A Study On Mentoring Relationship's Impact On EFL Pre-service Teachers' E'fficacy In The Practicum

Teaching practicum,serving as an important part of the pre-service teachers'education and training system in promoting the development of pre-service teachers'efficacy,which not only constitutes part of driving impetus for teachers'self-development,but also has great significance in improving teaching practice.In addition,cooperating teachers,who are often expert in the specific subject area are also supposed to play a vital role in mentoring pre-service teachers.There being a sea of previous studies on the impact of teaching practicum on pre-teachers' teaching efficacy.However,almost no research about the impact of the relationship between the cooperating teachers and pre-service English teachers on teaching efficacy from the perspective of the pre-service teachers has been conducted.Hence the following questions are raised to achieve the research purpose:1.What are the types of the mentoring relationship between school-based cooperating teachers and and pre-service English teachers investigated in this research?2.How does the mentoring relationship influence pre-service English teachers'efficacy?Four postgraduates in English education from an M.Ed.Program in Central China Normal University participated in the research.Different from previous ways of measuring the efficacy by using the scale,this study adopted the qualitative method as its only way to explore the dynamic changing process of mentoring and teaching efficacy by valuing the participants' genuine feelings during the intern,in which semi-structured interviews as well as participatory observation were used to collect data.The findings of this study are summarized as follows.Firstly,There mainly existing four kinds of mentoring relationship,they are congenial-harmony(the two parties get along very well just like close friends),affinity-harmony(the two parties like people of blood relationship,in this research,father and daughter),meeting-role harmony(the two parties are just like the superior and subordinate,behaving according to certain rules in order to accomplish certain goals)and segmentation-harmony(the two parties have clear dividing line but also show politeness to maintain the superficial harmony and have little interaction with each other),of which,the meeting-role harmony relationship promotes student teacher's efficacy most,while in congenial-harmony and affinity-harmony relationship,participants' levels of efficacy stay relatively stable with the former one promoting more.In contrast,participants' efficacy decreases in the segmentation-harmony relationship.The reasons behind this mainly depends on whether the pre-service English teacher can gain successful experience truly recognized by themselves during teaching practicum and whether mentors can meet the current learning needs of the student teachers and provide corresponding constructive guidance.Based on what has been discovered,some implications are offered for the improvement of current mentoring relationship to facilitate the development pe-service English teachers' efficacy:cooperating teachers are expected to provide ongoing,supportive and high-quality detailed feedback to better help student teachers know what/how they can get improved to become effective teachers.Meanwhile,pre-service teachers are supposed to proactively communicate their expectations with mentors to guarantee that corresponding constructive guidance is provided and a positive relationship is maintained.