Problems and Alternative Solutions of Indonesian EFL Teacher Trainees: A One-Decade Portrait of Online and Offline Classes

Teacher training and teacher professional development are two interrelated concepts. In order to have professional teachers, teacher training is a necessity. This can be done during one’s college years, which is commonly known as a teaching practicum. Senior students as pre-service teachers are trained and taught to enter the real world of teaching. During this teaching practicum, they can gain a lot of experience, learn from the mentor teachers, do administrative tasks that a teacher normally does, learn from the school environment, and face real students as well. Seeing the importance of a teaching practicum and its implications on the students’ careers later on as teachers, the researcher then conducted this study. Forty-one student respondents who were doing or had done their teaching practicums were the respondents of this study. Data was collected through reflections that they had to submit by the end of their internship programs. They were pre-service teachers of primary and secondary levels. During their teaching practicums, they faced various problems, most of which were related with classroom management. This study revealed that these student teachers tried alternative solutions to deal with their problems.