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

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.

Keywords

teacher education teachers’ beliefs belief change pre-service ELT teachers

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 play a central role in teachers’ decisions, judgments, and behaviors in their teaching process, influencing various aspects of teaching, including pedagogical decision making; what approaches, techniques, and classroom activities are adopted; and how learners should be chosen and evaluated (Birello, 2012; Borg, 2001, 2003, 2006; Ertmer, 2005; Pajares, 1992). 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). Many factors have been reported to contribute to the variations of teachers’ beliefs, including teachers, learners, materials, and contextual factors (Beets et al., 2008; Sato & Kleinsasser, 2004; Shavelson & Stern, 1981). However, few studies have focused on the process of belief change, which is a relatively rare phenomenon (Pajares, 1992), particularly among pre-service teachers. Pre-service preparation is extremely important for future teachers. Examinations of pre-service teachers showed that core beliefs and conceptions of teaching affect the process of learning to teach (Peacock, 2001; Walkington, 2005). Pre-service teachers who do not receive formal training will experience adjustment difficulties in professional identity after they enter the occupation. Therefore, the period of teacher training becomes critical in developing pre-service teachers’ professional identity. This study thus focuses on how pre-service teachers’ beliefs are changed after a teaching practice intervention.

Theoretical Framework

Beliefs and Teacher Beliefs in English Language Teaching (ELT)

The definitions of beliefs are multidimensional. Beliefs are considered as a broad term including attitudes, values, judgments, opinions, ideology, perceptions, conceptions, conceptual systems, dispositions, implicit theories, explicit theories, internal mental processes, action strategies, rules of practice, and perspectives (Pajares, 1992). Calderhead (1996) defined beliefs as suppositions, commitments, and ideologies. Beliefs are also thought of as psychologically held understandings, premises, or propositions about the world that a person perceives to be true (Richardson, 1996). In an educational context, beliefs are defined as one’s convictions, philosophy, tenets, or opinions about teaching and learning (Haney et al., 2003). The concept of teacher beliefs refers to comprehensive and multiple belief systems, which include knowledge construction, learning, and teaching, or examination of these from a specific viewpoint, such as pedagogical ideologies, values, and attitudes regarding instructional strategies (Jääskelä et al., 2017; Kim et al., 2013). Other scholars classify teacher beliefs into different components that are essential for the whole teaching–learning process. For example, in Calderhead’s (1996) theoretical framework, teacher beliefs are categorized into five main components: beliefs about learners and learning, about teaching, about subject, about learning to teach, and about self and teaching role.

Following Calderhead’s classifications, we briefly discuss how different components of teachers’ beliefs would affect teaching practices in ELT. The first category relates to beliefs about learners and learning. Teachers’ assumptions about what learners can do by themselves and how language should be learned are very likely to affect their way of teaching. If they believe that learning English mainly involves learning vocabulary, then they will spend most of their time teaching words (Horwitz, 1988). Likewise, if they think learning English mainly involves translation, then they will focus mainly on how to translate between their native language and the foreign language. The second category concerns beliefs about teaching. Teachers differ in their views or conceptions toward teaching and the roles of teachers. Some teachers regard teaching as the transmission of knowledge or information, whereas others consider teaching as a process of cultivating learners’ communicative ability and understand the teachers’ role as facilitator in this process. These different beliefs about teaching directly influence how the teachers perform in class. The third component, which relates to how teachers view the importance of subject matter as opposed to purely pedagogical knowledge, also directly influences teachers’ beliefs. Teachers have different views of their subject in different contexts. For example, English education major students in Chinese universities, usually spend more time in learning English skills but far less time in learning teaching pedagogy and educational psychology (Zheng, 2009). This affects how the teachers perceive the importance of these subjects. In this case, they may undervalue the importance of educational philosophy in student progress and overemphasize language skills. Teachers’ beliefs about learning to teach or professional development is the fourth component of our definition of educational beliefs. A teacher who sees teaching as a lifelong process will be more likely to reflect upon his or her teaching and experiment with different methods of teaching. On the contrary, a teacher who passively sees teaching as a required and fixed task will be more likely to stay in a stagnant state of teaching and seek no change in his or her teaching style. Relating to the fifth component, previous studies show that teachers’ beliefs about self and the teaching role also shape their classroom teaching. For example, some research shows that foreign language teachers value their image in their students’ minds more than their teaching skills and methods (Richards et al., 1996). Teachers’ beliefs of themselves are significant factors in predicting their behavior in their classroom teaching (Borich, 1999; Fang, 1996).

More broadly, previous studies generally classify teachers’ beliefs into two categories: traditional orientation and open orientation (e.g., Meirink et al., 2009; Norton et al., 2005). Teachers with teacher-centered beliefs (traditional orientation) tend to teach class in a traditional way, that is, knowledge transmission, grammar translation, or audio-lingual method, whereas teachers with learner-centered beliefs (open orientation) tend to teach class in an open way (e.g., constructive and communicative method), which allows learners to take responsibility for their own learning, construct knowledge based on their own experiences, and learn together with peers. In summary, teachers’ beliefs are multidimensional, and different components affect teachers’ teaching behavior in distinct ways.

Teacher Beliefs and Practices in ELT

A number of studies have found that teacher beliefs are consistent with classroom practice. For example, in Knudson’s (1998) study, students’ practices are consistent with their theoretical beliefs. More recently, Farrell and Ives (2014) explored in a case study the relationship between teaching beliefs and teaching practice. After analyzing the second language reading teacher’s stated beliefs and observed classroom practices, the authors found that this particular teacher held complex beliefs about teaching reading that were evident to some extent in many of his classroom practices.

