does practicum experience empower english teachers? a focus on personal characteristics and the milieu

The main aim of this study was examining the role of practicum experience in in-service english as a foreign language teachers’ empowerment by considering their personal characteristics (age, gender, teaching experience, and type of degree) and contextual factors (type of school and learners). one hundred teachers participated in the study and completed the perceptions of the practicum experience questionnaire (ppeq) that examined their understanding of the role of the practicum experience in teacher empowerment. the data were analysed by t-test, anova, correlation and regression methods. it was found that the perceptions of teachers across gender and degree were not different. also, no significant difference between the perceptions of those teachers who worked in different school contexts and those who taught learners of different ages was found. however, perceptions were found to be negatively related to age (r=-.629, p<.01) and teaching experience (r=-.494, p<.01). entering the two variables into the regression equation showed that age is a significant predictor of the perceptions and can explain more than 38% of its variance. the implications and applications of the findings are discussed for teacher education syllabus designers, ministry of education and teacher educators