| In the context of China's curriculum reform of Basic Education, traditional mode of pre-service teacher training has received more criticisms than ever. Teacher personal theory (teacher's espoused theory and theory-in-use) and the practice-oriented teacher professional development are increasingly recognized. Therefore, how to adapt the curriculum and instruction of the pre-service teacher education to this trend is worthy of an academic study.; Teaching practice, a critical part of the curriculum of pre-service teacher education, has accumulated lots of problems in Mainland China while few serious empirical studies have been done in this field. This study, with an focus on the change of student teachers' personal theory during their teaching practice, aims at theoretically informing the improvement of the curriculum and instruction of pre-service teacher education in Mainland China.; With a case-study design, the study adopted narrative approach to answer the following questions: (1) What knowledge do student teachers have before their teaching practice? (2) What have shaped their knowledge before their teaching practice? (3) How does student teachers' knowledge change during the teaching practice? (4) What contributes to their knowledge change during the teaching practice?; The study finds that prior to the teaching practice, (1) student teachers' judgment of a "good teacher" was mainly based on teachers' personal characteristics; (2) their understanding about "good teaching" was quite abstract and simplistic; and (3) they were lacking in the theory-in-use and subject knowledge to carry out "good teaching" successfully. Compared with the personal growing experience, the curriculum and instruction provided by pre-service teacher education had much less impact on their knowledge development.; The study also finds that during the teaching practice, various factors such as school context, mentor teachers, peers, students, and their self-knowledge had some impact on the student teachers' knowledge change. Based on their interpretations of these factors, student teachers attributed problems encountered in their teaching practice to different factors, and adopted such coping strategies as "to accept passively", "to recognize actively", "to retreat temporarily", "to regress technically", "to explore actively", and "to resist strategically" to solve the problems, which resulted in a change in their knowledge. The changing process is rather complicated but in the following forms: (1) student teachers to hold faith in espoused theory and to develop it with theory-in-use; (2) student teachers to assimilate espoused theory and theory-in-use with school reality; (3) student teachers to insist on espoused theory but act in traditional way. |
