A Study On The Development Of English MED Students' Teaching Concepts During Educational Practicum

Teaching concept,as an implicit and complex notion,has been paid close attention to by scholars from many areas in recent twenty years.It refers to teachers' perspectives towards teaching,teaching methods,teaching goals and even the relationship between teachers and students.Teaching concept will have a significant impact on teachers'teaching behavior.During a teacher's teaching career,teaching concept is not always the same.On the contrary,it is dynamic,which indicates that teaching concept is under the condition of development.Therefore,holding an active and up-to-date teaching concept is of great value,especially for student teachers.English MED(Master of Education)students are pre-service teachers.Their courses in the university combine relevant teaching theories and practice.In the last year in the university,they are arranged to do educational practicum,which has an important impact on their viewpoints about teaching.However,nowadays many researches about teaching concepts is on in-service teachers,whether novice teachers or experienced teachers.The study on student teachers like MED is not enough.According to the dynamic theory of concepts,this study mainly discusses the development of English MED students' teaching concepts before and after educational practicum from three aspects,including teaching concepts about English teaching goals,teaching methods and the concentration of English teaching.Then the reasons why this development occurred are analyzed.Finally,this dissertation through out suggestions for English MED students about how to develop effective teaching concepts during the pre-service period.The study takes three English MED students who will graduate from a key normal university in June in 2018 as participants.These three students began their teaching practicum in three different middle schools from the middle of September-to the end of October in the third semester.The purpose of this study is to explore the following three questions:1.What teaching concepts do English MED students hold before the educational practicum?2.What development has occurred on teaching concepts during the educational practicum?3.What are the reasons contributing to the development?In order to find the answers,interview,field observation,e-mails and practicum journal are combined together to facilitate data collection and data analysis.The study shows that first,English MED students' teaching concepts have been affected by the educational practicum,and the three dimensions of teaching concepts have been affected differently;second,educational practicum brings English MED students mainly positive effects on their teaching concepts;third,reasons why development have appeared can be more or less concluded into five aspects including educational policy,practicum school environment and culture,mentors in practicum schools,students in practicum schools and the student teachers' personal reflective ability.According to the findings,several suggestions are put forward in the last part.Firstly,normal universities should consider the real teaching situation to design useful and practical education program.Secondly,MED students should spend more time on theoretical study of teaching concept in order to know the importance of it.They need to establish a positive teaching concept.Thirdly,practicum schools should communicate more with the universities.