An Investigation Into The Reality Shock Of The English Student Teachers In Middle Schools

Reality shock is a common psychological phenomenon among student teachers.In education field,it mainly refers to the expectation gap that student teachers experience during their education internship time,which generally indicates the situation including career identity,teaching environment,working competence,cases related to students and theoretical application.This kind of expectation gap is regarded as reality shock.All these aspects of reality shock are usually caused by the differences between the anticipation before educational internship and the reality they actually confront with during the internship time.Reality shock happens in the transition period when student teachers adapt themselves to being teachers instead of learners during education internship time.Education internship is commonly considered as an essential period when most of student teachers may undergo reality shock.It is the first step that students shift their knowledge and skills into practical teaching.The present study aims to explore the following issues,first,the general picture of reality shock among the English student teachers during the education internship in the middle school;second,the situation of reality shock in five dimensions;third,the author will discuss the correlation between the results of reality shock and the five aspects of reality shock,which are career identity,teaching environment,working competence,cases related to students and theory application.The research instrument is designed mainly based on Dean’s(1983),Zhou Huan’s(2014)and Lv Lijie’s(2008)theory models on reality shock.Both quantitative and qualitative research method are used in this research.180 English student teachers from several middle schools participated the research.And 161 valid questionnaire are collected for further analysis.Drawn from the research,there are some major findings as follows:Generally English student teachers experienced relatively severe reality shock during the education internship.The mean scores of their reality shock is 2.61,which is less than 3.Number 2 stands for “dissatisfied” and number 3 means “average”.It can be concluded from the research results that the participants were not satisfied with their experiences in education internship.In other words,English studentteachers have experienced reality shock to certain degrees.Among the five dimensions of reality shock: career identity(2.80),teaching environment(2.50),working competency(2.49),cases related to students(2.44)and theory application(2.83),the English student teachers experienced the most severe reality shock in cases related to students(2.44).Compared to other four dimensions,it is the lowest mean value.Besides,the degree of satisfaction with the theory application is the highest one,which is 2.83,that it means the English student teachers have experienced the lowest reality shock in this aspect.In addition,the degrees of satisfaction with other three aspects: career identity,teaching environment and working competency,are relatively low(2.80,2.50,2.49).Therefore English student teachers were also disappointed with these aspects during their internship time and they felt reality shock at these three dimensions.All dimensions of reality shock: career identity,teaching environment,working competency,cases related to students and theory application,are positively correlated to the results of reality shock(r=.344**,p<.01;r=.425**,p<.01;r=.386**,p<.01;r=.451**,p<.01;r=.302**,p<.01;).In other words,the more reality shock the student teachers experience in each dimension,the more serious effects they may suffer from the reality shock.Among the five dimensions of reality shock,the cases related to students has the highest positive correlation to the results of reality shock(r=.451**,p<.01).Thus student teachers’ experiences in cases related to students will make the greatest influence on the results of reality shock.