A Study On The Influence Of Teaching Practicum On Pre-service English Teacher’s Self-efficacy

With the deepening study of teachers’professional development, researchers pay more and more attention to teachers’ own traits influencing their development. As an important factor of individuals’ belief, self-efficacy plays a vital role in teachers’ behavior and teaching outcome. Pre-service teachers are meant to teach in schools when they graduate from university. During the teacher training program, their beliefs about teaching and learning may change a lot, especially during the teaching practicum, when they are immersed into authentic classroom teaching. To know well about the factors influencing their confidence in becoming qualified teachers is beneficial for pre-service teachers’ professional development in the future. Therefore, it is necessary and worthwhile to conduct research on pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy belief.This study aims to measure the level of teachers’ self-efficacy of the pre-service English teachers and its difference before and after the teaching practicum and investigate the possible factors leading to the results.144 pre-service English teachers are investigated before and after the teaching practicum. Two research instruments are applied to collect data, including a questionnaire and semi-structured interviews. The questionnaire is used twice, one at the beginning of the teaching practicum and the other one week later after the teaching practicum. The data from the questionnaire before and after the teaching practicum are statistically analyzed through the SPSS (version 19.0) statistical analysis system as well as Excel software. After the teaching practicum, five typical pre-service English teachers are selected as interviewees. The data from the semi-structured interviews serve as a supplementary means to the quantitative data analysis. All the data collected are used to answer the three primary questions:(1) What are the levels of pre-service English teachers’ self-efficacy before and after the teaching practicum? Has pre-service teachers’ self-efficacy changed before and after the teaching practicum? (2)What are the possible factors that led to the result of pre-service teachers’ personal teaching efficacy (PTE) and general teaching efficacy (GTE) before and after the teaching practicum? (3) What are the possible ways to promote pre-service teachers’self-efficacy during the teaching practicum?Three major findings can be drawn from this study:Firstly, the overall teachers’ self-efficacy of the pre-service English teachers is at high level both before and after the teaching practicum, with a little decline in the mean score after the teaching practicum, so was the ratio of subjects with high teachers’self-efficacy. This may be the results of "reality shock" deriving from "apprenticeship of observation" model and positive emotional arousal. Secondly, teachers’self-efficacy for GTE of the pre-service English teachers is at high level before the teaching practicum but at moderate level after the teaching practicum. The ratio of subjects with high GTE also declined after the teaching practicum. Different allotment of pre-service teachers and limited time of form masters’work may be the reasons for this result. Finally, teachers’ self-efficacy for PTE of the pre-service English teachers is at high level both before and after the teaching practicum, with a little increase in the mean score after the teaching practicum. This may be the result of mastery experience gained by the pre-service teachers during the teaching practicum. However, the ratio of subjects with high PTE declined after the teaching practicum. This can attribute to the challenges that the pre-service teachers were faced with during the teaching practicum. Among the challenges, choices of teaching methodology and problems with cooperating teachers and supervisors are the most prominent.The limitations and implications of the study are also presented in the conclusion part.