A Study On Pre-service English Teacher Identity

In recent years, with the English curriculum reform conducted in-depth in primary and secondary schools, studies in English teachers' education have gradually become a hot point. English teacher identity, as a sub-conception and core part of English teachers' professional development, plays a key role in the development of English teacher education. At present, the domestic studies in English teacher identity have made some achievements, but most of them focus on the subjects of in-service English teachers.There is a vacancy in research of pre-service English teachers. Research shows that most of pre-service teacher have already formed their teacher identity during normal education,so it is of great importance and necessity to explore pre-service English teacher identity before their graduation. In China, normal universities are mainly responsible for cultivating pre-service teachers. Issues that whether the students of different normal universities can construct English teacher identity of the equal level, what factors are influencing the development of English students' teacher identity, and how their teacher identity will change, if there is, during normal education will be discussed in this article.Based on the above research questions, the research adopts both qualitative research and quantitative research methods. A large scale of research was conducted among 288 students majoring in English education of three normal universities in Shaanxi province through self-made questionnaires and in-depth interview. The questionnaire that aims to evaluate the level of English teacher identity is composed of three dimensions: cognition,emotion and behavior, the results showed that:(1) the situation of pre-service English teacher identity, in general, is in the medium level and presents in a relatively concentrated distribution. There are obvious differences in the level of English teacher identity between universities and grades, but there is no significant difference in gender.As for the three dimensions, the cognitive level of English teacher identity increases with their grades rising, but the emotional and behavioral levels present two obvious turning points in the freshman year and the junior year respectively.(2) Pre-service Englishteacher identity is influenced by both internal factors and external factors. The internal factors mainly include the students' English comprehensive ability, motivation and attitude towards teaching career and students' personal life history. The external factors that affect English teachers' teacher identity mainly include normal education and social environment.(3) And it is found that English students' teacher identity continually changed during their normal education through a case study of a senior student Miss Li.In general, Li's teacher identity presented three stages: confusion period, exploration period and orientation period. Although there is no clear boundary between the three stages, the level of Li's teacher identity is related to some extent to her professional level.