Other studies, however, found inconsistency between beliefs and classroom practice. For example, Lee (2009) investigated teachers’ beliefs and practice in written feedback. A questionnaire was administered to 206 secondary teachers and a postquestionnaire interview was conducted with 19 teachers. The feedback data analysis revealed that there were 10 mismatches between teacher beliefs and practice in written feedback, including language form, marking errors, locating errors, error codes, score awarding, weakness/strength comments, responsibility for learning, process writing, written errors, and ways of marking. In another study, Mowlaie and Rahimi (2010) compared the differences between teachers’ beliefs about the tenets of communicative language teaching and their teaching practice regarding those principles. One hundred English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers from well-known schools in Tehran participated in the study and were tested via a questionnaire. 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. The findings that teachers’ beliefs are not present in their enacted practices show inconsistency between teachers’ belief and practice. To summarize, the results of previous studies indicate that the relationship between teacher beliefs and classroom practices is an inconclusive issue.

Recent studies have mostly focused on a specific aspect of teachers’ beliefs and its effect in ELT teaching, including creativity, aptitude, efficacy, curriculum, culture diversity, pedagogy, and teacher–child interactions (e.g., Bereczki & Kárpáti, 2018; Civitillo et al., 2018; Heyder & Brunner, 2018; Hu et al., 2017; Murphy & Torff, 2018; Sanchez et al., 2018; Thompson & Woodman, 2018). For example, Bereczki and Kárpáti (2018), in a recent review, reported that the successful implementation of creativity in education is largely dependent on teachers’ own beliefs about creativity, a topic that has been investigated extensively in the past 25 years. In Bai (2018), Chinese English language teachers’ beliefs about what counts as research and the value of research were compared between two tertiary institutions in China. After interview and thematic analysis, it was revealed that their beliefs about what counts as research ranged from book/dictionary compilation and translation, through literature synthesis and teaching reflections, to principled inquiry, and the value of research for them was representative of a continuum ranging from meeting institutional research requirements and benefiting teaching, to professionalism and satisfying psychological needs. More recently, Taimalu and Luik (2019) identified the impact of the beliefs and professional knowledge of teacher educators on technology integration. By administering a questionnaire dealing with the pedagogical, content, and technology knowledge of teachers, and the integration of these areas among 54 teacher educators from the two largest universities in Estonia, the authors found that beliefs about the value of technology considerably influenced technology integration in the teacher educators’ teaching practices. Overall, the recent studies discussed above point to the fact that the influences of teachers’ beliefs are reflected distinctively in different contexts.

Beliefs Among Pre-Service ELT Teachers

As mentioned earlier, pre-service preparation is extremely important for future teachers. Pre-service teachers’ core beliefs and conceptions of teaching significantly affect the process of learning to teach (e.g., Peacock, 2001; Walkington, 2005). Teacher training becomes significant in many ways. For teacher education, it particularly prepares the pre-service teachers in adjusting their prior beliefs and adapting more flexibly to the reality of a specific teaching context, as beliefs from pre-service teachers usually differ from those of in-service teachers and those of pre-service teachers in different contexts.

For example, Uibu et al. (2017) compared the differences of teachers’ beliefs between 112 pre-service teachers and 73 school-based in-service teachers. The result showed that in contrast to in-service teachers, pre-service teachers value more the goals that focus on the mechanical acquisition of knowledge, prefer teaching practices that support intrapersonal processes of cognitive development, and pay less attention to the pupils’ social development. Wach and Monroy (2019) investigated the beliefs expressed by a sample of 206 Polish and Spanish pre-service teachers (teacher trainees) about the use of learners’ native language (L1) in teaching EFL. After quantitative and qualitative data analyses from a questionnaire, the authors found that there were considerable differences between the two groups in their beliefs about the functions of the L1 in an L2 classroom. Both groups thought that it was necessary to use the L1 in the L2 classroom (the translation technique and grammar explanation conveyed in the L1 for example), but the Spanish group held a more negative view concerning the usefulness of the L1. Generally, the Polish group had a higher appreciation of the role of the L1 in the EFL classroom.

Other studies examined specific aspects of beliefs related to teaching and learning. For example, Pappamihiel et al. (2017) examined the impact of digital stories on pre-service teacher beliefs about English language learners. In this study, pre-service teacher participants viewed digital stories created by dominant language learners in grades K–12 to see what kind of effect, if any, these stories had on their attitudes. The result showed that the stories had an influence on pre-service teachers’ attitudes, perspectives on language, and their sense of self-efficacy in teaching. Harrison and Lakin (2018) used an Implicit Association Test to explore implicit and explicit beliefs and attitudes about English language learners among 116 pre-service teachers from a southern university in the United States. The results showed that the pre-service teachers had positive implicit beliefs about English language learners and expected positive attitude toward working with them and school support. The abovementioned studies indicate that examinations of pre-service teachers’ beliefs are necessary for entering the profession and it is also helpful for English language educators to design and adjust policies concerning English language education so that pre-service teachers are better able to meet the new challenges of real teaching activities.

Belief Change Among Pre-Service ELT Teachers

The change from a student role to a teacher role can be one of the most abrupt and stressful transitions in working life. Lacey (1977) proposed that the socialization of pre-service teachers has four stages. The first stage is the Honeymoon Period in which student teachers learn knowledge and skills with greatest passion and keep a perfect dream about their future profession. The second stage is the Search for Materials and Ways of Teaching in which student teachers try their best to prepare materials and find better ways of teaching to solve the problems occurring in the classroom, such as those relating to discipline and low motivation among learners. The third stage is the Crisis Period in which student teachers find it hard to teach well and are unable to solve problems resulting in growing frustration and complaints. The fourth stage, Learning to Get by or Failure, is one in which student teachers have to reassess their future profession after the complaining period. If they are able to recognize their shortcomings and readjust themselves, they can still have teaching as their future profession. Otherwise, they have to give it up. Not each individual pre-service teacher will necessarily go through the stages one by one, but from these stages, we can tell that there are difficult times when they experience “reality shock”—the gap between ideal and reality.

