A Qualitative Longitudinal Study Of The Impact Of National Teacher Training Program On In-Service English Teachers’ Beliefs About English Teaching

The effectiveness of National Teacher Training Program has aroused public attention since its full implementation in 2010. As it is believed that teacher education is more likely to impact on what teachers do if it also impacts on their beliefs, this study has focused on the impact of National Teacher Training Program on teachers’ beliefs.The study was qualitative and longitudinal, carried out in the context of 2013 Full-time Replacement Training Program for Junior High School English Backbone Teachers in Chongqing which lasted for 100 days, intending to reveal the impact of this particular program on four in-service English teachers’beliefs about English teaching. More specifically, the research questions which the study aimed to answer included: Was there any impact of the program on the four teachers’beliefs about English teaching? If at all, what were the contents, nature and sources of the impact?Rich qualitative research data were collected throughout the process of study, including three main types:1) semi-structured interviews to elicit participants’ belief changes:2) written and visual materials such as professional development plans, course wares, class analysis reports, teaching reflection reports, weekly journals, summaries and final papers, etc.; and 3) classroom observations both during the training and after they went back to work. Among them, interviews were the primary data sources while the other two were adopted mainly for the purpose of "triangulation".Then, a cyclical and summative analysis of the collected data, consisting of both within-case analysis and cross-case analysis, was carried out. The findings were also interpreted with the help of the belief change categories proposed by Cabaroglu and Roberts (2000) and Yuan and Lee (2014) to reveal the nature of the impact.Finally, the study indicated that the impact of the program on these four in-service English teachers’ beliefs about English teaching was considerable, though the specific contents, nature and sources of the impact varied across individual participants.Despite that the findings had limited generalizability due to its qualitative nature, the study provided some implications for the development of more effective in-service English teacher education programs in China, especially in terms of helping teachers develop their beliefs through the programs.Also, because of some realistic factors, such as the limited time, money, energy of the researcher and the tight schedule of the trainees, the study still had some limitations. Then, based on literature review and limitations of this study, some suggestions for future study were provided in the end.