A Study Of The Content Of Pre-service English Teachers’ Teaching Reflection In The Practicum

Since the 1980s, reflection has become a popular topic both in foreign countries and in China. As an efficient way to promote teachers’ professional development, it can improve teachers’overall quality. Therefore, more and more teachers pay attention to this aspect. As for pre-service teachers, teaching practice is an important period to promote their growth and development. Therefore, during the teaching practicum, the training for developing their reflective consciousness and ability should be implemented.This thesis investigates High School pre-service English teachers’ reflection during the teaching practice. It tries to find out the answers of the following three questions: What is pre-service English teachers’attitudes towards teaching reflection? What is the content that pre-servjce English teachers reflect on? What factors influence pre-service English teachers’reflection?Based on the three questions, the author conducted a study by using questionnaire, interview and reflective journals. The results show that most of the pre-service teachers have a positive attitudes towards teaching reflection. In general, most of the student teachers have a basic understanding of teaching reflection and they have realized its great importance. However, they do not have systematic knowledge of teaching reflection and it is hard for them to keep reflecting during their teaching practice. A small part of teachers still have biases of teaching reflection and they do not have the awareness to put the reflection into practical use. As for the content of the student teachers’ teaching reflection, there are mainly five aspects of teaching reflection:teaching; students; teachers; classroom management; education environment. Teaching includes unit design, classroom atmosphere, the control of timing, the stimulation of motivation. Student includes students’preparation of learning, encouragement, equality, sudden incidents. Teacher is mainly about teachers’ roles, teachers’ expressions, teachers’improvements and teachers’ professional development. Classroom management contains the formulation and implementation of classroom rules and regulations. Environment contains school environment, home environment, teaching and learning environment. Most of them mainly reflect on teaching, students and teachers themselves. The other two aspects classroom management and education environment are often ignored. Sometimes, a head teacher of one classroom spend much more time on reflecting classroom management, but almost all the teachers neglect the aspect of education environment. At last, about the factors that affect teachers’teaching reflection, all of the participants believe both internal factor and external factor have an impact, but internal factor has greater influence. As for internal factor, teachers’attitudes towards teaching reflection is the main factor, the impetus to do teaching reflection and the teachers’ own teaching and learning experience also make a difference. For external factor, the society and the school’s attitudes and support towards teaching reflection is the main cause, students’ performance and feedback promote teachers to reflect on their teaching. Sometimes, the training teacher also has an influence on the student teachers’ reflective behavior.At last, the author presents some implications and suggestions for pre-service teachers, schools and future research and all in all, through this research, the author wants to provide some guidance for pre-service teachers’ teaching reflection.