A Case Study of a Competency- Based Teacher Training Course

The present case study reports on an innovative teacher training course with 14 Iranian senior undergraduate student teachers majoring in Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). The course was developed after a Competency Based Teacher Education theory (CBTE) to assess student teachers’ practicums via three sources (i.e. self, peer-group and teacher educator) and based on the Teacher Observation Instrument (TOI). The aim was primarily to see if there was congruence among the three sources in assessing student teachers’ performance and secondly to know what the attitude of the course participants was towards the course and three modes of assessment. Pearson Correlation showed peer group assessment relatively congruent with both teacher educator assessment and self-assessment. The results from semi-structured interviews with student teachers showed that they favored peer group and teacher educator assessment more than self-assessment and that the course made them teach more reflectively.