An Investigation Into Pre-service English Teachers' Sense Of Self-efficacy In Normal Universities

Teachers' sense of self-efficacy refers to teachers' subjective evaluation,perceptions and beliefs in their abilities to achieve teaching objectives successfully,complete teaching tasks effectively,and promote students' learning and development in specific teaching contexts.It not only impacts on teachers' professional development,but also predicts students' academic achievements.In recent decades,research on teachers' sense of self-efficacy has received considerable attention from different angles both at home and abroad.However,numerous investigations were merely conducted on in-service teachers,neglecting pre-service teachers in normal universities.Therefore,the present study aims to explore the sense of self-efficacy of pre-service English teachers and investigate the factors that might influence their teacher efficacy.One hundred and fifty-two students were chosen from several normal universities in Jiangxi Province as the subjects.Of all these survey subjects,six pre-service English teachers were selected for an interview,so as to provide more powerful evidence to support the data from the quantitative study.The questionnaire used for this study is Pre-service English Teachers' Sense of Self-efficacy Scale compiled by Tschannen-Moran et al.(2001).The questionnaire is divided into four dimensions: student engagement,classroom management,instructional strategies,and textbook processing.SPSS 20.0 was used to analyze the data of the questionnaire and the major findings can be drawn as follows:First of all,the overall teacher efficacy of the pre-service English teachers is at upper-middle level.However,when it comes to the four subscales,results vary significantly,with efficacy for instructional strategies the highest and student engagement the lowest.What's more,pre-service English teachers' sense of self-efficacy differs significantly in genders,English proficiency,teaching experience and practicum school types.As for genders,the male pre-service teachers are more efficacious than the female pre-service teachers.With regard to English proficiency,the pre-service teachers who are proficient in English tend to be more confident in the teaching practice.In respect of teaching experience,the pre-serviceteachers with teaching experience have more confidence in dealing with teaching problems.As to practicum school types,the pre-service teachers from non-key schools feel more efficacious in delivering lessons than the teachers in key schools.Based on the above-mentioned results,some pedagogical implications can be put forward for pre-service English teachers,normal universities and practicum schools.Firstly,pre-service English teachers are recommended to improve their English skills during the four years' study in universities,accumulate more teaching experience and make themselves adjusted to the practicum schools.Besides,it is highly important that normal universities choose practicum schools with care.Meanwhile,the universities should also provide pre-service English teachers with more English language courses to improve their language proficiency and allow them to have more teaching practices in classroom teaching.Finally,practicum schools ought to select qualified and responsible cooperating teachers and provide more opportunities for pre-service teachers to increase their teaching experience.