A Comparative Study On Foreign Language Teacher Education Curriculum In China And Australia

With the deepening of reform and opening up and the continuous development of economy,China needs a large number of foreign language talents.The key to developing and improving the quality of foreign language talents and foreign language education is to improve the quality of foreign language teacher education.In China,teacher education curriculum in foreign language teacher education programs still has many problems.Comparatively speaking,Australian foreign language teacher education curriculum system is mature and systematic.It can provide a reference for China.Lots of research has been carried out on teacher education in Australia.Nevertheless,studies on foreign language teacher education curriculum in Australia and comparison of foreign language teacher education curriculum in China and Australia are relatively scarce.And the research suffers from limitations as seldom analyzing the courses specifically and systematically.In addition,the research on teacher education curriculum in Australia mainly focuses on simple introduction of all courses in teacher education programs in a broad sense lacking an authoritative curriculum theory for support and lacking detailed analysis.In view of this,the present study based on Ornstein&Hunkins'(2017)design dimension considerations of curriculum as well as other prior research discoveries compares foreign language teacher education curriculum in China and Australia.It takes Japanese language teacher education programs in five famous universities in Australia and English language teacher education programs in six normal universities that are affiliated to the Ministry of Education in China as examples.Ornstein&Hunkins(2017)summarize six design dimension considerations of curriculum.They are scope,balance,integration,sequence,continuity and articulation.This study will base on these six considerations to compare foreign language teacher education curriculum in China and Australia.The study was guided by the following two research questions:1.What are the similarities and differences between teacher education curriculum in the foreign language teacher education programs in China and Australia in terms of scope,balance,integration,sequence,continuity and articulation?2.What are the implications for foreign language teacher education curriculum in China?This study found that although some universities in Australia do not have courses about Japanese language specific teaching methodology in terms of scope,teacher education curriculum in the Japanese language teacher education programs in Australia basically meet the requirements of balance,integration,sequence,continuity and articulation.The scope of teacher education curriculum in the English teacher education programs in China is mostly adequate.However,some universities lack courses concerning with knowledge and skills for teachers' professional development.The teacher education curriculum of the English teacher education programs in China is in a state of relative imbalance.Because the proportion of teacher education curriculum is small and some English teacher education programs in China do not have elective courses in teacher education curriculum.The integration in teacher education curriculum of the English teacher education programs in China is undesirable.Teacher education curriculum of the English teacher education programs in China is sequenced in conformity with the logic of subject matter only,lacking consideration of the psychological development sequence of prospective teachers.And there is continuity and articulation in teacher education curriculum of the English teacher education programs in China to a certain degree.According to the research findings,this study provided some suggestions relating to teacher education curriculum of foreign language teacher education programs in China as a reference.1.Stress teacher professional development courses and set up inclusive education courses;2.Increase teacher education courses and elective courses;3.Enhance integration of the curriculum;4.Spread teaching practice over four years.