The Most Common Mistakes of Teacher Trainees ’ Former Teachers

The fundamental parts of the educational processes are teachers and students. The study aims to determine the common mistakes done by teachers in the classrooms. The research was conducted to 278 third year students in the departments of English Language Teaching, Turkish Language Teaching, and Fine Arts Teaching in 2012-2013 academic year. The research was conducted through the descriptive model in the survey research types. “What are the most common mistakes done by teachers in classrooms?” was asked to teacher trainees in questionnaire. The analysis was done by the content analysis among the qualitative research techniques. Findings are classified in the themes of “classroom management and discipline, teaching, communication, personal qualities, ethics, measurement and assessment, and other mistakes”. Hence, many problems such as “failure to establish the authority and compensating it through being harsh toward students, being much more authoritarian and disciplined, seeing himself/herself as the authority source” emerged in this perspective. Furthermore, many inadequacies such as not being positive and gentle, negative attitudes, choosing attitudes directing students in a difficult situations, anger, having peaceful mood, threatening students with bad grades, claiming that he/she is the best, reflecting psychological problems in the classroom are determined at the end of the study.


Introduction
Schools are the institutions in which the main qualifications are orderly transferred in accordance with the main purposes of curriculum.Each school gains its unique character, which is its raison d'etre, through its culture in which it shapes, its structure.Schools have functions in social, individual, political, economic dimensions.Schools have inner constituents as students, curriculum, teachers, administrators, other staff, buildings, tools and equipment and outer constituents such as other institutions in Ministry of Education, parents, civil society organizations, labour market and other organizations.All the internal and external constituents work in a harmony for main purpose of schools [1].Teachers can be regarded as main agents in the development of society in cultural, economic and other areas in some sense.In order to fulfil the requirements of this role efficiently, teachers should improve themselves in the area of content knowledge of their expertise, pedagogical knowledge and contextual knowledge which they use in classroom environment [2].In this respect, it is important for teachers to hold responsibility of educating the future generations who are potential human sources for countries, to sustain the effective teaching conditions which are compatible with the requirements of current technological developments.In this sense, teachers should have the content knowledge reflecting their expertise, pedagogical knowledge for the transfer of content information in terms of educational principles regarding communicational and teaching skills, classroom management, giving feedback, and contextual knowledge for transferring content information in terms of the needs of 964 The Most Common Mistakes of Teacher Trainees' Former Teachers classrooms, schools and individuals in a flexible manner [4].
Figure 2. Teachers' performances in educational process can be evaluated in terms of the variables of system approach as input, process and output ( It is modified from CIPP model).
In terms of system approach, educational processes can be evaluated as a whole in which the main constituents of the system as inputs, processes and outputs interact each other dynamically so as to reach the designed purpose of the system [3].However, if the educational process can be regarded as a black box in which the functioning of the processes is vague, it can be said that the concrete and observable dimensions of teaching emerged in the classroom management and educational processes in classroom conditions.For instance, the praxis in the classroom conditions reveals whether teachers prepare teaching materials or they develop their communication skills.In this regard, classroom management skills which partially include communication skills, time management, representational skills of their pedagogical, contextual, content knowledge can be regarded as one of the concrete criteria to assess the performances of teachers and be efficient in creating feedback for the maintenance of educational outcomes.For example, Emmer and Hickman [5], find out that the qualifications in classroom management and discipline techniques are different from the other areas.This finding can be interpreted as the relationship between classroom management and pedagogical content knowledge.
Classroom culture, rules, teaching methods, ethical rules, hidden curriculum, psychological and sociological classroom characteristics of classroom are done by other concrete constituents of the classroom [1].Nevertheless, teacher is the person who actively uses those constituents.Schools and classrooms are the first places where qualified individuals are trained.Therefore, it is important to create classroom conditions which are efficient and compatible with the educational purposes.Effective teacher is the one that has the sense of comprehension about the positive and negative factors [6].The knowledge and awareness of the rules that students should obey, the variables of classroom management, the expectations and needs of students effect the classroom management [7].All these factors determine the classroom management are interdependent to each other and affect each other mutually.
The aim of the classroom management is to create best learning environment.In order to create such an environment, the entire negative factors should be minimized.In this sense, classroom management includes the arrangement of classroom environment and routines, arranging new strategies towards desired and undesired behaviours, using appropriate reinforcements, the application of new and efficient activities for teaching and learning processes [8].In this sense, it can be argued that not only desired behaviours but also undesired attitudes may affect classroom management along with the main qualifications of teachers.Especially as for the inexperienced teachers, it is not always possible to lower the undesired behaviours at minimum level [9].It was found that the teachers who have less abilities in classroom management are tend to criticize students more than the experienced ones [10].Additionally, teachers not only make mistakes in undesired student behaviours but also they pedagogically make mistakes which are incompatible with curriculum.For example, although the curriculum based on constructive approach, teachers tend to evaluate the student mistakes in the perspective of classical and behaviourist approaches [11].In this sense determination of the mistakes done by teachers especially in classroom management may imply their needs in pedagogical content knowledge and the required feedback and even more providing in-service training courses with them.Thus, this study partially tries to provide required theoretical background and data for the literature gap.