Some studies suggested that teacher beliefs are difficult to change (e.g., Pajares, 1992), and if there is change, changes in teacher beliefs and pedagogical practices may occur via dynamic processes, or through developmental programs within the context of teachers’ own curricular needs (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010; Scott, 2016). The lack of exploration of which kind of beliefs is more prone to change and which is not, is in great need for further understanding (Zheng, 2009).

Only few studies have ever focused on the dynamic belief changing process, most of which are qualitative. For example, Debreli (2016) investigated changes in the beliefs about teaching and learning EFL of three final-year undergraduate pre-service teachers throughout a 9-month pre-service training program in a university from Cyprus. After analyzing the semistructured interviews at three intervals in the 9 months, the author concluded that all pre-service teachers experienced belief changes from the beginning to the end of the training program. The process of belief change has also been examined in Yuan and Lee (2014), in which three pre-service language teachers’ belief change was identified during the teaching practicum in a university from China. After analyses of interviews, class observations, and participants’ written reflections, it was found that student teachers’ beliefs underwent different processes of change during the practicum, which included confirmation, realization, disagreement, elaboration, integration, and modification. There are several within-group quantitative studies on belief change. For example, Simsek (2014) compared 26 pre-service teachers’ belief changes before and after their teaching practicum. The results showed significant changes in their beliefs. Particularly, there was a 7% increase in the supporters of a learner-centered approach in language teaching. Thirty-five percent maintained the behaviorist view of teaching, whereas 42% of the participants categorically transformed their beliefs about teacher metaphors (teacher roles), and about 27% of which could be said to have improved by the end of the practicum. In a more recent study, Polat et al. (2019) examined whether a specially designed intervention was effective in changing 74 pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the education of linguistically diverse students. After the intervention of a semester-long online letter exchange with English learner pen pal partners, the 74 pre-service teachers transformed their teacher beliefs about English education, that is, inclusion in mainstream classrooms, responsibility for their academic achievement and language development, and culturally responsive pedagogy. Although these studies did not include control group design, their results showed that there are belief changes in some aspects among the pre-service ELT teachers.

Potential Factors of Belief Change

Previous studies have suggested multiple factors contributing to belief change, such as the teaching practicum experience or a teaching intervention. For example, from a social perspective that language learning is not only based on a linguistic, structural form, such as phonology, morphology, and syntax, but also on factors including psychology, anthropology, sociology, and general education, Fleming et al. (2011) identified five key factors that influence pre-service teachers’ beliefs concerning English-as-second-language (ESL)/EFL teaching: prior beliefs, interaction with peers, the course textbook, lectures, and the teaching practicum. Other scholars suggested that the factors that influence belief change may include individual differences, school environment, motivation, teacher reflection, intercultural interaction, and supervisor’s teaching beliefs (e.g., Garmon, 2005; Nettle, 1998; Tillema, 2000). Generally speaking, it is believed that the potential factors related to teachers’ belief change are numerous. However, what remains unknown is the context in which a particular factor affects a particular aspect of belief.

The Current Focus

There is some evidence that pre-service teachers’ beliefs undergo a transformative change after a certain period of intervention. However, most previous studies are qualitative case studies or quantitative studies without control group design; there are few longitudinal and experimental designs to examine whether or not teaching practicum significantly affects teachers’ beliefs among pre-service teachers (compared with control group). Furthermore, if teacher beliefs do change, the specific aspects of belief change and their causes still remain largely unknown.

In China, English education (as a foreign language) generally has been described as text centered, input based, and test oriented (Wen, 2016). Under such teaching and learning contexts, the focus has been on grammatical rather than communicative skills, which is similar to grammar schooling described by Larry Cuban (2020). This way of teaching has produced a large number of English learners unable to communicate effectively in the target language (Wei & Su, 2015). However, ELT majors in higher education are required to learn the history of ELT methods and are encouraged to discard traditional language teaching methods such as grammar translation and to adopt more communicative teaching methods based on constructivism and cognitivism. There is therefore an obvious gap between ideal knowledge and realistic situational knowledge. For the ELT majors who will later turn into ELT teachers, the period of the teaching practicum presents an important stage in which a transition from the role of student to the role of teacher occurs.

English learning is mandatory from primary school to university in China. Pre-service ELT teachers training programs are typically set up in teacher colleges and universities. These colleges and universities have systematic training programs for pre-service ELT teachers. Usually, a university ELT student is required to finish a 4-year program, which included a 2- to 4-month teaching practicum. In the 4-year program, many courses are taught, which include two main parts: English knowledge/skill courses and English teaching pedagogical courses. After theoretical learning, all students have a teaching practicum lasting from 2 to 4 months, during which students practice what they learn in a real classroom setting. This period is critical in shaping pre-service teachers’ beliefs and helpful in bridging the gap between their idealistic teaching beliefs and the reality of teaching before they formally enter the occupation. Compared with those without formal pre-service training, student teachers who follow educational training program demonstrate more confidence across most dimensions of teaching (Darling-Hammond et al., 2002). Therefore, exploring pre-service ELT teachers’ beliefs and the change/development of these beliefs during training/practice would contribute to our understanding of what actually happens in ELT teacher development. In this study, we examine how pre-service teachers’ beliefs change after a 3-month teaching practicum. We believe that such research will shed light on how pre-service teachers evolve in their career development and help educators adjust education policies to improve the quality of English teacher education.

