to find out if theories of English language teaching are translated into practice. It is this factor which, again, should be checked in the English course teacher trainers and teacher trainees in the teacher training colleges if the training is to reflect classroom reality.

2.3 Factors affecting quality of the teacher training programme

In education, there are always factors which influence teaching and learning positively or negatively. Heyworth (2013) notes that “there is a need to introduce standards for the quality of teaching methods, staff, the quality of providers, and course delivery” (p. 305). The author explains that,

there are a number of descriptions of quality requirements both for teachers in general, and for teachers of languages specifically. Typically, they are based on a competence model, with competence defined generally as a combination of values (or attitudes), knowledge and understanding and skills” (Heyworth, 2013, p.298).

In line with Heyworth’s view point, the researcher holds the view that, apart from possessing knowledge, skills, attitudes and competences, a well-qualified primary school English teacher in Mozambique should have the following five attributes: high motivation for English language teaching, excellent knowledge of the subject matter including the four major language skills, strong skills for English language teaching, competence for English language teaching, and professionalism of the English language teacher. Additionally, three factors need to be stressed to achieve the quality of the English language teacher trainees, namely well-structured content and syllabus, good and well-equipped school infrastructure, and competent teacher trainers.

It is the researcher’s view that a primary school English language teacher’s possession of these elements can guarantee their teaching and communicative competence. Furthermore, teacher trainee’s motivation, knowledge of the subject matter, the language learning and teaching skills, competence and professionalism in English language teaching are five tools stressed by the present researcher and applied to the field of English language teacher education. These elements embedded in quality refer to the totality of features and characteristics of a teacher trainee acquired following the teachers’ education programme.

Feigenbaum (1961) claims that if the expectations of the schools, students, parents and the society are met, that indicates that the right type of teachers have been prepared by the teacher education institutions. Therefore, if English language teacher trainees demonstrate desired knowledge and abilities in what they are learning while teacher trainers make continuous teaching improvements through trainers’ interactions among themselves and commit themselves to their work, teacher trainees will have positive outcomes. This is a fundamental point that makes the education and teaching process valuable. Thus, it is not only necessary that the computer facilities and other learning resources are available in the institution for its academic and administrative purposes but also that they are accessible to staff and students who are keen to use them.

2.3.1 Knowledge of English and English language teaching

Kog (2016) contends that “the purpose of an in-service teacher training programme is to enable teachers to develop their knowledge, apply this knowledge in the classroom and achieve the projected behavioural changes” (p. 459). At the end of their training course, English language teacher trainees should possess, as one of the expectations, consolidated knowledge of the English language teaching and teaching model pedagogies, which may include knowledge of English language grammar, phonology, morphology, discourse and vocabulary, adequate mastery of the language skills such as listening, speaking, reading and writing, and teaching methodologies. As highlighted by Fenner and Kuhlman (2012),

teachers also need to be fluent in social and academic English so that they can serve as role models for students. The same way, they point out that not only do ESL teachers need to be highly knowledgeable about the content they are teaching, the English language, they also must be able to apply theories and research on the process of acquiring English in order to support ELLs as these students learn academic English and content simultaneously” (p. 78).

Furthermore, Fenner and Kuhlman (2012, p. 83) explain that “if teachers do not have knowledge of language structure, then they cannot teach ELLs⁶academic English.” If a significant number of English language teachers is not knowledgeable in the area of language structure they need to be oriented regarding the basic concepts of phonology, morphology, semantics and discourse. Similarly, Darling-Hammond 2000 (as cited in

Howard, Sugarman, Christian, Lindholm and Rogers, 2007) emphasises that:

teachers in language education programme like those in mainstream classrooms, should possess high levels of knowledge relating to the subject matter, curriculum and technology, instructional strategies, and assessment: they must also have the ability to reflect on their own teaching (p.18).

Owing to the relevance of the English language teaching in Mozambique, the issue of subject matter has also been discussed by famous and renowned English language scholars all over the world. Richards (2003) states that “subject matter knowledge refers to what second language teachers need to know about their subjects - the specialised concepts, theories, and disciplinary knowledge that constitutes the theoretical basis for the field of second language teaching” (p. 8). Thus, appropriate subject matter for second language teachers constitutes phonetics and phonology, English syntax, second language acquisition, discourse analysis, analysis of TESOL methods, and testing and evaluating.

The items presented in the previous paragraph are part of necessary knowledge acquisition and are really paramount to English language teacher trainee’s background. English language teacher trainees attend the course as their initial training with the purpose of learning how to teach English in primary schools. However, for the sake of the teacher trainees’ weak background in English language, it would not be ideal to introduce some elements such as Curriculum and syllabus design and Sociolinguistics as disciplines or subjects in their teaching language course; at this time the trainees are not prepared to discuss such content and the content will not, eventually, translate into practice in the primary schools.

2.3.2 Skills for language and English language teaching

Whoever is trained in a specific field must be equipped with abilities to perform positively in that specific area, which justifies the reason for the training.

For Malderez & Bodoczky (2004),

when you ask any group of people to brainstorm the qualities of the „good teacher’ there will be categories relating to „knowledge’ and „skills’, but invariably the biggest group of factors can be found under a category one can label „person qualities’ (p. 12).

The researcher’s interest in developing this section with respect to skills was to focus attention on what English language teacher trainees in Zambezia Province should have by the end of the programme that is skills which encompass the following: the oral and teaching skills, ability to speak the English language fluently and accurately, ability to interact with different educationists, ability to interact with foreigners and other English language professionals, and, above all, ability to teach English successfully in primary school. Hornby (1995) defines skill as “the ability to do something well ... in order to acquire a skill; there has to be an initial desire to achieve proficiency” (p. 1109). Skills require practice and this takes time. In English language there are two major categories of skills; the receptive skills and the productive ones. The receptive skills are listening and reading whereas the productive skills are speaking and writing. Each of these categories is important and should be mastered by English language teacher trainees either for communication reasons or for teaching reasons. Delahuntly and Garvey (2010) hold the view that:

Learning to read and write is partly a matter of linguistic development, that is, the growth in a student’s ability to communicate appropriately in an increasingly broad range of circumstances. Teachers who concern themselves with the linguistic development of their students typically view their role as twofold: (a) to promote their students’ ability to speak, read, and write in their disciplines, and (b) to develop their students’ ability to write in standard English, the variety of English generally expected in formal communication in various disciplines (p. 11).

Similarly, for teaching reasons, teacher trainees need to learn and know how to translate these skills when they teach or deliver lessons in the classroom. The stages of a reading and listening lesson differ significantly from those of a speaking and writing one. Concerning the reading practice, Kern (2000) explains that:

the goal of reading a foreign language text is not to achieve a „native like’, fully informed culturally-appropriate interpretation. What is important for learners to understand, however, is how the interpretations they do come up with are influenced by their beliefs, attitudes, values and experiences-in other words, by their „world’ as constituted and constructed by cultural model (p. 314).

While listening and reading often require lead-in, pre-reading/listening, while- reading/listening, post-reading/listening and follow-up exercises, speaking lesson may not need such sequencing. Obviously, when thinking about the stages, the presentation or introduction stage as well as the review stage can be considered as the first stages of the speaking lesson. The stages that follow can be practised and, in them, one may have controlled and or free writing, or one of the four main skills to be practised during the lesson as a stage, and finish with a follow-up, production or consolidation stage.

A global study of primary English teachers’ qualifications, training and career development conducted by Emery (2012) from University of Essex tried to find out what makes a good primary English language teacher and the largest number of participants identifiedgood English language skillsas most important. Other qualities deemed important were teaching experience, teaching knowledge, a kind, and understanding personality. Thus, the teacher in class should be creative in organising groups, pairs or when working as whole class they should ensure that everyone participates or at least says something during a lesson or discussion. Overall, the English language teacher trainees need to learn and know that the teacher’s personality, adaptability, flexibility, rapport with learners or students and different teacher’s roles contribute positively to the learning process and describes positive teacher’s skills in and outside the classroom.

2.3.3 Competences for English language teaching

As far as this researcher is concerned, competence is notable only when one has strong skills that can be utilised in different contexts of work or a lesson. According to Tomlinson (1995) “competence or skill signifies a more or less consistent ability to realise particular sorts of purposes to achieve desired outcomes” (p. 181). The concept of competence, as explained by Westera 2001 (as cited in Tomlinson, 1995, p. 181) is strongly associated with the ability to master complex situations, and it goes beyond the levels of knowledge and skills to include an explanation of how knowledge and skills are applied in an effective way. Likewise, Passos (2009) remarks that,

In a much broader sense, competence is a highly valued quality that accounts for the effective use of knowledge and skills in specific and concrete contexts. The mastery of relevant knowledge and skills alone is no guarantee of successful performance in complex environments (p. 41).

Thus, individuals should be able to utilise their available knowledge and skills in such a way that efficient and effective behaviour occurs which requires special “abilities” that take into account characteristics of a specific context (Westera, 2001). In general, competence is regarded when looking at the two first concepts within the conceptual framework, namely knowledge and skills. These two concepts alone cannot bring positive results; teachers also need to be equipped with positive attitudes accounting for their professionalism, which demonstrate their knowledge and understanding of the learners’ social context, background, and reality.

2.3.4 Professionalism of the English language teacher

To Estrela (2002), “the concept of professionalism is in constant development and it should be made on the basis of concrete historical moment and social reality that school knowledge aims to legitimise, in short must be contextualised” (p. 65). However, Wallace (2001) considers as professional a person as possessing the following qualities: “scientific knowledge; a period of rigorous study which is formally assessed; a sense of public service; high standards of professional conduct and the ability to perform some specified demanding and socially tasks in a demonstrably competent manner” (p. 5). At this juncture, it is necessary to highlight the education policy situation that exists in Mozambique. An English language teacher needs to show and demonstrate knowledge of the English language as a subject, and the required skills and competences for English language teaching in different contexts of English language teaching for students or teacher trainees to feel comfortable and confident about what they are learning. In addition to that, English language teacher trainers and teachers in general should behave and have positive attitudes towards their daily life and teaching styles.

The aforementioned elements help good professionals in general, and English language teacher trainers and teachers are no exception. It is also necessary to understand the education policy as the goals that each government intends to achieve in each historical moment. For example, the training model of grade 10 + 1 comes to match the population growth and the need for expansion of education in Mozambique. However, it does not answer the need for quality terms, if one bears in mind that English language teachers are trained in only two semesters corresponding effectively to eight (8) months. Indeed, professionalism can be manifested by deeper responsibility on actions undertaken in one’s work whether at work place or outside. More than responsibility, there are additional elements such as positive attitudes, good practices, good communication, and openness to colleagues, clients and public in general. Nevertheless, professionalism may have further interpretation.

Passos (2009) points out that “the fact that teachers have low levels of qualification without professional training tends to contribute to pupil’s weak performance” (p. 32). In addition, Chau (1996, p.186) states that “classroom observations in different countries show that certain teachers have insufficient mastery of the subject matter they teach”. Therefore, it is expected that the English language teacher trainee should be able to gradually meet the requirements of the school, based on the intrinsic and extrinsic needs of the students. In this context, the English language teacher trainees should be aware of what they will teach, how they will teach it, and when they will teach it while respecting students’ convictions. In line with Carter & Nunan (2001), in teacher development content generally stems from the teacher-learner who generates it from their experience. Thus, the process engages teacher trainees in some form of sense-making or construction of understandings out of what they already know and can do. By analysing the quality of training of English language teachers, the researcher sought to relate the value that is given to theory translated into practice. Therefore, one must ask what kind of English language teacher the country wants to have.

According to the MEC/INDE Training Curriculum Plan for Primary Education (2006, p. 19), “the English language teacher training lasts for a year and aims to give the student teacher knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable them to act safely in teaching English language” (p. 19). Looking at this quotation, one wonders whether the teacher training colleges are prepared enough to train English language teachers within a period of eight months. Many teachers have positive feelings, hopes, desires and dreams, and are keen on improving aspects of their professional practice, and to find out about new teaching ideas. However, the fact that English language teachers are trained within eight months only helps teacher trainees get employment after graduation instead of seriously imparting to them knowledge and skills of their profession.

Saldanha (2008, p. 18) states that “when someone learns a new profession, he or she starts with his or her conventions, difficulties, requirements, limitations, specific knowledge and languages, value systems, knowledge of typical cases, thought and action schemes”. Imagined and ideal professionalism are configured for a number of aspects related to social values, curricula content, methodological practices and evaluation. Several aspects about the practical knowledge of teacher trainees of model 10 + 1 English programme are the result of its practical domain in terms of technical and didactic procedures in use. Knowledge in action is enshrined in the know-how practical to the same teacher in the context of the classroom. Therefore, the English language teacher who has this feature is endowed with spontaneous capabilities in their action.

During initial training of English language teachers, teacher trainers should devise and arrange several activities with appropriate strategies for their implementation. Therefore, it is important to have these aspects as positive challenges for effective training of future teachers. The effectiveness required to the English language teacher is, as a matter of fact, based in the daily profession faced day to day. Perrenoud (2000) mentions that: the real challenge in the domain of the total training of a learning cycle is, if possible, basic education, not so much to be able to teach indifferently at any level or cycle, but to enter each learning on a long-term continuity, whose primary logic is allocated for the construction of skills targeted at the end of the cycle or training (p. 46).

English language teacher training must be relevant to the education field for the teacher trainees to complete their course after developing ability to reflect and criticise some practices of the teaching-learning process. Self-assessment requires knowledge and mastery of methods and teaching techniques in accordance with the real situation that exists in the classroom. Perrenoud (2000) comments that “teacher training nowadays is capable of inventing activities, ... depends more on personal imagination or creativity of the new school movement than vocational training or formal education resources” (p. 49). However, the author also acknowledges that, “there is no reason to reinvent each alone, or search for originality; each teacher is able to constantly think for himself or herself.” Perrenoud (p. 49). Therefore, English language teacher trainers must first analyse the type of teacher trainee whom they interact with, that is they must take into account that the same teacher trainee is, first and foremost, an individual that is in constant relationships with the other members of his or her society. The English language teacher should be prepared in relation to social values and its current reality. However, it is clear that the teacher must be professionally prepared to match the actual situation of the teacher trainee and the classroom. The competent professional is one who knows how to do well what is needed and desired within their specialty. Competence should not be defined as static, as a model to be followed, but as something that is built by professionals in their praxis.

According to the Education Curriculum reviewed in Mozambique, “it is up to basic education to prepare a student who is able to reflect, to be creative, and to question the reality in order to act on it for their own benefit and their community” (INDE/MINED,¹⁰ 1999, p. 23). Thus, the basic education teacher training curriculum takes on the challenge of training a know-how professional that is able to mobilise and make use of knowledge in their daily lives, to think, discuss, argue and question the world around them, to generate knowledge to learn to do, how to be, and to know how to be in the profession. Above all, this is a professional that bets all the time in the on-going training.

The primary school English language teacher in Zambezia Province’s context is required, therefore, the know-how to apply the art and technique of teaching English lessons with skill, enthusiasm and dedication. This is the role that needs to be analysed in the teacher training process as part of the quality of education. However, it is important that well trained English language teachers should be prepared to make use of their technical and scientific knowledge in order for them to experience the teaching and learning process progressively.

It is this researcher’s position that a good English language professional needs to have knowledge of the subject matter, which is English language shaped in all dimensions, the skills to use during the teaching and learning process for the benefit of the students or learners, and the competence to cope with different situations, where the students might need a help. A professional is someone who is concerned with his or her performance and is viewed as an ideal person for a given post, position, job or profession. More importantly, an English language professional, as any other professional, should relate to their profession the issue of ethics and responsibility.

2.3.5 The teacher trainees’ motivation concerning the teaching profession

Motivation is a factor that should be underlined for the English language teacher trainees. Harmer (2007, p. 20) explains that “the kind of motivation which comes from the classroom and may be influenced by a number of external factors such as the attitude of society, family and peers to the subject in question is often referred to as extrinsic motivation”. A study conducted by Henriksen (2010) about language attitudes in primary schools in Mozambique concludes that “English language is positively viewed by Mozambicans, because it is seen as the language of opportunities, mainly for social, academic, professional and economic opportunities” (p. 181).

English is also regarded as an important language because it facilitates the country’s development considering there are many foreigners in Mozambique who do not speak Portuguese. However, to achieve the level of English language teacher training excellence and its quality, much has to be done in terms of school infrastructure, teacher trainers’ on-going development of training programmes, effective implementation of the contents, and teacher trainees’ dedication and motivation.

Other English language teacher trainees may be influenced by the fact that English language plays an important role in several domains of the Mozambican society, in education, in political issues, in business and daily contacts and interaction with foreigners who speak the language. These may aspire to be translators or good English language teachers, both which may result in prestige, hence related to inner concerns which are part of intrinsic motivation. Harmer (2007, p. 20) defines intrinsic motivation as what is generated by what happens inside the classroom. This could be the teacher’s methods, the activities that students take part in or their perception of their success. Some English language teacher trainee candidates may be influenced by foreign English language teachers, Christian missionaries preaching in Mozambique, and hence, their willingness to combine the language culture of the foreigners with their personal interest of becoming language teachers to teach English and able to communicate with others.

2.3.6 Quality of school infrastructure

The National Accreditation and Assessment Council (NAAC) in India and Commonwealth of Learning in Canada (COL)¹¹ Document (2007) explains that facilities such as the library are the actual learning locations and so it is essential that they have adequate volumes in terms of books, journals, other learning materials and facilities for technology aided learning which enable students to acquire information, knowledge and skills required for their study. To this researcher, the infrastructure is a factor which affects the teaching and learning process in schools, in training colleges and universities. Infrastructure does not simply mean the physical buildings; they include all that we can find inside such buildings.

Well-equipped schools or colleges can contribute significantly to the quality of the students or trainees. For colleges, they need to have classrooms which can accommodate a reasonable number of students, obviously not more than 40 students as is the experience of teacher training colleges in Zambézia Province. The desks should be rowed at a distance that each teacher trainee may feel comfortable.

Thus, it is crucial that the English language teacher training programme at the colleges have English dictionaries, grammar books, plays, a computer room with access to the internet. Good teacher trainers must necessarily be concerned with the organisation of the classroom and maintenance of enjoyable classroom atmosphere.

2.3.7 Quality of teacher training curriculum and contents

The quality of the curriculum is vital for the teaching and learning process. One way to create expectations concerning the quality of the English language teacher trainees is to have a curriculum and content that help the training process to reach the teacher training objectives. Eventually, as it has been argued, the context in which education programmes take place are complex and unique, consisting of a variety of factors, including: the sponsors, the teacher, the availability of the resources, the structure of the programme, the number of training courses along the semester and the incentives for teacher participation (James, 2001, p. 10). Thus, the number of subjects in the curriculum, the training period, the content of each and every subject, the teacher trainers assigned to teach in the training colleges, the target language used in the subjects, the training management, and a valid and reliable entrance examination play a significant role for the quality of teacher training curriculum.

Quality of curriculum and its contents might contribute successfully if they are well structured. It is therefore essential for English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees to follow the contents provided in the curriculum and also look at the teacher trainees’ difficulties, so that by the end of the programme the teacher trainees not only master the content, which is contained in the curriculum but also other aspects which do not appear in the curriculum but are relevant for their knowledge, skills and competences.

2.3.8 Teacher trainers’ competence and performance

According to Calabrese and Dawes (2008, p. 39),

the term „performance’ in the (Performance and Language Integrated Syllabus) we have coined, acquires a twofold meaning: one referring to the trainees’ learning aim toperformthe foreign language according to the „can do’ statements in a range of communicative situations, the other one referring to their teaching „performances’as future language teachers to young learners (p.39).

English language teacher trainers must be creative, flexible and dynamic to attend to the teacher trainees’ sociolinguistic needs, teaching abilities, language competences and professional attitudes towards English language teaching. If English language teacher trainers are not committed to their work, if they lack ability to train teachers’ and if they do not have experience in teaching primary school, they may not help their future English language teachers. In the training process, competence is measured by the performance of the people involved in the process such as teacher trainers and trainees.

Preparing English language teacher trainees through initial training becomes very demanding to teacher trainers if the teacher trainees lack relevant abilities, display content-related weaknesses, or if they have many language problems. As emphasised by Malderez & Bodoczky (2004, p. 15), “initially, many student-teachers are not equipped with the ability to draw on all levels of the iceberg in order to construct a personal understanding of teaching”. Indeed, this may be due to personality factors affecting the person or due to majority fearing about the course. Introversion and inhibition are some of the personality factors that affect individuals in learning or working actively. People with such characteristics tend to be passive, and sometimes too passive, to avoid committing mistakes or errors.

2.4 Goals of learning to teach

Generally, learners do not get into schools without a clear purpose of what they want. Thus, English language Teacher trainee candidates take the entrance exams to the colleges with an idea of what they want to achieve. Carter and Nunan (2002), based on their personal experiences, have a different view regarding English language teachers entering Teacher Training Colleges for the first time. They observe that:

it is clear that at different stages in their careers, teachers have different professional interests and concerns, novice teachers (defined as those with less than three years classroom experience) tend to be concerned with carrying out their images of teaching by managing the classroom and controlling students (p. 79).

In fact, there might be different personal goals but the most important is the fact that they want to take a course that they can finish successfully will help them in future. Completing a teacher training programme successfully implies doubled efforts by teacher trainees’ commitment, and teacher trainers’ clear efforts to help the trainees reach their goals. Malderez & Bodoczky (2004, p.16) explain that “in the teacher education institution, trainers tend to teach theory and explore theories, linking them with their students’ own experiences and beliefs. The focus is on knowing about teaching.” According to Richards (2011),

becoming an English language teacher means becoming part of a worldwide community of professionals with shared goals, values, discourse, and practices but one with a self-critical view of his or her own practices and a commitment to a transformative approach to its own role (p.29).

It is important to underline that teacher trainees cannot become successful English language teachers and speakers unless all subjects and contents delivered to them during the training process are presented in English. In addition, direct method, communicative language teaching, community language learning and task-based learning teaching methods based on communicative competence can greatly help foster their quality of teacher training thereby creating competent English speakers and language teachers.

The teacher trainee has an understanding of what teaching is through the process of socialisation within an educational community, which comprises classroom setting, school environment, and educational system.

2.5 Challenges characterising foreign English language teacher education programme

It can be successfully argued that the purpose of all who are called teachers is to engage students in learning activities that facilitate the teaching and learning. Therefore, the teachers need to know how to go about the teaching and learning process by integrating themselves in teacher education programmes and by having on-going professional training. Carter and Nunan (2002) argue that:

The content and process of teacher education presents a major set of issues. Understanding how people learn to teach and multiple influences of teacherlearners’ past experience, the school contexts they enter and career paths they will follow (e.g. Freeman and Richard 1996) present, among others, an equally critical set of research and implementation concerns. Linking the two, as must be done to achieve fully effective teacher education interventions, is a third critical area of work (p.73).

It is crucial to add that a syllabus that is well-structured in accordance with teacher trainees’ social and linguistic background and that is equipped with infrastructure that takes into consideration teacher trainee needs and availability of teaching and learning materials can foster teacher trainee abilities and competences by the end of the training programme. Similarly, once English language teachers are in schools, they have ongoing teacher development opportunities through which they get the pedagogic and psychological tools and assimilate the domains of the subjects they will be delivering after graduation. These formal activities are generally referred to as teaching training, while those that are undertaken by experienced teachers, primarily on a voluntary, individual basis, are referred to as development. Marques (2003) contends that:

people have to take into account that being a teacher, involves dealing with other people (teachers) who work in organisations (schools), with other individuals (students) to get these people to learn something (be educated). Therefore, teacher education has an extremely important role in the success of learning in the classroom (p.19).

Carter and Nunan (2002) conclude that “in case of the L2 teacher education, process and content combine to create two broad strategies for input: teacher training and teacher development” (p. 76). For English language teacher training, the contents are generally defined externally and transmitted to the teacher trainees through several teaching approaches. Therefore, the results are assessed by those not involved in the training process, to bring feasible evidences concerning the outcomes that the learners have mastered regarding the training contents. According to Heyworth (2013),

In the United States, the Standards for Foreign Language Education (2005) set quality standards for language teaching that put the emphasis on what students can do.. ..identifying cognitive development, intercultural competences as well as communication skills (p.298).

It is worth mentioning that in the context of English language teacher training programme in Zambézia Province, the three scales can become valuable if during teacher training programme teacher trainees become knowledgeable about the English language, teaching methods and lesson evaluation, develop actual English language teaching skills and competences, and if they are able to communicate in class and in their daily life interaction with English speakers.

2.5.1 English as a foreign language in Mozambique: a challenge to teacher training

English is not an official language in Mozambique. It is rather a foreign language which is used for different purposes: education, trade, technology and politics. The Mozambican language policy position on the teaching of English is reflected in Harmer (2008) statement, namely that “for many scholars and teachers who have made a distinction between English as Foreign Language and English as a Second Language, EFL is described in situations where students learn English in order to use it with any other English speakers of the world” (p. 20). Therefore, what distinguishes the learning of English as a foreign language from English as a second language is the fact that the majority of people learn it for academic or specific purposes in a context, where the second language is predominantly Portuguese. However, the syllabuses do not suggest strategies concerning the extent to which English should be learnt as a foreign language as opposed to a second language. What the language policy and syllabus collectively suggest is that English should be taught and learnt as a foreign language in Mozambique, and, in turn, in the English language teacher training programme, teacher trainees are taught that English is taught and learnt as a foreign language due to its context, in which Portuguese is the second and the most spoken language.

Therefore, the terminology Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), suits Mozambique, and more specifically Zambezia Province in a context where the official language is Portuguese, and English is the most important and spoken foreign language. Mawere (2012, p. 34) contends that “the continued use of Portuguese as the official language after independence in 1975, for example, meant that the country will remain isolated from the English world for as long as Portuguese is the dominant language.” The case of English language teaching in Zambézia context can either fit into EFL or ESOL - English to Speakers of Other Language. However, “this does not mean we should ignore the context in which language-learning takes place; it does reflect a more multilingual global reality” (Harmer, 2008, p. 21).

The fact that there are many English language private schools in Zambézia Province is a sign that English plays a very important role in several domains, mainly in social and educational interactions, locally and outside the country. Nonetheless, much has to be done to ensure good English language learning processes at all levels of teaching and learning, that is from primary school to university. Some English language teachers do not have the adequate skills for teaching, others possess a certain degree of proficiency of the language, hence the conclusion is that they are not competent English language teachers. Some, for example, lack pedagogical and psychological notions of dealing with students.

2.5.2 The challenge of lack of English language skills and competence

Some teacher trainers and lecturers are in teacher training colleges and universities conveniently due to some teaching and social demands and accommodation. Accommodation must be avoided; the danger is to have somebody doing things that they personally do not know. Nhapulo (2013) observes that:

nowadays, with many public and private teacher training universities and centres in Mozambique, there are more and more schooling alternatives. It is important to note here that there are language schools almost everywhere, mainly in urban areas. However, what students are supposed to master does not always match their learning outcomes, because students entering university, a Master or a PhD programme still lack the English language skills required for academic purposes (p.84).

Owing to the fact that most secondary school classes are large, students often do not have course books and many students and English language teachers regard English as subject and not as language for communication. These and other possible reasons undermine students’ performance in English language. Many challenges which need to be studied characterise English language learning, teaching and teacher training in Mozambique.