Problem Statement
Teacher is the required subject of an effective and active education.Effective teacher is also an efficient classroom administrator."The effective teaching cannot be achieved in a classroom conditions in which mismanagement is dominantly used" [12].Unless the reasons of mismanagement in classrooms are not well examined, this process continues in the subsequent courses.This results in endless unsolvable questions in education as well.The arrangement of classroom conditions and establishment of classroom discipline is also another factor that can be taken into account.The unawareness of classroom conditions, which have complex dynamics, can also result in the problems in creating effective ways for education.
Teachers' self-perception of their leadership and the way in which they incorporate it in their lifestyles is also another critical subject.Because the leadership that teacher show can affect both schools, teachers and students [13].Hence, the self-perception of leadership of teachers can change the classroom conditions and atmosphere.The most behaviours of the teachers are directly or indirectly related with behaviours of students in classrooms.For instance, the comparative study done by [14] Örücü (2012) shows that the methods, application and even descriptive statements of the teachers change in accordance with the quality of students for each classroom.According to study done by Akar, Tantekin Erden, Tor and Şahin [15], the behaviours of teachers vary in terms of physical conditions, motivation, the first day experience, rules, general mundane classroom applications, the undesired behaviours and the cooperation among school, teacher and parents.
One of the main results of classroom management can be regarded as the leadership.Teachers can help students to make their own decisions freely, and work together collaboratively, give them responsibility, gain their trust, enable them to show behaviours that can control their own behaviours through their characteristics of leadership [16].
Another problem faced in classroom management is not giving responsibility to students because teachers sometimes may think that students do not have any responsibilities.Hence, this leads to undesired behaviours.
Therefore, teachers should give responsibility to the students.In this sense, teacher should know the characteristics of students and give responsibility in this direction.However, teachers should be careful that the responsibility they give should not be perceived as a punishment.Those responsibilities should help students to control their own behaviours [17].
The most common undesired behaviours seen in the classroom are the unwelcomed behaviours such as the improper way of the usage of classroom tools, resistance to teachers, taking the things that belong to another person without permission, preventing others from participating the classroom and whispering to each other [18].Besides talk of demolition, distracting the others, being unelaborate, talking with friends during the lecture, interesting with other unrelated things during the lectures, being rude and impolite to his/her friends and teachers, harming school articles, absence, cheating can be also regarded as the undesired classroom behaviours [19].The most common mistakes done by teachers toward undesired behaviours are ignoring small mistakes, disregarding the provocative behaviours, avoiding eye contact, rebuking, complaining to family, referring to discipline commission and demoralizing [19].
Even theoretical pedagogical knowledge cannot be helpful for classroom management.This knowledge should be supported by the activities with teacher candidates.According to Köse Özay [20], even though teachers have a pedagogical background, they cannot deal with the undesired student behaviours in the real classroom conditions."In these situations, teachers may prefer some evasive methods to solve crises" [9].According to a study done by Çubukçu and Girmen [16], the area of planning and educational activities are found to be among the lowest level areas.Besides, if their relation with the classroom management and function is taken into the consideration, this may result in undesired classroom behaviours as well.
In the study of Güleç and Alkış [21] conducted to 87 teachers working in public schools, in case of undesired situations, it is revealed that %3.4 of them states "they do not want students doing irrelevant talk with the rest of the class", %4 of them state that "they criticize students", %4,6 of them prefer "no corporal punishment", %2.3 of them state that "I do not give them a break".In another study done by Bayraktar and Çınar [8], conducted to 110 Science and Technology teachers, it is revealed that the teachers always do the demotivational behaviours such as ridiculating, insulting.The study shows that %20 of the teachers always call students with negative titles, %12 of teachers do this often.In the study of Sadık [22] conducted his research in the same school, the strategy of teachers dealing with undesired behaviours are classified into 12 categories.These are, verbal warning, warning by using body language, giving advice and explanation, intimidating, lowering grades, isolation, deprivation of something they like, the usage of force, communication with family, forcing them to do something, humiliation, mocking and giving writing tasks as a punishment.Whereas teachers consider those as preventive and curative behaviours, students qualify those as punitive behaviour, they think they are scary and unfair [22].In the literature, the undesired behaviours of students in classroom conditions and the strategies that teachers used toward those kinds of behaviours are similar.This study differs from previous studies in terms of revealing teachers' mistakes and evasive attitudes hereby letting them to evaluate and make self-criticization of their behaviours.
The behaviours of students in classrooms are highly correlated with classroom atmosphere, physical conditions of the classes, the personal abilities of teachers and their self-perception of leadership.Thus, the related teacher behaviors are seen important by the teachers and become the main theme of this study.So, the aim of this study is to determine the most common mistakes done by teachers in the view of teacher candidates.
There are few studies revealing teachers' most common mistakes whether they are intentional or not.Therefore, this study provides teacher candidates to make self-evaluation and teachers to realize their attitudes in the classroom.The Ministry of National Education works on the criteria and standards of a qualified teacher [23].This study highlights the importance of this approach by identifying teachers' behaviors in the classroom.

