A Study On Lesson-Based Case Approach For In-service Teacher Development

Foreign language teacher training has experienced the phases from the pure teacher training, focusing on the methodology to teacher education in order to promote the teacher development. To an English teacher, his effective influence is on the design of teaching procedure and the implementation of specific techniques in classroom. This demands that English teachers should have a good choice of appropriate teaching approaches in the light of a critical view. Inspired by case study method, this paper focuses on a study on a lesson-based case approach for in-service teacher development. This involves small-scale investigation projects in the teachers' practical classroom, while trainee teachers are expected to conduct a critically reflective discussion or exploratory teaching activities in order to bring actual improvement in their own teaching. It operates on the theory of action research guided by Anchored Instruction of constructivism.This paper is composed of six parts. In part one, the necessity and significance of the present study is introduced through analyzing the trainees' needs and expectation in the form of questionnaire. Part two is literature review on the measures taken for in-service teacher development, and focuses more on case study of teaching. Part three is the related rationale about the idea of constructivism and action research, on which present study is built on. Part four is a larger part, giving a detailed introduction about the general procedure in which the lesson-based case is carried, and exemplifying the specific lesson cases in in-service teacher training class. Responses concerning its effectiveness through questionnaire and interview have displayed in part five. Based on the results of the survey and interview with trainee teachers, a general discussion is conducted in part six about the practical efficiency of the approach, as well as the limitations of the present study. Some suggestions have also been put forward for further research.However, this is just in a process of attempt. Due to the limited guidance and variety of cases collected, trainers and trainees are often unable to discuss in any depth what they may have learnt through observations of "expert" teaching; trainee teachers sometimes make complaints about the unrealistic lesson cases. Besides, four-week training time constraints the trainee teachers to make any attempts to put what they have learnt in practice. Time permitted, teachers should be given opportunities to apply the new ideas into practice.