Drawing on international pre-service teachers’ funds of knowledge to enhance professional experience

Abstract Following the COVID- 19 pandemic, international student enrolments in Australia's initial teacher education (ITE) programs have sharply increased. ITE courses are obligated to comprehensively support international students, particularly during professional experiences (PEx). These students often face challenges due to cultural and linguistic differences, and universities typically address these through intervention programs and workshops aimed at developing communicative and work-based skills. This pilot study adopted a unique Funds of Knowledge (FoK) and Funds of Identity (FoI) lens to enhance culturally responsive communication between pre-service teachers and various stakeholders (mentor teachers, supervisors and unit coordinators) during PEx. An ethnographic visual methodology, employing comic-based digital storytelling, was used across two phases to identify and address challenges. In Phase One, participants created a comic to convey a challenge from their first PEx, followed by an interview about their comic and experience. In Phase Two, participants used their comic during their second PEx to facilitate discussion with their mentor teacher about previous challenges. A final interview assessed the comics'effectiveness. Three themes developed from the data, reflecting the significant challenges international students faced while completing PEx in an Australian school setting. These were: developing a teacher identity, building transcultural identity and the additional cognitive demand when translanguaging. Findings indicated the process of creating a digital comic strip amplified international students'voices thus providing insights into their experiences and perceptions.