Research Method
This study is designed as a qualitative-descriptive study.In descriptive studies, current situation is analyzed without any manipulation and the main aim is to reflect the current situation as it is.Qualitative data collection tool, which is designed by researchers, is used to identify teacher trainees' opinions about their former teachers' mistakes.In qualitative studies, participants' experiences can be identified systematically [28].

Population and Sample
The population of this study consists of 3rd grade students in Education Faculty in Mustafa Kemal University during 2012-2013 spring term.The target population is 3rd grade students from the departments of English Language Teaching, Turkish Language Teaching and Art Teaching.From this target population, participants are selected through convenience sampling method.As a result, 114 students from English Language Teaching department, 123 students The Most Common Mistakes of Teacher Trainees' Former Teachers from Turkish Language Teaching department and 39 students from Art Teaching department are selected for this study.

Data Collection
The questionnaire is used as a measurement tool.The exam period of the year is thought to be practical to collect data at once from students.Researchers asked students to answer the question by considering all teachers in their academic life and their most common mistakes according to their opinions.There are not any limitations about the number of their answers.Students usually answer according to experiences with their lecturers in the university.

Data Analysis
Content analysis method is used to analyze the data.The answers from students to one open ended question are organized as a list of statements by researchers.742 teachers' common mistakes are stated.The second step of analysis is clustering similar statements into groups.As a result of the second step, 242 statements are listed.In the following part, some words or sentences are chosen as codes in accordance with the repetition, likelihood and frequency.Two different researchers coded the same data independently for reliability issues.Then, these codes are discussed and final decisions are made through consensus between two researchers.Intercoder Agreement Percentage which is suggested by Miles and Huberman (1994) is used to find out reliability of the research, and it is calculated as .92. 110 concepts emerge after coding is done.These concepts are presented in the Table 1.6 different themes are defined according to the relations between concepts.These themes are classroom management and discipline, teaching, communication, personal characteristics, professional ethics and evaluation of the course.Other statements of students are organized in the 'others' category which is given in Table 8.Frequencies of Teacher Trainees statements are given to provide face validity.The purpose of stating frequencies is not for generalization, but for objectivity [29].

