NEWLY QUALIFIED FOREIGN LANGUAGE TEACHERS’ ADAPTATION IN PROFESSION: CHALLENGES, PROBLEMS, FIRST ACHIEVEMENTS AND FURTHER PROSPECTS

Abstract

Ukrainian reforms in higher education and participation of universities in different international programmes open new perspectives for quality assurance rising. This study focuses on the foreign language teachers’ professional readiness during their initial period of work and provides an important opportunity to advance the understanding of the main changes in education and their influence on newly qualified FL teachers’ adaptation in the profession. The concept of “foreign language teachers’ training” is studied in the context of the pedagogical field, determining the personality of the future teacher, professional suitability; content of education, application. These prerequisites of newly qualified FL teachers are defined as reasonable and desired for further professional development. As a qualitatively oriented study, the purpose of the suggested investigation was to find out newly qualified teachers’ experience, serious challenges, benefits and, moreover, to explore best practices in order to support newly qualified teachers in their initial career. A variety of qualitative and quantitative tools of survey for collecting data was applied for measurement as a basic study design. The main study findings outline perplexing problems for the FL teachers to solve: paperwork, time management, low salaries and affective filters. Another important finding was that newly qualified teachers need a mentor who can give a methodological support. The results show a significant importance in “New generation School Teacher” programme further implementation in the FL teachers training course.