A Biographical Study On The Formation Of An English Teacher Educator's Educational Beliefs

Educational belief is the mental foundation of teachers when they are teaching,as it has great influence on their teaching attitudes and teaching practices.It is also related with the quality of teaching,development of students,and improvement of teachers'quality.The formation of educational beliefs,interactively affected by factors like previous experiences,teacher training,environment,and so on,is a highly complex and dynamic process.As for teacher educators,they are producers of pedagogical knowledge,leaders of teachers' professional development and promoters of educational cultures.Therefore,it is essential to explore the formation of teacher educators' educational beliefs.Lots of research has been carried out on educational belief especially for its influences on English teachers' teaching practices.Nevertheless,the research on the formation of English teacher educators' educational beliefs is relatively scare and suffers from such limitations as seldom covering other types of teachers apart from experienced English teachers,and using questionnaire as the mono-methodology most time.In view of this,the present study based on Pinar's(2000)Currere and Erben's(1998)Biographical Phase Theory as well as other prior research discoveries concerning the formation of educational beliefs,employs the methods of interviews and classroom observation to explore the formation of an English teacher educator's educational beliefs with the aim of further confirming the importance of educational beliefs and filling the hiatus to some degree in the research field of English teacher educators' educational beliefs.The study was guided by the following four research questions:(1)What milestones had the teacher educator reached during the formative process of her educational beliefs?(2)What educational beliefs does the teacher educator hold?(3)How do the teacher educator's educational beliefs generally evolve?(4)What factors influence the formation of the teacher educator's educational beliefs?This study concentrates on one English teacher educator,Linda,who come from a"Project 211”Normal University,analyzes the dynamic formative process of her educational beliefs and complex factors contributing to the formation of her educational beliefs from the perspective of biographical study.It was found that the formation of Linda's educational beliefs involves the dynamic process of construction and reconstruction,which can be broadly divided into five stages,from creation of initial educational beliefs,revolution of old educational beliefs,reduction of educational beliefs,reinforcement of educational beliefs to stabilization of educational beliefs.Educational beliefs at every stage were influenced by external factors and internal factors.Specifically,they were influenced by professional training,overseas higher education experience,school cultural atmosphere,achievements on job and Linda's intrinsic motivation.Among them,intrinsic motivation played the most significant role in the formative process of her educational beliefs.Given that the recognition of English teacher educators' autonomy and effective guidance of professional development are crucial to the formation of English teacher educators' educational beliefs,this study provided some suggestions relating to how to motivate English teacher educators' enthusiasm and strengthen their educational beliefs in the end:English teacher educators should have firm educational beliefs and motivate themselves to become excellent English teacher educators.On the other hand,pre-service English teachers and in-service English teachers who are interested in becoming English teacher educators may seek common ground while reserving differences and get inspirations from Linda's growth path.School administrators need to improve school cultural atmosphere and offer English teacher educators sufficient guidance of professional development.At last,researchers should investigate the status quo of the formation of English teacher educators' educational beliefs and supplement professional development suggestions in point.