Abstract:

Beginning teachers encounter many new responsibilities and educational situations, especially at the start of their professional careers. Success or failure in solving these situations affect their further professional careers. Moreover, the very shift from the role of the student to the role of the teacher is also challenging. According to previous studies (e.g., Vašutová, 2002; Průcha, 2013, etc.), students at universities are afraid of specific difficulties in entering their future careers. These doubts stem mainly from the lack of opportunities in continuous practice to cultivate contact with students, gain experience in dealing with non-standard teaching situations, build an informal authority or perform diagnostics independently. Therefore, we asked ourselves the research question, "What professional problems do beginning teachers face when entering pedagogical practice, and how do they reflect these needs?". The competency model of undergraduate teacher training became the theoretical basis.

The aim of the research was to find out what professional problem situations beginning teachers deal with at the start of their educational practice and how they reflect on them concerning their previous undergraduate education at the university. We consider graduates of teacher training programs up to 3 years of experience as beginning teachers. We used a qualitative research design and performed semi-structured in-depth interviews with 20 teachers working at the lower secondary schools or lower level of multi-year grammar schools and an analysis of the reflective diaries the teachers kept throughout the research. The data were categorised and subsequently coded by open and axial coding. Data categorisation and evaluation was performed using atlas.ti software. The resulting codes included statements in the following areas: initial interactions with students, maintaining discipline, teaching problems, organisation of teaching, administration, material equipment of the school, cooperation with colleagues. The results show that undergraduate teacher training is significantly focused on students' subject knowledge. Beginning teachers consider field and subject competencies as their strengths. On the contrary, they consider specific didactic and psychological skills as their handicap. Although they do not consider them challenging, they would welcome additional support, particularly in solving problematic situations with pupils, leading negotiations with parents, and motivating and diagnosing pupils. They appreciate the possibility of further education of teachers in didactic skills and the establishment of the status of supervising teachers at schools.

Keywords:

Beginning teacher, model of undergraduate teacher training, role of the teacher.