Study On Pre-service English Teachers’ Professional Skills

With the increased global interconnection, countries in the world have become moreand more dependent on each other. In this situation, English has become the mostcommon and widely used language in the world. A large number of high-quality Englishteachers, especially the teachers in elementary and secondary schools in both urban andrural areas, are badly needed in line with the introduction of the new curriculum in China.The training for pre-service English teachers in normal universities is highly correlatedwith the quality of English teachers in elementary and secondary schools. Thus thedevelopment of professional skills of pre-service English teachers is of great significantand could provide more comprehensive reference to the reform of the curricula in normaluniversities. Furthermore, the improvement of the professional skills of pre-serviceEnglish teachers is also relevant to the development of the in-service teachers. Therefore,it may provide the some guidance to the in-service programs that have been implementedin some universities and funded by the Ministry of Education.In this research, literature research, classroom observation and questionnaire are themethods mainly adopted. After reviewing the literatures concerning the development ofprofessional skills at home and abroad, this article attempts to define and analyze theprofessional skills of pre-service English teachers with the features of English subject toestablish the professional skills system of pre-service English teachers. And then, verticaland horizontal cross dimensions are selected to reach the goal. In the vertical dimension,the subjects are30undergraduate teacher trainees of2010batch in Gannan NormalUniversity, whose performances in micro-teaching including language skills, teachingskills, classroom management skills, etc, are collected according to The Scale ofPre-service English Teachers’ professional skills. In the horizontal dimension, the subjectsare120undergraduate teacher trainees of2010batch in Gannan Normal University,whose skills of using language, teachers’ professional skills and class management arecollected according to the questionnaire. Classroom observation and questionnaire reflectthe current situation of pre-service English teachers’ professional skills. On this basis, theauthor analyzed the problems and influential factors in the training of pre-service Englishteachers’ professional skills, and suggestions are also given for the improvement and optimization of university curricula in the development of teachers’ professional skills:improving and optimizing curriculum design; implementing professional skill training toevery course; establishment of feasible evaluation system; strengthening supervision ofthe training; developing the specific standard.