A Case Study Of Pre-service English Teachers’ Reflective Ability Under The Principles Of Exploratory Practice

In the last decade, cultivation of teachers’reflective ability has gradually shown a trend of focusing on the reflective ability of pre-service teachers. Hence the reflective ability of pre-service teachers of all subjects has invited the attention of researchers. The present study observes a course guided by Exploratory Practice, English Pedagogy, aiming to understand how thirty pre-service English teachers developed their reflective ability. Specifically, it answers the following three questions:1) How does the EP-guided course cultivate pre-service English teachers’ reflective ability? 2) Which kinds of reflection levels have the pre-service English teachers attained based on their reflection contents? 3) How do pre-service English teachers think of this EP-guided course?The study adopts document analysis, classroom observation, questionnaire, interviews and classroom videos to have an overall understanding of how the pre-service English teachers develop their reflective ability in this EP-guided course. Through data collection and data analysis, the findings indicate that:First, with the help of the classroom observation and interviews with the teacher educator, this EP-guided course embeds seven principles of Exploratory Practice. This course is learner-centered, which puts the quality of life first, brings everyone together to understand the life in the classroom to realize mutual development of the educator and the pre-service English teachers.Second, a majority of pre-service English teachers’general reflection levels are Level 3, Argumentation. In addition, issues related to learning content (LC) account for a large proportion. Among the learning content, those aspects related to achievements, difficulties, in-depth knowledge and usefulness are mainly involved.Last, through analyzing the results of questionnaire and interviews with pre-service English teachers, this study discovers that most of the student teachers hold the positive attitudes towards this EP-guided course. It proves that this EP-guided course plays a positive role in improving the pre-service English teachers to be reflective practitioners.Results indicate that pre-service English teachers not only improve their teaching competence, but also strengthen their reflective ability in the process of practice and reflection in this EP-guided course. Pedagogical implications are offered for the education of pre-service English teachers.