微格教学课中英语教学专业研究生的教学反思调查研究

1. Introduction

1.1 Research Background
Teaching reflection is that in the process of teachers’ training, teachers are guided todiscover teaching problems in the teaching practice based on their received knowledge andexperienced knowledge, and then by pondering, making hypothesis, taking action andevaluating the results, they can find more reasonable methods to solve the teaching problemsto improve their teaching practice and promote teachers’ professional development (WangQiang, 2013). Therefore, teaching reflection plays an important role for teachers’ furtherprofessional development, especially in the area where the New Curriculum reform isperforming and teacher image is changing from “teacher-craft” to “teacher-researcher”. AsSchon (1983) puts it that teachers’ development equals experience plus reflection. He pointsout that teaching without reflection is narrow and limited experience which can at most formsuperficial understanding of teaching. If teachers just feel satisfied with received experiencewithout further rethinking about their teaching experience, their development will be widelylimited. And also as Jin Yule (2006) says that a teacher who keeps reflecting for three years issuperior to the one who just keeps writing teaching plans for thirty years. Because the formerconstantly explores effective teaching methods and tends to become a teacher researcher.In addition, researchers (Gan Zhengdong, 2000; Wang Qiang, 2013 et al) believe thatteaching reflection has both theoretical and practical meanings to improve teachers’ qualities.First, reflection can help teachers to educate themselves in the reflective process, whichmeans teaching reflection can help teachers change from experiential teachers to reflectiveteachers, and make the teachers become more responsible for their daily teaching activities,for the reflective teachers will rethink and evaluate the teaching events or problems happenedin class and to solve it positively. Second, reflection can promote teachers’ theoretical level bysummering the experienced knowledge, that is to say, teaching reflection can raise theteachers’ theoretical consciousness in the real teaching practice process.
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1.2 Research Objectives
In order to find out the current situation of the postgraduate students’ teaching reflection,this thesis has three research questions: (1) What are the reflective contents of thepostgraduate students majoring in English teaching? (2) How is their reflective level? (3)What are the factors influencing their reflection? The subjects in this thesis are 41postgraduate students from a key normal university whose major is English teaching. Thisthesis mainly explores the performances of the postgraduate students’ teaching reflection inthe micro-teaching class. The research instruments include classroom observation, reflectivejournals from the students and interview.
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1.3 Research Significance
From the facts mentioned above, this research has the following significances. Firstly,from the perspective of pedagogy, the research hopes to provide a more nuanced descriptionof the postgraduate students’ teaching reflection so that it can not only better inform tutors tostart cultivating the postgraduate students’ reflective ability at an earlier stage, but also helptutors to be in a better position to adopt a more positive attitude and master some specificmethods to cultivate the postgraduate students’ teaching reflection. Also, it can also raise theawareness of the postgraduate students to form a habit of reflection to become a teacherresearcher which is very useful for their teachers’ professional development. Thus, it bothbenefits tutors and the postgraduate students. Secondly, for the theoretical aspect, this researchcan further study teaching reflection to explore an effective way for postgraduate students torefer to and to fill some gap in teaching reflection in some sense. Lastly, from themethodological view, using interview, reflective journals and participant classroomobservation, the survey results on teaching reflection can be more genuine and rich.
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2. Literature Review