Findings
In this part, the findings of the study are presented in the tables with frequencies according to the themes emerged.Concepts emerging from participants' statements are presented in Table 1.There are 110 concepts in total which are mostly remarkable such as mocking, lack of comprehension, pressure, punishment, ignoring students, inequality, distrust, apathy, unwillingness, getting angry, frightening, violence, threat, inconsistency and inadequacy.This picture shows how students see their teachers.
Teachers' most common mistakes are given in the category of "classroom management and discipline" according to participants' statements.The most common mistake in this category is about the authority; not establishing authority and establishing authority by ill-humor.Besides, students think that teachers establish the authority by violence or pressure.Making students passive, scolding and frightening students as well as threatening them is among the other common mistakes of teachers in this study.Teaching intensively in the end of the school year due to the lack of time 1 52 Calling student to the board from students' list 1 53 Teaching even though students are not motivated 1 54 Giving wrong information 1 55 Emphasizing the unnecessary parts of the lesson 1 56 Teaching not according to students but to himself/herself 1 57 Not paying enough attention to the must do's 1 58 Not creating the discussion platform 1 59 Paying too much attention to some unnecessary detailed issues and so missing the important issues 1 60 Talking too much 1 61 Giving too much responsibility and leaving no time for students 1 Table 3 presents the most common mistakes of teachers concerning teaching.Students mostly think that the method of instruction is not appropriate and direct instruction is the most chosen one, which seems dissatisfying for students.Besides, teachers incompetency in content and pedagogic knowledge, teacher-centered courses, ignoring individual differences, conducting lessons with successful students, not making practices, not using materials, not activating students in the class, to make students to teach, being slave of the course book and teaching while sitting are the other statements of participants about mistakes concerning teaching.Teachers' positive personal traits always contributed to teachers' communication with students and achievement.However, some negative personal traits that everybody can have affect teachers' performance in classroom negatively.Students' opinions about teacher mistakes related to Universal Journal of Educational Research 4(5): 963-972, 2016 969 teachers' personal traits are given on the table above.As understood from the table, according to students, teachers' being nervous, not being calm and understanding, showing their weaknesses to students, showing their authority with the grades they give and being impatient are considered as mistakes among the mistakes that are originated from their personal traits.According to student thoughts, one of the categories of teachers' mistakes is related with professional ethics.In this type of mistakes, students mostly state that teachers lose their fairness.Besides this, it is thought that teachers also do mistakes such as threatening students with grades, humiliating students, doing job only for material goods, being prejudice, reflecting their personal thoughts to students and disliking their job.In table 7, Students' thoughts about teachers' mistakes that are related to student evaluation are stated.According to the table, one mistake that is mostly made is not considering a student as an individual.Besides, teachers also make mistakes such as ignoring in class performance, not correcting students' mistakes, punishing by grade.Mistakes that are made by teachers and cannot be categorized in one theme are listed above.According to table, teachers mostly make mistakes such as not caring their clothes in class, being unaware about psychology of students, ignoring students' interests, desires, and expectations, not dealing with students individually and being bad model for students.

Discussion
Findings of the research show that themes of teachers' mistakes are classroom management, discipline, teaching process, communication, personal traits, professional ethics and evaluation of students.
Although teacher mistakes are classified in different themes, there is a horizontal relationship between these themes.For example, there can be direct relationship between teachers' "being nervous" which is one of their personal traits and "being surly", "not communicating", " not being open to criticism", and " hold off with students" which are communication mistakes.Some serious problems in teaching emerge from teachers' usually using traditional teacher-centered teaching methods, behaving authoritatively, and being inadequate for adapting themselves up to date.For example, some mistakes in teaching such as using teacher-centered teaching, using inadequate teaching methods, teaching for memorization, teaching while sitting in the chair, using book all the time, The Most Common Mistakes of Teacher Trainees' Former Teachers making lessons dull, not being able to make subjects concrete for students are related directly to teachers' professional inability.
After research findings are evaluated as a whole, it is seen that they are directly related to "Teacher Competencies" of Teacher Education and Development General Management of Ministry of Education [24].Teacher competencies are categorized under six subtitles which are Personal and Professional Values-Professional Development, Knowing Students, teaching and learning processes, following/evaluating learning and development, school, family and society relations, Program and Content Knowledge.Our findings in this research are consistent with these categories and performance indicators.In behaviour management dimension of the third category (Teaching learning processes), it is expected from teachers to take students' successful areas into account to prepare lessons accordingly, such as by caring individual differences, determining classroom rules with the students, managing feelings and thoughts and having self-control.However, our findings show that teachers cannot establish the authority.Hence, they behave firmly while trying to control the class, scare, threaten, assimilate students, and the use punishment.
The central idea of all contemporary approaches such as constructivism, project based learning, multiple intelligence theory, thinking skills, collaborative learning, teaching and learning styles, quantum learning, emotional intelligence, brain based learning, allosteric learning, suggestopedia, accelerated learning, NLP (neuro linguistic programming), left and right brain theory, triple brain theory, and holistic learning that emerged in last 20 years is that they give importance to individual(learner) and they make learner active [25].In teaching competencies, it is stated that teacher should know students' physical, social, cognitive, linguistic, and cultural development level, students' interest and needs, and their strengths and weaknesses [24].In research findings, it is found that teachers scold and behave badly to students who answer incorrectly, giving homework as punishment which is opposed to its educational purpose, make students passive in the class, they do not teach using active teaching methods.
In addition, it is found that teachers do not behave students equally in the class, threaten students with grades, undervalue students, they are prejudiced to students, they insult students, assimilate students, and they do not respect to students.Actually, teachers have desired and ideal attitudes while they are graduated, [26], later authentic learning environments and institutional culture may lead teachers to do these mistakes.In this point, it can be said that there are some serious problems that are related to honor and ethics in learning environments.
In assessment and evaluation of learning outcomes, it is expected from teachers that they should use the correct assessment technique, they should assess students by using correct, reliable and valid scale, and they should interpret the results and give feedback, and share these with the stakeholders.[24].However, according to results of the research, teachers are lack of feedback and correction, they do not give importance to individual characteristics and they use grades as punishment.
In addition, not caring their clothes in class and ignoring students' desires and expectations are some of mistakes that are made by teachers in the classroom.

