Preprofessional Experiences and Professional Teacher Education in France: Towards a Compatibility.

Overview & Synopsis

This paper examines the relationship between preprofessional and professional training for preservice teachers in France. Preprofessionalization consists of having students at University Centers for Teacher Training include in their 3-year curriculum 10 percent vocational training, focusing on the French educational system and policies, the sociology of education, cognitive psychology, epistemology, and didactics. Professional training then takes place at one of France's 28 regional schools of education, where students emphasize academic lectures the first year (to pass a competitive exam) and field sessions the second year. The competitive exam, by which students can officially become salaried civil servants (as teachers in France are), serves as the turning point when students become trainee teachers and begin professional training. Many students view the professionalization training as a short, hectic period of time in which to become efficiently armed to start teaching the following year. Thus, future teachers go through several abrupt changes in the course of their training, as they pass from one institution to anther, study academic subjects and then cram vocational training, and change abruptly from student to trainee teacher. Efforts to integrate teacher training over the 5-year course of education are described. (Contains 24 references.) (JDD)