2.5.3 The English language policy in education as a challenge

The constitution of the Republic of Mozambique published in 1975, 1990 and 2004, does not say anything about the use of English language in Mozambique although the country’s primary and secondary school syllabi state that English must be learned as a foreign language to help Mozambicans communicate with people from foreign countries. This disparity represents a gap that language planners and policy makers can suggest to constitution makers of the Republic of Mozambique to address. The reasons for learning English in Mozambique may be several; some may be common while others may be due to particular reasons such as business, travelling abroad, studying abroad, and receiving guests from abroad. From a language of education policy point of view these concerns could be made part and parcel of teaching and learning of English language in Mozambique. Savignon (1997) notes that:

Central to CLT is the understanding of language learning as both an educational and a political issue. Language teaching is inextricably linked with language policy. Viewed from a multicultural international as well as international perspective, diverse socio-political contexts mandate not only a diverse set of language-learning goals but a diverse set of teaching strategies. Programme design and implementation depend on negotiation between policy makers, linguists, researchers, and teachers (p. 4).

According to the INDE/MINED Curriculum Plan for Basic Education (2003), the introduction of English in primary education is justified for the following reasons. Firstly, geographically, most Southern African countries have English as their official language. Secondly, Mozambique is a member of Southern Africa Development Community and of the Commonwealth which use English is the main language of business. Thirdly, from a global perspective, most social and economic interactions worldwide occur in English. Thus, English was introduced in grades 6 and 7, with the aim of providing students with the basic vocabulary and language for communication. However, the English language teacher training programme for primary schools has been implemented for 12 years now without being subjected to critical appraisal, hence the present thesis. Dubin & Olshtain (2002) state that:

once the role of the language wide communication is established, it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing programme and materials. Often a new programme is required because there is a serious gap between the results of the existing one and the needs of learners for English as a language of study. Policy decisions will have to be made in order to find ways to close this gap, if indeed it has been determined that learning through the English language is worthwhile goal in the society (p. 10).

Notwithstanding the role of English language in Zambezia Province, it is necessary to evaluate the effectiveness of the existing programme. Negash 2011 (as cited in Plonski, 2013, p. 04) affirms that a common working language is a requirement for that cooperation. Furthermore, as developing countries seek to compete in the global marketplace, English is the language in which most negotiation and marketing schemes must take place.

2.5.4 Untrained host teachers teaching English in primary schools as a challenge

Malderez and Bodoczky (2004) explain that “student teachers enter the learning teaching with pre-conceived theories of teaching derived from experience as pupils, and proceed through a series of stages based on their current hypothesis” (p. 17). While primary school English language teachers provide students an opportunity to reach national goals on English education, it is the effectiveness of these same teachers in the classroom which can deliver the promise of Education for all. Quality education produces good learning outcomes and the initial training and preparation of teachers contribute to this aim. Thus, the task of enabling student-teacher to achieve these goals would need a good course design, an effective teaching and learning strategy, competent teachers, and an enabling learning environment (Sanyal, 2013 p.25).

It is also important to assess the distribution of quality from an equity perspective to ensure that various regions and schools have access to well-trained teachers in Mozambique and in Zambezia Province respectively. Zambezia Province continues to experience severe shortage of trained English language primary school teachers, a situation that is especially desperate in poorer or rural areas where most English language teachers have no English language training or qualifications of significant standard. Bearing in mind that in Zambézia Province untrained teachers teach English, it can be safely concluded that the number of qualified English language teachers in Zambézia does not satisfy societal and primary education needs and the number of teachers, hence the need to balance the number and quality of English language teachers. Practically, in rural zones, some English language teachers have more teaching hours than expected. Worse still, others apart from teaching English, are assigned to teach other subjects which have nothing in common with English language teaching methodologies. Considerable progress is required to improve the quality of instruction, which will spur even greater demand for education.

2.5.5 Quality of teacher training as a challenge

The quality of training in Mozambique is characterised by certain challenges. In her study conducted in Mozambique, Passos (2009) reveals that “the problem of teacher competence is not related only to the level of teacher instruction but also to the level and quality of training” (p. 46). The preparation that teachers receive before beginning their work in the classroom, however, varies significantly around the world and even within the least developed countries. In Zambézia’s colleges, English language teacher trainees do not undergo preparation before getting enrolled in the colleges. Moreover, these trainee teachers have a very short period of teacher training, that is only one year, equivalent to two four-month long semesters.

Richards, (2003) identifies key questions related to significance of language proficiency of second language teachers, namely, “the components of language proficiency that are most crucial for language teachers, and the interaction between the language proficiency and other aspects of the teaching skill” (p. 7). The first question raises the issues of the nature of the instructional discourse, in particular the discourse used by foreign English language teachers. “The highest quality teachers, those most capable of helping their students learn, have deep mastery of both their subject matter and pedagogy” (Darling- Hammond 1999, as cited in UNICEF document, 2000, p. 15). Preparing effective English language teachers varies depending on context considering training models and the education policies have different goals.

Furthermore, there is recognition among several scholars that the teacher competence influences the learner performance. No matter how the school is organised in terms of infrastructure, teachers with no positive attitudes towards teaching and helping learners in their weaknesses may influence negatively the students’ performance. If a teacher rigorously attends to the students’ worries, he or she cares about the learners’ performance and encourages the learners learning process through positive and punctual feedback and enjoyable lessons, the learners may feel motivated to improve their failures.

As Richards (2011) contends, “training involves the development of a repertoire of teaching skills, acquired through observing experienced teachers and often through practice teaching in a controlled setting using activities such as micro-teaching or peer teaching” (p. 9). Good teaching, from a training perspective, is viewed as the mastery of a set of skills or competencies. Over time, experience is said to lead to the “development of routines that enable these kinds of skills to be performed fluently, automatically, and with less conscious thought and attention, enabling the teacher’s attention to focus on other dimensions of the lesson” (Tsui, 2009; Borg, 2006). The researcher, therefore, argues that teaching experience is crucial to English language teachers, because they become more familiar with language problems that students face in schools, hence their ability to find mechanisms for overcoming them.

Researchers such as Kanu (1996), Chau (1996), Myint (1999) and Darling-Hammond (1999) stress that the quality of education depends on the quality of the teacher or teacher trainers. Practically, researching teacher competence can be done from a variety of perspectives. “Like their students, teachers differ in terms of the knowledge, skills, aptitudes, attitudes, and values they bring to their classrooms, they also differ in their teaching experience” (Anderson, 1991, p.19). Furthermore, Hargreaves and Fullan 1992 (as cited in Passos, 2009, p. 75) reveal that “a good teacher can correct and adjust the curriculum and the syllabuses to a specific context, and to their pupils’ interests and motivation in order to achieve the goals defined by the Ministry of Education.”

Considering that it is not always possible to change the situations in which teachers work, the best way of inducing adaptation to a constantly changing context is to provide teachers with the appropriate knowledge and training to work out the course contents. One way of doing this is to equip the teachers with the knowledge and skills that will increase their ability to provide improved opportunities to learn for all their pupils. The

English language teacher training programme should increase a teacher’s self-confidence and expertise in handling different classroom situations, thereby responding to different learning styles and rates of pupils, different class sizes and settings. The teachers’ competence directly affects to some extent the learners’ performance either positively or negatively. It cannot be expected that a weak English language teacher with oral and teaching skills problems can help his or her learners develop the English language.

2.6 Chapter summary

This chapter has discussed the meaning of the concept quality in education, especially as applied to English language teaching. This has been done by highlighting eight main factors which influence quality of English language teacher trainees to enable them become competent teachers by the time they graduate from the training programme. This point was complemented by a discussion of three factors which can foster quality in training primary school English language teachers in Zambézia Province. Finally, the chapter has discussed challenges for foreign English language teacher education programmes, with emphasis on English as a foreign language in Mozambique, English language policy, lack of English language skills and competence, and quality of teacher training. Having done this, the next chapter discusses the benchmarking and theoretical framework employed for the study.

Chapter 3 Benchmarking and theoretical framework

3.1 Chapter overview

This chapter discusses the benchmarking and the theoretical framework that was used in this study. The study was guided by two frameworks, namely Quality Indicators for Teacher Education, and Communicative Competence theoretical framework by Canale and Swain (1980). The former was used to examine the quality of the English language teacher training programme while the latter was applied to analyse the extent to which teacher trainees in Zambezia colleges become competent in English language teaching and learning in a context where English is taught and learnt as a foreign language.

3.2 NAAC and COL benchmarking framework

The NAAC and COL benchmarking is from India and Canada titled Quality Indicators for Teacher Education (2007). This framework was designed with the purpose of examining teacher education programmes and it has successfully been used by some countries such as India, Nigeria, Ghana, Namibia and Uganda. The benchmarking framework has the following key areas: curriculum design and planning, curriculum transaction and evaluation, research development and extension, infrastructure and learning resources, student support and progression, and organisation and management.

Thus, upon establishing the need to examining the quality of the English language teacher training programme in Zambézia Province, the researcher adapted and defined eight dimensions to guide the study as presented in Table 2.

Table 2: Summary of the factors examined for the English language teacher training programme adapted from NAAC and COL Quality Indicators for Teacher Education Benchmarking (2007)

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Rani (2016, p. 140) asserts that “quality is a matter of perception, it is attainable, measured inferentially and is applicable to the system and its part”. Among the six dimensions, the researcher purposely excluded one of the components, namely, research, development and extension. This is because the colleges did not have any content related to research and extension in their training programmes that would enable teacher trainers or college administrators to conduct research on the performance of teachers in primary schools. Ironically, however, the component could help English language teacher trainers and college administrators to find out about how the success or failure of the training strategies.

Each key factor presented in the table shows on the right-hand column elements, which were covered for the analysis. For example, for knowledge of English and English language teaching, the examined aspects were: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic competences, and teaching methodologies. In addition to the benchmarking framework, communicative competence theoretical framework from Canale and Swain (1980), which derived from Hymes (1972), was used to analyse the English language teaching and learning process through lesson observation to examine the teacher trainees and teacher trainers’ English language and teaching competence.

3.3 Communicative Competence theoretical framework

The theory of Communicative Competence was used to guide this study especially to analyse, examine, and discuss English language teacher trainees’ competences which impact on the quality of the training programme. Canale and Swain (1980) explain that

Hymes, a sociolinguist and ethnographer is the proponent of communicative competence as opposed to Chomsky’s view on linguistic performance. Scarcella, Andersen and Krashen (1990) as cited in Mustadi, (2012, p. 14) observe that “for Hymes, the ability to speak competently not only entails knowing the grammatical rules of a language, but also knowing what to say to whom in what circumstances and how to say it” (p.14). Hymes (1977) points out that “underlying the diversity of speech within communities and in the conduct of individuals are systematic relations, relations that just as social and grammatical structure, can be the object of qualitative enquiry” (p. 29).

While the framework from Hymes (1972) is used under the sociolinguistics’ perspectives through the analysis of linguistics and context where English language is used as second or foreign language, the developed framework from Canale and Swain (1980), and Canale (1983) is more adequate to the teaching and learning of English as second and foreign language classroom context. Mustadi (2012) describes four categories of competence based on Canale and Swain (1980, 1983) framework, namely,grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence.Grammatical competence reflects “knowledge of the linguistic code itself and includes knowledge of vocabulary and rules of word formation, pronunciation, spelling, and sentence formation” (p. 16). It means the acquisition of phonological rules, morphological rules, syntactic rules, semantic rules and lexical items. Today, it is usually called linguistic competence and the view is shared by Hymes (1977), the proponent of Communicative Competence, who explains that “one speaks normally of the English language, and of the dialects of English, whenever forms of speech are found whose content, or resources are basically derived from the line of linguistics tradition called English” (, p. 48).

Sociolinguistic competence is the second dimension within Canale and Swain’s framework. Sociolinguistic competence refers to the learning of pragmatic aspects of various speech acts, namely, the cultural values, norms, and other socio-cultural conventions in social contexts. These include the context and topic of a discourse, the participants’ social status, sex, and age, and other factors which influence the styles and registers of speech. Since different situations call for different types of expressions as well as different beliefs, views, values, and attitudes, the development of sociolinguistic competence is essential for communicative social actions (Mustadi, 2012, p.16).

Unlike the two competences described above,discourse competence,involves mastery of how to combine grammatical forms and meanings to achieve a unified written text in different genres such as narratives, argumentative essays, scientific reports, business letters, and so on. Discourse competence is the knowledge of rules regarding the cohesion and coherence, appropriate combination of communicative functions of various types of discourse, (Mustadi, 2012, p.16).

Apart from the elements described above, the last element within the communicative competence is the strategic competencewhich has to do with the knowledge of verbal and non-verbal strategies to compensate some failures characterising communication breakdown such as recognising discourse structures, activating background knowledge, contextual guessing, and tolerating ambiguity, (Mustadi, 2012, p.16). Therefore, English language teacher trainees equipped with communicative competence need to have knowledge, skills, attitudes, meta-cognition and strategic thinking ability towards English language oral skills, teaching abilities, and competences to act professionally. This, in turn, contributes significantly to their quality of communicative and teaching competences.

Canale and Swain (1980) define communicative competence as “the underlying systems of knowledge and skill required for communication” (Canale, 1983, p. 05). Canale and Swain (1980) proposed a theoretical framework in which they outline the contents and boundaries of three areas of communicative competence; grammatical, sociolinguistic, and strategic competences. Sociolinguistic competence was further divided by Canale (1983) into two separate components; sociolinguistic and discourse competence. Thus, it is worth noting that while Hymes’ theory was under the sociolinguistic approach, Canale and Swain’s framework has been used under the teaching and learning perspective. Furthermore, what is intriguing about their framework of communicative competence is that even the aspects of skills that are needed to employ the knowledge are now assumed to be part of one’s competence to use in daily and social life. As Hymes (1977, p. 31) observes, “a general theory of the interaction of language and social life must encompass the multiple relations between linguistic means and social meaning”.

Thus, the researcher recognises that English language teachers trained in Zambezia colleges need to be fluent in communication in both receptive and productive skills to attain communicative and teaching competences. Furthermore, the researcher adopted the framework and added one more element apart from the four components. Thus, four communication skills, namely listening, speaking, reading and writing were added based on teaching competence to generate feasible findings for the benefit of this study.

3.4 Historical application of communicative competence

Sun (2014) notices that “Hymes’ attention to communicative competence inspired a number of models of such competence, the two world famous follow-up studies between 1980 and 1990 were conducted by Canale and Swain (1980) and Bachman (1990)” (p. 1063). Sun (2014) further asserts that “a similar theoretical framework for communicative competence was developed by Bachman (1988, 1990) and Bachman and Palmer (1982, 1996)” (p. 1063). In their 1996 model of communicative ability, Bachman and Palmer distinguished three components, namely organisational knowledge, pragmatic knowledge, and strategic competence. Apart from the aforementioned scholars, Widdowson (1983), Stern (1983), Bachman (1990) and the Council of Europe (2001) model have been guided by the communicative competence theory. The Council of Europe’s framework include the following competences: language, pragmatic, sociolinguistic, discourse and functional competence. According to Tarvin (2015, p.4) Canale and Swain’s (1980) use this definition to provide guidelines on for developing communicative course syllabi, that grammar and sociolinguistics features must not only be included in second language coursework but also that both must be assessed. This is in sharp contrast to the grammar-centred syllabi found in most coursework by Canale and Swain (1980). The frameworks derived from Hymes (1972), Canale and Swain (1980), and Swain (1983) in this thesis are sequentially presented in figures 1 and 2.

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Figure 1: Hymes (1972), and Canale and Swain (1980) frameworks

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Figure 2: Canale (1983), and author’s (2020) frameworks.

Some English language scholars have used communicative competence theoretical framework to guide their studies. These scholars include Sun (2014), Mustadi (2012), Rickheit and Strohner (2008), and LLurda (2000). Tuan (2017) stresses that:

The adoption of the communication-oriented foreign language teaching, popularly known as Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), in English classrooms has been repeatedly stressed by SLA researchers, and indeed, there have been many studies attempting to determine its effects on L2 learners (Breen and Candlin, 1980; Canale 1983; Canale and Swain, 1980; Fillmore, 1979; Kasper and Rose, 2002; O’Malley and Chamot, 1990; Oxford, 1990; Swain, 1985; Skehan, 1995; Tarone and Yule, 1989; Widdowson, 1978), (p.108).

The main purpose of a language is to conveniently communicate with other speakers of the same language and convey sound and beautiful speech. In this regard, the communicative competence plays a relevant role in English language learning, teaching and training. Therefore, two crucial aspects need to be underlined; the fact the communicative language teaching activities can provide teacher trainees oral practice and the fact that the purpose of learning a language is basically for communication. Bagaric & Djigunovic (2007) argue that:

In the model of Canale and Swain, strategic competence is composed of knowledge of verbal and non-verbal communication strategies that are recalled to compensate for breakdowns in communication due to insufficient competence in one or more components of communicative competence. These strategies include paraphrase, circumlocution, repetition, reluctance, avoidance of words, structures or themes, guessing, changes of register and style, modifications of messages etc (p.97).

Reinforcing the need for training English language teachers to express themselves competently as professionals will contribute to the quality of the teachers and to successful teaching in Zambézia’s primary schools and in Mozambique’s schools in general. In order to successfully achieve communicative competence, it is important to consider two elements, namely fluency and accuracy in English language production. The two mean producing correct sentences and addressing speeches conveniently, which is important for language teachers. Regarding teaching English as a foreign language, it is expected that teacher trainees get profound knowledge of English language as social value to share with others within their social group different aspects of a language, which are learnt in general without categorising or considering areas or fields for deep and wide study. Thus, training goes beyond learning in that it involves acquisition of skills, competences and professionalism.

In other words, an English language teacher training programme should be developed by preparing teacher trainees with communicative competence, language teaching approaches employing oral methods through debates, improvised dialogues, role-plays, and all oral activities. Johnson (1992b) identifies “students’ understanding, students’ motivation and involvement, instructional management, curriculum integration, subject matter content, student’s language skills and ability and student’s effective needs” (p. 127) as reasons for interactive decisions. Indeed, looking at the profession of an English language teacher in a Mozambican context, the introduction of English in the schools is, among many other reasons, justified for the purpose of communicating with foreigners as well as for the sake of globalisation both of which require the application of teaching approaches and methods to meet learning goals.

Heyworth (2013) observes that:

a competency framework for teachers is a tool to enable classroom teachers to reflect on their professional effectiveness, to determine and prioritise areas for professional growth, to identify professional learning opportunities and to assist their personal and career development planning (p. 288).

The communicative competence theory plays an important role in ensuring quality of English language teacher training process. For many reasons, if by the end of a teacher training programme English language teachers are equipped with communicative competence and communicative language teaching approaches, they can help their learners perform well in English classes. Savignon 2002 (as cited in Savignon, 1997, p. 3) uses the term communicative competence to characterise the ability of classroom language learners to interact with other speakers, to make meaning, as a distinct thing from their ability to recite dialogues or perform on discrete-point tests of grammatical knowledge. Therefore, Munby (1978, p. 95) suggests the following alternatives: “(i) specification of syllabus content by focusing on micro-skills. (ii) specification by focusing on micro-functions (iii) specification by focusing on linguistic forms.” Whereas, Littlewood (2013, p. 07) maintains that “CLT may continue to provide a conceptual framework centred on the need (a) to orient our teaching towards learners’ communicative goals and (b) to design meaningful experiences which lead towards these goals". For Littlewood (2013) it is in this spirit that many teachers and teacher-educators now put the emphasis not on adopting CLT but on adapting it to suit the context where English is taught.

In the context of Zambezia Province, English language teachers trained at the primary school Teacher Training Colleges find communicative language teaching a challenge. They find it easy to apply the approaches used in Portuguese language which are in some ways incompatible to those of English, bearing in mind that English must be taught as a foreign language. The foregoing analysis is silent about the quality of such teachers and a gap characterising their communicative competence. Thus, it is important to observe that communicative competence must be emphasised within communicative language teaching approaches, with many language activities, such as: listening, reading, speaking and writing tasks leading to oral and teaching performance.

To the four components, which are usually emphasised, namely, linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence, the researcher added one element to suit the theoretical framework of the context of the study. The fifth element was teaching competence through mastery of the four major language skills, namely, listening, speaking, reading and writing to ensure a match with the environment where the teacher trainees not only learn the English language but also learn and acquire skills and competences to become competent in English as foreign language teachers.

3.5 Chapter summary

This chapter has discussed two essential elements that guided the study to generate accurate and credible data. Benchmarking was used to examine the primary schools English language teacher training programme in Zambézia colleges. The communicative competence theoretical framework was used to examine the extent to which teacher trainees in the 10+1 model in Zambézia colleges in 2017 were competent in English language communication and teaching competences. This was done through direct observations in micro-teaching sessions, interaction during break times, and through statements from the interviews conducted with teacher trainers, teacher trainees and graduate English language teachers trained in the three colleges. Regarding benchmarking, eight components were examined while concerning the theoretical framework linguistic competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence and strategic competence were the components, which were analysed for further implications. While the chosen theoretical framework has four components, the researcher added to it one component, namely communication skills of listening, speaking, reading and writing in order to make it more practical to the study context.

Chapter 4 Methodology

4.1. Chapter overview

This chapter presents the research design and methodology used in this study and justifies the study’s research approach, the data generation methods and tools. Furthermore, it describes the study’s sample, and how it was obtained. Similarly, it describes data analysis procedures used for generating research results. Ethical issues which were considered during the research, are also explained in the chapter. The last section of the chapter presents ways used to ensure credibility and trustworthiness of the study and limitations of the study

4.2 Research design and approach

In this section, the author describes how the study was conducted in terms of research design and approach.

4.2.1 The qualitative research design and approach

“Qualitative researchers are interested in understanding the meaning people have constructed, that is, how people make sense of their world and the experiences they have in the world” (Merriam, 2009, p. 13). According to Richardson, Peres, Wanderly, Correia and Peres (2010), “qualitative research, apart from being an option from the researcher is justified by being an adequate means to understand the nature of a social phenomenon” (p. 79). This study adopted the qualitative approach because it was explorative one with the goal to understand phenomena around the quality of primary school English language teachers trained at the three colleges in Zambezia Province. Richardson, Peres, Wanderly, Correia and Peres (2010) affirm that studies which employ a research design, may describe the complexity of a given problem by analysing the interaction of some variables, and by classifying the dynamic processes shared by social groups.

Blaxter, Hughes and Tight (2006) argue that the purpose of a study can be exploratory, descriptive or explanatory and that generalisations from case studies must be handled with care. In terms of research design, this study used multiple exploratory and comparative case study design, from which the researcher identified and described factors that influence training quality at the three colleges in a single province and in a single English language teacher training programme.

4.2.2 Exploratory research case studies

This study was exploratory and comparative based on participant’s practices in the three colleges. However, the researcher also analysed documents to verify the feasibility and practicality of the study, its weaknesses and strengths, and how they were translated by teacher trainers in the colleges. Blaxter, Hughes and Tight (2006) explain that the number of cases can be single or multiple. Therefore, for this study, the researcher relied on multiple exploratory case studies based on three Teacher Training Colleges.

4.3 Population and sampling areas

Marconi and Lakatos (2010) define the concept as “any subset of the universal set or population.” The number of teacher training colleges where English language teachers were being trained during the study period in Zambezia Province was three, namely, TTC A, TTC B and TTC C. These were the research sites and were thus purposively sampled based on the choice of the nature of the target population. In TTC A there were 38 English language teacher trainees in class A, and 37 in class B. In TTC B, there were 38 English language teacher trainees, whereas in TTC C there were 31 teacher trainees. For the English language teacher trainers, TTC A had four teacher trainers, while TTC B TTC C had two teachers each. TTC A had two classes in the year 2017, whereas in TTCs B and C had one class each. Thus, the total number of English language teacher trainers in the three colleges was 8 while for teacher trainees was 144, corresponding to the target population group. Table 3 summarises the target population and the sampling.

Table 3: Summary of the target population in sample areas and its sampling

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4.3.1 Sampling procedure

Participants for the study were identified using non-probability sampling based on purposive selection of participants considering the participants’ openness, and need to involve active teacher trainees who could speak and provide information. Richardson, Peres, Wanderly, Correia, and Peres (2010) argue that “the intentional or rational selection samples are the elements that make up the sample and are related intentionally according to certain characteristics set out in the plan and the assumptions made by the researcher” (p.161). Thus, the intentional sample is presented as representative of the universe.

The study recruited four male teacher trainees and four female teacher trainees in both TTC B and TTC C, creating a total of 16 teacher trainees. TTC A had two classes, and eight teacher trainees were selected from each class; four male teacher trainees and four female teacher trainees totalling 16 teacher trainees. For the teacher trainers’ interview, the researcher interacted with the eight teacher trainers. This was a non-probability and intentional or purposive sample selection, in which the subjects were selected taking into account the area of training and their ability to provide the needed data. Furthermore, all the teacher trainers had priority for the interview as they were aware of different teaching and teacher training experiences.

For the sake of triangulating data, a third group of participants was included in the interviews. These were the English language teachers trained in the same institutions but working in schools close to the TTCs. For this reason, there were eight English language teachers interviewed that is three English language teacher trainers in each of the two districts, where TTC B and TTC C are based, and two English language teachers trained in TTC A. These teachers had more than four years of English language teaching experience considering that they were either trained in 2012 or earlier. For the sake of gender balance, the researcher recruited four female English language teachers and four male English language teachers. Gender balance was an important component to value through both men the women’s voices. The issue of gender balance was taken into account because, both men and women had similar English language intervention’s capacity and abilities in the classroom. Thus, the active teacher trainees were chosen to participate in the interviews.

4.4 Data generation methods and tools

Lynch (1996) explains that, once the data have been collected, one needs to approach their analysis and interpretation with the same systematicity and thoroughness required to gather them. To generate data in this study, the researcher used four different methods or techniques, namely individual in-depths interviews, Focus Group Discussion (FGD), observation and document analysis. It was also important for the researcher to go into the field to find out about what really was happening and to build a good relationship with participants.

4.4.1 In-depths interviews

According to Blaxter, Hughes and Tight (2006, p. 172), “the interview method involves questioning or discussing issues with people. It can be a very useful technique for collecting data, which would likely not be accessible using techniques such as observation or questionnaires.” Similarly, Bell (2005) states that:

One major advantage of the interview is its adaptability. A skilful interviewer can follow up ideas, probe responses and investigate motives and feelings, which the questionnaire can never do. The way in which a response is made, the tone of voice, facial expression, hesitation, etc. can provide information that a written response would conceal (p.157).

Using the interview guide instrument, the researcher interacted with individual English language teacher trainers, teacher trainees, and English language teachers trained in the three colleges from 2008 to 2012, meaning that they had four years working experience. This is was enough teaching experience to enable the researcher to compare what they had learnt in teacher training colleges with their practical experiences in real teaching contexts, and how effective their training was when looking at the teacher trainers’ competences, the syllabus, the material used during the training and the learning activities. The study interviewed eight teacher trainers; four teacher trainers from TTC A, two teacher trainers from TTC B, and two teacher trainers from TTC C. Similarly, eight graduate English language teachers participated in the interviews. Two of these teacher trainers were trained at TTC A, three at TTC B, and another three at TTC C, creating a total of 16 in-depth interviews.