Research Questions

Based on the theoretical framework reviewed above, as pre-service teachers’ beliefs play such a significant role in forging their identity, we examine how pre-service teachers’ beliefs might be changed after a teaching practice intervention compared with a control group without such an intervention. We propose two research questions in this study:

Research Question 1 (RQ1): What belief changes may occur after the teaching practicum?

Research Question 2 (RQ2): If changes do occur, what are the potential factors contributing to these belief changes?

Under Calderhead’s (1996) theoretical framework, we speculate that after the teaching practicum, significant changes will occur at least in some aspects of the teachers’ beliefs and multiple factors may contribute to the changes.

Method

To answer the two research questions, this study adopts a longitudinal intervention approach. Pre-service teachers were divided into the experimental group and the control group. Before the intervention, all participants took a pretest, which was a questionnaire used to investigate their teaching beliefs. Then, the experimental group took a 3-month teaching practicum in different middle or high schools located in the same city, whereas the control group did not participate in the teaching practicum. During the practicum, all participants from the experimental group were required to keep a hand-written reflective journal about their teaching experience. After the 3-month teaching practicum intervention, both groups were required to take a posttest, which adopted the same questionnaire to check their teaching beliefs again. Then, six participants from the experimental group were randomly chosen for a 20-min semistructured interview, which was adopted to reflect their changes in teaching beliefs and potential factors giving rise to this change. Finally, 20 participants voluntarily handed in their teaching practicum journals, which were inductively analyzed to extract the potential factors contributing to these changes. Quantitative data of the pretest and posttest were analyzed by SPSS, and data of the interview and journals were examined by inductive content analysis.

Participants

For this study, all participants (N = 142; experimental group = 107, control group = 35) were from a teachers training institution, Jiangxi Normal University in China. They took part in the study voluntarily for course credit. Their rights were protected according to the ethics approved by the Academic Committee of Jiangxi Normal University. They were senior students who majored in English education (aged 19–21; 16 males). All the students had learned English for 13.5 years on average. All participants had taken English and literature courses and ELT training courses before they participated in our study. The English courses included Listening, Speaking, Reading, Writing, British Literature, American Literature, English-Speaking Countries, Translation, and Linguistics. The main ELT pedagogical courses they had taken included English Teaching Methodology, Second Language Acquisition, English Curriculum Design, Classroom Discourse and Efficient Classroom Teaching, and English Teaching Skills Training. However, all the participants had no formal teaching experience in class (10% students reported having tutoring experience).

Questionnaire

A questionnaire was administered both before and after the teaching practicum. Before the practicum, the questionnaire was distributed to all participants in person. After the practicum, the questionnaire was distributed again to all participants via internet because they were not on campus at the time of testing (this period is usually the time for seniors to look for employment/internships, thus they are not required to stay on campus). The questionnaire, Teachers’ Belief Scale, was adopted from Zhu and Ye (2003), which was based on Calderhead’s (1996) framework and designed for Chinese students in a Chinese context.

The questionnaire includes 47 items of questions and is divided into four dimensions: beliefs on student managements (Items 1–13), beliefs on curriculum and teaching plan (Items 14–22), beliefs on teaching and evaluation (Items 23–38), and beliefs on students’ learning (Items 39–47). Each dimension is divided into two orientations: traditional orientation and open orientation. In the questionnaire, each question should be answered according to a 6-point Likert-type scale: 1 indicates strongly disagree and 6 indicates strongly agree. Higher scores indicate more open orientation.

Interviews and Journals

After the posttest, semistructured interviews were carried out and reflective journals were collected to gather qualitative data. Data of the interviews and the reflective journals were collected for the purpose of identifying which belief(s) had changed and extracting potential factors that contribute to this change. Of all the participants in the experimental group, six were randomly chosen for a 20-min interview, and 200 journals entries from 20 students were voluntarily handed in (10 for each). To create a relaxed atmosphere and reduce face-to-face conversation anxiety, the authors used voice chat on mobile phones in the interview. The interview raised two open-ended questions:

Do you think your teaching beliefs have changed after the teaching practicum? If yes, what are the changes?

What do you think may have caused the change?

Results

Data Collection and Analysis

One hundred forty-two questionnaires were distributed, and 136 were returned (105 from the experimental group, 31 from the control group). Six participants failed to return their questionnaires because they dropped out of the study. The scores from the questionnaires were entered into SPSS 16.0 for data analysis. Repeated measures and paired sample t tests were conducted to compare belief differences across different aspects and differences between before and after the practicum within group.

For the interview and the reflective journals, the authors transcribed the interviews into written form, classified the journals, deleted unrelated content, and then adopted inductive content analyses (e.g., Schreier, 2014) to identify specific changes of teachers’ beliefs and to extract potential factors that might have caused belief change among the pre-service English teachers.

Questionnaire

According to the framework mentioned in the literature review, we analyzed the changes of the pre-service English teachers’ beliefs in four dimensions: student management, curriculum teaching plan, teaching and evaluation, and student learning. The reliability statistics result shows that the reliability of the whole data set is high: Cronbach’s α = .835, Cronbach’s α based on standardized items = .861. The questionnaire results for the experimental group are presented in Table 1.

Table 1.

Teachers’ Beliefs of Pretest and Posttest in the Experimental Group (N = 105).

