Change Of Pre-service English Teachers' Belief About Cultivating "Thinking Competency"

The significance of thinking competency is self-evident,which is firstly listed in key competency of English in National English Curriculum Standards for General High Schools(2017).As absorbers of the cutting-edge pedagogical theories,pre-service English teachers undertake the task of New Curriculum Reform together with in-service teachers to an extent.Regarding the deficiency of insufficient experience,educational practicum becomes the best way to equip them with direct teaching experiences.Based on that,their belief about thinking competency and its cultivation plays a vital role in implementing New Curriculum Reform.Research about changes of teachers' especially pre-service English teachers' belief about cultivating students' thinking competency is still in scarcity.The majority of foreign studies takes in-service teachers as the research participant,paying more attention to influencing factors of the belief change and subitems of thinking competency especially critical thinking.Concerning time-efficiency of New Curriculum Standard,most domestic studies emphasize exploration of connotation and ideal cultivation of thinking competency.Consequently,this study takes the method of case study and two postgraduates in M.Ed program in a normal university directly under the Ministry of Education as participants.Data are collected through interviews,class observation and practice logs to examine the belief change about cultivating thinking competency during the practicum.Related influencing factors are discovered through data analysis.The gap in this field can be filled in a degree.This study attempts to solve the following two questions:(1)What belief do pre-service English teachers hold about cultivating students'thinking competency before and after the educational practicum?(2)Does it change during the educational practicum?If so,what influencing factors might be related to the change?Findings showed that pre-service English teachers' belief about thinking competency changed within a small scale during the practicum with more exposure to teaching practice.However,more obvious changes consisted in the increase of ideal cultivation ways.The track of thinking has been developed from in-class activities to the use of existing materials such as exercise books.Applicable in-class activities have also increased.The change could be connected to two aspects of factors:individual and campus factors.The former comprised prior learning experiences,motivation and attitude as well as personality.And the latter included direct teaching experience and hardware and software campus environment.As the external factor that initiated positive motivation,campus factors facilitated the effect of individual factors which counted more between the two.Meanwhile,positive factors of the environment were taken into effect in turn.The mutual influence between them functioned on the participants jointly,leading to the changes.In view of that,this study brings forward some implications for teacher educators,tutors and pre-service English teachers about how to help the latter raise awareness of cultivating thinking competency during the practicum.Teacher educators need to immerse the interpretation of New Curriculum Standard especially thinking competency in order to raise the awareness of its significance.Better effects can be achieved in a longer educational practicum.Based on an equal and friendly relationship,tutors are supposed to provide in-time instruction and increase the opportunities for pre-service teachers to give lectures.As pre-service English teachers,positive attitudes should be held to conduct lifelong learning.They also need to turn a close eye to the surrounding positive factors and take part in teaching activities to maximize the teaching experience.