Abstract

Pre-service training of university new teachers has been carried out in China for twenty years. In this period, a series of related researches appeared which not only greatly improved new teachers' teaching ability, but also made the pre-service training to be more reasonable and scientific. This paper reviewed and combed the researches in the past twenty years, and summarized its training contents and methods, and gave suggestions about future research.

1. Introduction

Since the implementation of the relevant laws and regulations in the pre-service training of university teachers, the pre-service training has been more and more standardized and institutionalized. As an important way to promote teachers' professional ability, many scholars paid attention to pre-service training field, taken active exploration and practice on pre-service training, and had gained a large number of theoretical results and the effect was remarkable in practice. At present, the researches mainly focused on the existing problems, resolution strategies, training contents and training methods.

2. Existing Problems in the Pre-service Training of University New Teachers

Chu Fanjing thought that the department of education administration was not unified, resulting the implementation differences in the form and emphasis of pre-service training. In addition, the education administrative department had responsibilities in the management of higher teacher training, but lacked constraint mechanism ¹.

Lv Jiehui put forward that pre-service training organizations lacked flexibility. On the one hand, it is manifested in the lack of flexibility in the training arrangements; on the other hand, the lack of organization management failed to form a long-term effective mechanism. In many universities, pre-service training was only passively carried out according to local authorities' requirements and there were no rules and regulations established according to their own conditions, which caused vague objectives, contents, training forms and assessment methods of pre-service training. At the same time, the division of labor between different departments was not clear and lack of coordination which easily caused mutual evasive work and chaotic training management ².

Chu Fanjing proposed that provincial training centers decided to set up their own courses for local pre-service training. However, due to the lack unified policy documents, the curriculum was relatively chaotic ¹. Du Juan, Pang Haishao and Gao Xiang suggested that training courses emphasized theory and lighted practice, emphasized knowledge and lighted ability. Although the outline had put forward systematically and concretely suggestions for the teaching methods, great differences exist in the aspects of course offered in some provinces ³.

Chu Fanjing argued that our country had not formed university training system combined with the teacher qualification certificate. While some provincial institutions did not consider pre-service training examination results in the process of teacher qualification ¹.

Chu Fanjing put forward that some provincial centers did not use standardized textbooks, but use own-made lectures as teaching materials, which seriously affected training effect and quality ¹. Zeng Fengling and Li Huiwen pointed out that the basic pre-service training content was based on similar teaching subjects' materials in universities, and the arrangement of teaching content was basically a textbook type ⁴. Wu Dongmei held that teaching materials used in the current pre-service training were rather complex and too academic and not applicable to short term training such as pre-service training ⁵. Lv Jiehui argued that single training content was difficult to satisfy new teachers' training needs. The training content emphasized theory and lighted practice, and was limited to theoretical introduction, which was not conducive to solving new teachers' problem ².

Sun Youyou, Li Haihua and Wang Lei put forward that there were many problems in the pre-service training of new teachers in domestic universities, such as the unitary training method, the lack of pertinence and the failure of training effect to achieve the desired goals ⁶. Zhang Ying proposed that the training did not reflect the interaction and initiation of young teachers. The unitary training method, such as transmission and instillation, could not meet young teachers' real needs ⁷.

Lv Jiehui and Chen Shumin proposed that during the assessment of pre-service training effect in our country, there still exist some problems, which were mainly shown in the following points: 1) Paid attention to the training process but neglected the effective evaluation of training effect; 2) The actual evaluation was random and lacked of specificity; 3) The evaluating method was relatively simple; 4) The evaluation mechanism was not perfect ^{2, 8}.

Ma Liling and Wang Jing put forward that new teachers' understanding on the pre-service training was insufficient. They take part in pre-service training aimed at achieving qualification certificate and the examination focused on conferring of academic titles, and created bad feeling on the training ^{9, 10}.