The interviews for teacher trainers lasted between thirty-eight minutes and three seconds to forty-three and eight seconds. At TTC A, interview with TT1 lasted for forty minutes and three seconds, interview with TT2 lasted for forty-three minutes and eight seconds, interview with TT3 lasted for forty minutes and forty seconds, interview with TT4 lasted for forty-one minutes and fifty-six. At TTC B, interview with TT1 lasted for thirty-eight minutes and three seconds and interview with TT2 lasted for forty-three minutes and two seconds. Whereas at TTC C interview with TT1 lasted for forty minutes and eight seconds and interview with TT2 lasted for forty-two minutes, forty seconds. FGD with teacher trainees lasted between forty-five minutes and eight seconds to one hour nine minutes and five seconds. At TTC A Interview with FGD1 lasted for fifty-four minutes and fifty seconds, whereas the interview with FGD2 lasted for one hour, nine minutes and five seconds. At TTC B interview with FGD1 lasted for forty-five minutes and eight seconds, while at TTC C interview with FGD1 lasted for fifty-eight minutes and fifty- nine minutes. The variation of the time was due to personality factors, this is because some interviewees spoke more than others. The last interviewees also were providing similar responses in relation the first ones, and this led the researcher not asking probing questions.

For graduate English language teachers, interviews lasted between twenty-nine minutes and forty-nine seconds to thirty-six minutes and thirteen seconds. Interview with GELT1 lasted for thirty-three minutes and five seconds, interview with teacher GELT2 lasted for thirty-one minutes and forty-six seconds, interview with GELT3 lasted for thirty minutes and thirteen seconds, interview with GELT4 lasted for twenty-nine minutes and forty- nine seconds, interview with GELT5 lasted for thirty-four minutes and ten seconds, interview with GELT6 lasted for thirty-five minutes and twenty-seven minutes, interview with GELT7 lasted for thirty minutes and eighteen seconds and interview with GELT8 lasted for thirty-four minutes and eight seconds.

With in-depth interviews, the researcher intended to generate from respondents, data regarding experiences and views regarding the quality of training considering the training period, teaching and learning material used in different activities, and activities which fostered teacher trainees’ communicative and teaching competences.

The interview method enabled the researcher to include in the interviews open-ended questions, which enabled him to generate data regarding respondents’ opinions, perceptions and to obtain more detailed information. The interviews were recorded using a voice recorder but the researcher also used a notebook to register the preliminary data and important and critical issues for him to be able to remember them when transcribing themes and coding transcripts. Lynch (1996, p.133) acknowledges that “it is usually a good idea to take notes even if you are recording the interview, to remind yourself of important issues that are raised, to provide an outlineand to act as a partial backup in case there are recording difficulties”. The author further contends that, “whether the interview is group or one-on-one, structured or unstructured, the aim of gathering naturalistic interview data is to arrive at the participants’ perspective on the programin their own words”. (Lynch, 1996, p.131).

The researcher used recordings and interview guide sheet to take notes to avoid missing information. The interviews were targeted at three distinguished groups; English language teacher trainers, teacher trainees, and English language teachers working in primary schools after attending the three colleges. The interviews were characterised by some challenges. For example, teacher trainers and graduate English language teachers were too open in providing information concerning negative aspects and sometimes positive aspects. Therefore, the researcher made deliberate effort to ensure that he did not show facial expressions or speech in a manner that could discourage them from providing information openly. Marconi and Lakatos (2010) argue that “the interviewer is free to develop each situation whatever he or she deems appropriate. This is a means to explore an issue more widely. In general, the questions are open and can be answered within a casual conversation” (p. 180).

4.4.2 Focus Group Discussion

In qualitative research, according to Creswell (2009), the researcher conducts face-to-face interviews with participants, interviews participants by telephone, or engages in focus group interviews, with six to eight interviewees in each group. These interviews involve unstructured and generally open-ended questions that are few in number and intended to elicit views and opinions from the participants. For Focus Group Discussions, the author was guide by semi-structured questions. According to Denscombe (2003, p.169), “focus groups consist of a small group of people, usually between six and nine in number, who are brought together by a trained „moderator’, the researcher to explore attitudes and perceptions, feelings and ideas about a topic”.

For this study the researcher had four Focus Group Discussions: two FGDs at TTC A, one FGD at TTC B, and one FGD at TTC C. Each group of FGD consisted of eight participants, four male teacher trainees and four female teacher trainees. At TTC A, one FGD took fifty-five and thirty seconds, whereas the other FGD took fifty-one minutes and four seconds. At TTC B, the interview with teacher trainees took forty-nine minutes and fifty seconds, whereas in TTC C, the interview with teacher trainees took fifty-nine minutes and thirty seconds. A challenge occurred with one Focus Group Discussion at TTC A. The English language teacher trainees were hesitating to provide details which affected negatively the training programme. They were afraid of the teacher trainers and college managers. So, the researcher clarified the reasons for conducting the interviews and research which had to do with academic purposes. Furthermore, the researcher explained to the English language teacher trainees that the results were for the benefit of the teacher trainers, the teacher training colleges, the Ministry of Education and curriculum designers for it would inform the review of curriculum. As result, teacher trainees felt free to express themselves.

4.4.3 Observation

Lynch (1996, p.121) states that “true non-participant observation may occur only in the case of someone who observes from behind a one-way mirror, or someone who uses a videotape recording of a classroom for observation data without having been present for the recording”. The author further explains that “at one end of the continuum ispassive participant observation, in which the observer does not actively participate in the classroom interactions and does not have a role to play other than observer, (Lynch, 1996, p.121). For lesson observation in this study, the researcher used non-participant observer position to record and take note of what occurred during the lessons in the three Teacher Training Colleges without obtruding or intervening. The non-participant position allowed the researcher to be more focused, select and gather very relevant data for analysis and discussion done in Chapter 5.

Using observation guide sheet and checklist, (see appendix4) the researcher generated data related to the following aspects, the lessons procedures during the training process, the teacher trainees and teacher trainers’ attitudes towards language learning, and the level of participation by the teacher trainees in lessons. Additionally, through a notebook, the researcher also verified the English Departments organisation and the existing material, the sources in the libraries, computer rooms and their relevance. The observed aspects helped the researcher to analyse and make conclusions on how such aspects affected the quality of the English language teacher trainees and their communicative and teaching competence.

Patton and Cochran (2002) assert that “to understand fully the complexities of many situations, direct participation in, and observation of the phenomenon of interest may be the best research method. The data collected must be descriptive so that the reader can understand what happened and how it happened” (20). Observation is one of the data generation methods which helped the researcher to understand how the teacher trainers and trainees perform during the lessons as a means to collect factual data to support the information gathered through other techniques. The generated data through observation is helpful to understand how the participants interact or react towards their training and teaching activities.

For TTC B and TTC C, there were only two English language teacher trainers in each college, so six lessons were observed in each college which means three lessons were observed for each teacher trainer and in total there were twelve lessons observed in two colleges. In TTC A, there were two classes with four English language teacher trainers, twelve lessons were observed which means by the end of lesson observations in the three colleges a total number of twenty-four lessons were observed. The lesson observations were made and recorded over a period of six weeks. In TTC A, TT1 was observed three times: a double lesson of 50 minutes each and two different single lessons; TT2 was observed twice and the lessons lasted 100 minutes each; TT3 was observed three times: a double lesson of 50 minutes each and two different single lessons; TT4 was also observed three times: two different single lessons and a double lesson of fifty minutes each.

In TTC B, the researcher observed three lessons from TT1: a double lesson and two different single lessons, whereas for TT2, the researcher observed two double lessons of 100 minutes for each day. In TTC C, the researcher observed three lessons for TT1: two different single lessons and a double lesson. Similarly, for TT2 the researcher observed three lessons for TT1: two different single lessons and a double lesson. This study therefore used multiple methods and data source for its analysis and final conclusions, so that results generated from the study would be credible and trustful. The researcher took notes during lesson observation period through the observation guides, see appendix 7a. He also ticked in the check lists the aspects already structured for observations and he audio recorded some activities during the lessons. The researcher first got into the classes for introduction and the following days he got into the classes to observe and make recordings. Thus, English language teacher trainees were told in advance about the observations so that they behaved naturally, and the data were therefore not affected. During the lesson observations, the researcher faced some challenges: two teacher trainers at TTC A did not teach the first two weeks of lesson observation. So, the researcher had to observe the lesson in the third week, a thing which led the researcher to observe lessons at TTC B and TTC A within the same week. Another challenge was that, writing lessons were not delivered at TTC A during the research period. The fact that only one writing lesson was observed during the research period, it did not help the researcher to bring credible information of how writing lessons were put into practice in the classroom in the three colleges, for further analysis and improvement.

4.4.4 Document analysis

According to Rummel (1981, p. 152), in document research, “the document analyses deal with records that already exist and such analyses assume major importance in educational research, as part of the curriculum development, in which a researcher can make a survey of what is happening or what happened.” Lynch (1996, p.134) claims that “relevant documents include program brochures, official press releases, articles concerning the curriculum descriptions, policy statements, memoranda, charts and correspondence”.

The researcher analysed documents which were directly related to the English language teacher training programme at the Zambezia colleges. The purpose of the analysis was to verify how effectively most of the regulations and goals were put into practice at the colleges and in the classroom by the teacher trainers and teacher trainees. This research included the analysis of the following documents: The Teacher Training Curriculum plan for Basic Education, Strategic Plan for Education and Culture 2006 - 2011, Strategic Plan for Education 2012-2016, Primary School English Curriculum, syllabi, schemes of work and lesson plans. Ludke and Andrew (1986) argue that “the document analysis can be a valuable technique of qualitative data approach which is supplemented by information obtained by other techniques by revealing new aspects of an issue or problem” (p. 38).

The documents aforementioned so far were useful for the observation and analysis of the contents and English language teacher training procedures to draw effective conclusions. The researcher verified how such documents were translated into practice and how effective they were in terms of implementation and consequently, the researcher analysed the extent to which they affected the quality and competence of the teacher trainees and the training process as a whole. Document analysis guides and check lists were structured to help the researcher take and make notes.

The researcher faced some challenges with document analysis. For example, at TTC B lesson plans, schemes of work had glaring language difficulties. The researcher had to read over and over again to understand some sentences and at times he had to find out from the teacher trainers the meaning of some sentences. In all TTCs, the content of speaking and listening practice was the same and it was tiresome for teacher trainers and teacher trainees to deal with the same content. Finding it worthwhile to have explanation of this challenge, the researcher had informal interview with technicians from Provincial Directorate of Education and they assumed to be a mistake from the curriculum designers at the Ministry of Education. Although, the Strategic Plans for Education 2006 - 2011, and 2012-2016 reinforce the need for quality education, they do not provide actions to the equip English language teacher trainees with strong English language proficiency and teaching competences. This factor created a limitation to the researcher to analyse plans that would have been stated in the plan and the actual actions. So, the researcher had to rely on the strategies suggested in teacher training programme and the activities performed in the classroom. Another point worth mentioning is that during the document analysis, the researcher had some queries, which would not have immediate answers. Thus, the researcher noted and kept the questions to ask teacher trainers and technicians from the Provincial Directorate of Education in Zambezia Province.

4.5 Data management

With regard to data management, Lynch (1996) maintains that, “at this stage, the evaluator needs to read through the entire data using the thematic framework as a guide but being alert to new themes, patterns, and examples in the data” (p.142). The same author further explains that:

although some data reduction is accomplished during the coding stage, the evaluator now needs to reduce the data further by using classification schemes such as category systems, typologies, and display matrices. The creation of a category system flows naturally from the preliminary thematic framework, the modified thematic framework, and coding, Lynch (1996, p. 14).

Data derived from documentary analyses note taking, observation analyses guide sheet and checklist, and information retrieved from the interview sheets with teacher trainers, teacher trainees and in-service teachers trained in the same colleges were stored in folders and CDs and the researcher made use of them to compose the final report. Several documents were named and saved in computer files. The documents and files were labelled so that the author should easily locate them. For example, „interviews’ was a file name in which three files regarding information obtained from different groups were documented. File one, contained interviews related to teacher trainers. In file two, it contained data generated from the teacher trainees and file three contained information gathered from eight graduate English language teachers working in primary schools who were trained in the same colleges and in different files within the main file, there were different documents.

Data were first transcribed from the interview. The researcher transcribed all the transcripts from the audio recording with the three groups: teacher trainees, teacher trainers and graduate English language teachers. This process took 24 days, from 7th October to 1st November, 2017. Next, the researcher read the transcripts over and over again to grasp the most important and relevant findings so that he could examine the transcripts in order to make sense and devise thematic analysis with repeated patterns of meaning. Afterwards, he coded the transcripts taking into account the interviwees’ responses. After that, he selected participants and grouped together with the same code in phrases and sentences to make sense of the finding. Lynch (1996) contends that “The data need to be systematized in some way, so that the evaluator knows where everything is. This system may reflect the data-gathering techniques, for example, putting all the observational data in one file, all the interview data in another file”, (p. 141).

Documents also had appropriate names for easy identification, for example, TT1 - TTC C which stands for Teacher Trainer 1 from TTC C. Like the interviews, the observations were also kept in files and documents. Another example was that file with the label „observations’ in which it contained different files and different documents coded accordingly. For example, „TTC B observations’ was a file name in which was saved observations results in dates and ranked in cardinal numbers derived from TTC B observations. Each information was saved in a Compact Disk, a flash and sent to the researcher’s email account for a better guaranty.

Interviews and observations were sequenced and dated accordingly, for easy access and use. Similarly, the most important and confidential information, documents were codified to avoid people using the same computer have access to the same documents and also to avoid hacks. For the data analyses, relevant data were transcribed and acknowledged by using appropriate labels of the respondents or observed lessons.

4.5.1 Data analysis procedures

Results from different participants were firstly presented in different tables and then they were analysed and discussed from different thematic categories. The researcher used inductive coding process by establishing close-to-data subthemes, next the researcher combined the codes into themes, and overarching themes through interactive categorisation and re-categorisation. Rossman and Rallis (2003, p. 270) affirm that “transcripts from interviews, field notes and related materials to be generated in the study are put into different groups to identify common themes and patterns.” Data analysis derived from information presented in different thematic categories were organised into tables, which the researcher designed on the research questions. The generated data as well as the respondents were coded to facilitate the readers understanding of the results and as a means to create confidence for ethical reasons and confidentiality of the respondents. For the interviews, the researcher used interview protocol to guide himself with the questions. The conclusions were drawn from different respondents by summarising into different thematic categories.

4.6 Ethical issues

Adler and Lerman (2003), in their theory of relational ethics observe that the researcher must actively care about the researched and their rights, in order to ensure that the research participants are not adversely affected in any way by the research or publication of its findings. For ethical issues, formal permission and informed consent, confidentiality, anonymity and justice were the aspects to consider before going to the colleges for data generation.

In respect of ethical issues, formal permission was given by the Education Provincial Directorate, Colleges Administrators and Primary Schools Managers, where the researcher interacted with primary school English language teachers trained in 2012 and before this year, (see appendices 16a, 16b, 17, 18 and 19). The researcher had letters of introduction fromUniversidadePedagôgica de Quelimanein Mozambique, his place of work. Additionally, the researcher had access to Code of Ethics for Research from Chancellor College University of Malawi, which was strictly obeyed and considered. A very important element when focusing on ethical aspects is the informed consent. Patton and Cochran (2002, p.5) maintain that “everyone who participates in your study should have freely consented to participation, without being coerced or unfairly pressurised”.

It was important and advisable to make participants of the research in the field aware about the study that was conducted before the researcher started generating data. The colleges’ managers and participants were informed on the reasons why the researcher wanted to conduct research, the importance of the participants’ involvement, the period of the study and necessary arrangements with the interviewees. It was important for the researcher to be patient and adhere to the institutions’ rules. For example, the researcher did not conduct interviews or discussions during the lessons period, but during the break time or at the end of the lessons in morning shifts. Fortunately, the researcher did not have cases in which participants wished to interrupt the conversation and proceed later. However, two teacher trainers at TTC A postponed the interviews for more than three times with genuine reasons. So, the researcher had to be patient to cope with these situations.

Another crucial element for ethical consideration wasconfidentialityandanonymityto respect the participants’ identity by keeping their anonymity and ensure that information they provided would not be identified with their names. Sapsford and Abbott (1996, p. 318) state that “confidentialityis a promise that one will not be identified or presented in identifiable form, whileanonymityis a promise that even the researcher will not be able to tell which responses came from which respondent.” Patton and Cochran (2002, p.5) argue that “it is essential to protect the identity of the person from whom you gather information.” Therefore, the researcher ensured that the participants’ names would not appear in the study but would be labeled accordingly in such way that nobody would be able to distinguish who provided particular information. Another important issue to underline is that, the college managers, teacher trainers, teacher trainees were asked to be taken pictures during the lessons, lesson simulations to include in the thesis for evidence.

4.7 Credibility and trustworthiness of the study

Gasson, (2004, p. 95) reinforces the need of “ensuring rigor in the research process and communicate to others that we have done so”. For Sandelowski (1993), trustworthiness in research, is a matter of persuasion whereby the scientist is viewed as having made the practices visible and therefore auditable. The strategies for ensuring credibility and trustworthiness in this study were: pilot study, peer review, participants’ quotes and triangulation of methods.

4.7.1 Pilot study

Concerning pilot study, Porta (2008) states that a pilot study is a small-scale test of the method and procedures to be used on a large scale. Further, Stevinson and Ernest (2000) claim that a major reason for conducting a pilot study is to determine initial data for the primary outcome measure in order to perform a sample size calculation for a larger trial. Pilot study was essential during research to verify, analyse and correct the weaker parts of the methods, instruments, questions and to see the effectiveness of the same methods, instruments and whether the questions were clearly structured and the participants would respond freely without hesitation for example.

The pilot study was done in a college that would not be part of the research sites, involving two Senior English language teachers, three graduate English language teachers trained in the same college and one focus group discussion composed of 6 members. The purpose of the study was to ensure that the data generation methods and instruments were effectively designed for later use and corrections. The pilot study allowed the researcher to check whether the questions elicited the answers and relevant information to be analysed and discussed during the data generation. Changes derived from pilot study included: number of questions from the interview guide sheets and number of graduate English language teachers involved in the study. Initially, the number of questions for the English language teacher trainees was 18, but after the pilot study the questions were reduced to 16, see appendix 2. Therefore, the researcher had to restructure the questions to provide straightforward answers with some probe questions, where there was a need.

For English language teacher trainers’ questions guide sheet, in the beginning it had 15 questions. After the pilot study, the number of questions remained the same as teacher trainers did not face problems in providing accurate data for the study. However, during the interview with teacher trainers for the real study and not from the pilot study, the researcher noted that some teacher trainers limited themselves in providing similar answers for two different questions, questions 2 and 8. The researcher maintained the questions and cleared them up in cases where the interviewees gave similar answers.

In regards to the questions in the graduate English language teachers’ questions guide sheet, before the pilot study, the interview guide sheet had 17 questions. However, after the pilot study, two questions had to be removed as they produced similar answers. These were questions 1 and 11, 8 and 13. Therefore, after the pilot study, the researcher remained with 15 questions. These aspects benefitted the researcher to have a logical flow of questions, and thus avoiding repetitive questions to the respondents.

4.7.2. Peer review

Bordage and Caelleigh (2001) mention that, “the peer review process has long been the mechanism of ensuring high quality research in academia.” The peer review was also a strategy of ensuring the credibility and trustworthiness of the study and thesis quality. As Harnad (1982) contends, the „invisible hand’ of the peer review process is a labourintensive quality control and certification system. Verifying critical aspects and minor mistakes throughout the work was important so that readers and researchers found it worth exploring and reading for some benefits. The research proposal and parts of drafts of thesis were reviewed by a peer in Mozambique who went to secondary school together with the researcher, and did Bachelor’s and Honours Degree in Development Studies at Bugema University in Kampala-Uganda.

4.7.3 Direct quotations

Direct quotations were crucial for the researcher to report findings from respondents during the writing process, to bring evidence which at times associated with pictures or triangulated from two, three or four different respondents. Hancock (1998) asserts that “quotations should be used because they are good examples of what people have said specifically about the category being described” (p. 23). Data generated from research are presented in words, and emotional expressions are presented naturally for further discussion in chapter 5.

4.7.4 Triangulation

Triangulation in social science research refers to a process by which a researcher wants to verify a finding by showing that independent measures of it agree with or at least, do not contradict it (Miles and Huberman, 1994). What’s more, Miles and Huberman 1994 (as cited in Meijer, Verloop and Beijaard 2002) distinguished five kinds of triangulation in qualitative research:

Triangulation by data source (data collected from different persons, or at different times, or from different places); Triangulation by method (observation, interviews, documents, etc.); Triangulation by researcher (comparable to integrate reliability in quantitative methods); Triangulation by theory (using different theories, for example, to explain results); Triangulation by data type (e.g., combining quantitative and qualitative data), (p.146).

For the current study, the researcher used two types of triangulation,triangulation by data sourcewhich has to do with data generated from different groups of respondents, or at different times, or from different places, andtriangulation by method, which was based on interviews, lesson observations and document analysis.

Regardingtriangulation by data sourcethe researcher triangulated information from the following participants: English language teacher trainers from the three colleges, English language teacher trainees and graduate English language teachers working in primary schools trained in the three colleges with more than four years of teaching experience.

The triangulation process was done after a carefully reading of the transcripts from the participants’ responses. The researcher read and re-read transcripts to choose the ones which best explained and translated the answers to the questions raised during the interview. Additionally, to make the study more credible anothertriangulation by methodwas used. The researcher used three methods for data generation namely, observation, interviews and documentary analysis. Micro-teaching sessions, part of lessons was video recorded and photographed for further examination and generation of the research results. The lesson observation was a key element for confirming data provided by the respondents in the interviews and information contained in documents for English language teacher training process. Moreover, the interviewees responses constituted the foundations for the generation of the research results. During interview with participants, participants provided unexpected answers which enriched the researcher’s confidence and certainty of the flow of the research. As for document analysis, they were helpful during research to examine, validate, contradict or explain the reasons how and why some themes were translated into practice.

4.8 Limitations of the study

During the study period, the researcher faced some limitations which are presented in this section. The first limitation has to do with the background. The research sites did not have documents which state the year in which English was introduced in schools in Mozambique and its regulation. So, the researcher had to interact with English language teachers trained in the 1980s and technicians in the languages institute-Maputo and the

Ministry of Education to get general information on the introduction of English in Mozambique and Zambezia Province. The second limitation was that at the teacher training colleges, the researcher was not provided with tests and entrance examination copies for further analysis from the year the study was conducted. The other limitation had to do with the impossibility of interviewing college managers and administrators about the deficiencies of the entrance examination results that made candidates with low English background get into the teacher training programme. Teacher trainers and some teacher trainees were not satisfied with the criteria for the selection of the candidates due to the fact that in certain classes there were some teacher trainees who even with multiple choice examinations could not have succeeded, and some interviewees raised speculations that only the board of managers would be able to explain this in detail. To deal with this limitation, the researcher had informal interview with two technicians from the Provincial Directorate of Education who indicated that the option for multiple choice questions entrance examination is to minimise constraints with marking process, for the sake of fairness, ensuring that the examination papers are marked through a machine and not teacher trainers.

4.9 Chapter summary

The chapter has presented the design and methodology which helped the researcher generate data regarding the problem raised for this research. The qualitative approach was used in which data generation. Tools such as, interviews sheets, observation guide, and document analysis checklist were used. The target population and sample were described and discriminated accordingly to the field real situation. The researcher considered the ethical aspects by the confidentiality and anonymity of the responses from the respondents, letters of consent, and justice in presenting real data. For the sake of credibility and trustworthiness of the data generated from this study, four aspects were taken into practice, namely, pilot study, peer review, direct quotations and triangulation by both data source and method.

Chapter 5 Research findings and discussion

5.1 Chapter overview

This chapter presents and discusses study results from the three teacher training colleges. The purpose of this study was to examine the quality of English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Zambezia Province. The research intended to answer the following main research question:What is the quality of the English language teacher training programme for primary schools at the Teacher Training Colleges in Zambezia Province?From the main question, three specific questions were drawn.

(1)What factors affect the quality of English language teacher training courses in Zambezia’s colleges?
(2)What challenges do English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees face during the training process?
(3)How do the teacher trainers and teacher trainees cope with the challenges?

Similarly, the findings in this chapter are organised into three sections. The first section covers the general findings at the three teacher training colleges in line with factors which affect the quality of the English language teacher training courses and the programme as a whole. The second section is an account of challenges faced by English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees during the training process. Finally, the third section presents possible strategies that can be used to cope with the challenges.

5.2 General findings on the contexts of the three Teacher Training Colleges

This section describes the three sites where the research took place, namely the three Teacher Training Colleges. The three colleges are in Zambezia Province and they all train English language teachers for primary schools in Mozambique.

5.2.1 Teacher Training Colleges A, B and C

Teacher Training College A opened its doors in January 1997. Construction of the buildings began in 1994 with financial support from the African Development Bank. Figure1 is a picture of TTC A and teacher trainees.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Figure 3: Teacher Training College A and teacher trainees

Source: Photos taken by the researcher, 2017.

During its foundation years, TTC A operated with the 10 + 2 year training model¹². In the first year, the teaching activities took place in two-day shifts moderated by 12 teacher trainers, 1 female and 11 males. As regards to the management structure, TTC A had a Director, the Principal, a Deputy Director or Vice-Principal, an Administrator, an Assistant of the Deputy Director, a Deputy Director responsible for the hostels and a Head of the Administration. For each one of these members of the college directorate, there were personalised offices for all of them.

TTC A had four departments, namely Science Education, Communication and Social Sciences, Natural Sciences and Mathematics, and Technological Activities. The Department of Communication and Social Sciences had four offices, one for the Head of the Department, and the other three offices for assistants. However, there was only an office of Head of Department in each of the other three departments. Table 4 shows rooms available at TTC A.

Table 4: Summary of the number of rooms available in TTC A

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Source: Researcher’s field data, 2017.

In the year 2017, the teacher training college had four houses for the directorate staff and teacher trainers. The training college had 43 teacher trainers of which 27 were males and 16 were females. Out of the total number of teacher trainers, four were English language teacher trainers. Table 5 shows the numbers of teacher trainers by sex.

Table 5: Summary of the number of teacher trainers in TTC A

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Source: Researcher’s field data, 2017.

Table 6 is a summary of the number of the teacher trainees at Teacher Training College A in 2017 according to gender.

Table 6: Summary of the numbers of the teacher trainees in TTC A

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Teacher Training College B is located seven kilometres from the district centre.In 2017, the college had two blocks with a total of seven classrooms and a hostel with two blocks containing bedrooms and a cafeteria. The other facilities at the institution were a chapel, an annexed primary school, a computer room, a library, and a room for teacher trainers. In terms of the management structure, in 2017 the college had a Director, the Principal, a Deputy Director, a Deputy Administrative Director, a Deputy Director of the Upper Primary School attached to the Teacher Training College, an Assistant Director of the boarding school and the Head of the Administration. With regard to departments, there was a Department of Education, a Department of Communication and Social Sciences, a Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, a Department of Practical and Technological Activities, and a Department for In-Service Training. Figure 4 shows the main building containing the departments with teacher trainees and some classrooms.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Figure 4: Teacher Training College B main building and teacher trainees.

Source: Photos taken by the researcher, 2017.

A summary of the number of rooms, and offices at TTC B is shown in Table 7 below.

