A Study On The Teacher Self-efficacy Of English Master Student Teachers

With the further research on teachers' professional development,researchers pay more attention to the teachers' own traits.Teachers' self-efficacy is an important factor in personal beliefs,which plays an important role in teaching behavior and teaching effect.In the previous studies of teacher self-efficacy,most of the research subjects are in-service teachers,while the studies about the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers during practicum are very few.In recent years,many Normal universities reform the training program,especially in the teaching practicum.In order to maximize the effects of teaching practicum,it is necessary to boost the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers.The purpose of the study is to investigate the current situation of teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers and to explore what factors influence the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers in teaching practicum,and try to find effective ways to improve the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers through teaching practicum.In 1995,Yu Guoliang et al.designed the Teacher Self-efficacy Scale which had a good validity,and the scale was adopted in this study.In order to investigate the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers,this study explores two types of factors which may influence teacher self-efficacy,that is,personal factors(age,graduation school,major,origin,school type,internship grade,English proficiency level and teaching years)and school factors(school resource,school atmosphere,teacher-student relationship,and teacher-teacher relationship).The research questions include:(1)What is the current situation of the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers in practicum?(2)What factors influence the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers in practicum?Data collected in this study was analyzed by using Descriptive statistics,Kruskal-Wallis test,Correlation analysis,Multiple Regression analysis and other statistical methods with SPSS17.0 statistical software.Based on the investigation of 57 English Master student teachers who have beenarranged for the teaching practicum in Shanxi Normal University,the main findings of this study are as follows:1.The teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers is on a upper-medium level on the whole.2.The basic information(age,teaching experience,undergraduate graduation school,origin,TEM-8,school type and internship grade)does not have significant difference in English Master student teachers' overall teacher self-efficacy and general teacher self-efficacy.While,both age and teaching years have significant difference in English Master student teachers' personal teacher self-efficacy.3.There is a certain correlation between the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers and school factors.School atmosphere,teacher-student relationship and teacher-teacher relationship have the high predictive power for the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers.Based on the findings above,some suggestions for improving the teacher self-efficacy of English Master student teachers are proposed as followed:(1)Normal universities should select relatively high-quality practicum schools which have good school atmosphere for English Master student teachers;(2)when teaching in the practicum school,English Master student teachers should have the awareness of being a real teacher,attach importance to teaching practicum,and try to have a good relationship with the mentors in the practicum school;(3)English Master student teachers should try to have a good relationship with students so that students can cooperate with teacher positively in English class.