Dimensions	Pretest		Posttest		Paired
Dimensions	M	SD	M	SD	t test^a
Student management	3.83	0.39	4.10	0.48	.000
Curriculum teaching and planning	3.85	0.48	3.91	0.47	.370
Teaching and evaluation	4.25	0.49	4.41	0.43	.014
Student learning	3.55	0.46	3.80	0.50	.000

The statistical difference is significant at p < .005 level.

As can be seen from Table 1, scores of the four dimensions increased more or less after the intervention. The mean of student management increased from 3.83 to 4.10, curriculum teaching and planning from 3.85 to 3.91, teaching and evaluation from 4.25 to 4.41, and students learning from 3.55 to 3.80. To find out whether there were significant differences across different dimensions and whether there were significant differences between before and after practicum, repeated measures and paired sample t-test analyses were conducted. The results showed that there were significant differences across the four dimensions, F(3, 624) = 122.568, p < .001. Both before and after teaching practicum, participants had the highest score in teaching and evaluation (M = 4.25 vs. 4.41), the lowest score in student learning (M = 3.55 vs. 3.80).

More important, the differences between the two stages before and after practicum were significant, F(1, 208) = 14.692, ps < .001. Furthermore, paired sample t-test results showed that, in student management dimension, the score of “after teaching practicum” was significantly higher than that of “before teaching practicum” (t = −4.409, p < .001). In the dimension of curriculum teaching and planning, the scores improved from 3.85 to 3.91, but did not reach statistical significance (t = −0.900, p = .370). As for the dimension of teaching and evaluation, the score of “after teaching practicum” was significantly higher than that of “before teaching practicum” (t = −2.498, p = .014). In student learning dimension, the score of “after teaching practicum” was significantly higher than that of “before teaching practicum” (t = −3.810, p < .001). Overall, in the experimental group, significant changes were observed after teaching practicum in three dimensions, that is, student management, teaching and evaluation, and student learning.

The questionnaire results for the control group are presented in Table 2. The descriptive results showed that scores of the four dimensions changed slightly from the pretest to the posttest. The mean of student management increased from 3.90 to 4.08, curriculum teaching and planning from 3.90 to 3.95, teaching and evaluation from 4.31 to 4.46, and students learning from 3.63 to 3.85. Similarly, to find out whether there were significant differences across different dimensions and between pretest and posttest, repeated measurement analysis and paired sample t-test analyses were conducted. The results showed that there were significant differences across the four dimensions, F(3, 180) = 30.446, p < .001. Both in the pretest and posttest, participants had the highest scores in teaching and evaluation (M = 4.31 vs. 4.46), the lowest scores in student learning (M = 3.63 vs. 3.85), which are similar to the results of the experimental group. However, the differences between the two stages before and after practicum were not significant, F(1, 60) = 3.005, p > .05. Furthermore, paired sample t-test results showed no group differences between pretest and posttest across all dimensions (student management t = −1.490, p = .147; curriculum teaching and planning t = −0.467, p = .644; teaching and evaluation t = −1.486, p = .148; students learning t = −1.652, p = .109). Overall, in the control group, there were no significant changes between pretest and posttest in teachers’ beliefs.

Table 2.

Teachers’ Beliefs of Pretest and Posttest in the Control Group (N = 31).

Dimensions	Pretest		Posttest		Paired
Dimensions	M	SD	M	SD	t test^a
Student management	3.90	0.47	4.08	0.53	.147
Curriculum teaching and planning	3.90	0.45	3.95	0.51	.664
Teaching and evaluation	4.31	0.38	4.46	0.44	.148
Student learning	3.63	0.55	3.85	0.51	.109

The statistical difference is significant at p < .005 level.

To sum up the results for the questionnaires, first, all participants had high scores in teaching and evaluation, which indicates that they were aware of communicative teaching ideology and tend to have an open orientation; relatively, they had low scores in student learning, which indicates that there was a lack of realistic activities related to such ideology and a tendency to have a traditional orientation. Moreover, there were significant changes in three aspects of belief among the experimental group, whereas no belief changes presented themselves among the control group. That is to say, after the 3-month teaching practicum, the pre-service EFL teachers’ beliefs changed significantly, particularly in three aspects: student management, teaching and evaluation, and student learning.

Interviews

For the interviews, we categorized the content into four dimensions based on the questionnaire. As can be seen from the interviewee’s reflective comments after the 3-month practicum, significant changes were reported in the following aspects.

Student management

Student management, or class management, refers to the skills and techniques that teachers have to make class run smoothly. Based on the questionnaire, beliefs concerning student management are mainly concerned with several parts, including the teaching profession, physical punishment, school rules, and teacher–student relationship.

Teaching as a profession refers to those who give instruction to students, especially in an elementary or a secondary school or in a university. How teachers perceive the role of teaching as a profession significantly influences what they do inside and outside of classroom. After the 3-month practicum, the pre-service teachers’ beliefs changed in different degrees and toward different directions. Four out of six participants thought they were more committed to English teaching after the teaching practicum although they realized that teaching was a difficult task, and two participants said they did not want to be teachers in the future because they did not think they were able to effectively handle student discipline problems, and found it difficult to navigate the necessary relationship between teacher and parent. Under the traditional Chinese context, the roles of teachers and parents are quite distinct as teachers are viewed as experts, repositories of knowledge, whereas the parents are responsible for children within their families and life at home, and are supposed to assist teachers in supporting children’s education (Guo & Kilderry, 2018; Lau et al., 2012).

