چکیده (انگلیسی):

Teaching Practice as observed by (Ngidi and Sibaya 2003) forms an integral part of teacher
training. It exposes the students to a teaching environment in which they will contextualise their
theoretical knowledge gained during their training. It also grants student teachers experience in the
actual teaching and learning environment. Given the importance of teaching practice, the
researcher sought to investigate the experiences of student teachers doing their teaching practice.
This paper examines of the positive experiences and challenges faced by Vaal University of
Technology (VUT) Post Graduate Certificate Education (PGCE) student teachers (n=24) during
their 10 week teaching practice inthe Vaal area. A qualitative research design was followed. Semistructured interviews with all student teachers were used to collect the data while content analysis
was used to identify themes and analyse the data. The research established that despite the enriching
experiences during teaching practice, student teachers experienced many challenges which
significantly affected their ability to fully achieve the desired outcomes from the exercise. Based on
the findings of this study, measures were suggested on how to improve teaching Practice in order to
enable the student teachers to accrue maximum benefits/ outcomes from the experience