Table 7: Number of rooms and offices available in TTC B

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TTC B had nine houses for each of the board members and four houses for the teacher trainers. The college also had boarding facilities with capacity of 163 teacher trainees. With respect to the numbers of teacher trainers and trainees in 2017, the college had 446 teacher trainees for both regular and English language training programme monitored by 42 teacher trainers, nine female and thirty-three male. The English language teacher training programme was handled by two teacher trainers who hold Bachelor’s degrees with Honours qualification in English Language Teaching. Out of the total of 446 teacher trainees, the English language teacher training programme had 38 teacher trainees, of which 29 were male and 9 were female.

TTC C focused on the training of basic education teachers. It started its operations in March, 2007. As regards the management structure, the college had a Director (the Principal), a Deputy Director (the Vice-Principal), an Administrator, a Deputy Director of the Primary School attached to the Teacher Training College, a Deputy Director of the hostels and a Head of the Administration. There were five departments, namely Department of Education, Department of Communication and Social Sciences, Department of Natural Sciences and Mathematics, Department of Technological Activities and the Department for In-Service Training. Table 8 shows a summary of number of rooms at TTC C.

Table 8: Number of rooms available in TTC C

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TTC C had 11 houses for the directorate staff and teacher trainers. In the period 20172018, the training college had 26 teacher trainers of which two were English language teacher trainers. Table 9 summarises the number of the teacher trainees.

Table 9: Numbers of the teacher trainees in TTC C

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Figure 5 shows the teacher trainees and trainers for the English language teacher training

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Figure 5: Outside environment at TTC C in the basketball field and the yard programme at the TTC C campus.

Source: Photos taken by the researcher, 2017.

5.2.2 Teacher trainees’ enrolment and programme duration

In this section, the researcher discusses the trainees’ entrance level and enrolment into the training programme, staffing and programme duration.

a) Entrance level and enrolment

Most of the teacher trainees were those that had finished Grade 12 from secondary school level, and few had Grade 10 after five or seven years of English language learning as a subject in a context where the language is taught as a foreign language. Candidates with grade 10 were required to have an average of 12 marks out of 20 in their certificates. Once these candidates were enrolled, they had to sit for a multiple-choice written entrance examination plus oral examination prepared by the English language teacher trainers from the colleges. Only those with best and highest scores were selected to the English language teacher training programme in the TTCs.

b) Duration of the training programme

According to the MEC/INDE Training Curriculum for Primary Education (2006), “the English teacher training lasts for a year and aims to give the student teacher: knowledge, skills and attitudes that enable them act safely in teaching English language” (p. 19). The teacher trainees had two semesters corresponding to eight months of English language teacher training programme. For the English language teacher training, the programme lasts for a year and aims at offering future teachers with knowledge, capacities and attitudes that will enable them perform effectively in the English language classroom. This is specifically done to develop competences in the English language use and the use of the English language teaching methodologies (MEC/INDE, 2006).

5.2.3 Course syllabuses and content of the English language teacher training programme

The course syllabuses in the English language teacher training programme for primary schools are summarised in Table 10.

Table 10: The English Language Teacher Training Programme-10+1

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Having presented the curriculum plan, next are brief descriptions of the subject contents and their general objectives.

a) Psycho-pedagogy

At the end of the Psycho-pedagogy course, the English language teacher trainee is expected to understand the fundamental notions of the module itself, know the development processes and human learning, acquire knowledge about the Psychology of learning for driving the teaching and learning process adequately to the age of the pupils, their interests and context and select the teaching methods and teaching aids and materials which are adequate to the teaching and learning process.

b) School management and organisation

With School Management and Organisation, the expectation is that the teacher trainee should be able to:

- know the theoretical foundations on school organisation and management;
- recognise the importance of the leadership in school management, apply the school legislation;
- understand the philosophies, principles, strategies and innovations predetermined in the curriculum plan for primary education.

c) English language

The English language course is structured in four modules. The first module is composed of materials, which appear in grades seven and eight and the content of elementary level concerned with language use of grades eight, nine and ten. The programme suggests that each module contains a core course book and other material and during the training course, the teacher trainee has opportunity to practise activities such as songs, poems, stories, games which are necessary in the classroom soon after finishing the training programme.

Modules two, three and four make part of the English language subject. Module two is the reading subject and it covers a range of topics such as the role of the school for the community, elections, jobs and conditions of work, health and nutrition, foods and drinks, shopping, clothing, dress code, communication, means of transport, weather and climate, entertainment, supports and literacy totaling twelve units. The syllabus is structured bearing in mind that on completion of the module, a teacher trainee is expected to summarise information based on a text, argue in a coherent manner, give a simple description or presentation of people’s living or working conditions and daily routines as well as express feelings, emotions and gratitude. Furthermore, he or she is expected to find out and pass on factual information directions, obtain more detailed information, tell a simple story and use simple everyday polite form of greeting and address.

Module 3 focuses on two skill areas, namely, listening and speaking. Topics covered in this module are: education in Mozambique, the role of English in Mozambique, arts and crafts, customs and traditions, human rights, gender issues, poverty alleviation, agriculture and fishing, tourism and wildlife, environment, geographical pictures in Mozambique and holidays corresponding to twelve units. None of the three colleges had

Module 4 which focuses on writing. Teacher trainers had to improvise on what they considered necessary for teaching writing.

d) Methodology of English language

The English Language Teaching Methodology starts with content designated Module 1, which is delivered in the first semester. It has content related to language acquisition and learning with a focus on approaches and methods to second and foreign language learning. It also demands teacher trainees to have knowledge of the following aspects: organising a portfolio, how children learn a language and approaches and methods. Within these, is covered a range of topics such as Grammar Translation Method, Audio Lingual Method, Communicative Language Teaching, Natural Approach, and Total Physical Response. Other areas are: instructions and explanations, providing input, questioning and elicitation skills, nonverbal communication, using students’ knowledge, motivation and encouraging learners and interests. Content listed in the foregoing is covered in the first semester.

The English Language Teaching Methodology 2 as a designated course appears in the second semester with the following content: individual learning styles, settling activities and principles, schemes of work, lesson planning, teaching listening, teaching speaking, teaching reading, teaching writing, teaching vocabulary, teaching language use, assessment and setting up pair and group work corresponding to twelve units. Both content from Module 1, and English Language Teaching Methodology 2 had only one syllabus containing twenty-one units.

e) Teaching methodologies of code of conduct

The Teaching Methodologies of Code of Conduct is aimed at producing teachers who do not only have knowledge and competences in English language teaching but also a sense of humour to live and share teaching, learning and social practices with other teachers, students, members of the directorate staff and other colleagues. The Code of Conduct subject also ensures that teacher trainees should respect the symbols and organs of the state such as the flag, the National Anthem, the President of the Republic, and the Constitution of the Republic of Mozambique. The objectives of this specific training course for the future teacher are to develop strategies of teaching civics and moral values, to develop peace culture, democracy, justice and respect to the human rights, to promote knowledge and respect to the national symbols, sovereign organs, national and historical dates, and some of the international ones to understand that the human relations are determined by rights and duties that each should fulfill, to contribute to a specific resolution of the conflicts in the families, in schools, in the community and in the general society, and finally to educate the trainee to have love for one’s country, pride and respect to the culture and traditions of Mozambicans.

f) Bantu languages of Mozambique

One of the courses in the teacher training programme for primary schools is Bantu Languages. What is interesting is that in this course, the English language teacher trainees learn the elements of phonetics, phonology, morphology and syntax of the Bantu languages. Nonetheless, it would be of paramount importance if teacher trainees had the opportunity to deal with the same content in English language, which would help them understand and construct accurate sentences and improve their pronunciation.

5.3 Quality of English language teacher training programme: Influencing factors and strategies for improving quality

This section discusses the factors which affect the quality of the English language teacher training syllabuses and the programme as a whole. The factors are discussed under the following sub-themes: motivation of the English language teacher trainee to get into the programme, competences of the English language teachers in the 10+1 model, the gaps in the training programme, lack of teaching and learning materials in the library and English Department, and delivery of the English language lessons focused on nature of activities employed. Within the last sub-theme, activities include unclear strategies on treatment of written and spoken language errors and mistakes, more and less practised activities for communicative and teaching competences and the more or less practised skills. Table 11 summarises the assessment of the quality of the programme by the interviewees. The numbers in the column correspond to the number of the interviewees, who were either teacher trainers, FGDs or graduate English language teachers.

Table 11: Appreciation of the quality of the programme by the interviewees

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The assessment of the quality of the programme by most of the interviewees was that it was not good. Some candidates felt that the quality of the English language teacher training programme was unsatisfactory. There were some respondents, who, however, indicated that the quality was good, and others indicated that the quality as unsatisfactory. The interviewed teacher trainers and graduate teachers who completed the English language teacher training programme for primary schools between the years 2010 and 2012 reported that the quality of the training programme was not good. There were several reasons for lack of quality. Two teacher trainers singled out the quality of the trainees as a factor, which undermines the programme due to the lower levels of English language proficiency as it was argued by TT2 from TTC A:

The programme is not good, I would say that when the students are being admitted in this institution, they should select well, who really has capacity to be in this course because I myself I faced problems in first semester. When I’m [was] trying to explain matters related to English, some of them don’t hear anything of English, they don’t know some words in English so we try to group them in two-two or five-five in order to improve or maybe help them get information from one another., so that is the problem that I’m facing.[TT2 - TTC A - 21/08/2017]

In terms of the programme is not good, starting from the teacher trainees, we have the selection which starts from the entrance examination and the interview, so, from there, we are able to take the ones who we think that they meet all the requirements to attend the English Course. But, sometimes we get surprised with the examination results by the way that some candidates who did not meet all the requirements are included in the list of those who we have selected to attend the course. In terms of the content[s], no they are not ok, we have almost the same contents for Listening and Reading and that’s why we always have to find our own ways to get some extra contents in order to differentiate.[TT1 - TTC B - 01/09/2017]

While the teacher trainees’ background was questioned by teacher trainers due to lack of English language practice outside the colleges, some teacher trainees referred to lack of seriousness by some teacher trainers as the problem. In Zambezia, Teacher Training Colleges and universities were prepared to train English language teachers for either secondary or primary schools. Teacher trainers were recruited to join teacher training colleges for primary schools based on their teaching experience and not because they were trained to teach in TTCs. In some cases, some teacher trainers did not even have the requirements to be teacher trainers. For example, at TTC C, both teacher trainers did not have Bachelor’s degrees. This situation corroborates Redmond’s view (2011) that,

there are always factors contributing for students’ failure such as: the curriculum assimilation, the presence of qualified teachers and the school managers, infrastructures, the family socioeconomic level and some internal factors such as: discouragement, affectivity as well as cognitive aspects (p.57).

Unfortunately, there is no institution in Mozambique which trains or prepares teacher trainers to train English language teachers for primary schools. Table 12 is a summary of the teacher trainers’ qualification.

Table 12: Qualifications of the teacher trainers by colleges.

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Some teachers trained to teach at secondary school level were assigned to train primary school English language teachers in the training colleges, a development which they were not prepared for. Obviously, this was not only the case for English language but for all the subjects or courses in teacher training colleges. From the lessons observed, the researcher noted that some teacher trainers were not prepared and did not feel confident as English language teacher trainers. As a result, teacher trainees were not actively engaged with the exception of a few who ably participated in such lessons. This contrasts with what was discussed in the literature review and the benchmarking about the skills for language and English language teaching by Malderez & Bodoczky (2004) with regards to qualities of a good teacher, which include knowledge and skills for teaching.

5.3.1 Teacher trainees’ motivation for enrolling in the programme

The researcher wanted to find out what motivated the teacher trainees to attend the English language teacher training programme and how they felt in the training programme. The researcher also wanted to find out from research participants how they assessed the teacher trainees’ motivation, based on their training experience. One teacher trainee remarked:

The motivation for me first is to improve our English and the second is to get English to communicate for [with people from] foreign countries and to be the English teacher.[FGD2 - trainee3 - TTC A - 23/08/2017]

A graduate remarked:

The main motivation for me to get into the English language training programme was to improve my English and to be a teacher of English once I like it.[GELT4 - TTC B - 03/10/2017]

From the responses of the participants, both the teacher trainees and graduate English language teachers presented the reasons why they were interested in becoming English language teachers. First and foremost, it is because they love the language and would like to improve their language skills, bearing in mind the importance of the English language in Mozambique and around the world. Second, both graduate English language teachers and teacher trainees were interested in teaching English. Interviews with teacher trainers revealed that some of the teacher trainees, mainly those with lower performance got into the teacher training programme simply to gain employment after their training.

Most of the teacher trainees who are here, there are here to do the course to easily get employment and to work as teachers..[TT2 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

There are candidates who are attending the course just to get the certificate and find a job as a teacher, not because they want to be good English language teachers.[TT2 - TTC B - 18/07/2017]

The fact that some teacher trainees attended the course either to easily get employment or get a certificate, this motivation alone, which generally is extrinsic does not help English language teacher development. As Harmer (2007) explains, learners of English need to be motivated by both extrinsic and intrinsic motivation in line with the discussion in 2.3.4 about the teacher trainees’ motivation towards the teaching profession. The view presented by teacher trainers corroborates with the findings from a study conducted in Mozambique by Mataruca (2014) who concludes that “we have teachers who are sometimes afraid of going to the class to teach because they know they do not have the necessary command in that particular lesson of the day”. (p.213). Therefore, once in the primary schools, some trained English teachers prefer to teach other subjects in Portuguese due to lack of teaching competence in English language.

5.3.2 Competences of the English language teachers in the 10 + 1 model

From the observations during the micro-teaching sessions and simulations done in the classroom, there were typical problems that militated against the competence in English language. Interviews with teacher trainers and teacher trainees, plus the observations during micro-teaching sessions revealed that the number of those who were considered to be competent after finishing their training programme was small. The study found that several aspects undermine the quality of the teacher training as summarised in Table 13.

Table 13: Description of factors influencing negatively the training competence

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Through the interviews, teacher trainers claimed that one of the problems, which negatively affected the training competence of the teacher trainees and undermined the programme is the criteria for the selection of the candidates. Surprisingly, some of the candidates with low scores in the entrance interviews for admission into the programme were admitted into the training programme, while others with good scores in oral interviews were not admitted because they got lower marks in the written examination. These findings are in agreement with what one of the teacher trainers referred to regarding lack of transparent results of the candidates.

The process is done obeying the rules that government asked us to do [follow] yeah, but there is a time that, for example, they prepare themselves in order to write the exams even for the time of interview, but when they get [select] they don’t follow those rules, reason why sometimes you may find here people who are here inside even the levels of English you wonder why is this guy here.[TT1 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

Another teacher trainer from TTC C commented:

We have teacher trainees who failed to respond questions in English during the oral exams, but when results come out we discover that they have passed and those who answered well in the oral exams fail. The type of the entrance exam based on multiple choice, sometimes there are candidates who pass by luck when they come for the interview, they don’t speak the language. The direction members should be serious in selection, there is a big number of candidates who pass because of their relationship with the members of the direction [board of managers]. [TT2 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

Furthermore, English language teacher trainers, graduate teachers and teacher trainees did not understand how some candidates got into the programme without English language competence as a basis. Consequently, it was also discovered that candidates who had problems in speaking English language could not do well and improve their language if they only took the English course within a period of eight months. This is because they failed to meet the expectation of developing abilities to teach, communicate and make their pupils communicate in English. Surprisingly, for the teacher trainers, when the teacher trainees sat for tests in class, they got reasonable results that enabled them proceed with their training.

Zahedi and Shamsaee (2012) reveal that the investigation of a student’s level of communicative competence is indispensable in a classroom setting as it aids in the use of bringing-out and maximising the student’s full potentials using integrated skills. Integrated skills bring about receptive and productive skills of students. Receptive skills are reading and listening while productive skills are speaking and writing. Thus, for the teacher trainees to master well the receptive and productive skills, they need to have good knowledge of the English language grammar. It is really important that the teacher trainees understand well the English grammar and have adequate knowledge of English to acquire language skills, the communicative and teaching competences.

Dubin and Olshtain (2002) reveal that:

A scientific grammar, which is the objective of theoretical linguistics, must be translated into a pedagogical grammar before it can be used for materials development. Such a pedagogical grammar takes into account the learning process, interferences from the first language, complexity of forms, frequency of occurrences and other relevant factors, which bear on the acquisition of the new language (pp.26-27).

The teacher trainees’ competence is discussed in this section as a means to analysing the extent to which it affects the quality of the English language teacher training programme. Table 14 presents the views of the teacher trainers regarding the assessment of the teacher trainees teaching competence and efficiency as they finish the training programme.

Table 14: Appreciation of the English language teacher teaching efficiency and competence after training

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Based on the findings in Table 14, there was state of fear and doubt by some teacher trainers to affirm that teacher trainees become efficient English language teachers as a result of the training they undergo. It is important to state that some English language teacher trainees acquire the teaching competences when they finish their training programme without which they cannot deal with different learners and different contexts. The following statements derived from teacher trainers affirmed that the teacher trainees had competences to teach English in primary schools though with a state of doubt.

Although some of the problems are not shaped in the course, according to their level I think that they show that they have English language competence.[TT1 - TTC B - 01/09/2017]

They get ready to teach, although not well shaped with some problems at least they are able to plan a lesson and stand in the classroom. I don’t have anything to add just we need more time for training.[TT1 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

Some of them are but some they are not, just because these things of competence because there are people who for example when come here they are interested in learning the language, and they improve their language but there are others who don’t improve their English, well I think that may be. I think that it goes to 50% or 40% of knowledge, because as I said there is a lack of time even the topics that they have to cover in order to be a teacher are not enough taking into account the problems they bring.[TT2 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

It was also pointed out by the TT1 at TTC C that there are teacher trainees who, for example, when they get into the training programme, their main concern is to learn the language, and they improve their language but not the teaching skills. Nevertheless, it is good that they do so. Teacher trainees should be encouraged and motivated to listen to news in English, listen to music tracked in English language, read poems, short stories, greet, discuss, and talk in English every time they have opportunity and such opportunities should be maximised. In addition, English language teacher trainees should be encouraged to meet foreign people, have or create strong relationship with Malawians, Tanzanians, South Africans, Zimbabweans and Zambians living in the districts where the TTCs are based in. These opportunities would help the English language teacher trainees foster their communicative competences, which would build confidence on the teaching profession.

In the literature review, Perrenoud (2000) relates competence, which is a component of the benchmarking in this study, with a set of abilities for a list of cognitive resources such as knowledge, technical know-how, attitudes and more specific skills within ten actions. These include organising and directing learning situations, managing learning progression, evolving participation in school administration, inform and involve parents and guardians, use new technologies, face the ethical duties of the profession, and manage one’s continued training, (Perrenoud, 2000, p. 130). In the same line, Heyworth (2013, p. 298) also contends that:

there are a number of descriptions of quality requirements both for teachers in general, and for teachers of languages specifically. Typically, they are based on a competence model, with competence defined generally as a combination of values (or attitudes), knowledge and understanding and skills.

While it may be true that some teacher trainees acquire some teaching competence to teach English in primary schools, the interaction with the researcher during the research period showed that they lack communicative competences. This is due to language problems based on basic grammar errors and mistakes. Moreover, during the microteaching, the teacher trainees had several problems such as managing classes, correcting students’ errors and mistakes, lack of communicative competence and lack of confidence which made some teacher trainees avoid micro-teaching with no specific reason. Hymes (1972) considers “competence as dependent upon both tacit knowledge and ability for use. Knowledge is distinct, then, both from competence as its part and from systemic possibility to which its relation is an empirical matter” (p.282).

Due to their low performance in the English language, some teachers trained at the three teacher training colleges were advised by school directors and the deputy directors suggested to them to teach Portuguese or other subjects different from English. This is substantiated by TT4 from Teacher Training College A and TT2 from Teacher Training College B as follows:

They are not good...difftcult For example, I tried to meet with some of them, they are facing problems when they go to the field, they are dealing with English but there at the field they teach other subjects.[TT4 - TTC A - 25/08/2017]

...We know teachers trained in our colleges who are not teaching English because the school directors do not trust them, they prefer other people who speak good English but not trained.[TT2 -TTC B - 18/09/2017]

Looking at the gaps which have been discovered so far, it is important to trace what is really important for a good teacher. UNESCO (2005) suggests six components for a teacher which can also work for the teacher trainees. These are practical knowledge, content knowledge, contextual knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, personal knowledge and reflexive knowledge. These elements are in line with the first dimension of the benchmarking for this study, related to knowledge of English and English language teaching. With the proposed dimensions, English language teacher trainees would have been equipped with necessary tools by the end of their training process to attain the communicative and teaching competences of English as a language and a subject in a Zambézia context, where it is taught and learned in the schools as a foreign language for communication.

5.3.3 Gaps in the English language teacher training programme

English language teacher training programme requires that teacher trainees have a wide range of views with regard to knowledge of the language itself, the technical aspects of the language teaching that are fundamentals for the teaching profession and it also demands teacher trainees to have different subjects in English language. During the study, the researcher identified gaps in the training programme and analysed how they affected the quality of the training programme. Table 15 is a summary of the appreciation of the aspects, which need to be worked out during the training process from the graduate teachers’ perspectives.

Table 15: Appreciation of the aspects which need to be worked out during the training

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Through careful analysis on Table 15, it can be noted that there are many aspects that were not treated in the Teacher Training Colleges and these missing aspects constituted gaps for the English language teacher trainees in the three colleges. Teacher trainees need to acquire basic competences of English language pronunciation rules, to deal with literary texts, to interact with foreign people, and to use English as a target language in different subjects. The following statements reveal what constituted the main gaps which affected the English language teacher training programme:

According to my experience since I have started teaching, what could have been filled in along the training process is to maximise more English subjects, than Portuguese subjects, giving students more time to practise the language instead of sending them to the field to teach as soon as possible.[GELT1 - TTC A - 05/10/2017]

The aspect I think constitutes gaps which could have been filled in along the training process is under literature literature is an area which should have been covered., I mean that the programme

should have topics regarding the teaching of literature for grades 6 and 7.[GELT5 - TTC B - 03/10/2017]

The trainers should be very well trained professionally with specific methodology, fluent trainers, approachable, and familiarised with each and every content. A good trainer should be a good advisor, guider and a good monitor. [GELT6 - TTC C - 22/09/2017]

The suggestion of adding more subjects areas to the English language teacher training programme would enrich the knowledge of English language that the teacher trainees need. It would help with the basics of English language and improve the teacher trainees’ pronunciation through the practice of word stress, intonation, the differentiation between short and long vowel sounds in words likeshipandsheepand the practice of consonant clusters in words likethroughoutandbrought.As it has been observed in Chapter 2, Hymes (1972) contends that “communicative behaviour within a community is analysable in terms of determinate ways of speaking that the communicative competence of persons comprises in part knowledge of determinate ways of speaking” (p.58). Thus, knowledge of the English language and competence in its use are of vital importance for teacher trainees as future English language teachers. This is also in line with the first component of the theoretical framework, which is the linguistic competence and the literature review in which Mustadi (2012) argues that the successful language use for communication presupposes the development of communicative competence in the users of the language.

The graduate English language teachers trained in the three colleges believed that incorporating the mentioned aspects into the programme would enhance the quality. The missing aspects were: having every subject deliver or taught in English, the teaching of phonetics and phonology, the introduction of literature to help them interpret short stories well, making good content analysis and good commitment and dedication by the teacher trainers to foster the quality of the training and make it relevant. Thus, the training process would enhance the teacher trainees’ communicative competence. Typical aspects which undermined the quality of the teacher trainees’ linguistic competence were: verb subject agreement, slight problems with oral stress and adequate language regarding the register.

During the lessons observed at TTC A or TTC B, the teacher trainers did not worry about the teacher trainees’ language problems. This practice of not worrying much about language errors and mistakes, affected the teacher trainees’ linguistic development and it contradicts with the fourth dimension of the theoretical framework, which has to do with the development of the strategic competence, where language errors and mistakes should be managed. The researcher’s main concern was with the language errors and mistakes that were made by the teacher trainees, which did not have a special treatment as part of one of the stages of the lesson. Though trainees were actively engaged in tasks and participation, considerable difficulties were encountered by teacher trainers and trainees. The problems experienced by teacher trainees generally included pronunciation, use of grammar, mix up of formal and informal language with no clear paradigms and lack of strategies to use proper words during the interaction. This affected the discourse competence and the quality of the English language teacher.

Sanyal (2013) observes that “it is not just any teacher that can make education happen, it has to be theeffectiveteacher, who benefits from quality professional preparation and is systematically supported by quality career-long professional development” (p.7). A similar point of view derives from Darling-Hammond 1999, (as cited in UNICEF document, 2000), which asserts that “The highest quality teachers, those most capable of helping their students learn, have deep mastery of both their subject matter and pedagogy” (p.13). Through lesson observation, it was noted that there were limitations by many teacher trainees, mix up of formal and informal language in expressions like problems regarding language accuracy and lack of correction management of the language problems. Teacher trainees should be taught by teacher trainers the basic aspects of formal and informal language as means of developing the discourse and sociolinguistic competence, which are two dimensions of communicative competence. From the responses during interviews with teacher trainers and teacher trainees it was evident that most teacher trainees got into the programme with several language challenges and it was not easy to isolate a major one. Table 16 summarises the typical problems experienced by teacher trainees in the training programme.

Table 16: Description of typical problems faced by the teacher trainees

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Although teacher trainees revealed many language problems, teacher trainers found pronunciation and grammar problems as the most critical issues in teacher trainees. Errors and mistakes were the most frequent source of language problems as evident in sentences like: “I have twenty-three years old”. It becomes evident that the teacher trainee in this sentence used the Portuguese language structure and form to produce the English sentence where the age was expressed with the verbto havein English and not the verbto be. Similarly, some teacher trainees failed to use the-ingform in sentences like: “I am writing a composition”; and would say“I am write a composition”,which is correct in Portuguese language structure,“Estou a escrever umacomposiçào”.Hymes (1973, p. 229) observes that “it is the task of the linguist to exclude what is wrong, ill- formed, ungrammatical, so that data that is right, well-formed, grammatical, can clearly reveal structure”. Therefore, teacher trainees need to develop the linguistic competence so that they can produce accurate sentences, orally and in written forms which will, in turn, enable them acquire communicative and teaching competences.

Furthermore, some teacher trainees took the Portuguese present continuous language structure and used it to express ideas in English, and it became inadequate in a sentence like:“He is talk to the teacher”.This sentence translated into Portuguese does not cause any grammatical problem. There was also a tendency to overgenaralise pronunciation rules in words like “live” where the “i” is a short sound when used in third person in which the “I” would sound as “ai” like“He laives in Coalane B. “I laive in Pebane ”.The other overgeneralisation which affected the teacher trainees’ communicative competence is the use of regular verbs when forming the past simple. The teacher trainees tended to add -ed for some irregular verbs in sentences like“I sleeped very well yesterday I don’t know your side”; “She bringed the duster”.It becomes obvious that the misuse of the past simple verbs with words like,“sleep and bring”which would be “slept and brought” are due to past simple regular verbs. Similarly, there were some language errors committed by teacher trainees due to overgeneralisations or lack of knowledge in plural words like“womans, mans”, which are false hypothesised concepts. As per the theoretical framework, Canale and Swain (1980) in communicative competence maintain that „meaningful verbal communication is not possible without some knowledge of grammar’. They further envision that it may be more realistic to view the normal process at the beginning of such learning as one in which grammatical options, determine semantic options in the second language. That is, the meanings and perhaps some of the social behaviour options that one is able to exploit through the second language are restricted by the grammatical means of expression that have been mastered (Canale & Swain, 1980, p.18). Thus, if English language teacher trainees mastered linguistic and strategic competences they would avoid such language pitfalls.

