Pre-Primary English Teacher Education in Macau: Investigating a Teacher Educator’s Beliefs and Practices

Abstract

This qualitative case study explores a language teacher educator’s beliefs and practices regarding pre-primary English teacher education in Macau. The focal participant was an experienced English language teacher (20 years) and teacher educator who is a native speaker of American English. The data were collected over five years, and include written reflections, classroom observations, course syllabi, and interviews. The findings reveal that the teacher educator held six main beliefs regarding various aspects of language teacher education for the pre-primary level, namely, beliefs about (1) the purpose of pre-primary English teacher education, (2) being a teacher educator, (3) the nature of the teaching methodology course, (4) the students, (5) pre-school learners and learning, and (6) the development of the teaching methodology course. The educator’s beliefs were largely reflected in practice, as revealed in the course design, material selection, teaching, and the design of student assignments and other forms of assessment. The educator adjusted his/her practice over time in response to students’ needs, self-awareness, and the university policies. The teacher educator’s beliefs and practices were shown to be mutually informing.

Teachers’ Beliefs About Classroom Language Assessment: Collaborative Discussion as a Mediational Space

“…Although there are studies that explore teachers' beliefs and practices regarding assessment in language teaching (Ha et al, 2021;Reynolds et al, 2022;Tsagari et al, 2023;Wafa, 2021), very few studies specifically concentrated on teachers' beliefs about classroom assessment. The studies that exist tend to focus on other aspects of language teaching and assessment, such as dynamic assessment (García, 2019).…”