Research On English Student Teachers’ Professional Identity Cognition In Primary Schools

Teachers’ professional identity is in response to the following questions during the teaching practice:” Who am I?” “What should I do as an English teacher?” and “What should the students and I do in the class?” Student teachers’ professional identity cognition directly impacts their latter work. Now more and more western scholars advocate teachers’ professional identity should be the aim of teacher education. The existing domestic and overseas researches mostly discuss the results of student teachers’ professional identity, but it has rarely empirical research on the thinking or struggling of student teachers during their professional identity. This research represents the process of English student teachers’ identity cognition through four scales: professional orientation, task orientation, self efficacy, commitment to teaching, and it explores what factors affect professional identity cognition of English student teachers based on the third generation activity model of Engestr?m.It discusses two questions in detail. Firstly, it is to investigate the process of English student teachers’ professional identity cognition from their changeable opinions on professional orientation, task orientation, self efficacy, commitment to teaching before and after the internship. Secondly, what are the factors which affect their professional identity cognition? In research methods, this paper tries to combine quantitative research with qualitative research methods. The paper uses Carl Lamote and Nadine Engels’ s questionnaire for 80 English student teachers before and after the internship in quantitative research. Qualitative research is expanded through classroom observations and interviews for three English student teachers who have different career orientation.The findings show that the level of English student teachers’ professional identity cognition is high and stable; there is cognition difference of English student teachers’ professional identity before and after the internship, especially in self efficacy; Teaching motivations of English student teachers directly affect the results of teacher professional identity cognition; The language level is the main factor for English student teachers’ self efficacy; There exist crises in English student teachers’ professional identity, include educational ideas, teacher roles, relations between teachers and students.