| The research is based on a curriculum reform which has been implemented in the English Teaching Pre-service Preparation (ETPP) program in one university in teacher education. Three questions are aimed to be answered in the research:1) What is the student’s workload like as a result of the curriculum reform in this university?2) Will this workload result in burnout among the experimental class students?3) Will the reform influence students’ professional orientation?The main subjects are a class of students from the experimental class (EC) of ETPP program, who involved in the curriculum reform in the university in teacher education. In the curriculum reform, curriculum makers transformed traditional English courses into the professional courses containing both language knowledge and teaching ability training in the study of EC students. One non-experimental class of ETPP program in the same university has been chosen as the control class (CC) in the research as comparison. Seven students from university A (one prestigious university in foreign language education) and five students from university B (one local university in teacher education), are taken as the subjects of reference in the research. All the subject students are in the 2012 cohorts in their respective universities.Interviews and a questionnaire have been implemented in the research in June and December in 2014, and June in 2015. The framework of the interview includes the investigation of time, difficulty of teaching materials, teaching method, relationship between teachers and students, assessment of each course, and rate of perceived stress and effort. In the second interview, the questionnaire has been implemented with the general interview. Based on the research made on the impact of ESL (English as Second Language) and EAP (English for Academic Purposes) programs on L2 university students’ academic and social engagement in 26 Canadian universities by Fox, Cheng, and Zumbo in 2014, the questionnaire of professional orientation was designed with six dimensions, namely, social integration, academic grades, future study and career plan, features of curriculum design, learning outcomes and students’ characteristics.Quantitative analysis of students’ workload was carried out on the data of total study time, including preparation time, revision and homework time. In order to find out whether the curriculum reform has influenced students’ workload, independent sample T-tests have been conducted of the data of study time, which was collected from students in EC and CC in the first and second interviews. By the result of T-tests, the difference of the study time of EC and CC is statistically significant. Thus, students’ workload can be analyzed by the mean value of their study time. In terms of professional orientation, independent T-tests have also been made of the data collected from students in EC and CC in six dimensions, so that whether the curriculum reform influenced students’ professional orientation has been figured out.The conclusion of the research is listed as follows:1) Curriculum reform in the university in teacher education brought heavier workload because the study time of EC is more than that of CC in the three interviews.2) By the descriptive data collected in the three interviews, the workload brought by curriculum reform result in burnout of some student in EC but it is only temporary phenomena caused by the intensified professional courses in a certain period.3) The curriculum reform in the university of teacher education does not have a significant influence on students’ professional orientation, because among all the influencing dimensions of professional orientation, the differences of the scores of social integration, academic grades, future study and career plan, curriculum features, students’ characteristics and the total score are not statistically significant by data analysis of SPSS, except for the dimension of learning outcome. |
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