Ji Xingshuai and Zhang Jianping argued that training times were unreasonable. Pre-service training was usually conducted on the weekend of October and November, new teachers had to prepare lessons, take classes and do scientific research, so the training aggravated their teaching work. Besides, training in the weekend conflicted with teachers' rest time, which affected the training quality and effect to some certain extent ^{11, 12}.

3. Resolution Strategies in the Pre-service Training of University New Teachers

Chu Fanjing suggested strengthening the construction of the management system for the pre-service training of universities new teachers, was not only the requirement for the macro reform of education management, but also the resolution strategies for the problems which happened in the current provincial high teacher training center. The country should further intensify policy and financial support and all provincial training centers should constantly enhance their awareness of policy subjects ¹. Lv Jiehui stated to perfect the construction of evaluation system. On the one hand, new teachers' practical teaching ability should be included in the assessment of pre-service education. On the other hand, it was necessary to reduce mechanical training contents and increase pedagogical knowledge to solve practical problems ².

Xu Minwu proposed that pre-service training managers should change their training ideas. Do a good job of self-positioning and draw on young teachers' opinions such as the way of participation, curriculum content and the arrangement of teaching methods ¹³. Tang Liwei thought that managers should base their views on young teachers’ actual needs and draw on foreign experiences ¹⁴.

Lv Hang suggested that relevant departments of universities should increase their publicity to make new teachers fully aware of the importance of pre-service training to the school and their own development ¹⁵. Lv Jiehui put forward that young teachers should change their own thoughts, realize their own shortcomings, take practical action and make full use of opportunities offered by pre-service training ².

Song Zhaofen and Ba Suying put forward that if we want to formulate reasonable training plans, we should consider the following aspects: 1) As teachers' knowledge characteristics, professional structure and age were different, we must arrange targeted courses to mobilize new teachers' enthusiasm and attract their active participation; 2) Combined with the school characteristics, we had to arrange training contents suited with theory and practice, and adopt diversified training methods such as classroom teaching, professional lectures, teaching practice and quality development, so as to improve the training value and function; 3) With the guidance of basic professional requirements, we had to clearly find out the key contents in the training ¹⁶.

Wu Dongmei put forward that trainers needed to accept professional training, including new teachers, training courses, short-term training characteristics and related matters to be paid attention in the training ⁵. Chu Fanjing suggested that it was necessary to strengthen the construction of teaching staff and attract well-known experts and backbone teachers in the pre-service training which could improve the overall quality of teachers and build a systematic, diversified training team ¹.

Chu Fanjing suggested establishing a new training mode which gave priority to on-site training and supplemented by network. In pre-service training, we should make full use of network technology, such as online learning, autonomous learning and flexible hours to share and integrate high-quality educational resources, which reduced training costs, solved the contradiction between work and study and lighten the burden of trainees ¹.

Zhang Ying put forward that it was essential to arrange training time scientifically. In terms of training time, it should be flexibly processed or arranged in the winter and summer vacation, so that new teachers could concentrate on learning and not conflict with the working time ⁷.

Zhang Jianping believed doing well in school-based training would pay more attention to the development of teachers' teaching practice ability and stimulate their participation enthusiasm ¹². Wu Dongmei thought it was necessary to control class limitation in the training. Implementing primary class training would strengthen interaction and communication between new teachers and trainers ⁵. Xu Cuixia and Liu Caixia suggested that providing a good training environment would not only help new teachers understand each other, but also lay a solid foundation for later training and establish resources for their future work ¹⁷.

4. Perfect Training Contents

Lv Min proposed optimizing and perfecting the pre-service training curriculum system. In addition to the four required extracurricular courses prescribed by the country, we should join some courses that meet young teachers' psychology and help them change roles quickly and achieve their value orientation ¹⁸. Yi Zi put forward to draw on the advanced cases of domestic and foreign research such as American pre-service training courses, and chose the training content according to the actual situation in the training of young teachers in our country. Besides, he also proposed that it was necessary to add some practical and internship courses to combine theory and practice ¹⁹.