Teacher trainees also showed difficulties in pronouncing consonant cluster in words likebrought, thought, throughout, due to non-existence of consonant clusters in Portuguese words. In parallel, the teacher trainees also had problems in pronouncing voiceless sounds in words likecough, plough, tooth, teeth. For example, the word“think”was pronounced by some teacher trainees with /f/ and /t/fink or tink. As Vernon (2006, p. 45) remarks, “pronunciation as speaking skill enables us to speak clearly and to be understood well by our listener through three main aspects, sounds, stress and intonation”. Thus, incorrect pronunciation may produce communication breakdown as the listener may misunderstand what is being said. Although there were no books in Zambezia colleges with focus on pronunciation, several methodology books present some chapters regarding pronunciation which teacher trainers could explore and produce handouts for use in the classroom. Apart from the existing books, pronunciation demands more practice, listening to native speakers’ voices, drilling words, learning the stress and intonation of the words with clear adequate plans by teacher trainers.

Another aspect has to do with inconsistencies of the same English vowel. Hassan (2014, p. 34) observes that “one of the problems faced by the learners of English in general is that each English vowel sound has more than just one pronunciation”. This was actually a problem for the teacher trainees. For example, the vowel „u’ in words likebook[u],look[u],cook[u] do not sound equally as inflood[A],blood[A], neither infloor[a:], although they have similar vowel distribution. Yet, another case is that ofusounding differently in words like, study [A], summer [A], population [ju], university [ju], computer[ju] and Thursday [3:]. Consequently, this led to wrong pronunciation since teacher trainees lacked knowledge of this inconsistency. Certainly, teacher trainers dealing with language use need to teach pronunciation as fundamental speaking skill so that teacher trainees are able to differentiate. For example, words between sounds such as:sitandseat, liveandleavewhich both are heterography words with different meaning and spelling. The following statements constituted evidence of problems encountered.

The problems that they bring is [are linked to] speaking skills, apart from speaking even listening skills, because students think that they are coming here just to learn about grammar language use, but when they come here they discover that we [they] have to speak we [they] have to master the way of writing [TT2 - TTC B - 18/07/2017]

...but, sometimes we get surprised with the examination results by the way that some candidates who did not meet all the requirements are included in the list of those who have been selected to attend the Course.[TT1 - TTC B - 01/09/2017]

The quotations above demonstrate that some English language teacher trainees had simply elementary skills and others basic aspects of the English language and they could not be trained within a year. However, having two or three-year teacher training programme would enhance the quality of the programme and the teacher trainees’ teaching and speaking competences, and quality of teacher training curriculum and content would be observed as part of the benchmarking. In terms of language problems, it was important to analyse how the strategies for treatment of language errors affected the quality of the English language teacher training course and the programme as a whole. In each college, errors were treated in different ways. The following verbatim quotes from the Focus Group Discussions at TTC A are evidence of the language correction practice.

Sometimes we laugh at our colleagues who make mistakes and some trainers correct immediately and most of the errors are related to sentence agreement. [FGD1 - trainee1 - TTC A- 23/08/2017]

For the speaking activities, the trainer corrects immediately by telling the trainee the best way of pronouncing a certain word.[FGD2 - trainee3 - TTC A - 23/08/2017]

Obviously, as per strategic competence with regards to language errors management, there is no single magic mechanism for correcting the teacher trainees’ mistakes in class which would be the best, each of the stated strategies by the teacher trainees in the Focus Group Discussions can be better explored for each and every type of language lesson.

Randall and Thornton (2001), observe that:

the way that the teacher responds to an error, certain „surface’ routines of appropriate response will now have become automatic such as adjusting language to the level of the learner and the teacher will now concentrate on more strategic aspects of the situation, perhaps employing a single algorithm such as: is the error serious? Is the error important? Does it lead to a breakdown of communication? (p. 32).

Laughing at teacher trainees who make mistake is enjoyable if all people involved are extroverts. Thus, some teacher trainees may not feel motivated when they are laughed at every time they make a mistake; significantly, this is what happened during the research period. Moreover, the danger is that they may volunteer to answer questions only when absolutely sure that they have correct answers. Figure 6 shows a teacher trainee reading a text inefficiently, and other teacher trainees laughing at her.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Figure 6: A teacher trainee being laughed by other trainees during her reading. Source: Photos taken by the researcher, 2017.

Furthermore, the researcher argues that correcting the teacher trainees’ errors and mistakes as soon as they speak is also harmful to them. Broughton, Brumfit, Flavell and Pincas (2003) contend that:

There is nothing wrong with explanations of mistakes, particularly with adults, but it is much more effective when followed by extra practice. As this is not always easy to provide on the spur of the moment, another strategy is to postpone some items to another date and, after adequate preparation, make a teaching point of them in another lesson (p. 140).

The scholars’ views is worth observing, because immediate correction, more than inhibiting teacher trainees’ motivation, it does not help to make progress in terms of fluency. Good communication is an important thing for language teachers, bearing in mind that they have to be exposed to different contexts such as school settings, which include interaction with students, the teachers, attend workshops and interaction with foreigners. The practice, as per the following verbatim quote, is good:

The mistakes are not corrected immediately, they are corrected by a colleague that repeats the sentence in a correct way, so that the other can realize. The trainers explain (to) us how we should pronounce the word.ask one other colleague to suggest about the same point, also sometimes the tutors used to write[ing] two similar words on the board and ask the class which one is correct.[FGD1- trainee8 - TTC B - 01/09/2017]

It is good that in TTC C, the teacher trainers identified the teacher trainees’ mistakes and asked for peer correction. This is a very good technique to help the teacher trainees without putting the trainees in panic. Mistakes were put on the chalk board so that peers could make corrections. Where errors are concerned, Randall and Thornton (2001) write:

If we take an example of dealing with an error produced by a student, many novice teachers will not know how to react, they may ignore the error, not for a principled reason such as not wishing to demotivate the student, but for the simple reason that they are concentrating on Even if they do notice the error the teacher at this stage may well need to plan the actual language or signal used to respond the student (p. 31).

Teacher trainers should also identify from teacher trainees, errors and mistakes which hinder communication, which to some extent may be considered as language errors in order to help the trainees advance and make progress in their communicative and teaching competence. In terms of language errors and mistakes, literature suggests that if the focus is on language learning and fluency practice, mistakes should not be corrected immediately as students or trainees make them.

Davies and Pearce (2008) stress that:

In accuracy practice, errors are usually dealt with, immediately, but, as much as possible, the teacher helps the learners to correct themselves. In fluency practice, errors are not usually corrected during activities, although the teacher may bring some errors to the leaner (p. 35).

As a facilitator, a teacher trainer should be attentive during learning practice, write down most of the language problems, mistakes and errors and after practice review with teacher trainees. However, if the focus is on accuracy, mistakes should be corrected as teacher trainees commit them so that they are able to use words and expressions with accuracy. It was also important to note that in TTC C, the teacher trainees moved from peer correction to self-correction. Self-correction works better in case of mistakes like the following;“You are going out? ...He is clean the blackboard?” Quite often these elementary errors derived from the weaker and passive teacher trainees. Nevertheless, if they were permanent errors, which the teacher trainee did not notice, the self-correction could not work. In this particular situation, Delahunty and Garvey (2010) suggest that: rather than overwhelming students by red-lining every error, teachers should select those “errors” which seem amenable to correction at the time and bring the students’ attention to the similarities and differences between their own practices and the target ones. They should then focus on the target until it is well controlled (p. 26).

During the lessons’ observations, the types of errors which were often corrected were the spoken errors around pronunciations. Therefore, it is essential that the teacher trainers pay attention on written errors, taking into account the sentence construction, false friends in words like“Combine, intend, pretend, assistand other similar cases, where the Portuguese wordcombinar;was misused asto agreeas it is in Portuguese, when in fact to combine is to join two things. Thus, the English word “intend” is quite similar to Portuguese wordentenderwhich means to understand and not to intend to do something. Similarly, the Portuguese wordpretenderwas wrongly used as “to pretend”, when the Portuguese wordpretendermeans “to intend”. Further, the English infinitive verb “to assist” was often misused as to watch since the Portuguese wordassistirin English means “to watch”. More confusing words with different meanings are presented in Table 17.

Table 17: List of English-Portuguese false cognates (false friend words) generated during the lesson observations and interactions in the colleges

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

In general, from the observations carried out in the three colleges, the teacher trainers’ error correction tended to be prioritised over self and peer-correction. Teacher trainers significantly tended to interrupt teacher trainees while speaking or reading aloud to correct language errors and mistakes. In all colleges, there was no structured formulae as where and when to correct teacher trainees’ language errors and mistakes. It is possible to correct the mistakes that are common in the class or of a specific group of weaker teacher trainees. For written exercises, the teacher trainees can exchange their exercise books and correct each other’s mistakes while teacher trainers are monitoring the class. Similarly, the teacher trainer can pick the written works and correct at home so as to gather common mistakes and plan a lesson based on those language problems identified during the marking of the exercises.

Teacher trainers should always have strategies that enable English language teacher trainees advance in their interaction in English language. These may include appraisal of good practice, encouragement when teacher trainees commit mistakes, correcting errors in the classroom with teacher trainees in which the teacher trainees themselves participate actively so that they can acquire communicative and teaching competences by the end of the training programme. For spoken mistakes and errors, a teacher trainer can suggest the

whole class to pay attention to teacher trainees’ speeches to the whole class in order to write down the mistakes and later share them on the board. During the teacher trainees’ speech or reading aloud exercises, teacher trainers should follow what the literature review observes, particularly, Harmer, Bartram and Walton’s (1991) suggestion that teachers should use words or expressions such as“..again..”, “..one more time”, “ good, but ”, “..what if...”, “..not quite..”with an appropriate intonation, to make the pupils in this particular case the teacher trainees who made the error repeat correctly what s(he) has just said or read (Harmer 1991, p. 68-69; Bartram and Walton 1991, p. 43).

When delivering Language Use course, where grammar aspects, vocabulary and para- linguistic knowledge are shared, there is a strong need for teacher trainees to have two important learning materials; dictionaries and grammar books for the benefit of communicative competence. The researcher’s view is that English grammar books both English-English and Portuguese-English dictionaries offer a powerful alternative to teacher trainer’s explanation. Thus, if teacher trainees are trained to be autonomous as language learners and as researchers, it would save the trainer a good deal of time. Fabela-Cardenas (2012, p. 215) asserts that “autonomous learning has become the umbrella term for an approach that envisions giving learners more autonomy in their decisions about what, when and how to learn”.

Further to this point of view, Little 1995 (as cited in Fabela-Cardenas, 2012) advises that:

learner autonomy and teacher autonomy are interdependent and that learner autonomy becomes a matter for teacher education in two ways. Firstly, we must provide trainee teachers with the skills to promote autonomy in the learners. Secondly, we must give them first-hand experience of learner autonomy in their own training to make teachers more likely to succeed in promoting learner autonomy (p. 217).

Thus, English language teacher trainees’ own learning strategies must be capitalised by teacher trainers by getting to know what teacher trainees like to read, like to do in free time, and by constantly giving them remedial tasks, and homework which demand many communicative practice in and outside the classroom based on communication skills, such as grammar exercises, issues for debates in the classroom with adequate preparation outside the classroom including bad or good lesson plans, reading and writing exercises.

5.3.4 Inadequate learning materials in the library and English Department

From the findings, it was evident that one of the factors which undermine the quality of the English language teacher training programme is lack of teaching and learning materials, lack of computers and rooms, where to explore information related to the teacher training programmes, especially in TTC B and TTC C. Table 18 summarises the findings from the assessment of the existing teaching and learning materials.

Table 18: Assessment of the available material for teacher trainees

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

As observed in Chapter 3 with regards to quality of school infrastructure as part of the benchmarking, the school facilities and materials are essential for the teaching and learning process. Unfortunately, in TTC B and TTC C, both in the library and in the English Department, there were no dictionaries, grammar books, and storytelling books. The existing books in both colleges were grades 6 and 7 pupils’ course books. These were the books that the teacher trainees were supposed to use in the primary schools soon after their training programme. Figure 7 shows some of the books in the library.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Figure 7: Sample of primary school books in Portuguese language in TTC C

Source:Photos taken by the researcher, 2017.

In TTC A, there wereMapepbooks with long stories which were not appropriate texts for the teacher trainees bearing in mind their low linguistic background. The teacher trainees needed to be exposed to basic and intermediate aspects of English language so that they could learn much about the content delivered in class. With lack of CD players, adequate teaching and learning materials for listening, teacher trainees could not minimise their pronunciation problems. Regarding lack of teaching and learning materials, teacher trainers and teacher trainees need to be very flexible in designing materials suitably for the training process. Saleh (2013) maintains that:

In foreign language contexts, it is better to develop a model of communicative competence that takes into account the specific contextual, social and linguistic factors therefore, local experts need to be involved in the process of designing the language learning materials for their own contexts (p. 109).

Thus, teacher trainers and teacher trainees need to adapt and develop authentic teaching and learning materials for the improvement of the training process. Luckily in TTC A, the English Department had some grammar books, three English Portuguese dictionaries, which unfortunately during the period the researcher visited the college were not used during lessons. In the Department, there were also two tape and CD players which were not working. Nevertheless, it is important to note that through their own efforts, TT3 from TTC A, TT1 from TTC B, TT1 from TTC C and TT2 from TTC C brought their own materials into the classroom and made the lessons very interesting by designing activities which would make the lessons enjoyable.

In line with teaching and learning materials and what was observed in the benchmarking and literature review, Nhapulo (2013, p. 96) calls attention for the fact that the important point is that “the materials teachers use in the classroom, should be in accordance to the proper curriculum, syllabus and the learners’ current level of proficiency as has been the case to date”. Thus, these materials should fit to learners’ linguistic competence and they should be culturally contextualized. However, Mawere (2012) observes that:

it should be noted that the education sector has remained poorly remunerated in almost all aspects. For example, the newly introduced subjects like English remains with a critical shortage of resources such as textbooks, classrooms and qualified teachers. This is mainly because sometimes these resources need to be hired from outside the country (p. 40).

Contrary to the findings of this research, the teacher trainer’s emotive response in TTC A was that there were many materials:“We have so many material such as books, dictionaries and discs for listening activities”,[TT3 - TTC A - 24/08/2017], while in reality the researcher observed a different scenario, because there were few books in the library and English Department. However, the other teacher trainers affirmed that the institutions lacked teaching and learning materials, as evidenced by what Teacher Trainer2 in TTC B, teacher trainer 4 in TTC A and teacher trainer 1 in TTC C, complained about:

We don’t have materials, it’s just only exercise book for grade six and seven. .SomeHme(s) we avoid to give [giving] topics, distributing topics to prepare and to come to present because of not having resources and this also contribute^] a lot in terms of.[TT2 - TTC B - 21/08/2017]

Humm, yes, yes here we have got problems of resources, for example here at our department we have got problems of book, computers because those things we need. Even this radio is not working. So trainer F... Sometimes brings her computer even the speakers.[TT4 - TTC A - 25/08/2017]

There are only grade 6 and 7 course books, no dictionaries, the students use one dictionary, which I personally take to the classroom, most of the time they use electronic dictionaries from their cell phones.[TT1 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

The college administrators and the Ministry of Education need to equip the colleges with adequate resources that will make the English language teacher trainers and trainees feel comfortable. The necessary materials include: basic English-Portuguese dictionaries, elementary and basic English-English dictionaries, basic grammar books, course books and charts for designing pictures and flashcards. Kern (2000) maintains that:

Teachers in training also need academic course book that brings to their attention the rich interplay between language use, context, and culture. Linguistics courses on the phonology, morphology and syntax of the language may be of some use in helping teachers to understand the complexities of the language system (p. 316).

Moreover, research showed that extending the training period without teaching and learning materials will not help much. Three-year teacher training programmes have been implemented for primary schools in Ghana, Nigeria, Namibia, and Uganda. However, lack of resources materials was presented as an issue that needed to be addressed in order to improve the quality of teacher training. A study conducted in Nigeria by Adekola (2007, p. 19) noted that:

Conditions for teaching and learning in colleges of education are inadequate, and in many ways reflect the school system itself. Physical infrastructure is in a poor condition and inadequate for the numbers of students. Textbooks and libraries are limited and course material is often photocopied by lecturers to be sold to students in lieu of textbooks and course materials (p. 19).

Having adequate resources in the library and in the English Language Department would encourage the teacher trainees to do more readings on their own, instead of relying on the lessons in the classroom and the handouts provided by some of the teacher trainers. Whiteet al2008 (as cited in Heyworth, 2013, p. 286) explain that it is important to find a rationale for quality management in language education, like other activities, teaching operations can be improved by good management of resources and personnel, and handbooks have been produced on the specific applications of management in language teaching. Hence, the need to equip the library and English Language Departments with resources in TTCs is urgent.

A similar finding regarding lack of teaching and learning resources was found in other studies under English language teaching and learning in Mozambique by Mozambican language scholars such as Mataruca (2014), Nhapulo (2013), Mawere (2012), Henriksen (2010) and Chimbutane (2009). These studies revealed that, candidates for the colleges are the ones coming from secondary schools with critical shortage of teaching and learning materials. Thus, teacher trainees did not have much content knowledge, which could have been explored from the teaching and learning sources in secondary schools. In this context, Internet Wi-Fi could be a solution for the teacher trainees to download and make use of interestingPDFtext books with a guidance of the teacher trainers. Richards (2011) asserts that:

The use of technology in teaching becomes more important in present times because teachers also have to be able to keep up with the technological knowledge of their students. Young learners today have more access to information and more tools available to them to manage their own learning (p. 8).

However, TTC B and TTC C did not have access to internet works, and at TTC A, the internet room was small and rarely open such that teacher trainees did not even use the room during the research period. It would be encouraging if teacher trainers took advantage of using their own cell phones to access internet and download relevant teaching and learning material and share with their teacher trainees. One is inclined to believe that if, developmental training programmes for English language teacher trainers at TTCs in Zambézia were implemented, they would have been encouraged the teacher trainers be innovating, creative and flexible in exploring solutions to some of the challenges encountered along the training process. Adekola (2007) observes that:

The teacher educators have few if any opportunities themselves for staff development programmes and most of them lack subject knowledge and expertise appropriate to training primary school teachers or in providing them with coping strategies for the kind of school environments they will work in (p. 19).

Sanyal (2013) contends that:

although teachers are the most important component determining educational quality, the quality of teacher education as a whole is determined by additional factors based on institutional characteristics. Teachers alone cannot assure good quality teacher education without an effective teacher education institution (p. 33).

In line with this assertion, the researcher argues that if English language teacher trainees do not have English-English dictionary or bilingual dictionaries, Portuguese-English and English-Portuguese, they cannot advance with the range of vocabulary knowledge needed for a language teacher in the following dimensions of the communicative competence framework: grammatical, sociolinguistic and pragmatic competences. Such being the case, teacher trainees needed to have, not only Portuguese-English or English-Portuguese dictionaries, but also elementary, basic and intermediate English-English dictionaries, which would help them move from the translation of the words to interpretation of the meanings of the English words. Furthermore, teacher trainees needed to read short stories and make interpretations as part of their learning process so that once in their classroom as language teachers, they should be able to interpret effectively reading comprehension texts. Moreover, both the Provincial Directorate and the Ministry of Education in cooperation with National Institute for Education Development and some National Publishers such as,Editora Escolarshould support the English language teacher training colleges with adequate and necessary learning, teaching and training books, dictionaries and other relevant materials.

5.3.5 Delivery of the English language lessons: nature of activities employed and skills practised for the development of communicative and teacher competences

In the course of the research, through lesson observation, the researcher focused his attention on activities which were more or less practised for communicative and teaching competences, as listed by Larsen-Freeman (2008) as general principles of communicative language in order to find out how they affected the quality of the English language teacher training programme. Table 19 summarises findings of the activities used for communicative and teaching competences.

Table 19: Appraisal of the activities used for communicative and teaching competences by the teacher trainers and FGDs

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

From the kind of activities described in Table 16 and what the researcher observed against the priciples within the twenty-four lessons, it was discovered that most of the activities that were done in TTCs were micro-teachings, role plays and dialogues, group work and discussions. Nevertheless, the other activities such as drama, storytelling, pair works and speaking alone were not observed. As per reviewed literature, Savignon (1997, p. 4) observes that “the use of games, role playing, and activities in pairs and other small groups has gained acceptance and is now widely recommended for inclusion in languageteaching programs”. While the existence of some of the activities to gain communicative and teaching competence are necessary to mention, there were some things which the teacher trainers did to support the teacher trainees. For instance, Portuguese was not allowed in the classroom and even outside the classroom among English language teacher trainees as a way of stimulating and facilitating their speaking skills and oral abilities. However, in TTC A and TTC C for example, teacher trainees showed the following typical problems: too much excitement, noisy environment, lack of positive attitudes and command in classroom management. For Randall and Thorton (2001),

those to be awarded qualified teacher status must demonstrate that they: a) ensure effective teaching of whole classes, and of groups and individuals within the whole class setting so that teaching objectives are met and best use is made available teaching time; b) Monitor and intervene when teaching to ensure sound learning and discipline; c) Establish and maintain a purposeful working atmosphere; and d) Set high expectations for pupils behaviour, establishing and maintaining a good standard discipline (p. 37).

Thus, the teacher trainers must play different roles, such as that of facilitator and resource person among others, in order to make activities productive by engaging the teacher trainees in an educative manner and to achieve the communicative and teaching competence. As Hymes (1972, p. 283) asserts, “in speaking of competence, it is especially important not to separate cognitive from affective and volatile factors, so far as the impact of theory on educational practice is concerned”. The relevant role of a teacher trainer is to make sure that they act without discrimination against the teacher trainees and that they help every teacher trainee develop the language and teaching competences so that their performance may later be reflected in the success of English language teaching in primary schools.

The Mozambican Strategic Plan 2012-2016 attests to the fact that “there is need to steer teacher training toward a more practical primary education” (Mozambican Strategic Plan 2012-2016, p. 32). In addition, most of the teacher trainees are those that have finished Grade 12 from secondary school level and few had Grade 10 after five or seven years of English language learning as a subject in a context where the language is taught as a foreign language. During lesson observations, it was noted that some candidates would not say anything during the lesson unless their teacher trainers nominated them to speak. This factor mismatches with the communicative competence theoretical framework, as foreign language teacher trainees need to develop the discourse competence. When speaking or reading, language problems such as mispronunciation, lack of sentence agreement, reading inefficiency, stammering and shivering when saying words were further observed. Worse still, some teacher trainees selected were those that do not qualify as per this verbatim quote:

...but, sometimes we get surprised with the examination results by the way that some candidates who did not meet all the requirements are included in the list of those who have been selected to attend the course.[TT1 - TTC B - 01/09/2017]

The statement regarding unsatisfactory quality of the English language teacher trainees is also substantiated with some lessons observed by the researcher in TTC A and TTC B taught by TT1, TT2 and TT3 from TTC A, and TT1 from TTC B. In an observed lesson delivered by TT3 from TTC A, the lesson focus was supposed to be on speaking and the lesson had five stages in its lesson plan but in practice, only two stages were done. The first stage was where the teacher trainees practised speaking in order to brainstorm all what they knew about fishing. This was supposed to take ten minutes but lasted for 50 minutes. While the teacher trainer was sitting, individual teacher trainees stood up and read the same text aloud with no clear purpose.

In chapter 2, the literature review calls attention for the need of professionalism and competency for English language teachers. Perrenoud (2000) argues that choosing learning activities is a core competency, which implies not only a good knowledge of the general mechanisms of development and learning, but also a field of teaching of discipline. During lesson observations, it was also noted that what affected quality was laissez-fair teaching style with lack of creativity and flexibility as observed by the researcher when TT1 and TT3 at TTC A were teaching. Such teaching style negatively affected teacher trainees’ adoption of positive teaching style to use in the primary schools. Nevertheless, Pacheco (1999, p. 60), contends that “training implies a process of psychological maturity for which it requires active participation of the subject being trained, as well as the consideration of their needs and concern”. Similarly, Marques (2001, p. 12) states that, “the fact that the teacher trainee learns to be a teacher by teaching and contacting the most experienced and competent teachers does not exempt, but presupposes, a great mastery of the contents of the subjects that he is supposed to teach”.

In the real context of the TTC A, in all the speaking activities during the lesson of TT2 from TTC A, as the teacher trainees were speaking, the teacher trainer would repeatedly respond,ok and then ok.hamm.hummm... ok. ok good, and what do you think?.

Although the teacher trainer was stimulating the speech ability of some teacher trainees, time was wasted on the same teacher trainees and unnecessary aspects. This was because while the speaking activities were taking place there were no clear strategies of how to improve the teacher trainees’ involvement as to where to start, and being able to integrate volunteers and non-volunteers. Such a strategy would engage the teacher trainees actively. Ur (1996, p. 23) advises that “if you give an activity, and then sit back while the learners „flounder’ make random uniformed guesses or are uncomfortably hesitant - you are not helping them”.

Another aspect that was not observed during research at the three TTCs was the use of pair work. With pair work activities, teacher trainees could be highly engaged if they were well instructed, monitored by teacher trainers. Pair work most of the time is helpful because the interaction is activated between two participants. Although there may not be many ideas comparing to group work, at least the involvement of two participants is ensured as long as the teacher trainer calls attention to the teacher trainees that both have to interact on the same footing. Saleh (2013) acknowledges that:

the active participation of FL students in carrying out communication activities such as pair and group work, role-plays, games and problemsolving independently can develop their communication skills in order to be able to apply what they learn in classrooms in the outside world. Most importantly, these activities should offer the opportunity for students to learn about the sociolinguistic, grammatical and strategic aspect of the communicative competence (pp. 107-108).

For pair and group works, the teacher trainers’ role is that of an instructor, a facilitator, a monitor, a resource, a prompter and a helper so that English language teacher trainees may feel motivated, engaged and interested in participating actively in the lessons. Davies and Pearce (2008, p. 75) encourage the learners to ask for things to be repeated or explained if necessary, and teach them appropriate expressions such as,“Could you repeat that, please?”, “I’m sorry” and “I didn’t understand that”.In line with Davies and Pearce’s viewpoint, Savignon (1997, p. 114) maintains that “the role of the language teacher is to help learners get along in real-life situations”. Whereas Tarvin (2014, p. 7) states that “L2 speakers must be able to process and interact with the language they experience in order to succeed in the socio-cultural contexts in which they find themselves, whether in the classroom, the grocery store, or the workplace”. These practices would improve the sociolinguistic competence, which is the second component of the communicative competence theoretical framework and is crucial for English language teacher trainees, owing to the fact that they need to practise English language applied to different contexts.

