The Study On The Influence Of "Apprenticeship Partnership" Upon Beginning Teacher Growth

Professional growth of a beginning teacher in his or her first three years is a critical period, and its success or failure has direct impact on the teacher's future development. This period is also a period of crisis for the professional growth of the teacher, because he or she faces a process of the role change from being a student to being a teacher in which there is a variety of issues under so-called "reality impact". In such a "reality impact", the beginning teacher usually experiences confusion, anxiety, feels short of capability or even has a strong sense of frustration."Apprenticeship partnership" is an effective way to develop a beginning teacher's professional growth. A direction teacher is appointed as a partner for the beginning teacher by the school for providing guidance and support to the beginning teacher in systematic, efficient and effective manners. Especially in the real educating and teaching environment the direction teacher may guide the beginning teacher through observation, study, practice and review of teaching to gradually improve the beginning teacher's teaching skills, enrich the practical knowledge so that the beginning teacher may fit into the teaching role as soon as possible, and be able to participate in curriculum modification as the foundation for future sustainable career growth. At the same process the direction teacher may refine his or her own teaching practice for a more thoughtful teaching design with more wisdom. Interactions of the apprenticeship partnership promote teaching research and study for both the directing and beginning teacher.In this paper, the apprenticeship partnership, novice-expert teacher and theory of development stages of a teacher is studied and based upon such study and relevant references, a questionnaire for surveying such apprenticeship partnership is compiled. Through such surveys, interviews and observation of the actual practice, detailed information of apprenticeship partnership practice in 14 primary and secondary schools at Lanzhou City is obtained and analyzed in depth. Based upon such analysis an effective strategy of enhancing the efficiency of apprenticeship partnership is explored and several practical recommendations are made for improving the initial career growth of a beginning teacher. This paper is composed of seven sections. First of all, the need and background of studying apprenticeship partnership in schools is described. Then the significance and purpose of such study is reviewed following by exposition of the relevant literatures reviews on apprenticeship partnership showing the difference between a beginning teacher and a veteran teacher, as well as summary of existing theories on growth of teacher. This to apply what others has learned in the past onto this study and to illustrate how this study is to further perfect this subject. A brief and necessary section is provided to describe the methodology used in the study. Through the collection and summary of raw data, mainly from the establishment of the apprenticeship, the influence on professional growth of a beginning teacher is analyzed in regard to his or her perplex, needs to be realized, work load as well as manner, content and frequency of guidance provided by the direction teacher.Finally, suggestions are provided on how to improve the apprenticeship partnership accordingly. These include system improvement on school apprenticeship partnership with more attention from school staff including its principal onto the apprenticeship partnership; a standard and procedure needs to be established on how to select direction teachers; appropriate and continuous professional training and assistance needs to be provided to the direction teachers; sufficient freedom needs to be provided to teachers for forming the partnership; the workload of teachers needs to be reduced properly to ensure that the teachers have sufficient time to learn or to provide guidance;"Several-to-one"directing manner may be explored based upon the existing "one-on-one" manner; the contents of guidance needs to be expanded; psychological needs of teachers should be to be properly addressed with due attention, and help for teachers'satisfaction; a cooperating teaching culture needs to be established in schools.