Physical punishment refers to the infliction of physical pain upon a person’s body as punishment for a violation of class or school rules. Physical punishment has been historically used in Chinese schools and homes, but Chinese law has forbidden this method of punishment in schools (e.g., Chen et al. 1997). Therefore, before the teaching practicum, all six participants opposed physical punishment. They held that the best way to solve problems between teachers and students is communication and that physical punishment is ineffective, sometimes even counterproductive. Physical punishment may hurt learners’ self-esteem and self-confidence. However, four participants changed their opinions after the teaching practicum. They believed that teachers should apply different methods according to the needs of their students. Physical punishment should be appropriately used on students who behave badly. It is necessary to exert physical punishment in the Chinese context where light (not severe) physical punishment is more or less acceptable in the Chinese culture (Hester et al., 2009).

School rules are common regulations or customs for students to abide by both inside and outside of classroom, which are usually based on culture, courtesy, common sense, personal safety, and are designed to develop social morals and to support effective learning. In a traditional Chinese classroom, teachers and rules, such as following teachers’ directions/orders, arriving on time, saluting to teachers, no eating food in class, are highly respected. Before the teaching practicum, half of the participants thought that it was more important to make students obey rules than to let students make their own decisions. But after the practicum, they thought that students making their own decisions was more important than obeying the rules because in this way, students experience more autonomy. When students are given opportunities to organize an activity by themselves, they tend to be more active and creative. This is a necessary counterbalance to following teachers’ orders or obeying rigid rules, which are usually authoritarian and do not encourage self-autonomy in learning. The other three participants had no change in their beliefs of school rules; they believed adhering to school rules is the first policy of class and student management.

The relationship between a teacher and his or her students is one of the most influential factors affecting a learning process (McGrath & Van Bergen, 2015). Positive teacher–student relationship usually protects students from learning stress and anxiety. However, it is also culturally modulated. In traditional Chinese culture, the teacher–student relationship is rigid (Wang, 2004). Teachers are considered as authoritative fathers who enjoy a privileged status in a group and shall not be challenged, as encapsulated by Chinese sayings such as, “A strict lecturer produces good disciples.” Under the context of communicative language teaching approaches, teacher–student relationships tend to be more flexible (Liao, 2004). According to the interview, before the teaching practicum, four participants held that teachers should have a friendly and close relationship with students, and only two participants thought that a teacher should keep a distance from students. They believed “If the teacher is too close to students, he or she cannot keep authority in class.” However, after the teaching practicum, all participants believed that teachers should maintain a balanced relationship with students and found that students tend to like approachable teachers. They thought that, without a degree of distance between the teacher and students, the students will become too relaxed and disrespectful, which makes it hard for the teacher to discipline the students and manage the class.

Curriculum teaching and planning

None of the six participants changed their beliefs concerning curriculum teaching and planning. They believed that they had learned enough about English education to teach middle school or high school students. They also believed that the teaching content should be combined with students’ real lives. Only in this way, can the boring textbook become lively and interesting. The combination of teaching and life is good for students’ learning. Both before and after the practicum, all participants agreed that it is very difficult to carry out this combination because there are many limitations in the Chinese educational context (such as examination-oriented teaching, authoritarian teaching methods), and it requires the teacher to design and prepare the class carefully. Throughout the experiment, they remained unchanged in their belief that this combination is challenging, and that it takes courage to deal with students’ discipline problems, parent–teacher relationships, and that effective teaching requires innovation.

Teaching and evaluation

As discussed in the “Introduction” section, teachers hold different views or conceptions toward teaching and the roles of teachers. According to the interview, five participants out of six agreed that teachers’ teaching is more important than students’ learning, which reflects a teacher-centered/traditional view. However, they changed this idea after the teaching practicum because they found that some students were not good at learning. No matter how hard the teacher taught, some students still could not understand. They began to realize that students’ learning tends to play a more meaningful role, and that students have individual differences, which make it even harder for the teacher to teach well. Therefore, the participants all agreed that teaching the students how to learn is more important than just teaching content, which reflects an open orientation or a student-centered view.

Evaluation of learning is concerned with multiple methods for collecting information about students’ activities, accomplishments, and effectiveness in learning, in the classroom and beyond. In the Chinese context, testing has been adopted as the most widely used method to examine learners’ academic achievement, employed in semester finals, high school entrance examination, and college entrance examination, for example. The interview content analyses revealed that before the practicum, pre-service teachers believed that evaluation is very important to detect learners’ achievement. When they were asked to reveal their beliefs about evaluation methods, all of them agreed that testing is the most useful tool for students’ academic achievement. However, after the practicum, five out of six participants believed factors such as emotion, ability, and development should also be taken into consideration in students’ learning assessment. All students pointed out that in the information age, new teaching methods should be combined with new technology, so that students could be more interested and feel more involved in learning.

Student learning

Student learning is concerned with the nature, method, activities, sources, and effect of learning, particularly, of English learning. The interview content analyses showed that four participants changed their view of students’ learning tasks after the practicum. After experiencing the teaching practice, they realized that learning contents and tasks should not be limited to the use of a textbook. Students also need to learn how to be an independent learner; they should make their own contributions to society in future, and they need to develop noble virtues. Compared with their daily study, the more important thing is to develop the right social and moral values (e.g., respectful, honest, noble, loyal) and to form a positive attitude toward life (e.g., brave, optimistic, persevering). All participants thought that the main task for students was to study hard and finish homework on time before teaching practicum. After teaching practicum, they found that many students were not satisfied with learning from a textbook only. They thought extensive hobbies such as calligraphy, painting, and reading novels should also be highly valued.

In general, results of the interviews echo the results of the questionnaires. Both indicate significant changes of teachers’ beliefs after the 3-month teaching practicum.