An important aspect that was noted by the researcher during the lesson observation is that after each presentation in all TTCs, the teacher trainees and teacher trainers created rooms for comments and critiques for the teacher trainee who micro-taught, a strategy which is very useful. Nevertheless, the researcher observed that handling of microteaching sessions in TTC A was different from the sessions in TTC B and TTC C. In TTC A, during the micro-teaching session the teacher trainees went through the whole lesson in twenty or fifteen minutes whereas in TTC B and TTC C, the teacher trainees micro-taught a single stage or two stages of the lesson in ten minutes. As discussed in Chapter 2, scholars such as Wallace (1991), Harmer (2001), and Richards (2011) suggest that the teacher trainee should micro-teach a skill or a stage of the lesson. The idea of reducing or minimising the lesson, which should be taught by an experienced teacher from forty-five minutes to twenty minutes for the trainee cannot be regarded as positive. Thus, it is vital that teacher trainees should plan a lesson as a group of three, four or five depending on the number of the teaching stages and then the teacher trainees divide the stages for each one to prepare the lesson together, prepare the materials, and once in the classroom they micro-teach. The preparation in advance would encourage those teacher trainees who are shy to collaboratively present a lesson or ideas in the classroom with colleagues. One issue that the teacher trainers involved in the study considered as a challenge was the fact that most of the weaker trainees were shy to stand in front of others, as confirmed by the following teacher trainers:

I think that this is the same problem from secondary schools. They know, even if you give them test of language use, they might get 16 or 17 but in spoken form they don’t have too much to speak I think that is too shy. The other thing is not to feel free, there are people who know things but they don’t feel free when they are in front of students, they don’t feel confident when they are teaching or being observed[TT2 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

The problems that they bring is [are linked to] speaking skills, apart from speaking even listening skills, because students think that they are coming here just to learn about grammar language use, but when they come here they discover that we have to speak we have to master the way of writing even the way of speaking.[TT2 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

For me, grammar problems are thoughtful and I think that some of my mates are in the same situation as mine. But group discussions are so helpful for our improvement. Apart from that there are also reading, as well as writing problems.[FGD2 - trainee3 - TTC A - 23/08/2017]

The shyness emerges on the account that the teacher trainees’ performance was unsatisfactory and as discussed earlier on, some of the teacher trainees did not deserve to get into the teacher training programme and this frustrated the teacher trainers’ dedication towards this specific group. However, once in the classroom, there must not be any excuse for excluding part of the teacher trainees for different language activities. As reviewed in the literature, Randall and Thornton (2001, p. 39) assert that “knowledge is best developed in a learning „practicum’.. .the situation within which professional practice is developed”. The practicum is a practice „workshop’ similar to the teaching practice situation”. While practicum is critical, implementation of the Teaching Practice for the teacher trainees in the three TTCs was not adequate and appropriate for the first semester of their training programme. The challenge with this arrangement was that the teacher trainees did not know much about teaching at that stage and, therefore, they possibly during lesson observation lessons perceived negative aspects as positive and vice versa.

The final challenge worth mentioning is about shortage of time during the day. The English language teacher trainees had to follow the college and hostel managers’ rules in activities, which had nothing to do with training lessons such as, watering plants, cultivating in the garden and cleaning the hostel. To do these activities, teacher trainees had to wake up early in the morning at 5 am every day. Conversely, when they were to discuss issues related to the courses of the programme, some teacher trainees did the tasks in the evenings when they were not exhausted. In addition, teacher trainees had lessons both in the mornings and afternoons, which made them extremely busy and therefore less focused on learning, even though the teaching practice sessions occurred in a single day in the afternoon for each teacher trainee as expressed by teacher trainee within the FGD1 at TTC A:

We used to have micro-teachings in class, but teaching practice, it was once a week and that was not enough because not every trainee was able to teach within the specific week.[FGD1- trainee 1-TTC A- 23/08/2017]

A graduate English language teacher stressed the following during the interview:

Among the challenges faced I will state two Teaching Practice time management and extra school activities such as farming. Sometimes took a great amount of time and we could not do our homework.[GELT6 - TTC C - 22/09/2017]

Apart from the challenges mentioned above regarding extra activities, the English language teacher trainees also had classes both in the mornings and afternoons and if the teacher trainees did not do activities in the hostel they ended up being punished and punishment included: missing a meal, doing farming, fetching water and cleaning the toilets. These factors disturbed their minds as they had to obey the rules to stay in the hostel and at the same time they needed to have some time to study. Moreover, the problem of the short period of training was compounded by inadequate number of teacher trainers. For instance, in TTC B and TTC C there were only two teacher trainers in each of the colleges. In TTC A, where there were two classes, there were four English language teacher trainers. Table 20 summarises interviewees’ appreciation of the duration of the training programme as a factor of quality provision.

Table 20: Appreciation of the training duration by the teacher trainers and FGDs

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

The MEC/INDE Teacher Training Programme (2006, p. 5) states that “The current curriculum plan is characterised by an integrated approach of the content, which combines the academic preparation with the professional training, keeping the equilibrium between theory and practice”. Nevertheless, the English language teacher trainees’ timetable did allow for both, the teacher trainers and teacher trainees’ flexibility in successfully teaching and learning respectively of all the content and suggested activities. For example, for Teaching Practice which was on Friday afternoons, not all the teacher trainees were involved due to the numbers of the trainees 75 at TTC A, and the shortage of close primary schools which could not accommodate all trainees at once. Figure 8 shows the timetables used in 2017 at TTC A as a clear evidence of how the teacher trainees had been busy during the week.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Figure 8: The timetables used in TTC A during the semester2.

Source: Photos taken by the researcher, 2017.

During teaching practice in the designated primary schools, five to seven teacher trainees took responsibility for teaching a class and they only had one day a week to teach; on Wednesday for some and on Friday afternoons for others. The challenge was that most of the teacher trainees were unsupervised. Supervisory support from teacher trainers was very minimal and some of the teacher trainees were lucky to have been supervised once a month by their college trainers. Consequently, at the end of the training programme, teacher trainees had inadequate professional competence and pedagogical skills necessary to support their teaching in primary schools. These consequences are opposed to Randall and Thornton (2001) position which acknowledges that, one approach which emphasises the practical nature of teaching is the provision of opportunities for beginning teachers to learn from observation and from talking to those who are more experienced, in other words through apprenticeship (p.35).

For quality of the English language teacher trainees, host teachers and teacher trainers should be well qualified professionals with positive attitudes, and committed to work. It would be wise for the teacher trainees to first observe good lessons presented by good English language teachers and teacher trainers, to see and discuss deeply the strengths and weaknesses of the lessons and finally have feedback. After all these exercises, the teacher trainees would be placed in the primary schools for further observations. Therefore, through the training, there were debates and discussions in class, which promoted the oral abilities and speaking skills, but what failed the training programme are the implementation procedures and the serious lack of commitment and involvement in supervision by both teacher trainers and host teachers in the primary schools.

The other aspects which affected teacher trainees were communicative and teaching competences owing to lack of good language abilities in listening, and pronunciation problems due to teacher trainees’ lower level of English language knowledge.

The following verbatim quotes prove the main factors previously described which affected the communicative and teaching competences.

During his[their] teaching most of the words maybe are wrong... while others are good at writing but are not so very secure on speaking and giving high contact with all the class. This is the reason why I said it is individual, it depends. Before the person sit[s] we use also to give [giving] opportunity to speak what the thought he was failing [TT2 -TTC B - 18/09/2017]

Reflection of the type of the trainees the colleges receive to be teacher who are very young with sometimes childish attitudes with lots of problems,[TT1 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

Admitting into the English language teacher training programme, candidates who do not have a passable good command of English give teacher trainers a great deal of work since the teachers are compelled to help teacher trainees improve their English language skills first and to impart on them the content which they need to learn during the programme. However, it was observed that during the training programme when teacher trainees wrote tests in class, they scored good marks but failed in oral abilities tests. During micro-teaching and debates, teacher trainees who were observed did not feel confident in front of their colleagues. Research that Carter and Nunan (2002) conducted showed that:

learning to teach is not simply a matter of translating the ideas encountered in the education settings into classroom. In fact, the conventional notion of turning theory into practice begs the question of how the socio-cultural environments of schools can mediate and transform such input as teacher-learners act on it (p. 78).

Teacher trainees can become confident in their teaching if they do teaching practices through micro-teaching, simulations and Teaching Practices in actual primary schools. Ur (1996, p. 22) explains that the more language the learners actually engage with during the activity, the more practice they will get. It is the teacher trainer’s role to help the teacher trainees with their challenges and needs. However, the teacher trainees themselves have to cooperate with teacher trainers’ work by also finding their own English language learning strategies, preparation of debates outside the classroom, group and pair works, buying teaching and learning materials such as Portuguese-English dictionaries, English- English dictionaries, grammar books, cell phones which sometimes can have access to internet and listen to BBC or news in English. The other factor which is important has to do with the language skills. As far as the language is concerned, the four major skills are equally important to be practised so that the speakers of the language can efficiently use and understand language teachers. Table 21 summarises the English language skills which were practised in the training programme, and how they affected the quality of the English language teacher training programme as a whole.

Table 21: Assessment of the language skills practised in TTCs.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Data from one graduate English language teacher revealed that teacher trainees practised the four skills to a certain extent. Another graduate English language teacher affirmed that the most practised skills were reading and speaking while the less practiced skills were listening and writing. This is because the teacher trainees were both trained in TTC A and the two teacher trainers who trained them were no longer training English language teachers in the colleges, for one was retired and the other shifted to another institution. Three FGDs and 5 Graduate English language teachers affirmed that listening and speaking were the most practised skills, but reading and writing were less practised. Participants involved in the study believed that speaking and listening were more practised than writing and reading. The researcher corroborates these findings on the grounds that during the research period, he observed more speaking and listening practices. The following quotations were typical pieces of evidence on which skills were practised at the training colleges:

Reading and writing were less practiced due to the lack of reading materials. Listening and speaking were more practiced once there were available materials.[GELT4 - TTC B - 03/10/2017]

The skills that were more practised were speaking and listening because had materials for that. For writing and reading were less practised because there were not enough.[GELT8 - TTC C - 22/09/2017]

We practise more listening and speaking,[FGD2 - trainee3 - TTC1 - 23/08/2017]

Reading and writing activities are less practised and that’s why we are still facing problems in reading and writing even how to organise our ideas.[FGD2 - trainee5 - TTC A - 23/08/2017]

From the findings, the study showed that the teacher trainees practised listening, speaking, reading and writing skills but to different extents. A study carried out by Emery (2012) concluded that what makes a good primary school English language teacher are good English language skills. It should be noted that no single skill can stand on its own to make English language teachers proficient in their speech and become competent. The listening skill in a foreign language teaching class plays an important role in helping teacher trainees and students in general to familiarise themselves with word stress intonation, pronunciation of the words, getting to know different types of accents. Hedge (2003), Bachman (1990), Canale and Swain (1980) and Hymes (1972) share the view that linguistic competence, pragmatic, discourse and strategic competence have significant implications for communicative language ability for teaching and learning. Tarvin (2014) posits that:

Second and foreign language teachers must instruct much more than mere syntactic and lexical structures because students in L2 language classes need to know how to interact effectively with the L2 world around them, in schools, in the community, and at work. Communicative competence and now interactional competence, along with their associated pedagogies, provide goals that teachers may strive to help their students attain (p. 31).

Speaking as a productive skill is what the teacher trainees needed to master so that they can communicate efficiently with their future students, colleagues, and people who speak English coming from different corners of the world. Hymes (1972) notes that when competence, the ability of persons is of concern, one must recognize that shared ways of speaking acquire a partial autonomy, developing in part in terms of an inner logic of their means of expression, condition and sometimes control content. Furthermore, another productive skill which deserved particular attention was writing. The writing skill helps the teacher trainees to produce the language they learn in language use, in reading, in speaking and listening courses.

Nuttall (2000) asserts that:

in a language development lesson, we focus on the vocabulary or structure, because this is what we want the student to acquire; the meaning of text is subordinate. In a reading lesson, on the other hand, we want the student to use the language to derive messages from texts. The meaning is central, and any new language item is not learnt in an incidental benefit, (p. 30).

Ideally, reading and writing need to be practised much by the teacher trainees to improve language proficiency and communicative competence for better performance in daily speech and in the act of teaching. It is worrisome that within the training programme, reading was less practised and writing lessons did not take place at TTC A and TTC B during the research period, because it is through reading that the teacher trainees may and would develop their linguistic repertoire, such as new words, new expressions, idiomatic expressions, proverbs and understand some stylistic expressions such as figures of speech and apply in their daily conversation. Figure 9 is a composition of a teacher trainee from TTC C with some English problems.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Figure 9: Illustration of writing problems based on a teacher trainee’s work.

Source: Photo taken by the researcher, 2017.

From the composition in figure 7, it can be noted that the typical problems were: spelling, word order use, sentence and verb agreement, text coherence and cohesion. Some language problems presented in figure 7 derive from interference from Portuguese trainees attempted to use Portuguese terms language structures when writing English. For example, the expressionacquelee’s’ heelwas a reference to the idiomatic expressionAchilles’ heel,whereas misspelling of the wordsunivercitiesandmaksderive from lack of reading exercises, where the teacher trainees would easily learn and practise active daily words. These two words are active vocabulary and teacher trainees should not have problems in writing them. The termsneedfuand the expressionthe quality of education be busyare errors which might be caused by the effect of teaching or as an attempt to produce language which the teacher trainees might believe is correct as they are developing the linguistic and discourse competences. These competences are significant for English language teacher trainees’ language development with regards to the first and third dimensions of the theoretical framework. James (1998) contends that:

Learning to code-slide and select the standard appropriate for a given situation is a formidable task. The spoken discourse in school ought to draw on the local accent, which will be prestigious for as long as it is used here, just as will be non-prestigious (p. 38).

Writing is of paramount importance on the grounds that each and every day in the classroom a teacher needs to write something and learners need to write letters both formal and informal, narratives and compositions. Thus, both reading and writing need to be reinforced as lessons in the classroom and set as homework as well. The fact that speaking is more practised than reading is interpreted by Davies and Pearce (2008) who explain that:

Two misconceptions are that the productive skills are more communicative than the receptive skills, and also that they are the basis of the learning process itself. To some extent these misconceptions are understandable. Everyone likes quick, tangible results, for example, learners producing lots of sentences in English (p. 74).

Looking at the number of writing lessons which were supposed to be observed, the researcher observed that in TTC A, the writing lessons were always relegated by the teacher trainer. He would be either absent or, if available, he would make up microteaching sessions or debates. Much as the researcher wished to observe how the writing lessons were handled, he was ignored by the TT1 at TTC A. While writing lessons were implemented at TTC C, during the interviews, the teacher trainees reported that they hardly had writing lessons but acknowledged some writing activities in form of composition writing and informal letters. It was evident that in the three TTCs, reading was not regarded as important because it was taught three times in TTC A and twice in TTC C during the entire research period. Significantly, if the teacher trainers did not do their best to implement such lesson skills to enable the teacher trainees with competences to interpret and understand short texts, stories and episodes, then teacher trainees could not develop their competence and skills in this area. Therefore, the study noted that the good command of any language requires reaching sufficient understanding of all the language skills Saleh (2013, p. 5).

Richards (2011, p. 1) argues that “the issue of language teachers’ knowledge and skill base is fundamental to our understanding of effective teaching and to approaches to language teacher education”. Thus, exploring reading texts enables learners of English as a foreign language to acquire a wide range of linguistic repertoire for their linguistic knowledge, competence and performance, pragmatic competence and strategic competence in language comprehension and interpretation. This translates the theoretical framework into practice. Savignon (1997, p. 22) stresses that “the concern of CLT is not exclusively with face-to-face oral communication. The principles apply equally to reading and writing activities that involve readers and writers in the interpretation, expression, and negotiation of meaning”. Furthermore, with regards to advantages of reading activities for language practice, teacher trainers and teacher trainees should rely on produced material, dictionaries, grammar books, and intermediate English language course books for extending the teacher trainees’ level of comprehension of the language as well as being able to discuss issues regarding the English language.

The other aspect worth noting has to do with inadequate number of teacher trainers. For instance, TTCs B and C had only two teacher trainers each. In TTC A, where there were two classes, there were four English language teacher trainers, the number of teacher trainers did not provide opportunity to the trainees to explore much teaching abilities. In line with the literature review, Richards (2011) explains that:

English language teaching is not something that anyone who can speak English can do. It is a profession, which means that English teaching is seen as a career in a field of educational specialisation, it requires a specialised knowledge base obtained through both academic study and practical experience, and it is a field of work where membership is based on entry requirements and standards (p. 27).

In agreement with Richards position, Randall and Thornton (2001, p. 29) observe that, “learning about teaching involves not just acquisition of theoretical knowledge to a practical context classroom”. Once in the teacher training colleges, teacher trainees aspiring to be English language teachers are supposed to look at the content of English language, have a general view of the primary school learners’ problems and interpret literary texts, including short stories. If they did this, their communicative and teaching competence in the school would not be questioned by the Mozambican society.

From the researcher’s analysis of the weekly schemes of work and the lesson observations, teacher trainers were not flexible in making the lessons more communicative for teacher trainees to achieve the communicative and teaching competences. For example, the researcher observed a lesson on 21st September, 2017 at TTC B based on the topic “ways to share books”. The teacher trainer copied the topic exactly the way it was presented in the syllabus thereby ignoring classroom context. The topic was good by nature but at the teacher trainees’ level, it was not much suitable for them because the lesson was focused on sharing of books in the library. However, it would have been easier for teacher trainees who were focused on how to share books in the classroom mainly at primary school, to share their experiences and make contributions on how better they can do that during their stay in the college, as they had lack of teaching and learning materials.

Carter and Nunan (2001, p. 2) explain that “with the development of the Communicative Language Teaching (CLT), the focus in syllabus design shifted from a focus of English as a system to be studied, to a focus on English as a tool for communication.” Thus, it is up to the teacher trainers to select content and matching it to the learning context and teacher trainees’ needs. The course syllabuses for the teacher training programme were designed for the whole country but there are specific peculiarities in each province and districts as regards the nature of the teacher trainees and the English language learning. As per the benchmark framework used in this study, with focus on quality of teacher training curriculum and content, there should be a match between the visualised curriculum inputs and the envisaged duration of the programme. The paramount goal for language learning is communication based on communicative competence, therefore teacher trainees and learners of English as a foreign language should be aware of communicative language learning activities, approaches and methods.

Through lesson observation and syllabuses analyses the researcher found that speaking and listening had the same content and the content, in turn, caused teacher trainees exhausted dealing with discussions based on the same topics. Therefore, introducing new subjects to the training programme would demand the curriculum designers to reformulate the programme in order to meet the demand for the quality of the teacher trainees. The fact that the curriculum, according to the training programme, has too much content to be covered within a year, does not help either the teacher trainers or the trainees in the sense that the trainers struggle to teach all the content, when in fact, the teacher trainees need particular attention on the language challenges to be overcome.

Despite the positive practices that were noticed more especially in listening and speaking lessons, the teacher trainees’ listening and speaking competences were inadequate. In both classes in TTC A, teacher trainees had difficulties regarding listening to lessons and were unable to find words and answers to fill in the gaps based on CD player voices. The other important element worth observing is the absence of the language laboratory in the

TTCs, which would help teacher trainees with challenges regarding pronunciation. Rao and Murali (2016) assert that the primary function of language laboratory is to provide the students with all necessary facilities to learn and practise linguistic expressions. The authors further explain that the purpose of language laboratories is to provide the students with the facility to gain auditory exposure to the language they are studying. Thus, by having a direct exposure to native speakers through listening to their speeches, and by using language laboratories, students can develop the language skills especially listening skills, and speaking skills, (Rao & Murali, 2016, p. 246).

The language laboratory would help teacher trainees with listening problems and would minimise pronunciation problems through listening tasks. Moreover, the stages of the lessons were not based on: lead-in, pre-listening, while listening and post listening which are the most convenient and appropriate for a listening lesson, were based on Presentation Practice and Production model. Figure 10 shows two lesson plans from TT4 at TTC A based onintroduction, developmentandconclusionas the stages for listening and speaking lessons.

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Figure 10: Samples of lessons plans with some challenges.

Source: Photos taken by the researcher, 2017.

It is important to observe that not all the topics were covered in the three colleges due to time constraints and classroom management by the teacher trainers since some teacher trainees addressed issues which the teacher trainers did not address. The view of limited time devoted for students which does not make any improvement on their communication skills is also shared by scholars such as Saleh (2013); Yilmaz (2009); Rico (2008); Cuban (1993); and Ellis (2003). Thus, extending the training period would be helpful to both teacher trainers and teacher trainees. Teacher trainers must be able to select reading texts and adapt them to suit the teacher trainees’ needs.

5.4 Overall challenges faced by teacher trainers and teacher trainees during the training process

The second research question sought to investigate the challenges faced by teacher trainers and teacher trainees in the training process. The main challenges affecting the teacher training programme, which need to be minimised in order to guarantee a successful English language teacher training programme are: lack of continued professional development for teacher trainers for sharing experiences and information related to the issues of teaching and training methodologies, teacher trainers commitment at the teacher training colleges; lack of constant interaction among teacher trainees; lack of cooperation among teacher training colleges; the need for a new and overall programme design for the English language teacher training programme and challenges of the overall support by Ministry of Education and English language teaching policy.

5.4.1 Lack of continued professional development for TTCs teacher trainers

Teacher trainers from the three colleges lamented that they never had any meeting through which they could discuss issues regarding their challenges and problems. The following statements from TT1, TT2 in TTC A, and TT2 in TTC B are pieces of evidence for lack of short developmental training where matters related to English language teaching should be shared.

First of all, it would be very good if we had more workshops where we could meet different English language teachers from different educational institutes. So, from that [those] workshops we should overcome some of our weaknesses.[TT1 - TTC A - 18/08/2017]

The challenges that... the government should provide training courses, workshops related to the issues of teaching methodologies. For example, I’m here attending a seminar, but it isn’t about English teaching methodologies, it is about other issue. We are supposed to have those UP [Pedagogic University] teacher trainers to share with or train us.[TT2 - TTC A - 21/08/2017]

The only thing that we think that is missing is the opportunity for the teacher trainees to share experience among them even among teacher trainers.[TT1 - TTC B - 01/09/2017]

In this regard, it is crucial to mention that in both TTC B and TTC C, there were only two English language teacher trainers who were teaching different subjects. Ideally, if one is teaching writing or reading courses, he or she should meet with colleagues at least once or twice during a year teaching the same courses in the other two teacher training colleges. In this case, a discussion cannot be fruitful if one shares the challenges or gaps in given courses with one who has not embarked on the same issues. Thus, it becomes a limitation for the teacher trainers’ discussion. However, this was not the case at TTC A, where there were four teacher trainers who met in a trimester at least and reflected on their teacher trainees’ progress. As it was argued by the TT2 from TTC C during the data generation, the following constitute part of the major challenges in his view:

The typical challenges are: the syllabuses for Teaching Practice, ourselves as trainers we don’t have the chance to exchange information experiences, ideas of the same subjects we teach with other trainers in other colleges. Lack of resources, books, dictionaries, our library is very poor, coping: I have been giving PDF books, personal grammar and some books are used in the classroom.[TT2 - TTC C - 18/07/2017]

As pointed out in chapter 2, Cunha (2004) explains that, if many teachers have skills related to the class context of the organisation it means that good teachers explain to students the purpose of the study that they will hold. This is directly linked to the eighth component of the benchmarking which is related to teacher trainers’ performance and professional development. From the document analysis based on the last Mozambican Strategic Plan, it becomes clear that the Mozambican Government is aware of some of the challenges that the teacher training colleges and the teacher trainees face in the colleges as underlined in the Mozambican Strategic Plan 2012-2016:

Improving the quality of education is a complex matter. The outcome of the educational process does not depend solely on the resources made available, but rather on a set of internal factors, including physical, psychological and socio-cultural factors, in which education plays It also includes external factors such as families’ socioeconomic conditions, home/ school distance, commitment of parents and guardians, among others, (p. 35).

The concern regarding the quality of education in general is not recent at all; the last but one Education Strategic Plan for Mozambique, 2006 to 2011 recognised that there was a need to reflect on the quality of the teacher education for primary schools in Mozambique. In addition, the MEC/INDE Teacher Training Programme (2006, p. 10) roughly focuses on research and innovation, thus it stresses that “training teachers for innovation does not simply mean providing them with knowledge... training means preparing them so that they are able to take their own initiatives in the local contexts in which the professional praxis will take place” Therefore, the question that can be raised concerns how one can make innovations in the teaching without having teaching experiences and enough period of professional preparation. The researcher’s view is that the fact that the English language teacher trainees cannot handle the target language fluently, may not help them make reliable innovations in teaching that anyone can trust.

Furthermore, having enough developmental training courses like English language teachers’ workshops, would provide the teacher trainers with opportunity to innovate their trainees’ daily teaching practices. Adekola (2007) maintains that teacher preparation needs to be improved or overhauled particularly at the primary school level so as to help children learn effectively and that teachers should be given more opportunities for additional in-service training or incentives to improve their teaching performance (p. 17). That being the case, Craig, Kraft & Du Plessis 1998 (as cited in a UNICEF study, 2000) argue that:

Professional development can help overcome shortcomings that may have been part of teachers’ pre-service education and keep teachers abreast of new knowledge and practices in the field. This ongoing training for teachers can have a direct impact on student achievement. Case studies from Bangladesh, Botswana, Guatemala, Namibia and Pakistan have provided evidence that ongoing professional development, especially in the early years after initial preparation and then continuing throughout a career, contribute significantly to student learning and retention (p. 14).

With due attention to the graduate teacher profile, the MEC/INDE Teacher Training Programme (2006) acknowledges that “three domains are defined for the teacher trainee at the end of the training course namely; personal and social, scientific knowledge, and professional abilities” (p. 12), as to fill some gaps from teacher trainers in colleges.

Attention to continued professional development for teacher trainers in training colleges is also shared by Rani (2016) who explains that:

a professional culture of collaboration and mobility has yet to become widely implemented in Teacher Education and there is an associated need to advance the development of quality cultures based on career-long perspective on teacher development which include initial teacher education, induction and continuing professional development (p. 136).

Therefore, the English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees in the teacher training colleges seem to be forgotten by the educational administrators at intermediate and top levels. The researcher’s focus is on the Provincial Directorate and the Ministry of Education who should support them with the training process. Adekola (2007, p. 21) postulates that “the lack of professional development as a teacher educator, specialising in fields of knowledge appropriate to primary school education, is common across other countries in Africa as international studies have shown”. Furthermore, Adekola (2007, p. 21) suggests that “staff in colleges of education needs professional support and professional development programmes that enable them to train primary school teachers for the kind of teaching situations they will find themselves in”. That notwithstanding, Koc (2015, p. 461) observes that “the application of more effective models for in-service English language teacher training will both improve the quality of the teachers and increase the achievements of foreign language students”. The need to implement workshops or developmental training programme is a must for the colleges. The trainers suggested that they should meet at least once or twice a year to discuss issues regarding the training programme to improve teacher trainer’s performance and develop professional English language teaching competences. This was suggested in order to put into practice some elements of the last component of the benchmarking, namely teacher trainers’ performance and professional development programmes. Therefore, former teacher trainers and university lecturers from the English language teacher training programmes can be invited by the college managers to help innovate and refresh the teacher trainers’ knowledge on different matters of English language courses, teaching methodologies and related issues.

5.4.2 Teacher trainers’ commitment at the TTCs

The teacher trainers’ dedication and commitment was another point worthy noting during the research. Lack of dedication and commitment of the teacher trainers was an issue raised by some graduate English language teachers, teacher trainees and a teacher trainer. This challenge was also observed by the researcher in TTC A and TTC B where some teacher trainers would not show up for classes. This behaviour showed lack of professionalism and indirectly inculcated negative attitudes into the teacher trainees. Similarly, in the same TTC A, the TT1 admitted lack of good relationship among the teacher trainers which demonstrated bad environment and lack of professionalism among the teacher trainers. This, however, was not the case at TTC B and TTC C. The statements below are clear pieces of evidence from one of the teacher trainers and one of the focus group discussions concerning the extent to which the teacher trainers’ attitude affected the quality of the training. One of the teacher trainers told the researcher:

Sometimes the trainers behave badly by the way they think that they are the owners of the course and some are selfish and absent.[TT1 - TTC A - 18/08/2017]

The following quotes from a teacher trainer, a teacher trainee and a graduate English language reinforce the need for teacher trainers’ commitment towards the teaching and learning process during the training process.

