VOICES OF PRE-SERVICE ENGLISH TEACHERS: REFLECTING MOTIVATIONS DURING PRACTICUM LEARNING

After Dewey (1933) and Schön (1983, 1987), education scholars began to look further at the concepts of reflection for learning. Following these concepts, there have been plenty of studies on reflection, particularly those discussing teachers' classroom experiences and their endeavour to de-velop professional skills. However, educational practitioners in Indonesia (as in the rest of the world) often criticise preservice teachers' (PSTs) lack of content knowledge, which they claim should be 'prioritised' during a teacher education course. Such pressing situations may have made it difficult to model or experience reflective practice. Against these odds, this research pa-per addresses issues related to the identity and professional development of thirteen English PSTs during their campus and school-based practicum in an Indonesian university. This study collected empirical data through PSTs' re-flective journals, questionnaires, individual interviews, focus group discus-sion, and autobiography. The study examines problems encountered by PSTs, namely their motivations to become teachers. This study signifies that teacher education needs to provide more reflective dialogues to shape PSTs' identity and professionalism.