Solving Dilemmas Through Collaborative Reflection For Pre-service English Teachers During Practicum

This paper intends to study the preservice teachers’(three graduate students who are majoring in English education) dilemmas of teaching English in a junior middle school in Chengdu city. It aims to explore the dilemmas they meet in English teaching, and to see the process of collaborative reflection can help preservice teachers develop their own thinking and rich in practice in terms of English teaching.Three preservice teachers, one inservice teacher, and one English teacher educator participated in the process of collaborative reflection (reflective writing on dilemma cases, sharing, and discussing) of teaching English during the preservice teachers’ practicum. Each participant wrote and shared three of his or her own dilemmas before and after teaching or observing English lessons. Preservice teachers also participated in a survey questionnaire and interviews to share their perspectives of English teaching and the process of reflection.Looking into their reflection and discussion on the dilemmas of English teaching, the study attempts to explore how to make collaborative learning opportunities for preservice teachers through reflective thinking. The major findings of the study are as follows:Firstly, the dilemmas of student teachers’English teaching emerged in six themes as:how to get important and difficult points; time management; how to care students’ individual differences; how to deal with students’behavioral problems; students’ attitudes toward English learning and lack of interaction among teachers and students.Secondly, the analysis of the data showed that collaborative reflection on dilemma cases could facilitate English teaching and learning from four perspectives among the participants.Based on the findings, we further discuss the implication of collaborative reflection on dilemmas of English teaching, which help to develop the participant teachers’ professional growth, and a possibility to develop collaborative communities in English teacher education.