Wu Dongmei put forward a meticulous selection of training content and reasonable arrangement of teaching materials. The training institutions should organize experts to design special teaching materials in combination with teachers' work ⁵. Guo Lizhi and Deng Junchao thought training materials should contain the following characteristics: 1) Strong pertinence and keep up with times; 2) Emphasize the key content and consolidate the foundation; 3) Pay attention to the combination of theory and practice; 4) Provide typical cases and fresh materials ²⁰.

Xu Minwu put forward to adjust the training content, distinguish the teaching objects and highlight the teaching function. The pre-service training of young teachers in universities needed to start from the following aspects: First, distinguish different training objects so as to achieve targeted goals. Second, highlight the training of teaching skills to improve the pertinence of the subject. Third, do well in the requirements investigation about training content ¹³.

5. Optimize Training Methods

Yi Zi stated that it was time to reform traditional pre-service training method and adopt a training model combined with centralized teaching, self-study and interaction discussion ¹⁹. Du Juan, Pang Haishao and Gao Xiang suggested establishing young teachers’ growth community. The community encouraged young teachers to form their own communities according to their interests. And each group invited some senior or outstanding teachers to participate in teaching, through regular gatherings, salons, workshops, etc., they communicated teaching experience, methods and skills with each other. Besides, they also put forward to carry out a following-up survey of young teachers and set up teachers' development archives in order to facilitate continuous attention to young teachers' career development and build a sustainable training system for them ³.

Xu Hong proposed microteaching method and Wang Lu put forward to set up a network information sharing platform for the pre-service training of young teachers which not only provide abundant online training resources and convenient training methods for young teachers, but also understand young teachers' need by online survey so as to targeted set up online classroom about teaching methods, educational technology, teaching software and so on ^{21, 22}.

Liu Dan stated that during the training process, professors should use case teaching method to draw trainees closer to the scene with vivid and abundant cases. Besides, she also put forward that training professors should adopt more situational teaching method in lectures and use storytelling form so that they could deeply experience the fresh and complicated teaching scene and really understand teaching ²³.

Zhong Yi believed that rich lectures could meet individual teachers' needs. New teachers could choose lecture content according to their own needs which fully respected teachers' training willing, enhanced new teachers' curiosity and interest and established their own knowledge system ²⁴. Xu Minwu put forward the group discussion method. The group involved four or five new teachers and a senior expert and they expressed their views and opinions freely on the interest topic, finally senior expert gave guidance and comments and at the same time team members showed their confusion in the topic ¹³. Lv Jiehui proposed the incentive training and interactive training ².

6. Comment on the Current Researches

In summary, the existing researches about university new teachers' pre-service training mainly focused on four aspects such as existing problems, resolution strategies, training contents and training methods. As for the existing problems in the training, large abundant studies not only mentioned unitary training content and method problems, but also paid attention to formalistic examinations and lack of organization management problems. And regarding to the resolution strategies in the pre-service training of university new teachers, the recent studies indicated that it was necessary to perfect the evaluation system, formulate reasonable training plans, improve the construction of relevant policies and change training ideas. Besides, the current research also puts forward some measures such as optimize training methods and expand training contents, which made the pre-service training more scientific and reasonable.

However, there still exist some issues not deeply studied. This study will discuss relatively prominent two of them. The one is although the above researches had discussed the training problems such as contents, methods and examinations, how to implement these strategies and adopt what strategies to ensure the implementation of the research results, the current research had not been involved. In addition, there was no new related policy to support the implementation. Some universities had implemented a number of school-based training but not promoted, so the training results were not known.

The other is about the new teachers' characteristics and conditions. The training object was a highly educated group with special characteristics, so it was essential to ensure that training content and method based on their actual situation, such as whether new teachers had received pedagogical education or not; how new teachers' acceptance ability was; what features about their role change and psychological change. Besides, new teachers will teach undergraduate, their teaching subject was also a developing group, so how to communicate with university students, how to teach them, and what psychological characteristics were they own, the existing research has been involved, but not deep. Therefore, the characteristics of university new teachers and students will be an important direction in the future research.

References