Exploring The Change Of English Prospective Teachers' Reflection Levels And The Influencing Factors

The thought of reflection was originated from China since the period of Confucius time. In 1980s, reflective teacher education has been a hot issue in Northern America, which facilitated teacher education and teacher development in various countries all over the world. This topic has attracted much attention among scholars in China, and plenty of studies manifest that reflection is an important way to teacher development.With the further implementation of New Curriculum reform, teacher professional development is becoming more and more important. However, the present situation is that many prospective teachers graduated from teachers' universities are not competent for the role of teacher within the context of New Curriculum reform. And the education of reflective teachers just offers a new method for prospective teachers' cultivation and development.The aim of this study is to explore English prospective teachers' change of reflection levels from their participating in the course of English Pedagogy to the end of their teaching practicum and the influencing factors on the change. Specifically, this thesis attempts to answer three research questions: 1) What are the prospective teachers' levels of reflection after learning the course English Pedagogy and finishing teaching practicum? 2) To what extent do their reflection levels change during the process? 3) What are the influencing factors of their change of reflection levels?Case study is adopted as the research method in this study. The research subjects are five English prospective teachers in a teachers' university. The data collection lasts about eight months (from March, 2007 to November, 2007). The data include Teaching Manual of English Pedagogy, reflective journals, note-takings of the researcher's chatting with the teacher educator and transcriptions of interviews. Some teaching and learning viewpoints of constructivism and reflective levels classified by Van Manen and Galvez-Martin et al. are applied to analyze the change of prospective teachers' reflection levels and the influencing factors on the change.The study concludes that during prospective teachers' engagement in English Pedagogy, their reflection is mainly at technical level and partly critical level. But one student teacher's reflection is at zero level in this period. While in the teaching practicum period, three pre-service teachers' reflection is to the degree of critical reflection. And two prospective teachers are still at the level of technical reflection. Some prospective teachers' reflection levels have changed during these two stages, but some not. And the changes are not all from low level to high level directly. It is a zigzag way. Four main factors influencing prospective teachers' change of reflection are illustrated. Firstly, teacher educator's teaching viewpoints of constructivism theory play a facilitating role in student teachers' reflection development. Secondly, mentor teachers' improper supervising thought and method limit or inhibit student teachers' reflection development to a certain degree. Thirdly, big class teaching in English Pedagogy is an adverse factor which cannot be ignored in the course of cultivating prospective teachers' reflective ability. Lastly, prospective teachers' reluctance to reflect is a key factor that causes some student teachers' failure in reflection development during these two stages.Based on the above analysis, this study puts forward a new train of thought for the present foreign language education research and pre-service teachers' reflective development.