A Study On Pre-service English Teachers' Reflection During Teaching Practicum

Teaching reflection,as an essential way to promote teachers' professional growth and achieve effective teaching,has attracted much attention from teaching research and educational context.Considering the significant role teaching reflection plays in teaching profession,it is urgent for pre-service teachers to upgrade their teaching reflection so as to grow into professional reflective teachers.So far,most research on teaching reflection centers on the theoretical discussion,and little empirical research has touched upon the level of teaching reflection.Moreover,most of the research concentrates on the impact of teaching reflection on in-service teachers' professional development,especially on college teachers,hence relevant research on pre-service teachers' reflection is rare,and research on pre-service teachers'reflection during the teaching practicum is even scarcer.To make up for the research gap in this field,the present study investigated pre-service English teachers' refection during teaching practicum in the hope of yielding some feasible insights on the training of reflective English teachers.To this end,this study took 54 M.Ed students from Central China Normal University as research participants.Mixed research methods were employed,encompassing questionnaire,reflective portfolio and semi-structured interview.The study is prompted by the following research questions:1.What is the level of pre-service English teachers' refection during teaching practicum?2.How do the levels of pre-service English teachers' reflection develop during teaching practicum?3.What are the contributing factors to pre-service English teachers' reflection during teaching practicum?The major findings of the present study are as follows:1.Pre-service English teachers' reflection during teaching practicum was moderate.Among the six dimensions,pre-service English teachers reflected most on the moral and meta-cognitive aspects,while reflections on cognition and criticalness were relatively low.2.Pre-service English teachers' reflection was generally limited to the initial level,technical rationality.At the mid-term of the practicum,their reflection gradually moved on to practical reflection,but few of them had reached the highest level,critical reflection.Even if they reach critical level,their reflection on this level was not profound enough.3.There are five factors contributing to pre-service English teachers' reflection during practicum,and they can be generalized as personal and contextual ones.The former consists of student teachers' demographic features,their habitus and reflection skills,while the latter comprises time-related issues and the school field.Based on the above findings,the present research offered some suggestions for both the pre-service English teachers and the teacher training programme in terms of course design,seminar arrangement as well as the arrangement of teaching practicum.