Pre-Service Teachers Learning to Teach English to Very Young Learners in Macau: Do Beliefs Trump Practice?

Abstract

The global importance of English and therefore the teaching of the English language has made the English language curriculum an integral part of all levels of teacher education, including early childhood education. The purpose of this study was to first explore the beliefs about the teaching of English to very young learners held by pre-service pre-primary teachers in Macau and then to see whether these beliefs were reflected in their microteaching. Qualitative content analysis performed on the written reflections and transcriptions of the microteaching videos of 75 pre-service pre-primary teachers found that their beliefs about classroom practices, lesson planning, and English as a foreign language (EFL) learners and learning were the most predominant beliefs exhibited in their reflections and were evidenced in their microteaching. Less predominant, but still salient, were their beliefs about the goals of language learning, assessment, teaching, pedagogical knowledge, and content. No observable practices were found regarding the pre-service teachers’ beliefs about the role of teaching, learning to teach, microteaching, the self, the subject, hearsay, self-assessment, and schooling. The current study found that with only limited exposure to EFL teaching methodology from a single course, the pre-service pre-primary teachers were able to implement some of their beliefs about several important aspects of teaching English to very young learners.

Effectiveness of Need-Based Teacher’s Training Program to Enhance Online Teaching Quality

“…e finding also coincides with [35], where the author claimed that teachers' levels of satisfaction dropped and that they experienced rapid mental fatigue with the online teaching process. Finally, to alleviate all those issues, existing studies [67][68][69][70][71] recommended identifying areas (e.g., lesson planning, teacher's digital skills, technological pedagogical knowledge, time management, digital competence, digital teaching styles, and communication skills) where teachers need training and workshops for ensuring effective online teaching.…”

Exploring English Language Teaching in Ecuadorian Secondary Schools: Teachers’ Beliefs About the National Curriculum Reform

“…In this section, relevant literature regarding teachers" beliefs and the influence of teachers" beliefs on EFL curriculum reform is reviewed. Due to the importance of teachers' beliefs, a large body of research has investigated various aspects of teachers' beliefs, such as beliefs about grammar teaching (Phipps & Borg, 2009;Sato & Oyanedel, 2019), learner autonomy (Borg & Al-Busaidi, 2012), testing and assessment (Ha, Tran, et al, 2021), teaching English to young learners (Reynolds et al, 2022;Reynolds et al, 2021), and corrective feedback (Ha & Murray, 2021;. Some researchers, such as Derakhshan and Shakki (2020), have highlighted teachers' beliefs in the context of curriculum reform, revealing several important insights.…”