Teacher trainers should plan their lessons with activities that enable communicative competences.[TT2 - TTC1 - 21/08/2017]

The trainers should improve the teaching strategies for our improvements. Even if they increase the length of the course to two years, without changing the strategies it will not change anything and we will continue being poor in English language.[FGD2 - trainee3 - TTC A - 23/08/2017]

The trainers should be very well trained professionally with specific methodology, fluent trainers, approachable, and familiarised with each and every content. [GELT6 - TTC C - 22/09/2017]

The researcher believes that the teacher trainers’ behaviour may implicitly or explicitly influence the teacher trainees in their future career as it would lead to carelessness, lack of commitment to work, lack of lesson planning and lesson improvisation. These are aspects that the teacher trainers should avoid because they undermine their professionalism and affect the training process in relation to the communicative competence and teaching performance of the teacher trainees and their professionalism. Menon and Rama (2006) note that:

It is high time we realise that it’s not just the teacher shortage but the quality of „so called’ trained teachers, that is, primarily responsible for quality in the school system. Quality and caliber of teachers that serve the educational system of a country can serve as an index of development and progress for that country (p. 1).

Thus, professionalism of the English language teacher forms part of the benchmarking in which teacher trainees’ needs are met. The teacher trainees should always be exposed to positive attitudes of their teacher trainers, share positive praxis, learn to design and develop teaching and learning materials, learn to reflect and critique the aspects which do help a professional English language teacher. These aspects include proper dressing, adequate knowledge of register and encouraging the teacher trainees to understand subject matters and pedagogical content knowledge. Furthermore, in the benchmarking framework, the issue of professionalism includes teacher trainers and trainees’ accountability, respect, commitment, tolerance, availability and attitudes towards teacher trainees needs. Sanyal (2013) among eight aspects observes that:

An effective teacher would; (i) Function as a member of a team of eminent professionals. (ii) Exhibit qualities of commitment, involvement and competence in professional effort. (iii) Take initiative to learn the latest pedagogic techniques, to innovate and continuously seek improvement in their work, visualize and carry out curriculum transactions according to the nature of the enrolled student groups. (iv) Provide a variety of learning experiences including individual, collaborative participatory and action oriented with flexibility in their implementation (p. 30).

During the lesson observations, it was encouraging to see TT2 at TTC A moving around the class while the teacher trainees were doing exercises in groups. This was not done by other teacher trainers. For example, in the second lesson of TT4 at TTC A, just like in the other three lessons, the teacher trainer used to set the task, give instructions and sit at her desk showing a kind of laziness and lack of interest in the lesson. At the end of the exercises, the teacher trainer would ask the teacher trainees to provide the answers on the exercises. She did not explain on the reason why one answer was wrong or correct.

As observed by teacher trainees in TTC A and TTC B the teacher trainers did not work only in the training colleges, they also worked at least in one or two private institutions. The fact that they were most of the time careless and busy with other personal issues hindered their good concentration as they were always rushing and, hence, not very focused. Thus, the private institutions are more rigorous than the public ones. Owing to the fact that the public institutions are not strict, teacher trainers end up being inflexible in their teaching by basing on their past training experiences, not renewing the training methodologies, not adapting teaching and learning materials and relying on dictation of the notes as it was observed in the three colleges.

5.4.3 Lack of constant interaction among teacher trainees

While observing the challenges, in all teacher training colleges, some of the teacher trainees did not live in the hostels; they rented rooms or small houses for the whole year. This situation affects the teacher trainees on grounds that they only share their English language knowledge in circumstances in which they are learning and practising the language in the classroom and hardly outside the classroom in daily conversation. This factor contradicts the communicative competence theoretical framework, which demands the practice of English language in different settings and with different social groups. The English language for this specific group of teacher trainees needs to be spoken and produced outside the classroom with colleagues and other members of the same speech community such as teacher trainers, English language teachers from secondary schools and teacher trainees from the university levels. The following quotation from the teacher trainees in TTC C translates the worries which the researcher has been emphasising:

Most of us live outside and we don’t have a place in order to share knowledge. So, we need to share knowledge among trainees. The direction [board of managers] should prioritize English course trainees because of the language. The schedule of the timetable doesn’t provide us enough time because when we go home, it is almost late and it is difficult for us to perform outside activities.[FGD1 - trainee 1 - TTC C - 21/09/2017]

Another teacher trainee from the group remarked the following:

We don’t have time to rest as well as time to plan our lesson or even time to do our personal things that can help us in our training progress.[FGD1 - trainee 6 - TTC C - 21/09/2017]

Richards (2014, p. 4) contends that “using English for social interaction in and out-ofclass situations provides many opportunities for learners to maintain and extend their proficiency in English”. As it has been described in chapter one, Zambézia has twenty- two districts, but only three colleges offer the English language teacher training programme for primary schools, namely TTC A, TTC B and TTC C. It was the teacher trainees’ view through the Focus Group Discussions that if they were all or the majority lodged in the hostels it would help much for the English language interaction and communication as they would be interacting in English every day and thus, fostering the communicative approach and sociolinguistic competence.

The researcher agrees with the teacher trainees and Richards’ view on the accounts that language needs to be shared and practised much by the teacher trainees outside the classroom for their better oral performance. Savignon (1997, p. 15) observes that “language use beyond the classroom is the fifth and final component of a communicative curriculum. Regardless of the variety of communicative activities in the classroom, their purpose remains preparing learners to use the second language in the world beyond”. In line with Savignon’s viewpoint, Mustadi (2012) stresses that, “the communicative approach relates to communicative competence which refers to the capacity to use language appropriately in communication based on the setting, the roles of the participants, and the nature of the transaction” (p.19). Thus, living in the hostel would allow teacher trainees develop the listening and speaking skills, share classroom tasks, activities and extra works.

Teacher trainees may easily develop both listening abilities and critical thinking skills by engaging in constant listening activities in the classroom involving, conversations, dialogues, debates, listening to music and interpreting it, watching and listening short movies and interpreting to the whole class. These activities can help trainees to develop skills for conveying messages, which they have clearly understood, in line to dimensions proposed by Hymes (1972) regarding linguistic competences. For the English language teacher to be able to teach, they need first to master the language itself in all skills and then translate pedagogically such knowledge and abilities with students into the classroom. Thereafter, they can learn or acquire the teaching skills and competences through the practice of English language teaching during the training and once they are deployed in primary schools. This is what should be stressed by the colleges in Zambézia when training English language teachers.

5.4.4 Lack of cooperation among teacher training colleges

Cooperation with other institutions which train English language teachers is crucial for the teacher training colleges. This is because lack of cooperation does not help to strengthen some of the teacher trainers’ working experiences. The next quotation provides important evidence that the teacher training colleges and the English language teacher trainers did not have much partnership and cooperation with other public and private institutions to minimise some of their challenges.

The institution should have cooperation with other institutions in order to provide us with materials to put in the library. We as trainers should share issues related to teaching methodologies to overcome the problems we face in our classes.[TT2 - TTC A - 21/08/2017]

As discussed in Chapter 2, James (2001) underlines the need for a number of training courses along the semester and for the incentives for teacher participation. English language teacher trainers’ group did not have opportunities for workshops with issues regarding ELT subjects while in the other fields there were regular workshops in Portuguese. Thus, it was not due to lack of people to handle teacher training workshops in the colleges. James (2001, p. 17) argues that “if teachers are to help to bring about change in their schools, they will need to work together effectively, as well as with other participants in the educational system. A teacher education programme provides a splendid opportunity to develop such social skills”. The teacher training colleges need to establish partnership with other institutions such as universities where English language teachers are trained so that challenges regarding the teaching process can be shared with more experienced trainers and such challenges are overcome in the training process.

Thus, teacher trainers fromUniversidade Licungo,Licungo University in Quelimane, and former teacher trainers from the colleges can play an important role to stimulate and update the teacher trainers in the three colleges with teaching methodologies on how to handle different challenges in the classroom. For that, the teacher training college managers must also worry about the life of the English language teacher training programme by not only emphasising on the quality of the product which is not questioned by the society but also on the grounds that professionals need to have development trainings to ensure that they are on the right track. English Language can be practised every time people speaking the language meet, and if teacher trainees engage themselves in conversations, through debates onWhatsAppgroups, privateFacebookconnections with other teacher trainees from other colleges or universities, they would realise a great deal of language practice and fluency. To that, closed groups should be set and monitored by the teacher trainers; the activities, discussions, debates and teacher trainees active participation in such groups, should be valued as part of the continuous assessment.

5.4.5 Overall programme design for the English language teacher training programme

Having described the language problems and constraints, it is the researcher’s belief that the teacher trainees need a semester of intensive preparation in English course based on language use and speaking activities. However, they need to have other introductory subjects to open their mind, learn and practise basic aspects of the language, take advantage of working together and discussing language issues. This could be done most of the times in pairs, groups or as a whole class. One of the participants in the focus group discussions explained the following:

For me, grammar problems are thoughtful [serious] and I think that some of my mates are in the same situation as mine. But group discussions are so helpful for our improvement. Apart from that there are also reading, as well as writing problems.[FGD2 - trainee3 - TTC A - 23/08/2017]

There should be increased more subjects So, I think that Phonetics and Phonology should be introduced in the course just to help our Teacher Trainees in the subjects mentioned previously. [TT1 - TTC A - 18/08/2017]

In the light of language problems that teacher trainees brought into the training, teacher trainees needed to be helped during the first semester with grammar, reading and writing practice. After teacher trainees gained these abilities, they would learn methodological content and other subjects. Thus, it would require the training programme to last for at least three years and not one year as was the case until 2017. Apart from the teacher trainers and teacher trainees, the view to extend the English language teacher training programme was also shared by the following two graduate English language teachers:

I think that we or the government should extend the years at least two years, because it is not all the people who apply for this are good in English and it is not possible to learn how to teach English in one year.[GELT2 - TTC A - 05/10/2017]

The strategies that should be implemented to improve the quality of the English language programme in the 10+1 model is about the number of lessons each trainee teaches during the teaching practice.[GELT5 - TTC B - 03/10/2017]

It is a fact that English is not an official language in Mozambique, people generally speak Portuguese in public and other local languages within the social affairs and daily communications. Teacher trainees use English for a specific purpose, which is learning to speak and teach the language. Hence, the training period of time as already alluded to, is too short. Interviewees suggested two or three years of English language teacher training programme. Therefore, there is great need to reflect on a new training programme befitting Zambézia’s context in which teacher trainees can learn and practise content of the English language so that they are able to acquire communicative and teaching competence. Thus, the five components of the theoretical framework: linguistic, sociolinguistic, discourse, strategic competences and the communication skills and teaching competences would easily be translated into practice.

Based on the literature review, Segovia & Hardison 2009 (as cited in Saleh, (2013, p. 107) affirm that “through setting attainable goals and selecting appropriate methodologies we can enhance the likelihood of the success of language learning programmes in FL contexts”. Therefore, having English language subjects in 6 semesters plus related subjects such as listening, speaking, reading and writing would foster the teacher trainees’ holistic communicative and teaching competences. Furthermore, language problems brought into the training programme would be shaped within three years as teacher trainees would proceed with their training. For example, the elementary mistakes regarding verb tenses, language interference would be minimised by year 1 or 2.

Pronunciation problems, comprehension of short stories and reading abilities, would be achieved by year 2. The teaching competences would be achieved by the end of the first semester in year 3. This means that after three years of teaching and learning English methodologies, micro-teaching sessions and teaching practices in primary schools, teacher trainees would be adequately equipped with both communicative and teaching competences. Based on the analysis on both NAAC and COL benchmarking (2007) and the communicative theoretical framework from Canale and Swain (1980), Dubin and Olshtain (2002, p. 26) “most new programmes are designed to either recommend the deficiencies in existing ones or expand and improve them”. However, Mustadi (2012, p. 1) asserts that “the students of elementary school teacher department are expected to have the competencies as elementary school teachers with good English, both spoken and written, especially English skills for delivering instructional materials when they teach in the classroom”. By understanding the strengths and weaknesses of the existing programme, there is an urgent need to propose a curriculum plan that can satisfy the society and for the benefit of the teacher trainees, teacher trainers and the quality of the programme. Table 22 contains proposed curriculum subjects for English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Mozambique, which would last for three years designed by the researcher. For more detailed plan, see appendix 29.

Table 22: proposals of the curriculum subjects for three-year English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Mozambique

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

*ELTPP- English Language Teaching Principles and Practice (Teaching Methodology).

This proposed English language teacher training programme subjects are composed of four areas: social sciences and education, expertise courses, teaching methodologies and teaching practice and final achievement work orientation. With disciplines such as Pedagogy, Psychology and Sociology of Education, teacher trainees will be able to acquire knowledge on how to deal with students’ social differences and problems with special educational needs. They would also learn how to contextualise the training by choosing active and participative methods, techniques and procedures, which will allow the teacher trainees have the foundations of education. These subjects should be taught in the English language. The study skills subjects would be taught in the second year after teacher trainees have had enough English language input, so that they can be able to translate the content of these subjects efficiently using the target language in issues like, taking part in discussions, summarising texts and speeches, note taking, inferring meaning and general discussions regarding English language teaching.

For a better understanding and more detailed plan of the proposed subjects see appendix 29. The first area comprises English I to VI as semester subjects. English I to IV aim to provide students with basic, pre-intermediate knowledge and competences of the English language use, responding to the need for teacher trainees to master the linguistic competence. Mustadi (2012) refers to these as knowledge of vocabulary and rules of word formation, pronunciation, spelling, and sentence formation. English language V and VI is to provide knowledge of the English level corresponding to the intermediate and upper level for the consolidation of the basic knowledge and for the teacher trainees to feel conveniently competent for any communication in English. As Bagaric (2007) explains,

Canale and Swain (1980) and Canale (1983) understood communicative competence as a synthesis of an underlying system of knowledge and skill needed for communication. In their concept of communicative competence, knowledge refers to the conscious or unconscious knowledge of an individual about language and about other aspects of language use (p. 96).

Knowledge of subjects such as Literature, Phonetics, and Phonology is important for the English language teacher training programme so that teachers are able to interpret short stories as well as read texts and tales in classroom contexts. The discipline of Introduction to Literature will allow the teacher trainees to stimulate reading, elaborating and reciting short poems, and approaches to folk tales that are an integral part of the transversal area in language teacher training. In the discipline of English Phonetics and Phonology, the teacher trainees will be provided with activities of pronunciation, the variables of phonetic sounds of consonants and vowels and the rules of stress and intonation of words and phrases. Delahunty and Garvey (2010) defend this view by arguing that:

teachers should be knowledgeable about the phonetics and phonology of English because (1) the sound system is primary and the basis for the spelling system; (2) they may have to teach English pronunciation to students who are not native speakers of English; (3) they may have to teach poetry, which requires that they teach about rhyme, alliteration, assonance, and other poetic devices that manipulate sound; (4) it is important to understand accents and language variation and to react appropriately to them and to teach appropriate language attitudes about them to students (p.89).

With the subjects described in this section, teacher trainees would be enhanced with the linguistic, sociolinguistic, pragmatic and strategic competences in English language communication and teaching. As observed in the literature review, Mustadi (2012) notes that “in various types of language programs, language educators and curriculum researchers have implemented communicative-oriented teaching syllabuses to seek for more effective ways for improving students’ communication skills”. Mustadi (2012) furthermore contends that:

The English syllabus should provide students the necessary and appropriate knowledge and skills. Elementary School Teacher Department should provide students specialising in teaching a number of subjects using English as the language of instruction in the classroom and therefore the English syllabus has to be adjusted to accommodate the needs of the students and should be set proportionally based on the purpose of the department, hence, the language program has to be designed in order to meet the needs (Mustadi, 2012, p. 3).

The four standalone major language skills subjects such as; Reading, Listening, Speaking and Writing would enhance the teacher trainees both receptive and productive skills to master the skills for efficient communication. In the third part, the researcher proposes subjects such as English Language Teaching Methodology I to VI. The importance of these subjects is to provide teacher trainees with didactic tools such as methods and procedures of teaching English with dynamic examples through micro-teaching sessions, debates and discussions. The last area covers three disciplines, namely Techniques for Final Work Elaboration, and Teaching Practice I and II. This means dealing with a clear curricular plan with a disciplinary orientation, concise and strategically applicable. The researcher’s suggested plan is based on the analysis of the current English language teacher training programme and the former 10+2 training programme used within 2002 to 2006, see appendixes 26 and 27.

The association of the four areas in a three-year teacher training programme would guarantee integral training of the English language teachers for primary schools with communicative and teaching competences to be acquired and developed to satisfy the society and the quality of education. The Education Provincial Directorate in Zambezia Province should find the strategies aforementioned relevant to share with curriculum designers in the Ministry of Education in Mozambique for the due implementation. A study conducted by Henriksen (2010) regarding the language attitudes in a primary school based on a bottom up approach to language education in Mozambique emphasises that “it is worth researching on the issue of alternative models for teacher training, especially considering that teacher training at the moment is a sole responsibility of the Ministry of Education” (p.185).

It is important to highlight that the current study was conducted in the second semester of 2017 which was the last period within the last four months of August, September, October and November. However, few of the teacher trainees in the four classes were able to speak English well. Thus, it is important to reformulate the curriculum and the course syllabuses so that teacher trainees can have enough training period to acquire knowledge of English language and English language teachings skills and competences. Extending the training period would help the teacher trainers to put into practice some positive practices such as attention to language, focus on teacher trainees’ major problems, adequate plan for teaching practice and supervision in the schools and extra learning, and remedial tasks through an English club. The view of adding or introducing new subjects was shared by all the four Focus Group Discussions and some graduate English language teachers. The following quote illustrates this point:

I think they could implement a new subject that should be focusing only on pronunciation. In listening is where we learn how to pronounce the words, but, let’s imagine that you are hearing a word that you have never heard before, how are you going to know the meaning of the word! So there is a need to have phonetics and phonology.[FGD1 - trainee1 - TTC A - 23/08/2017]

According to my experience what could have been filled in along the training process is to maximise more English subjects, than Portuguese subjects, giving students more time to practise the language, instead of sending them to the field to teach as soon as possible.[GELT1 - TTC A - 05/10/2017]

The aspect I think constitutes gaps which could have been filled in along the training process in under literature. During the course, teaching literature is an area which should have been covered so that the [teacher] trainees could haveGELT5. [GELT5 - TTC B - 03/10/2017]

Adding subjects to the English language teacher training programme would require having more English language teacher trainers. Furthermore, it would require extending the period of training due to the fact that with the existing courses, teacher trainees have lessons in the morning and afternoon and they come back to the lessons in the afternoons already exhausted. Wallace (2001, p. 58) remarks that “one’s competence to teach might be proved by a certificate gained at the end of a teacher education course many years ago”. Adding more years for the training programme would enhance teacher trainees’ opportunity to have more learning content input, responding to the need for quality of teacher training curriculum as a component of the benchmarking in this study.

Therefore, by extending the period of training, it would help teacher trainers and college managers materialise strategies that would make the teacher trainees finish the training programme with sufficient communicative and teaching competences. It would also allow the teacher trainers to design an effective timetable which would allow them to have some time to attend the teacher trainees’ worries on English language extra activities. As regards to the number of teacher trainers in TTC B and TTC C, two English language teacher trainers are not enough to share the challenges encountered in daily work and to overcome them. Four to six English language teacher trainers in each college would be ideal if each college had to have three classes as they would form a team of English language teacher trainers. Thus, the following proverbs would fit the real context:“The path to greatness is along with others”,by the Spanish Priest Baltazar Gracion and“Victory is much more meaningful when it comes not just from one person, but from the joint achievements of many”by Howard Schultz.

5.4.6 Changing the language of instruction from Portuguese to English in some courses

Delivery of content using English language is another challenge for the English language teacher training programme. Interviewees suggested changing the language of instruction from Portuguese to English in some subjects. In addition, reducing the subjects taught or delivered in Portuguese would enhance the quality of the training programme as teacher trainees need to be exposed to and in the target language so that pedagogical technical terms and more language structure are acquired by them. The following quotes provide evidence of such challenges:

The aspects I think undermine the English language teacher training programme are the numerous subjects taught in other languages [Portuguese and Bantu]. I think such subjects should be taught in English.[GELT6 - TTC C - 22/09/2017]

During the course there are problems, the problem are Portuguese language subjects so we don’t know what is the objective of having Portuguese subjects while we are attending an English course, because we don’t know the relevance of some of them, that is the case of Arts and crafts.[FGD1 - trainee2 - TTC B - 01/09/2017]

The only thing that undermines the English language teacher training programme is the lack of other English language subjects which are taught in Portuguese language and short duration of the training period.[TT1 - TTC B - 01/09/2017]

In 2017, five subjects were taught in Portuguese; Psycho-pedagogy, School Organisation and Management, Fundamental Notions of Construction, Maintenance and School Production, Teaching Methodologies of Moral Education and Code of Conduct, and Mozambican Bantu Languages. From these five subjects, three should be taught in English and they would be advantageous for teacher trainees’ language use in terms of vocabulary range, language structure and linguistic competence. The three subjects include: Psycho-pedagogy, School Organisation and Management and Teaching Methodologies of Codes of Conduct because the English language teacher trainers can deliver them in English. Delivery of the subjects in the target language would foster the teacher trainees’ linguistic proficiency through the learning and acquisition of English pedagogical terminologies. This is paramount for the communicative competence theoretical framework as Mustadi (2012) asserts:

Hopefully, the students will acquire the competencies as professional teachers with good English and they can deliver materials or a number of subjects by using English as the language of instruction. This is in line with the needs of the elementary school students, where they receive a number of subjects including English (p. 2).

The other two courses, namely: Fundamental notions of construction, maintenance and school production, that is, Arts and crafts, and Mozambican Bantu languages, because they deal with technical aspects which require experts in the field to work with, would be wise to keep in Portuguese and taught by other teacher trainers different from the English staff. The satisfaction towards the quality of the training programme would be high as teacher trainees did not really see the advantage of having some of the subjects taught in Portuguese. This view finds support from the literature review. According to Medgyes 2001 (as cited in Richards, 2011):

Learning how to carry out these aspects of a lesson fluently and comprehensively in English is an important dimension of teacher learning for those whose mother tongue is not English. There is a threshold proficiency level the teacher needs to have reached in the target language in order to be able to teach effectively in English. A teacher who has not reached this level of proficiency will be more dependent on teaching resources for example (p. 3).

The researcher supports the removal of some of the subjects delivered in Portuguese to give teacher trainees time to concentrate on subjects in the target language. By the end of the training programme they will be enriched with educational and pedagogical language from different perspectives, which fit in the teaching and learning of English in primary schools and interaction with different speakers of English language.

5.4.7 Challenges of the overall support by Ministry of Education and English language policy

The other issue that should be considered side by side with workshops and developmental training programme is lack of supervision by the Provincial Directorate of Education and the Ministry of Education to the English language teacher training programme. According to the Mozambican Education Strategic Plan (2012):

acknowledging the complexity and importance of teacher training matters, a National Directorate for Teacher Training (DNFP) was created [in Mozambique] with the main mandate of improving the performance of teachers through, among other actions, ensuring a better integration of training with professional development and promoting better cooperation between the different stakeholders within and outside the Government, (p. 46).

English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees at the three colleges, however, did not acknowledge any positive intervention from Provincial Directorate of Education in the training process as a way of helping them with the challenges they faced in daily work. The National Directorate for Teacher Training (DNFP) should reflect on mechanisms to help the English language teacher trainers and colleges in Zambezia Province. The teacher trainers interviewed believed that the DNFP and other bodies worry about other areas of training and never the English language teacher training programme. This raises the question whether English language teacher training programme for primary schools is implemented to satisfy the government, the educational policy makers or curriculum designers, and why there appears to be no concern from the institutional managers and the Ministry of Education regarding the so many challenges. These questions constitute a challenge for further research for language teacher trainers or lecturers. With regard to literature, Kalisz (2008) observe that,

direction for the teacher also comes from domains other than research: quality assurance, for example, where the shape of the FL programme is prescribed and monitored by government, by institutional committees, or by external accrediting bodies, such as the British Council and BALEAP in the UK context, ACTFL in the US, and EAQUALS in the European context (p. 15).

The researcher argues that teacher trainees need strong interaction with English native speakers and speakers of English language as official one in the country and outside the country. The opportunity for the teacher trainees to share English language with native speakers would enhance their oral abilities in terms of practice and would improve their listening abilities. The need for teacher trainees to stay in a country where English is spoken as official and second language would help them foster the practice to speak English in the real context, where the teacher trainees’ first and second language are not spoken. This would, in turn, enhance their opportunity to advance with the use of English language within the appropriate context, as it was suggested by graduate English language teachers:

English teacher training programme should include a space whereby the trainees should be having a few time interacting with native speakers so that they can be aware on [of] the vocabulary and aspects of their tradition.[GELT7 - TTC C - 22/09/2017]

Students being trained or trainees should have opportunities to travel any of neighbouring countries as they are English speaking countries they would learn a lot, even just for two weeks.[GELT6 - TTC C - 22/09/2017]

The first strategy in order to improve the quality of the English language programme in the 10+1 model is to request teachers [teacher trainers] with high capacity and increase the number of material books and other listening and writing.[GELT4 - TTC B - 03/10/2017]

Thus, looking at the geographical situation of the country, it would be advisable that English language teacher trainees from Zambézia Province should travel and stay in Malawi for two or three months during or after their teaching practice. In this regard, they should be in a hostel and placed in primary schools to observe English lessons and interact with English language teachers in primary schools. A memorandum of understanding between Mozambican government through the Ministry of Education and The Ministry of Education in Malawi could be established to allow this practice to take place. During the period of stay in Malawi, teacher trainees could be escorted by three teacher trainers as supervisors.

This view is shared by Saleh (2013, p. 108) in which he considers the factors which contribute to the failure, including teachers’ and students’ low language proficiency, such as: the traditional teaching methods with teacher-centred instruction, the lack of opportunities for active language practice, and the high expectations regarding the development of the communicative competence in comparison with native speakers. The same author further contends that “another fundamental factor could be related to the lack of including field language experiences, living with native speakers’ community for language learners to observe how native speakers use their language and how they interpret messages (Saleh, 2013).

The other way round, differently from living with native speakers is that the training colleges should be instructed by the Ministry of Education to establish connections with International Organisations operating in Mozambique, specifically in Zambézia Province, such as UNICEF, USAID, Non-Governmental Organisations and Projects such as, Ibis, World Vision,Eu leio- I read, in order to have the foreign people working in these organisations to voluntarily, with fixed dates, come to the colleges so that the teacher trainees would interact with native speakers of the language for dialogues and conversations. Based on literature review, Hymes (1972) explains that “mastery of the way of speaking is prerequisite to personal expression. Serious concern for both scientific analysis and human being requires one to go beyond content to the explicit statement of rules and features of them” (p. 60).

