The CATESOL Journal

In this reflective essay, I share my experiences as a US-based professor leading graduate students on a 2-month teaching practicum in northern Thailand. I describe the process of arranging the practicum in coordination with the host university and the challenges of teaching 2 teacher-education courses while also mentoring novice teachers and addressing cross-cultural issues. I discovered that leading a practicum in an international context required me to play multiple roles—as supervisor, professor, and personal mentor. The teachers encountered challenges but also experienced empowerment working in a foreign language context; they wrestled with cultural issues such as negotiating among their expectations as teachers, the university’s demands, and my requirements from them as students. The international practicum setting means that teachers need to develop an understanding of a new culture and how they fit personally into that culture. Being far from home requires everyone—teachers and supervisors—to form a new community supporting each other and to redraw previously established professor-student boundaries.