From late 1980s to early 1990s, a worldwide educational reform was going on。 Different from the behaviorist approaches popular in the 1970s, teaching beliefs are found to be far more influential than knowledge in determining how inpiduals organize and define tasks and solve problems, and were considered to be better predictors of how teachers behaved in the classroom (Williams & Burden, 2000)。 Since 1990s, researchers investigated mainly on teachers' real classroom teaching practice。
My class and I attended the educational probation and educational practicum in primary and middle school。 Definitely, it was proceeded as practical curriculum。 During the whole practicum, many schoolmates and I worked as pre-service teachers。 We had different attitudes towards teaching practicum and each of us had different experiences, but it’s the same that we all developed our beliefs about language learning, language teaching, and classroom practice during the whole process。 This led me wonder the factors contributing to pre-service teachers’ beliefs development。 It has been said that researches arise from wonders。 All the unknowns existing in the development of pre-service teachers’ development give rise to this study。
1。2 The Significance of the Study
The result of the study will have huge influence on teachers’ future career。 It will
influence the efficiency of classroom language teaching activities and even the final result of students’ understandings about language, and the development of their beliefs can more or less affect their teaching results。 Once pre-service teachers can understand the factors contributing to the development, they can better harness their belief system。 As a result, they can better understand their teaching strategy and ideology and compare their beliefs on EFL teaching and learning before the practicum and after the practicum。 And if they do so, they will benefit from the self-reflection and reconstruction of their belief systems, and their professional development can somewhat be promoted and prompted。来自优W尔Y论W文C网WWw.YoueRw.com 加QQ7520,18766
Furthermore, the result of the study can help Chinese normal universities and colleges design more effective educational probation models and courses, which would help pre-service teachers to establish correct teaching beliefs。 Also, since Local experiences have been called for in academic circle, and the participants of the study are all local full-time English normal students, we can find out the local factors that have impact on teaching beliefs of Chinese student teachers on the basis of study。
2。 Literature Review
2。1 The Definitions of Teachers’ Teaching Beliefs and Teaching Practicum
When we are talking about teachers’ teaching beliefs, we must first know its definition。 However, to begin with, the belief’s definition must be clear。 William and Burden once said, beliefs are “difficult to define and evaluate, and tent to be culturally bound”。 (William and Burden, 2000)。 According to some dictionaries, like Webster’s New World (third college edition 1988), the word “belief” is defined as: “The state of
believing; conviction or acceptance that certain things are true or real;Faith, esp。论文网
religious faith;Trust of confidence。;Anything believed or accepted as true; esp。, a creed, doctrine, or tenet;An opinion; expectation; judgment。”
Also, some scholars of psychology and philosophy can give us quite different definitions of “belief”。 Pajares (1992) regarded belief as a concept which carries more
than one meaning。 When people talk about it, they can employ many different words, like values, opinions, conceptions, dispositions, judgments, personal theories, etc。 As for Sigel (1985), he argued that beliefs are the process of mentally constructing our experience, and they are often condensed or integrated into one certain type of schemata or concepts。 From personal level, beliefs can represent an inpidual’s living reality, with enough validity, truth, or credibility, according to Harvey (1986)。 With the help of beliefs, inpiduals’ thoughts and behavior can be put under good control and direction。