Understanding Novice English Teachers' Apprenticeship From The Perspective Of Legitimate Peripheral Participation In High Schools

The conspicuous changes of field experiences for teacher's development often focus on the beginning years of teaching life when it stems from teacher education to stable attitude, intuitive teaching style and professional character-building. In these beginning years of teaching, it is easily vulnerable to be victims of bad circumstance and wrong effect by some elements. After several years, some teachers still confront with teaching matters with which they can not deal. They will say with staggering euphemism, "Teaching is not for me." High rate of attrition is reported both in the USA (Kersaint et al,2007) and in Europe (Teachers Matter,2005). In western country, Achinstein (2006) claims that 30-50% of teachers leave the profession during their first 3-5 years. One explanation for this is that novice teachers are found to experience heavy workloads and poor working conditions (Achinstein,2006), and they lack sufficient and suitable support to keep them in the profession (ibid). The teachers development steps with incorporates their understanding of complex teaching practice and ethical conduct associated with effective engagement in the complex teaching environment. But the importance of the beginning years for a new teacher is not in the dispute sometimes and somehow.Lave and Wenger (1991) came up with a new perspective of a theoretical structure of learning and identity based on communities of practice (Wenger,1998). With the new perspective, the notion of newcomers of teacher development on Legitimate Peripheral Participation is reviewed in detail to research a great understanding of how, as a new role under the relationship of apprenticeship, (s)he 'became' a novice into a veteran in this paper. The research found that three interviewees, as newcomer of English teaching, needed to reconcile their various identities in order to construct each new professional identity to find the apprenticeship of intrinsic characteristics and potential relationships on it. Case study method is adopted as research methodology in the study. The participants consist of three English teachers in different senior high schools.These were analyzed and discussed from three interviewing cases with reference to the concept of Legitimate Peripheral Participation and with recourse to the relevant literature.After the analysis and discussion, main characteristics of apprenticeship are put forward for apprenticeship in teacher's development, i.e.1. Process of gradual development:no transcendent road; 2. Harmonious relationship:the premise of effective development; 3. Distance between master and apprentice:building triadic dialogue; 4. Stipulation assurance and personal intentionality:support and pressure; 5. flexible fulfillment:inevitable pattern, and for implication of apprenticeship:1. Presupposition and impossible presupposition;2. Intention and action; 3. Contradiction and change.