These changes are reflected mainly in three parts: student management, teaching and evaluation, and student learning.

Potential Factors Based on Interviews and Reflective Journals

Previous studies have shown that changes in teachers’ beliefs may be influenced by many internal and external factors. Analysis of the interviews and journal entries in the present study yields the conclusion that the main factors affecting belief changes among participants include original beliefs, personal reflections, practicum supervisor, students, peers, and school ethos.

First, the content analyses showed that the pre-service English teachers’ original beliefs and personal reflections had mainly caused their belief changes. At the beginning, the pre-service teachers were looking forward to a teaching career based on their original beliefs, including personal experience and school education. However, in the practicum, they found that there existed a degree of uncertainty in classroom teaching. Then, these pre-service English teachers began to analyze problems, seek solutions, and reflect on their teachings. Through reflections, teachers’ beliefs constantly interacted with their external environments. In the reflection process, the pre-service English teachers became more aware of the merits and deficiencies of their previous beliefs. As more practices went on, new beliefs gradually came into being in accordance with realistic situations.

Second, the pre-service teachers’ practicum supervisor played a very important role in the change of the pre-service English teachers’ beliefs. All the participants mentioned the importance of instruction from their practicum supervisor in the practicum school. The influence of practicum supervisor on the pre-service teachers is reflected in different aspects, including students’ management, curriculum and teaching planning, teaching and evaluation, and student learning. After observing their supervisor’s teaching, the pre-service English teachers learned how to deal with the relationship between teacher and students in a practical way. Some participants thought that his or her supervisor was warmhearted and efficient, kind but not intimate, professional, and authoritative. Different supervisors have different teaching styles. By observing their lectures carefully, communicating with them, and asking for advice after class, pre-service teachers improved their teaching skills. Conversely, one participant reported that his or her supervisor’s distrust and irresponsibility led to low motivation for the teaching practice. This, in negative way, also confirms the influence that the supervisor can make on pre-service teachers.

Third, the practicum school students also had a great influence on the change of pre-service teachers’ beliefs. All the participants believed that the students’ discipline, learning atmosphere, and classroom performance contributed to the change of pre-service teacher management beliefs and classroom teaching beliefs. Some participants thought that, although most of the students finished homework, they could not tell whether they had plagiarized from others. Therefore, they learned that they must check students’ homework one by one after class. As for the teacher–student relationship, they believed, it is not good to be too intimate with the students; otherwise, they would lose respect for, and fear of, teachers. In the Chinese context, it is believed that fear of teachers is consistent with the Confucian view regarding teachers as authoritarians, which is also helpful for students to discipline themselves. In the practicum period, students’ poor discipline and negative classroom atmosphere may be inconsistent with the pre-service English teachers’ expectations, thus leading to belief changes.

Fourth, pre-service teacher peers also influenced beliefs. Here, peers refer to other pre-service teachers who participated in the practicum in the same school. Half of the participants agreed on this opinion when asked on the questionnaire. Pre-service teachers consolidated and broadened their beliefs through mutual exchanges with others, for example, by observing each other’s class and then comparing the merits and shortcomings in each other’s teaching. In this way, the pre-service teachers constantly updated their beliefs.

Finally, the practicum school ethos also influenced teachers’ beliefs. All participants accepted that a culture brought about by school ethos (including the school’s teaching policy or teaching philosophy) played an important role in changing teachers’ beliefs. The pre-service teachers thought that English teaching should be student centered, and all skills such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing should be equally and fully developed. However, in most junior and high schools, students were divided into “good” classes (high achievers) and “bad” classes (low achievers), and the in-service teachers were still at the center of the teaching event. Sometimes they forced the students to take makeup lessons, which contradicts the communicative and constructive teaching philosophy they received in college. This obviously presented a negative image of real teaching for the pre-service teachers.

In all, different factors may have contributed to the change of teachers’ beliefs, among which are original beliefs and personal reflections, practicum supervisor, the students from the practicum school, pre-service teacher peers, and the school ethos of the practicum school.

To sum up, the results of questionnaires and interviews consistently reveal significant changes of teachers’ belief after the 3-month teaching practicum. Specifically, the changes are reflected mainly in three parts: student management, teaching and evaluation, and student learning. In addition, content analyses from the interviews and reflective journals suggest that different factors have contributed to the change of the pre-service teachers’ beliefs.

Discussion

This study explored the change of teachers’ beliefs after an English pre-service teachers’ teaching practicum. The results showed that pre-service teachers’ beliefs did change and they were not stable or predetermined, which is consistent with Borg’s (2006) claim that significant changes do take place in pre-service teachers’ beliefs through the teaching practicum. As they had gone through experiences of language learning and teaching, they formed a set of beliefs about language learning and teaching in the process of professional development. After their experience in the field school, their encounters with these realities incurred a chain of changes in their teaching beliefs, focused primarily on student management, teaching and evaluation, and student learning. However, our findings are contradictory to some studies. For example, Çapan (2014) investigated pre-service English (EFL) teachers’ beliefs about grammar instruction in a foreign language (FL) context through their initial teaching practices. Analyses of semistructured interviews and classroom observations, along with pre- and posttest results of participants’ responses to a belief questionnaire, revealed that a practicum course had made no changes in pre-service teachers’ beliefs. However, in this study, the 3-month teaching practicum incurred significant changes of teachers’ beliefs.