2.1 Definitions of Teaching Reflection
Based on different research focuses, definitions are different. In the foreign research field,Dewey (1910, cited in Rodgers 2002) points out that teaching reflection is to constantlyrethink the teaching problems so as to improve the teaching practice. It is a kind of thinkingactivity in mind. Following him is Schon (1983), who moves forward by stressing that theteachers should build their own teaching theory on the real teaching practice instead of justthinking in mind. Thus the importance of teaching practice is added to. Besides, some criticaltheory scholars, for example Kenneth and Daniel (1996) point out that teaching reflectionshould pay more attention to the teaching moral and teaching environment, which means theteaching background and the society factors should be taken into consideration.While in the research field at home, according to the different research subjects andfocuses, definitions are different. The most authoritative definition comes from XiongChuanwu (2007) who proposes that teaching reflection based on action research, is to exploreand solve the teaching problems appearing in the teaching goals or teaching tools. In this way,teachers can become teacher researchers and cultivate the students’ autonomous learningability. In his definition, the research action as the reflective method, is proposed for the firsttime and the practical characteristic is also mentioned. Equally, this point is also stressed byYang Mingquan (2002) who points out that teaching reflection is an activity which starts outfrom teaching practice itself instead of applying the received teaching theory straightly intoteaching practice or teaching by one’s teaching experience blindly. It is a totally contrastiveteaching way compared with traditional teaching way in which teachers are a craft-teacherrather than a researcher-teacher. Based on studies, more detailed teaching reflectiondefinitions are given after surveying the high school in-service teachers.
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2.2 Studies on Teaching Reflection
In this part, studies related to teaching reflection are reviewed. It includes originalstudies, modern studies, such as reflective contents, reflective level, influencing factors,reflective methods and reflective functions. These reviews are the basic studies of this thesis.Study on teaching reflection is a developing process. In order to better understand it, thehistorical origins are necessary to know. Here, only the typical representatives are introduced.As an early important educator, Dewey (1910, cited in Rodgers 2002) is the first one toregard the teachers as the reflectors. He believes that teachers themselves can make adifference in the curriculum reform or the education reform. He tries to explain the definitionof reflection. In his opinion, the teachers’ reflection starts from the teaching trouble or thedifficult problems appearing in the teaching practice. With the uncertain and anxiety, theteachers begin to reflect and analyze their teaching experience. Furthermore, he divides thereflective process into several stages: first, the teachers will find some teaching problems inthe regular teaching practice, and then they will try to give some hypothesis to explain theproblems and try to find the way to solve it. Meantime, the teachers may observe the class ordiscuss with his partners to infer the problems. The last step is to take action to check thehypothesis. Therefore, in the process of reflection, both human reason and emotion are needed.Besides, he points out that a reflective teacher should have some qualities, such as modest,open-minded, responsible and concentrated. These qualities are the sources of the teachers’constant reflection to make their teaching more reasonable.
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3. Research Methodology....... 19
3.1 Research Questions ...... 19
3.2 Research Subjects.... 20
3.3 Research Instruments ........ 21
3.4 Data Collection and Analysis ...... 24
4. Results and Discussion....... 31
4.1 The Reflective Contents of the Postgraduate Students ....... 31
4.2 The Reflective Level of the Postgraduate Students........ 41
4.3 The Factors Influencing Reflection of the Postgraduate students...... 48
4.3.1 Tutors...... 48
4.3.2 Postgraduate Students Themselves ..... 49
5. Conclusion....... 51
5.1 Major Findings ........ 48
5.2 Implications for Teaching Reflection .... 48
5.3 Limitations .... 48

4. Results and Discussion

4.1 The Reflective Contents of the Postgraduate students
From table 4.1, according to different focuses, the reflective contents are mainly dividedinto four aspects: focusing on the teachers, the students, the teaching design and the classmanagement, this finding is similar to the finding of Guo Yuxia (2003, cited in Jin Yule 2006).At the same time, each aspect contains some detailed small points.Meantime, three conclusions can be seen. First, the reflective contents of thepostgraduate students are broad and detailed, it proves that after learning the teaching theoryand learning theory, most postgraduate students can apply them into practice consciously andobserve the class in a more scientific way. Just as Gao Xiang and Wang Qiang (2003) whostudies the students in internship says that reflection needs to base on the received knowledgeand the experienced knowledge. Therefore, the received knowledge is important to cultivatestudents’ reflection and can give the students more inspiration and insights. Second, thereflective contents of the postgraduate students focus more on the teachers themselves insteadof the students, the class management and the classroom management. This is different fromthe findings of Zhao Mingren (2009) who studies the in-service teachers. Their findingssuggest that teachers focus more on the teaching contents, the teaching effects and thestudents’ reaction. The difference may have two reasons: one is related to the less teachingexperience of the postgraduate students. The other is the class management’s limitation.Because the micro-teaching class is not a real teaching class in which the ‘students’ are allvery cooperative, the postgraduate students have no need to manage the disciplines and thestudents’ attention. Meanwhile, each aspect of the reflective contents receives differentattention.

Conclusion

The detailed results and discussion of the postgraduate students’ teaching reflection havebeen presented in the previous chapters, so in this chapter, the general conclusions based onthe previous analysis are drawn to better know about the current situation of the postgraduatestudents’ reflection.This thesis includes three findings: the reflective contents, the reflective level and thefactors influencing reflection of the postgraduate students.First, the reflective contents includes four dimensions, that is teacher dimension, studentdimension, teaching dimension and class management dimension. After analyzing the data,teacher dimension occupies the highest percent, next is teaching dimension, third is studentdimension and the last is class management. It means the English teaching postgraduatestudents care more about teacher themselves and teaching skills instead of students.Additional, in teacher dimension, teacher talk occupies the highest percent, next is teachers’basic teaching skills and teaching manner. They reflect a lot on teacher talk because theylearnt some relevant teaching theories and they also face some teaching problems, especiallyin feedback; In student dimension, they reflect on students’ learning ability and interests.Because they want their class interesting and meaningful, and they design their class based onstudents’ needs. In teaching dimension, English teaching postgraduate students reflect onmore on teaching aims, materials understanding and scaffolding. They can not make sureteaching aims easily and sometimes misunderstand materials, or analyzing materialssuperficially. Scaffolding is new to them and they are very interested in it, so they reflect on itand try to apply it in teaching practice. Last in class management dimension, English teachingpostgraduate students relatively ignore it, because their classmates are all very cooperativeand there is no need to supervise class.
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