Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[Piyo Liu]

Dear teachers:

A friend of mine has just graduted from a teachers' college in Taiwan, and is going to teach in a high school as her practicum. My question is: how are we supposed to call this kind of new teachers who are actually still students and are practicing how to teach? Do we call them "trainee teachers" or "intern teachers"? Thanks a lot!

Best wishes,
Piyo Liu

[KazAV]

In England they are called probationers but they are actually qualified and extending their training by a year. In your case, I would probably say intern.

[Miss.Clarke]

When I was doing my teaching placement we were called student teachers.

Hope this helps

[KazAV]

I suppose it differs from country to country. When I was at university, I did my teacher training alongside my teaching degree and therefore, upon finishing the course, I had not only my degree but I was also a qualified teacher. We were student teachers during the course and did our placements during this time.

I then had to do one further year in a school as a probationer in order to teach in state schools in the UK but, even without this further year, I would still have been a qualified teacher.