In line with the literature review in Chapter 2, Mawere (2012) in his study concludes that “it appears more convincing in the context of Mozambique to recommend that the country invest in teacher training and hire qualified teachers from neighbouring countries such as Tanzania, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Malawi to boost English language teaching and learning (p. 44). While that has been recommended, Henriksen (2010, p. 184) suggests implementation of alternative models for teacher training, both initial and in-service training. Moreover, Passos (2009) underlines that “the quality of primary school teacher training, both academic and professional, should be given great emphasis as training plays an important role in improving the quality of education (p. 37).

The researcher therefore argues that there is an urgent need to implement a three-year English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Zambezia colleges delivered by both competent Mozambican language teacher trainers and native or foreign speakers of English trained to teach English as a foreign language. The researcher also argues that through interaction with foreigners, teacher trainees would have the chance to shape some of the pronunciation problems, through the practice of word stress, sentence intonation and active communication with native speakers in the classroom, naturally. Ideally, it would be somehow excellent if native English language teacher trainers who are Volunteer Services Overseas were contracted to work for some years at the teacher training colleges. Teacher trainees would benefit much from native English language speakers and thus, enhance their listening skills and communicative competences as natives speak naturally.

According to the TESOL White Paper (2012) “Policymakers at all levels need to ensure that policymaking is a consultative process that takes into account the role of teachers as the point of contact between the educational objectives of language policy and the students” (p. 8). The policymaking process, therefore, be inclusive. Teacher trainers and teachers in general should be able to communicate their experiences to policymakers to ensure that what is taught in schools is relevant to the varied contexts in which they work. Unfortunately, the INDE hardly ever gets to the bottom level in Zambézia Province to hear and collect from the teachers, parents and stakeholders’ problems, aspects for curriculum changes and improvements. Educational practitioners should also work collaboratively with policymakers to determine policy goals, teaching methods and contents for different English language teachers. Equally, experts in English language teaching throughout the country should be called for the definition of the English language policy and curricula design so that local contents and problems should be discussed and policy decisions regarding English language teaching in Mozambique be made visible, transparent, and accessible.

According to the TESOL White Paper (2012) if ELT is to empower local communities by engaging with globalisation and providing them access to global resources, then it must answer questions about the relevance of teaching English, and in particular about what variety of English is taught and for what purpose (p. 9). From the document analysis based on the last Mozambican Strategic Plan, it becomes clear that the Mozambican government is aware of some of the challenges that the teacher training colleges and the teacher trainees face in the colleges, as it is underlined by the Mozambican Strategic Plan 2012-2016,

Improving the quality of education is a complex matter. The outcome of the educational process does not depend solely on the resources made available, but rather on a set of internal factors, including physical, psychological and socio-cultural factors, in which education plays a part, as does the classroom teaching and learning process. It also includes external factors such as families’ socioeconomic conditions, home/ school distance, commitment of parents and guardians, among others, (p. 35).

English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees in the teacher training colleges, therefore, seem to be forgotten by the educational managers at intermediate and top levels. As such, the researcher’s focus is on the Provincial Directorate and the Ministry of Education who should support them. Both the Provincial Directorate and The Ministry of Education in cooperation with National Institute for Education Development and some National Publishers such as,Editora Escolarshould support the English language teacher training colleges with adequate teaching and learning materials.

Finally, the study showed some common challenges at the three colleges and particular challenges from each college. The common findings that the colleges share are six. Firstly, they all used the same training programme. Secondly, teacher trainees had similar language problems such as of grammar, pronunciation and language interference when they got into the training programme. Thirdly, the colleges lacked teaching and learning materials. Fourthly, teacher trainers lacked training workshops. Fifthly, they lacked clear criteria for the selection of the candidates based on multiple choice entrance exam. The sixth similarity is that the most practised language skills in all the three colleges were speaking and listening as opposed to reading and writing though with slight differences.

Furthermore, a considerable number of subjects was delivered in Portuguese and there was a lack of time by teacher trainees during the day due to overloaded tasks and course timetables. Furthermore, there were some discrepancies in terms of teaching and learning practices, lack of commitment by teacher trainers, location of the colleges, and the teacher trainers’ English background. At TTC A the teacher trainers were less committed than TTC B and TTC C. In TTC B and TTC C the existing teaching and learning materials were grade 6 and 7 course books, while in TTC A, there were some short stories and three English and Portuguese dictionaries. The teacher trainers in TTC A and TTC B held Honours Bachelor’s degree in English Language Teaching with an exception of a trainer at TTC A who held Honours Bachelors in Portuguese Teaching with minor in English. Whereas in TTC C, both teacher trainers were taking Bachelor’s with Honours degree in English language teaching through distance education programme. The microteaching sessions in TTC A were taken less seriously in relation to TTC B and TTC C. These factors constituted challenges which impacted on the quality of the training programme and the teacher trainees’ communicative and teaching competences.

5.5 Chapter summary

This chapter has focused on three major pillars of this research; factors which affect the quality of English language teachers training courses, challenges the English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees’ face during the training process, and strategies for implementation to improve the quality of the training programme.Factors affecting the quality of the English language teacher training programme in Zambezia colleges for primary schools were pointed out by three groups of participants: teacher trainers, teacher trainees and graduate English language teachers. With regards to challenges the English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees face during the training process, the results revealed many which affect the programme and the teacher trainees. The chapter has also highlighted crucial strategies through which teacher trainers and teacher trainees can cope with challenges being faced by primary teacher training in the study locations. Lessons observation analyses and document analysis have enriched the discussion by triangulating the generated data. The next chapter presents conclusions of the thesis, contributions and implications of the study.

Chapter 6 Conclusions, contributions and implications of the study

6.1 Chapter overview

The aim of this study was to examine the quality of the English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Zambézia Province in Mozambique. The study was guided by the main research question; what is the quality of the English language teacher training programme for primary schools at the Teacher Training Colleges in Zambézia Province? The researcher raised three subsidiary research questions which were crucial to the study and have all been answered in Chapter 5. The current chapter presents the conclusions of the study and explains the contributions of the study for English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees, college managers, experts and researchers in the field of English language teacher education and English language teaching. The chapter also discusses implications of the study and, finally, presents implications of the study which can be employed for further research by researchers and English language scholars in Mozambique and outside the country.

6.2 Conclusions of the study

This section concludes this study. Examining the English language teacher training programme has helped the researcher to discuss issues that undermine the English language teacher training programme and analyse how good and competent the teacher trainees become as they finish the training programme so as to improve the delivery and outcomes of the training programme itself.

From the discussions in the previous chapter, several aspects undermine the quality of the English language teacher training programme. As a result, English language teacher trainees at teacher training colleges in Zambézia Province fail to become competent English language teachers for primary schools. The fact that the programme contains Portuguese subjects creates limitations to the teacher trainees to develop the English language communicative and teaching competences. In addition, the training period is too short. Thus, extending the English language teacher training programme for three years would allow the training programme to have more subjects in English and enough time to train the English language teachers for primary schools. Furthermore, the quality of the English language teacher training programme is unsatisfactory. In a nutshell, the factors which affect the quality of the English language teacher training programme are stated below.

Low level of English language proficiency of the English language teacher trainees particularly in grammar use, mispronunciation challenges, reading, writing, speaking and listening deficiencies affected the quality of the training programme as teacher trainers had to work harder in order to minimise the teacher trainees’ elementary and basic problems of the English language in the classroom.

The short duration of the training programme that is two semesters totaling eight months is short time for many activities and lessons in both morning and afternoon shifts and, in turn, affected the quality of the English language teacher training programme in the teacher training colleges in 2017. Moreover, Portuguese is still being used to teach all the courses except English Language and English Language Teaching Methodologies. Furthermore, the mentioned subjects had too much content that teacher trainers could not cover all of them during the year. Thus, the fact that the contents were not covered during the two semesters, impacted negatively on the development of the teacher trainees’ English language knowledge, skills and competences.

Moreover, internal factors contributed negatively to the quality of the English language teacher training programme. Among these factors, lack of teaching and learning materials for English language subjects such as English language dictionaries, grammar books, CD players, course books and storybooks made teacher trainees dependent on teacher trainers’ handouts and lessons delivered in class. Similarly, it was established that there were deficiencies in the selection criteria for both teacher trainers who did not meet all the necessary requirements and teacher trainees who could not speak in English and their performance towards writing, speaking, reading and listening was weak. Furthermore, inadequate classroom management during the micro-teaching sessions due to lack of timely and helpful feedback undermined the quality of the programme. Lastly, it was discovered that a considerable number of subjects (5) were taught in Portuguese and not in English a situation which limited teacher trainees to develop a repertoire, space of, English language vocabulary, language structure, figures of speech and idiomatic expressions that would foster their knowledge in the English language. Thus, these factors affected the quality in the English language teacher training programme as English language teacher trainees did not meet good and effective communicative and teaching competences in the classroom.

Another factor was that reading and writing lessons were taught less due to lack of teaching and learning materials and some teacher trainers did not make efforts for such lessons. Teacher trainees also lamented that teacher trainers worked in more than one college and some in three institutions including private ones, a situation which made them always busy thereby having little time to assist the English language teacher trainees with their tasks, assignments or remedial tasks. Additionally, the study found out that teacher trainers’ commitment was weak as shown by a lackadaisical attitude in the classroom and sometimes absenteeism during some lessons, mainly in TTC A and TTC B.

The study also explored challenges the English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees faced during the training process. The results revealed that teacher trainees lacked the ability to read and write proficiently in English as witnessed through writing tasks based on homework. There was also lack of interaction by teacher trainees with native English speakers in order for them to improve their speech skills. Lack of cooperation among teacher training colleges and other institutions like theUniversidade LicungoinQuelimane -Licungo University in Quelimane, which trains English language teachers to Bachelor’s Degree with Honours in English Language Teaching undermined the need for teacher trainers to dialogue, share their experiences, weaknesses and strengths.

Furthermore, the study found out the following challenges: lack of continued professional development programmes for teacher trainers, which could be delivered by more experienced teacher trainers and education experts from the Provincial Directorate in Zambezia Province and lecturers from Pedagogic University - Quelimane Branch, lack of constant interaction among teacher trainees owing to the fact that most of them did not live in the hostels where teacher trainees could share more time together interacting in English language. Additionally, the study found out the following challenges; lack of English language practice outside the classroom, lack of trained host teachers in primary schools to help English language teacher trainees with their lesson planning, preparation and teaching practice process, a consistent English language teacher training programme with all subjects delivered in English which could foster much teacher trainee’s English knowledge, abilities and competences, lack of clear strategies of English language policy, and lack of support by the Ministry of Education for modeling teacher trainees competences in the teacher training colleges.

Moreover, during the study, it was established that teacher trainers’ teaching competence in English Language pose a big challenge in terms of the programme delivery. This included lack of teaching confidence, lack of clear feedback that should be provided to teacher trainees during the English language classes and micro-teaching sessions. Additionally, the English language teacher trainees lacked enough supervision by their host teachers and teacher trainers in primary schools, where they did their teaching practicum during the first and second semesters. The next section presents the contributions of this study.

6.3 Contributions of the study

As regards knowledge, the study provides the English language teacher trainers, teacher training college managers and English language scholars in Mozambique with the views about the primary school English language teacher trainees’ competences as they finish the training programme in Zambézia Province. Moreover, from the analysis of the English language teacher training programme, the study concludes that introduction of additional subjects such as Literature, Phonetics and Phonology, Listening, Speaking, Reading and Writing would enhance the quality of the English language teacher trainees.

Furthermore, extending the English language teacher training programme period to 3 years would allow the introduction of the additional subjects and content of English language, Teaching Methodologies and similar subjects. Therefore, some language problems from teacher trainees brought into the college would be worked out in the first year while in the second year, teacher trainees should discuss teaching and learning methodology content and not only the language itself. By the third year, teacher trainees would not only master subject matters but also contents related to knowledge, pedagogical matters, curriculum and communication skills. Through English language 1 to 6 delivered in three years, plus the major language skills subjects, the literature subjects, Phonetics and Phonology, English language teacher trainees would acquire the necessary communicative and teaching competences for teaching English as a foreign English language in Zambézia Province.

Concerning practice, the study presented attitudes that the English language teacher trainers should adopt such as to be committed, attentive and create good rapport with all the English language teacher trainees regardless, the teacher trainees’ personality factors that could be weak, passive, bright or strong. The study also explains how teacher trainers should play different teaching roles such as a facilitator, advisor, helper for extra learning activities as part of remedial tasks which can be suggested by the teacher trainers to complement the teacher trainees’ language learning and teaching abilities acquisition. The English language teacher trainers from the colleges, the educational administrators and curricula designers may benefit a great deal from relevant strategies to be implemented in the classroom. For example, adjusting syllabus content into the lesson plans, balancing the teaching of language skills by reinforcing reading through teaching and learning materials produced by both teacher trainers and teacher trainees, monitoring the teacher trainees’ exercises in the classroom, planning, speaking, listening, reading and writing lessons.

With regards to the English language teacher training policy, the study proposes a three year English language teacher training programme which would work effectively bearing in mind the Zambézia Province context, the Teacher Training Colleges limited financial resources in particular and the country’s needs regarding a high number of trained and qualified English language teachers for primary schools who should be able to teach and interact successfully in English language with pupils and other English language teachers trained in Mozambique and outside the country. Moreover, extending the primary school English language teacher training programme period for three years would be of paramount importance as to accommodate other necessary contents within the English language and Teaching Methodology subjects that would improve the quality of the trained English language teacher trainer.

6.4 Implications of the study

One of the major aspects which was identified throughout the study is low proficiency of the English language by the English language teacher trainees. This implies that teacher trainers responsible for English language and teaching methodologies subjects spend about the first two months postponing the suggested contents in the syllabus so that they could teach and revise grammar and general aspects of the English language with teacher trainees. Consequently, as teacher trainers spent the first month revising elementary aspects, including grammar, pronunciation and word stress, syllabus content could not be dealt with during the two semesters. As a result, English language teacher trainees ended up lacking discussion of such contents in the classroom. Thus, it is crucial for English language researchers in Mozambique to investigate how teacher trainees can become proficient in English language teaching and communication in a context where English is taught and learnt as a foreign language with limited amount of time for learning activities.

The issue of selection of the candidates for the English language teacher training programme worried teacher trainers, graduate English language teachers and some of the teacher trainees. Some natives or teacher trainers from countries where English is a second language could also be recruited to strengthen the capacity of the English language teacher training programme at the teacher training colleges. Actions for the selection criteria of the English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees should be undertaken and improved by the college managers and the Department of Teacher Training at the provincial directorate level by suggesting the Ministry of Education to effect timely changes. This is due to the fact that teacher trainers were not satisfied with the selection process as they wondered how some weak candidates ended up passing the entrance examination. Allowing weak candidates getting into the English language teacher training programme weakens the teacher trainers’ motivation and efforts as they have to double efforts for the improvement of the teacher trainees’ performance. On the other hand, there is also a need to find out more about the teacher trainers’ competences and strategies to help them be creative and successful in the English language teacher training programme for primary schools in Zambezia Province.

Furthermore, there is a need for the Ministry of Education and Human Development in Mozambique to reflect and study the possibility of creating partnerships with institutions, which train English language teachers in a neighbouring countries such as Malawi so that English language teacher trainees from Zambezia Province teacher training colleges should have opportunity to be in this country and practise the English language for about three months or more during their training process. Additionally, there is a need to find out from the college managers and policy makers the reasons why the current programme is still in use when the curriculum policy suggested that it should be implemented for five years, that is, from 2007 to 2012. This means that from 2013 a new English language teacher training programme should have been introduced in the teacher training colleges for primary schools. However, six years later, until the period this thesis was produced 2017 and 2018, there appears to be a total silence in the introduction of a new English language teacher training programme in Zambezia Province particularly and in Mozambique in general.

Moreover, there is need to extend the English language teacher training programme so that crucial and new subjects should be accommodated, thus allowing teacher trainees to master content regarding the English language, English language teaching methodologies, phonetics, phonology, and basic knowledge related to the teaching of literature. Linguistic competence includes intuitive and native speaker knowledge of the language that is, grammar, vocabulary, the conventions of the written representation, knowledge of the sounds and their pronunciation, the rules that govern sound interactions and patterns that is phonology. In addition, linguistic competence entails the formation of words by means of inflection and derivation, which is morphology, the rules that govern the combination of words and phrases to structure sentences, and the way that meaning is conveyed through language, which is semantics.

Sociolinguistic competence entails: the knowledge of rules of use, that is knowing how to use and respond to language appropriately; appropriateness governed by setting of the communication, the topic, and the relationships among the participants/interlocutors in communicating; appropriate depends on knowing what the taboos of the other culture are. It also includes what politeness indices are used in each case, what the politically correct term would be for something, how a specific attitude such as authority, friendliness, courtesy, irony is expressed.

The need for continued professional development for teacher trainees once in the primary schools as trained teachers and teacher training colleges teacher trainers is of paramount importance because teacher trainees need to be updated with teaching methodologies and other experiences so that they can make changes and constantly improve their language through information exchange, learning, and acquiring additional strategies which are normally shared in workshops.

In regard to implications for future research, an important issue which should be researched is how reading and writing can better be practised at the teacher training colleges for primary schools in Zambézia Province even with shortage of teaching and learning materials. Thus, it would benefit teacher trainers with strategies that can be implemented during English language and teaching methodologies’ subjects.

The researcher suggests that similar studies on the quality of the English language teacher training programme should be replicated in other provinces, in Mozambique with different methods and theoretical frameworks. It would help English language scholars and researchers to balance the commonalities and differences of the problem addressed in this study so as to find out the common issues which affect the English language teacher training programme and have a design of an improved English language teacher training programme for Mozambique as a whole.

Looking at the challenges analysed through the communicative competence theoretical framework, it is important to research how English language teacher trainees’ Portuguese language interference and generalisation can be minimised during the English language production when speaking or practising English language in the classroom and outside the classroom. Thus, it is important that teacher trainers help their teacher trainees with language proficiency. The issue for correcting teacher trainees’ language errors and mistakes in the classroom seem not to have a clear formula as to help English language teacher trainees with their language problems. Thus, it is crucial to study ways of correcting teacher trainees’ errors and mistakes in the classroom, and how teacher trainees can help to identify and correct such mistakes on their own outside the classroom.

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APPENDICES

Appendix 1: Interview guide sheet used to the teacher trainers

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix 2: Interview guide sheet used to the teacher trainees

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix 3: Interview guide sheet used to the graduate English language teachers

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix 4: Extract of a Sample Interview Transcript to a Teacher Trainer

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix 5: Extract of a Sample Interview Transcript to a FGD

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix 6: Extract of a Sample Interview Transcript to a Graduate English

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix 7a: Lesson Observation Guide Sheet used in the Classroom to collect data

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix7b: Extract of a Sample Lesson Transcript at TTC A

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix27: English Language Teacher Training Programme 10+1 -Portuguese

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Source: INDE/MINED (2006) Plano Curricular de Formaçao de Professores para o Ensino Primário.

Appendix28: English Language Teacher Training Programme 10+2 for Primary

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Appendix29: Proposal of the Curriculum Plan for the English Language

Illustrations are not included in the reading sample

Source: Adapted by researcher, 2017 based on the current and previous curriculums.

Appendix30: Author’s Resume

Gregorio Jorge Goncalves whose mother is from Tete and his father from Mocuba in Zambezia province was born in Maputo district, in Mozambique on 28th September 1979. He went to Namutabune Primary School in Mocuba, where he did grades 1 to 5 from 1986 to 1990. Thereafter, he did grades 6 to 12 at Mocuba Seconadary School, within the years 1992 to 2000. Within the years 1997 to 2000 he attended level 1 to level 5 English Course at the Language Institute in Maputo through distance learning, having completed the course with distinction in 2000. Within the years 1995 to 2000, he led a youth group at the Holy Heart of Jesus Chapel, catholic church in Mocuba. In 2001, Gregorio signed a contract and started teaching at 25 deSetembroPrimary School in Mocuba. In 2002 he was shifted to Mocuba Secondary school where he taught English subject in grades 8 and 9 until 2003. From 2004 to 2008 he attended Bachelor and Honours’ Degree in English Language Teaching at the former Beira Pedagogic University. While attending University, he worked atNossa Senhora de FatimaSecondary School as a part time English language teacher, where he taught grades 10 and 11. Before defending his monograph in August 2008, Gregorio was among 45 students chosen as an English Language Monitor and worked the whole 2008 with first and third year English Language Teaching Programme classes in the subjects of Approaches and Methods to English Language Teaching, year 1, and Introduction to Research Methods in year 3 in Beira Pedagogic University. In 2009 he taught English subject at 25de SetembroSecondary School in Quelimane, and the subsequent year was pointed as the English Delegate while teaching at Quelimane Pedagogic University. Within the year 2010, he was nominated as a full time lecturer at Quelimane Pedagogic University. Within the years 2012 to 2015 he worked as a part time English language teacher at FRELIMO Provincial School in Quelimane.

In February 2012 Gregorio started pursuing his Master’s Degree in Educational Administration and Management at the Catholic University in Quelimane and concluded in August 2013. In 2013 he started lecturing the course of Quality Management Applied to Educational Institutions to master students in the Educational Management programme at the Catholic University in Queimane. In September 2016, he started pursuing his Language Education PhD programme at Chancellor CollegeUniversity of Malawi, and successfully finished on 26th March 2020. Gregorio has participated actively in many training workshops within universities and NonGovernment Organisations. Among other trainings, he has participated in the Training of School Management for the USAID/Vamos LerProject, within the years 2016 to 2020. Gregorio is fluent in English language and speaks reasonably Elomwé, Emanhawa and Echuwabo. In his academic course, he has participated and presented papers in many national and international conferences. With reference to participation in Cape Town in 2017, with the following papers:English language teacher training through distance education in Quelimane and Mocuba centers in Mozambique: analysis and perspectives, andAdopting communicative competence theory to foster the English teacher trainees oral abilities at training colleges inZambézia province.

As a lecturer, he has supervised 67 students’ monographs from which, 58 monographs at Quelimane Pedagogic University now Licungo University, and 9 monographs at the Catholic University of Mozambique in Quelimane. He has also supervised 18 students master's dissertations in Educational Management and Administration from the Catholic University of Mozambique, Faculty of Social Sciences and Politics in Quelimane. Gregorio is a peace man, hard worker, successful student, friendly, open, humble and respectful.

[...]

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¹Assimiladoswere native people with high status closer to that of the Portuguese. According to Passos (2009, p. 14) the “Assimilados” status was officially introduced in the governing system in 1917 through the Decree Law no. 317, which had it that for the natives of the colonies to become full citizens (of their countries) they had to become Portuguese or manage to better assimilate the Portuguese language, culture and habits, thus becoming “Assimilados.” To qualify as an “Assimilado” one had to meet such criteria as speaking Portuguese correctly, being able to read and write, to have a job and to evince “good” behaviour (in Sambo, 1999). The Portuguese considered their colonies as an integral part of Portugal. The“Assimilados”had full citizenship and the same status as the Portuguese in Portugal, and they could attend the same educational institutions, from primary school up to University.

²This department is in charge of teacher training courses and short training courses, pedagogic supervision and support to teachers and school managers in the schools and training Colleges, examination management process, assessment and monitoring the schools and educational institutions performance all over the Province.

³PALOP stands forPaises de Lingua Oficial Portuguesa, translated as Portuguese Speaking Countries. They are: Portugal, Brasil, Mozambique, Angola, Guine-Bissau, Cape Green and Sao Tome and Principe.

⁴The terms students, pupils and learners are used in this document as synonyms.

⁵ Due to high cost of living and shortage of well qualified English language teachers, with the exception of the State’s schools in Mozambique, some teachers, mainly in the urban areas, sign contracts to work in one or two private schools to get enough money to sustain the needs of their families.

⁶ Quality management in language education refers to the totality features of procedures, efforts to be conducted to help the problems of languages within departments at the local level at the University level or the Ministry of Education be sorted out. Therefore, it is required that these sectors combine forces to minimise problems towards bilingual education, or foreign language teaching (of English and French, or Chinese in some private schools).

⁷The three universities offer Portuguese, English and French Teaching Language Courses. Universidade Licungo has its Headquarter in Quelimane and a branch in Beira.Universidade Pedagogicahas campuses in Maputo, whileUniversidade Eduardo Mondlaneis based in the capital city of the country (Maputo) with two branches, one in Quelimane and another one in Inhambane Province. However, the language teaching courses are only offered in Maputo.

⁸ TESOL stands for Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages. The 2000 TESOL paper provides quality indicators and performance standards include also English as a foreign language the standards for the accreditation of initial programs for English as Second Language Teacher Education Prepared and Developed by the TESOL Task Force.

⁹ELLs stands for English Language Learners

¹⁰ INDE is a sector within the MINED. INDE stands forInstituto de Desenvolvimento de Educacao- National Institute for Education Development. The Institute is responsible for curriculum design, education contents evaluation and assessment and provides with the related information to the Ministry of Education -Ministerio de Educacao(MINED). The institute annually organises a conference for discussion of education problems in Mozambique through research.

¹¹ NAAC is an acronym from India which stands for National Assessment and Accreditation Council. Whereas COL stands for: Commonwealth of Learning in Canada.

Frequently asked questions

What is this document?

This document is a language preview from a publishing company, likely for academic use. It includes OCR data for analyzing themes. It provides a title, table of contents, objectives, key themes, chapter summaries, and keywords.

What is included in the Table of Contents?

The Table of Contents outlines the structure of the document, including the Abstract, Lists of Figures, Tables, Appendices, and Acronyms, followed by detailed chapters. Chapter 1 is an Introduction, Chapter 2 covers the Literature Review, Chapter 3 focuses on Benchmarking and Theoretical Framework, Chapter 4 describes the Methodology, Chapter 5 presents Research Findings and Discussion, and Chapter 6 provides Conclusions, Contributions, and Implications of the Study.

What is the main research question explored in the study?

The main research question is: "What is the quality of the English language teacher training programme for primary schools at the Teacher Training Colleges in Zambézia Province?"

What subsidiary research questions guide the study?

The subsidiary research questions are: RQ1: What factors affect the quality of English language teacher training courses in Zambézia’s colleges? RQ2: What challenges do English language teacher trainers and teacher trainees face during the training process? RQ3: How do the teacher trainers and teacher trainees in teacher training colleges in Zambézia cope with the challenges?

What is the purpose of the study?

The purpose of the study is to examine the quality of the English language teacher training program for primary schools in Zambezia Province in Mozambique.

What are the factors affecting the quality of the teacher training program discussed in the document?

The factors include: the quality of school infrastructure, knowledge of English and English language teaching, skills for language and English language teaching, competences for English language teaching, professionalism of the English language teacher, the teacher trainees' motivation concerning the teaching profession, quality of teacher training curriculum and contents, and teacher trainers' competence and performance.

What theoretical framework is used to analyze the study?

The study is guided by the Communicative Competence theoretical framework by Canale and Swain (1980), which examines grammatical competence, sociolinguistic competence, discourse competence, and strategic competence. It was specifically used to analyze the English language teacher training program, and the extent to which the teacher trainees in Zambézia colleges become competent in English language teaching.

What benchmarking framework is used in the study?

The study utilizes a benchmarking framework adapted from the National Assessment and Accreditation Council (NAAC) and Commonwealth of Learning (COL), focusing on Quality Indicators for Teacher Education.

What research methodology is used in the study?

The study uses a qualitative approach employing a variety of methods: in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, observations, and document analysis. Exploratory research case studies are used.

What are the limitations of the study?

Limitations include the lack of documents detailing the introduction of English in schools, unavailable test copies for entrance examination analysis, and the inability to interview college managers regarding admission criteria.