Student Teachers’ Changing Beliefs on a Pre-service Teacher Education Course in Hong Kong

Abstract

Research in second language teacher education (SLTE) has provided evidence for the impermeability of teachers’ beliefs (Golombek, 1998; Johnson, 1994; Peacock, 2001), though much less is known about whether SLTE can influence or trigger changes in student teachers’ (STs) beliefs about teaching and learning. This chapter reports the findings of a study that investigates the changing beliefs of 19 STs enrolled in a pre-service teacher education programme in Hong Kong. Playing the role of the teacher-researcher in the study, I used an ‘image of teaching’ task — similar to Farrell’s (2006) metaphors for learning and teaching — to elicit the STs’ initial beliefs on entry to the teacher education programme, as well as a reflection task at the end of a 14-week course entitled ‘Introduction to English Language Teaching’ (IELT) to investigate possible changes in their beliefs about language teaching and learning. Interviews were also conducted with the STs at the end of the IELT course to find out what might have triggered the changes, if any, in their beliefs.