The Need for Guidance and Counselling Training for Teachers

Teachers have multiple roles to perform nowadays. To fulfil their roles professionally, teachers need to be competent in their responsibilities towards their students inside and outside the classroom. One important teacher role inside and outside the classroom is to provide guidance and counselling to students. This paper has two aims. First, it discusses the importance of guidance and counselling training for teachers. The second aim of this paper is to investigate guidance and counselling training needs for teachers through students taking an innovative guidance and counselling component in a pre-service undergraduate teacher preparation program. This course component has been tried out with four cohorts of English Language Studies and English Language Teaching double-honours degree students. Using qualitative analysis of students’ responses in a personal reflection activity in the latest cohort, the present study found that students have various training needs, and perceived strengths and impeding issues in relation to carrying out the guidance and counselling role at school. The paper ends with discussions on directions for future teacher training and research.