A Study Of Pre-service EFL Teachers' Motivations For Choosing Teaching As A Career And Possible Selves

A growing number of research on pre-service teachers' motivations conducted from the perspective of possible selves theory has indicated that pre-service teachers' motivations offer substantial evidence for explaining their career engagement and commitment.However,although pre-service English as a foreign language(hereafter EFL)teachers' motivations and possible selves are crucial in examining the reasons why they decide to teach or refuse to teach,few attempts have been made to investigate those items.Besides,a large bulk of research has focused on in-service language teachers,but little attention has been paid to the main characteristics of pre-service EFL teachers' motivations,including language learning motivations and language teaching motivations,possible selves,and the causal relationship among them as well.This study aims to explore pre-service EFL teachers' motivations for choosing teaching as a career and possible selves,and to figure out the main features of their motivations and possible selves as a prospective English teacher.In order to answer the research questions sufficiently,the present research adopted quantitative and qualitative methods.A total of 476 pre-service teachers who was trained in English teacher education programs participated in filling in questionnaire surveys.They were sophomore,junior and senior students from four different normal universities in Yunnan province.Besides,12 students including sophomores,juniors,and seniors in the targeted four universities were invited to attend telephone interviews.Descriptive statistical analysis,paired samples t-test,correlation analysis,one-way Analysis of Variation(hereafter ANOVA),and simple regression analyses were adopted in this research.The whole process of data analysis was through Statistical Package for Social Science(hereafter SPSS)22.0The major results revealed that: 1)Pre-service English teachers were affected by multiple motives,while the issue of regarding English teaching as a fallback choice or provisional job became moderately severe;2)Compared to their feared selves,their ideal selves gained a higher score.Another distinct finding demonstrated that language teaching skills and classroom management were considered as their primary fears,while they were remarkably confident in being caring and helpful teachers,and having continual teaching professional development as well;3)Student teachers in different grades had similar motivated behaviors in language learning and language teaching and possible selves,which indicated that their motivations and possible selves remained stable during several-year teacher training;4)Student teachers' ideal teacher selves rather than their feared teacher selves served as the dominated factor influencing their motivations to learn English and to be a professional English teacher.This study contributed to understanding teacher trainees' motivations from a comprehensive and dynamic perspective and revealing the interesting causal connections between their possible selves and motivations.It argued for the effects of grade differences on their motivations and possible selves,and also shed much light on recommendations for teacher education programs and research.Finally,the limitations of the study and suggestions for further study were pointed out.