Changes In Teacher Beliefs During The Internship Of Pre-service English Teachers

There is a large number of evidence to indicate that teachers are highlyinfluenced by their beliefs, which in turn are closely linked to their values, to theirviews of the world and to their conceptions of their place within it. Teachers’ beliefsare found to have a greater influence than teachers’ knowledge on the way theyplanned their lessons, on the kinds of decisions they made and on their generalclassroom practices (Pajares1992). What kind of beliefs teachers hold when they areteaching, how teachers’ beliefs influence the way they planned their lessons anddecisions they made during the classes, what their views on lessons, on themanagement and evaluation of students and how teachers form, maintain and changetheir beliefs are the focused points in the area of teacher education.In2009, Chinese normal universities began to enroll full-time Master ofEducation. As the requirement of professional master degree, students of this majorshould participate a series of educational practicum. The study focused on thisnewborn group, making a case study on two full-time Master of Education students tofind out the changes of their teachers’ beliefs during their education practicum.The data collection in this research had employed interviews and journals. Threeinterviews are used to find the changes of pre-service teachers’ beliefs during theeducational practicum. Journals are used to find the reasons of these changes.Based on the analysis of the data, the major findings in this research are asfollows:(1) pre-service teachers’ beliefs during the educational practicum includedtheir beliefs about the profession, the teachers’ ethics, English learning and teaching,and the relationship between teachers and students.(2) most of the teachers’ beliefsthe pre-service hold after the educational practicum are consist with their beliefsbefore the educational practicum, while some beliefs have changed.(3) the reasoninfluence the teachers’ beliefs may be: their teaching experience in educationalpracticum, what happened in school, the cooperation with experienced teachers, andthe supervisor in the educational practicum.The researcher hoped that a dynamic system should be established according tothe changes of pre-service teachers’ beliefs during the educational practicum.Pre-service teachers should be encouraged to have reflective thinking. What’s more, different educational program should be designed for different students who are withor without teaching experience.