Belief Change Before and After the Teaching Practicum Among Chinese Pre-Service ELT Teachers

Qing Qiu,Yueya Xiong,Zhilong Xie,Fen Zhou

doi:10.1177/21582440211004934

Abstract

This article aims to study the dynamic change of teachers’ beliefs among pre-service teachers. A longitudinal design was adopted to investigate English language teaching (ELT) pre-service teachers’ belief change after a 3-month teaching practicum by administering pretest and posttest questionnaires, semistructured interviews, and reflective journals. Repeated measures and paired sample t-test analyses showed significant differences across different aspects of beliefs in all the participants, but belief changes were significant after the practicum only within the experimental group, particularly in the aspects of student management, teaching evaluation, and student learning. In contrast, belief changes were not significant within the control group. Further inductive content analyses of semistructured interviews and reflective journals from the experimental group confirmed these changes and conclusively revealed some potential factors contributing to the changes. The results shed light on how pre-service teachers evolve in their career development and help educators adjust appropriate education policies to improve the quality of English teacher education, particularly in the Chinese context.

Highlights

The research of language teachers’ beliefs, that is, what teachers believe, think, and know, has been a trending topic since the 1990s (e.g., Murphy & Torff, 2018; Turnbull, 2018; Yang, 2019)
Previous studies have focused on what teachers believe and what teachers do in their classroom practice, and revealed both consistency and inconsistency between teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices (e.g., Farrell & Kun, 2008; Li, 2013; Phipps & Borg, 2009; Thomas & Jessica, 2014)
The results showed that principles of communicative teaching were rated highly by teachers, but in reality, they adopted a combination of grammar translation and Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) approaches in their teaching practice

Summary

Introduction

The research of language teachers’ beliefs, that is, what teachers believe, think, and know, has been a trending topic since the 1990s (e.g., Murphy & Torff, 2018; Turnbull, 2018; Yang, 2019). Teachers’ beliefs are considered the strongest predictor of teaching behavior (Pajares, 1992). Previous studies have focused on what teachers believe and what teachers do in their classroom practice, and revealed both consistency and inconsistency between teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices (e.g., Farrell & Kun, 2008; Li, 2013; Phipps & Borg, 2009; Thomas & Jessica, 2014). Few studies have focused on the process of belief change, which is a relatively rare phenomenon (Pajares, 1992), among pre-service teachers. The period of teacher training becomes critical in developing pre-service teachers’ professional identity. This study focuses on how pre-service teachers’ beliefs are changed after a teaching practice intervention

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Methods

Results

Conclusion