A Study On The Impact Of Teaching Practicum On Pre-service English Teachers Cognition About An Effective English Teacher

Since the late 1980 s,foreign researchers have paid much attention to teacher cognition.In China,the study of teacher cognition started later and it originated from the research of teacher professional development.Recently,with the development of new curriculum reform and the promulgation of students' key competences,people have realized the importance of teachers in promoting education reform.Teacher cognition has profound impacts on teacher decisions and behaviors,which also contributes to teaching practice and professional development.So teacher cognition becomes research focus.China's new elementary education reform has played a great role in promoting the development of education,which urgently requires a large number of excellent primary and secondary school English teachers.There have been many researches on the qualities of effective teachers,but few of them have been carried out from the perspective of pre-service English teachers.Pre-service teachers,as the reserve forces for teachers,represent the quality of the prospective teachers,so it is meaningful to study pre-service teacher cognition.In addition,teaching practicum provides a platform for pre-service teachers to get in touch with teaching practice.The teaching experience in teaching practicum will inevitably affect their untested teacher cognition.Therefore,to study the effects of teaching practicum on pre-service teacher cognition is of great significance.In response to research gap,based on social constructivism and complex system theory,the present study explored the effects of teaching practicum on pre-service English teachers cognition about an effective English teacher through exploring pre-service teachers' free essays of an effective English teacher,analyzing practicum journals and summaries,interview contents.Specific research questions include followings:(1)what is cognition that pre-service English teachers hold about an effective English teacher before teaching practicum?(2)Are there any changes in pre-service English teachers initial cognition about an effective English teacher after teaching practicum? If there are,what are the changes?(3)What are the factors that lead to these changes during teaching practicum? The study selected 117 junior English majors in one of normal universities in Gansu as participants and used free essays,interviews and practicum journals and summaries to answer these questions.Based on Wu's(2005)and previous research on qualities of an effective English teacher,this research's framework covers five dimensions including “English language pedagogical content competence”,“view of the foreign language teaching profession and professional ethics”,“view of foreign language teaching and learning”,“view of language teacher learning and development”,“personality”.The researcher asked participants to write free essays about an effective English teacher before and after teaching practicum.The free essays were used to analyze status quo and changes of pre-service teachers cognition.Meanwhile,after teaching practicum,the author duplicated practicum journal and summary to further study factors of influencing their cognition.Finally,the participants were invited for an interview which mainly consolidated the factors influencing their cognition about an effective English teacher.Through analysis of free essays,interview texts and practicum journals and summaries,the author draws following conclusions: Firstly,before teaching practicum,pre-service English teachers cognition about an effective English teacher covers all five dimensions-“English language pedagogical content competence”,“view of the foreign language teaching profession and professional ethics”,“view of foreign language teaching and learning”,“view of language teacher learning and development”,“personality”.Meanwhile,they put much emphasis on “ English language pedagogical content competence”.In this dimension,they think the qualities “good at seizing the opportunities to guide and encourage students” and “having a good command of oral and written English,a solid knowledge of English language and its application,and a broad range of knowledge” is most important.Secondly,after teaching practicum,pre-service English teachers have experienced changes in their cognition about an effective English teacher's qualifications.The degree of their changes varies.As a whole,pre-service English teachers have experienced significantly change in the dimension of “view of foreign language teaching and learning”,“view of language teacher learning and development”,“personality”.There into,they turned to attach more importance to “view of foreign language teaching and learning”,“view of language teacher learning and development”,whereas,less importance to “personality”.However,there was no dramatic change in the dimension of “English language pedagogical content competence” and “view of the foreign language teaching profession and professional ethics”.Finally,the reasons for the changes of pre-service English teacher cognition about an effective English teacher are the practice school,tutors,classroom teaching practice,students in the practicum school,student teachers' personal reflection ability.According to results,in order to further promote the pre-service English teachers to establish open and scientific teacher cognition about an effective English teacher,the author puts forward some suggestions from the perspectives of normal colleges,internship schools and pre-service English teachers.As for the normal colleges,they should improve the normal education curricula and set courses about teacher cognition.At the same time,they need to extend the education internship time and assign the college teachers to instruct pre-service teachers.As for the internship schools,they should adopt an open mind to accept pre-service teachers and assign them proper teaching tasks.Besides,they should also appoint some experienced teachers as the pre-service teachers' tutors.For pre-service English teachers,they should attach importance to internship,participate in practice actively,learn theories consciously and reflect regularly on their teaching practice.