Teacher Role Construction In Pre-service English Teachers’ Social Cognition:a Case Study

Pre-service teacher education is the threshold of the professional development of teachers. How pre-service teachers perceive, interpret and interact with the teacher educators is of great importance. Teacher role is one of the most significant objects in their social cognition. How pre-service teachers construct teacher role reflects and influences their understandings of teachers, teaching behavior and the teaching contexts.This qualitative case study investigated how pre-service EFL teachers constructed teacher role in their social cognition. Two informants were interviewed respectively at the end of the pre-service English teacher training program. One is a junior and the other one is a senior from English Education Department of a normal university.The research findings revealed complex teacher role construction of pre-service English teachers. Both external and internal factors contributed to their teacher role cognition. The identified socio-cultural factors included past learning experience, pedagogical activities, organizational activities and comments from important others. These external factors influenced pre-service English teachers interactively and determined the variable nature their teacher role cognition. Apart from this, the agency of pre-service teachers played important part in role cognition. Pre-service teacher with stronger agency attributed their interpretations and behaviors to the internal factors, therefore being more reflective, autonomous and willing to participate in various pedagogical activities and interaction with teachers. While pre-service teachers with weaker agency tended to be more passive in learning and interacting with the teacher educators. They might be instrumentally rather than intrinsically motivated. The results suggested great variability and individuality of pre-service teachers’cognition on teacher role.In sum, though various socio-cultural factors contribute much to the pre-service teachers’construction of teacher role, their agency play a more fundamental part in their role cognition.