An Investigation Into The Effect Of Micro-teaching On M.Ed Pre-service English Teachers' Teaching Skills

With the promotion of the quality education and new curriculum reform,the demand of society for teachers is becoming higher and higher.A teacher should not only be a guide,but also a facilitator who can combine teaching theory and practice perfectly.A teacher,as a model who imparts knowledge and educates people,not only needs to grasp the professional knowledge,but also should be good at teaching.The teaching mode shifts from teacher-centered to student-centered,which undoubtedly sets up higher request for teachers' teaching skills.Micro-teaching,as a training way to help normal students improve their teaching skills,has been widely used by most normal universities at home and abroad.The cultivation of M.Ed(Master of Education)students by some normal universities plays an important role in the growth of teachers.In this study,the author explores the effect of micro-teaching on M.Ed pre-service English teachers' teaching skills.The research subjects are the pre-service English teachers of 2015 Grade in Central China Normal University.According to the classification of teaching skills by Zhang Jianqiong in the book Micro-teaching training tutorial,the author does her research through the way of questionnaire,interview,micro-teaching video analysis.The nine teaching skills include:teaching plan description skill,leading-in skill,explaining skill,questioning skill,closure skill,reinforcement skill,variability skill,demonstration skill and blackboard designing skill.In this thesis,the author first explores the effect of micro-teaching on M.Ed pre-service English teachers' teaching skills from a broad way by questionnaire,then she goes deep into the reasons in the form of interview and micro-teaching video analysis.This study finds that the three most improved teaching skills are leading-in skill,demonstration skill and closure skill,while the impact on blackboard designing skill and questioning skill is the smallest.The research provides references for improving teaching skills for M.Ed students as well as the quality of cultivating M.Ed students.The implications are as follows:before micro-teaching,there should be training about the theory of micro-teaching,every aspect of micro-teaching should be trained,and the class size of M.Ed students should be reduced like separating it into some small classes so that every student teachers can have the opportunity to experience micro-teaching.Micro-teaching as a pedagogy benefits the student teachers to some extent.However,supervisors can not regard it as the only pedagogy.It should be combined with the field experience like practicum school.Supervisors should enhance their communication and the arrangement of micro-teaching so that more comprehensive teaching skills could be trained.