Belief Change

First, beliefs in student management changed significantly after the practicum. Similar results have been reported elsewhere (e.g., Pendergast et al., 2011). Student management is one of the bases of teacher beliefs in classroom realities (Fang, 1996). Pre-service teachers form their beliefs about student management from their own learning experience and class observations. According to the theories in their courses, they think, to manage a class successfully needs democracy and a humanistic outlook from the teacher. However, after the practicum, the pre-service teachers changed their belief. They thought a proportional degree of physical punishment was necessary in class. Abiding by school regulations and authority were much more valued than before.

Second, beliefs in teaching and evaluation changed significantly after the practicum. With more practice teaching, pre-service teachers were more aware that effective teaching and assessing come from a variety of elements. The learning process is not just about teaching the language itself but also about acquiring emotions and attitudes. Improving learners’ intrinsic motivation, relative to extrinsic motivation, may be more effective in producing long-term effects. Moreover, integrating new technologies, knowledge, and appropriate use of information may be substantial assets in the new era of effective teaching (Ertmer & Ottenbreit-Leftwich, 2010; Tondeur et al., 2017).

Third, beliefs about student learning changed significantly after the practicum. Beliefs about student learning cover a variety of aspects of the understanding of learning, including the length of time for acquisition, difficulty of language acquisition, the role of culture, the role of error correction, the importance of grammar, passive or active learning, competitive or cooperative learning, automatic learning or teacher-instructed learning, and teacher’s instruction or learners’ personal construction. After the teaching practicum, pre-service teachers changed their beliefs significantly with regard to these aspects of learning. They attributed the changes in their beliefs to both the Second Language Acquisition (SLA) course content and the teaching practicum, which is consistent with Busch (2010).

Fourth, significant changes are reflected in different specific aspects. Through the content analyses from the interviews and the journals, it was found that specific changes were revealed in the aspects of physical punishment, school rules, teacher–student relationship, teaching content, evaluation methods, student learning tasks, and teacher instruction. They recognized that specific school rules have a direct impact on teaching. They confirmed that maintaining a certain teacher–student relationship is very important for a good teaching effect. They realized that extracurricular life is as important as course teaching. They were aware that the evaluation of students’ learning is multidimensional.

It is worth noting that the results showed no change in the aspect of curriculum teaching and planning, which is not consistent with a study in which pre-service teachers’ beliefs changed significantly in this aspect (e.g., Zhang et al., 2015). Main obstacles to teachers’ belief change have been reported to include prior belief, teaching context, and a teacher’s own limited willingness to change (Girardet, 2018). In this study, the participants received courses of teaching and training, including “High School English Teaching and Skill Training,” “English Classroom Discourse,” “Efficient English Class Teaching,” “Second Language Acquisition,” and “Analysis of Middle School English Teaching Materials.” Perhaps because they had learned knowledge about the course in teaching and planning, they thought they already knew enough about this topic and so were not willing to change in this aspect.

Potential Factors

The changes of teachers’ beliefs are influenced by various factors. Our result is consistent with another earlier report that reflection and practice immersion are important processes in which teachers’ belief change (Tillema, 2000). The supervisors played an influential role in pre-service teachers’ professional development and the change of their beliefs. As new teachers of a school community, the participants engaged in its professional practice with special assistance from supervisors (Yuan & Lee, 2014). Through their supervisor’s teaching, pre-service teachers remained informed about subject matter, teaching methods, and pupils’ needs (Gao & Benson, 2012; Hobson et al., 2009). In the lessons the pre-service teachers taught, the supervisors were involved in the lesson design and preparation, provided scaffolding to assist the pre-service teachers’ teaching performance, and engaged them in postlesson reflection.

The change of teachers’ beliefs may be caused by other factors such as the students, pre-service teacher peers, and school ethos. In previous research on factors influencing English teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Ying & Hong, 2014), it was found that reflection, professional identity, teacher effectiveness, school culture, personal experience, and teachers’ quality are potential factors affecting teachers’ beliefs. Zhang and Liu (2011) found that teachers’ belief was influenced by examination, school ethos, the conception of teachers’ improvement, and educational background. These results indicate that potential factors for belief change are multidimensional. Why and how different dimensions incur change may be associated with the dynamic context in which pre-service teachers interact with ideology, profession, culture, and so on, which remains an issue to be further explored in the future.

Implications and Limitations

The study explored pre-service EFL teachers’ beliefs and the change/development of these beliefs during training/practice, which contribute to our understanding of the nature of teacher beliefs and of what actually happens in EFL teacher development. From a social and an educational perspective, this study sheds light on how pre-service teachers evolve in their career development and helps educators adjust appropriate education policies to improve the quality of English teacher education, particularly in the Chinese context. Specifically, why and how a particular factor may change a specific aspect of teachers’ beliefs in a particular culture setting needs further scrutiny in future research.

There are also some limitations in the study, which were mostly associated with research method difficulties. First, the sample size of control group was relatively small, compared with the experimental group. Because the national EFL curriculum requires that all participants complete a teaching practicum before formally entering into the EFL teaching profession, it was difficult to find a large number of pre-service teachers who were supposed to take the teaching practicum but did not. Second, in the posttest section, we adopted an online questionnaire (as participants were not on campus at the time of posttesting), whereas in the pretest, we administered the questionnaire in person. We are aware that this subtle discrepancy may cause differences in the results, and needs to be addressed in the future.

Conclusion

This study shows that an English teaching practicum has an important influence on teachers’ belief change. There have been significant changes in student management, teaching evaluation, and student learning. Moreover, the change of teachers’ beliefs may originate from various factors. Longitudinal studies of EFL teachers’ belief change are encouraged in the future to explore the process of teacher development, and how each aspect of teachers’ belief may change.

Footnotes

Declaration of Conflicting Interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding

The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.

ORCID iD

Zhilong Xie

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