Self-Authoring the Meaning of Student Teaching in China: Impacts on First-Year Teaching Practices
Author: Parkhouse, Hillary
Date: 2016-11-00
Type: Journal Articles
Subjects: Foreign Countries,Student Teaching,Student Diversity,Cultural Awareness,Skill Development,Study Abroad,Pretests Posttests,Student Surveys,Student Journals,Interviews,Participant Observation,International Programs,Preservice Teacher Education,Program Effectiveness,Student Characteristics,Qualitative Research,Case Studies

The growing cultural and linguistic diversities in Western countries and rapid globalization have put urgent demands on K-16 schools in terms of developing strategies to accommodate these changes. One of the critical issues for schools is to prepare pre-service and in-service teachers to work effectively with their diverse student populations. The increased calls for global and cross-cultural competence training for teachers have led many teacher education programs in the U.S. as well as other countries to offer student teaching abroad opportunities. There seems to be international consensus that student teaching abroad confers significant benefits on pre-service teachers' professional skills and dispositions, including those involved in working with students from diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds. However, most of the research has identified these benefits through survey or interview data collected immediately upon the participants' return. Few have studied participants' teaching in the following year to explore how the international experience has been translated to their domestic contexts in terms of their cultural awareness and skills in teaching diverse students. The research questions guiding this study were: (1) How did student teaching abroad influence participants' first-year teaching practices with culturally diverse students?; and (2) How were these impacts affected by the teachers' personal and professional backgrounds and current teaching contexts and situations? The participants in the study were twelve pre-service teachers from a large university in the southeastern United States who participated in a student teaching program in Beijing, China. Qualitative case study methodology was used to gain an in-depth understanding of the complex ways in which participants applied their experiences to their subsequent teaching. Data was collected from participants for pre- and post-trip surveys, structured journals, and observations and interviews in China. A later stage of data collection included interviews and classroom observations with five self-selected participant teachers in their domestic classrooms during the following year. To triangulate the data, the principal researcher took the role of a participant observer throughout the preparatory sessions and for two weeks of the time the participants spent in China. The findings suggest that all teachers can benefit from international student teaching; thus, educational institutions should provide international opportunities and encourage students to take advantage of them. However, based on findings from this year-long study, colleges and universities can re-plan their overseas teaching programs to make them more meaningful and useful for novice teachers.