An Investigation on the Teachers' Beliefs of Postgraduate Students in Master of Education in English

Abstract

The key to a surge of interest in the study of teacher beliefs is the recognition that teachers are active decision-makers who play a central role in classroom activities and whose behavior is guided by teacher beliefs. To comprehensively understand the teacher beliefs of the 26 postgraduate students majoring in the master of education in English and the role of educational internship on the development of pre-service teachers' beliefs, we investigated and compared them with 100 in-service secondary school English teachers who participated in the "National Training Program" of the university. The data collected from the questionnaires were analyzed using the statistical software SPSS21.0. The results found differences between the two groups regarding beliefs about students learning, teaching, classroom management, and thoughts about the teacher-student role. And both groups showed aspects of relatively advanced or lagging development in all four dimensions of teachers' beliefs. At the same time, the pre-service teachers' educational internship positively impacts them to improve and establish correct teaching beliefs and stimulate their innovative teaching and research consciousness.