A Study On The Significance Of Mentoring On Preservice English Teachers' Professional Development

Mentoring,as one of the most effective and economical way for teachers'professional development,was introduced into education area in 1980s and since then studies on mentoring has graced the pages of international journals and books.Thanks to relevant foreign researches,it has formed a systematic and sophisticated system for mentoring program abroad.Relevant researches in China did not started until 1990s and most of them were targeted on novice teachers,while as for preservice teachers(different from new teachers who have a lot of chances to experience the authentic class),there are very few of relevant researches.But with the refining of teachers' professional educational system,preservice teachers' professional development increasingly draws scholars' attention.This thesis targets on the preservice English teachers and explores the significance of mentoring on preservice teachers' professional development.This research mainly examines two research questions:first what kind of mentoring instructions do the mentors give to the student teachers during practicum period?second what is the influence of mentoring on preservice teachers' professional development?56 preservice English teachers from Central China Normal University are investigated as research subjects.Questionnaire and semi-structure interview are adopted to collect data.Data from questionnaire are analyzed by the SPSS 19.0 software and Excel.At the same time,seven preservice teachers from seven different practicum schools are interviewed as the supplement for questionnaire data.The finding indicates that first,the mentors mainly give three aspects of mentoring to preservice English teachers.Nearly all the mentors offer English teaching guidance to preservice teacher;about forty-five percent of mentors give head teacher work instruction and sixteen percent of mentors guide student teachers to do educational research.Second mentoring does have a positive influence on all aspects of preservice teachers'professional development.Among the four scales(professional knowledge,professional skills,professional attitude and research competence),mentoring on teaching has the strongest impact on preservice teachers' professional attitude development,while it has the weakest influence on research competence.At last the author puts forward some suggestions from the perspective of the university,the practicum schools,the mentors,and preservice teachers to refine the mentoring program and some suggestions for future study are given as well.'...