Problems Faced by English Teachers in Developing Practical Knowledge in Pre-service Teacher Education in China

Abstract

It is widely accepted that practical knowledge, which facilitates the development of teaching competence, lays a solid foundation for teaching competence and professionalization. However, it is underestimated and marginalized in the current arrangement of courses in teacher education in China. The theme of the paper is to reveal the problems faced by pre-service TEFL teachers in such a context and their expectations for a change in the future. Questionnaires were employed to explore the views of 64 randomly chosen participants among sophomore student teachers in China West Normal University in China. The results from the survey suggest that most students feel that they have a low level of competence in mastery of knowledge of language teaching, the strong influence from student teachers’ former English teachers’ instruction in secondary school, the lack of video-cases in developing student teachers’ teaching competence, the lack of practice with guidance from the experts and the lack of intimate knowledge of students in primary school and secondary school. The findings illuminated the problems faced by TEFL teachers in pre-service teacher education and showed us the possibility and necessity to combine video-case observation with lesson study to form a new teacher training mode in which theory and practice are to be connected tightly.