Conclusion
Findings according to the aim of the research and content analysis are gathered under six themes.These themes are: Classroom Management and Discipline, Teaching, Communication, Personal Traits, Professional Ethics, Measurement and Evaluation, and other mistakes.While writing the conclusion, most popular three mistakes in findings according to these themes are considered. It is noticed that under the theme of classroom management and discipline teachers mostly make mistakes such as not establishing teacher authority or being rigid to establish authority, being too much authoritative and disciplined, seeing himself/herself as an authority and assimilating by being oppressive.Besides, teachers also try to establish the authority by scolding, scaring, assimilating, violence and punishment. In relation with teaching process, teachers are lack of using proper methods and techniques, they adopt traditional teacher-centered education, and teachers do not improve themselves, and accordingly these leads to many problems.Not making students active in class, not utilizing materials, technology and activities, not being prepared for the class are among the basic problems in teaching process. The fundamental problems regarding communication can be given as not being indulgent and good humored, negative attitudes, making fun of students in the classroom and not making students love the course.Also, teachers do some serious communication mistakes such as not being open to criticism, being surly, not listening to students, silencing student and generalizing. In terms of teachers personal traits, mistakes are stated as being nervous, not being calm and understanding, threatening with grades, claiming he/she is the best, reflecting his/her psychological problems in class, not being emphatic, not being indulgent, and acting inappropriately as a teacher. Not behaving equally to students is the most common teacher mistake in the category of professional ethics.Besides, threatening, undervaluing, humiliation, being prejudiced, insulting, not trusting to students, reflecting ideological behaviors, assimilation, getting angry and not respecting are mistakes that teachers make.
 In terms of evaluation of students, some unfavorable behaviors such as inadequate feedback and correction, not considering students as an individual, using grades as punishment are stated.

Suggestions
 After Teacher mistakes that are found and Teacher Competencies of Ministry of Education are considered, first suggestion is that teachers need constant following during the time of selection of the profession and doing the profession.Unfortunately, it is seen that national exams for teacher selection (LYS) and nomination of teachers (KPSS) are not adequate.For that reason, teacher competencies that are not evaluated during these processes but which are demanded from teachers should be evaluated, and they should be decisive while nominating teachers.Affective domain should also be considered while selecting teachers. After nomination of teachers, teachers should be followed constantly in different ways.With this purpose, there should be a system in which students, colleagues, parents, inspectors and managers can evaluate teachers, and the evaluations should be shared with the teachers.This evaluation is done in some universities in Turkey. The quality of teacher education should be enhanced through curriculum evaluation.In education faculties, professional ethics courses should be taught and communication skills should be emphasized.

Figure 1 .
Figure 1.Teacher qualification in terms of three kinds of knowledge.

Table 1 .
Emerging Concepts about Teachers' Most Common Mistakes

Table 2 .
Teachers' Most Common Mistakes concerning "Classroom Management and Discipline"

Table 4 .
Teachers Not having smile on their face, not having an effective communication and making fun of students in the classroom are among the most common mistakes of teachers concerning communication.In this category, not wishing students to ask questions, keeping students at a distance, not listening students, not speaking Turkish properly and not being open to criticism are the other statements, which are seen mistakes in communication.

Table 5 .
Teachers' Mistakes that are related to their Personal Traits

Table 6 .
Teachers' Mistakes that are related with their Professional Ethics

Table 7 .
Teachers' Mistakes that are related to "Evaluation of the Students"

Table 8 .
Other Mistakes that Teachers Make