IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/sae/sagope/v11y2021i4p21582440211052932.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Exploring Pre-service Pre-primary EFL Teacher Beliefs about Teaching English to Very Young Learners: A Macau Case Study

Author

Listed:
  • Barry Lee Reynolds
  • Sylvia Liu
  • Maja Milosavljevic
  • Chen Ding
  • Jennifer McDonald

Abstract

Research on the beliefs of pre-service and in-service English teachers at the primary, secondary, and tertiary levels has provided useful knowledge to teacher education curriculum designers. However, the beliefs of pre-service pre-primary English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers have not been addressed. Thus, a case study was conducted in one pre-primary education program at a public university in the Macau Special Administrative Region of China. Data was collected by providing participants ( N  = 63) a writing prompt aimed at gathering their beliefs about the teaching and learning of English in the pre-primary context. Qualitative content analysis was used to analyze these written reflection reports of third-year pre-service pre-primary English teachers with the aim of uncovering their beliefs about teaching and learning EFL. Results showed the participants held beliefs about classroom practice, EFL learners and learning, pedagogical knowledge, teaching, content, goals of language teaching, the role of teaching, subject, schooling, hearsay, self, learning to teach, and the teacher education program. Most participants mentioned their beliefs about classroom practice, EFL learners and learning, and pedagogical knowledge, while very few participants wrote about self, learning to teach, or the teacher education program. While many of the beliefs held by the participants were found to be substantiated by early childhood education research, some unfounded beliefs were also uncovered. The results highlighted a need for curriculum designers to reconsider the education program’s ability to meet the needs of the pre-service teachers. Participants required additional training in English content knowledge, use as a medium of instruction, and pronunciation. The polarized view of teaching the mother tongue and EFL should be reconsidered in light of the current views on bilingualism and bilingual education.

Suggested Citation

  • Barry Lee Reynolds & Sylvia Liu & Maja Milosavljevic & Chen Ding & Jennifer McDonald, 2021. "Exploring Pre-service Pre-primary EFL Teacher Beliefs about Teaching English to Very Young Learners: A Macau Case Study," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(4), pages 21582440211, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:11:y:2021:i:4:p:21582440211052932
    DOI: 10.1177/21582440211052932
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/21582440211052932
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1177/21582440211052932?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Anonymous, 2014. "Introduction to the Issue," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(1), pages 1-2, May.
    2. Anonymous, 2014. "Introduction to the Issue," Journal of Wine Economics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 9(2), pages 109-110, August.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. CHEN, Helen S.Y., 2020. "Designing Sustainable Humanitarian Supply Chains," OSF Preprints m82ar, Center for Open Science.
    2. Jochen Wulf, 2020. "Development of an AHP hierarchy for managing omnichannel capabilities: a design science research approach," Business Research, Springer;German Academic Association for Business Research, vol. 13(1), pages 39-68, April.
    3. Maggie O’Neill & Ruth Penfold-Mounce & David Honeywell & Matt Coward-Gibbs & Harriet Crowder & Ivan Hill, 2021. "Creative Methodologies for a Mobile Criminology: Walking as Critical Pedagogy," Sociological Research Online, , vol. 26(2), pages 247-268, June.
    4. Getz, Donald & Page, Stephen J., 2016. "Progress and prospects for event tourism research," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 593-631.
    5. Schipper, Burkhard C., 2021. "Discovery and equilibrium in games with unawareness," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    6. Kumar, Kaushalendra & Shukla, Ankita & Singh, Abhishek & Ram, Faujdar & Kowal, Paul, 2016. "Association between wealth and health among older adults in rural China and India," The Journal of the Economics of Ageing, Elsevier, vol. 7(C), pages 43-52.
    7. Urša Golob & Mark A. P. Davies & Joachim Kernstock & Shaun M. Powell, 2020. "Trending topics plus future challenges and opportunities in brand management," Journal of Brand Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 27(2), pages 123-129, March.
    8. Eunae Yoo & Elliot Rabinovich & Bin Gu, 2020. "The Growth of Follower Networks on Social Media Platforms for Humanitarian Operations," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 29(12), pages 2696-2715, December.
    9. Ya Sun & Gongyuan Wang & Haiying Feng, 2021. "Linguistic Studies on Social Media: A Bibliometric Analysis," SAGE Open, , vol. 11(3), pages 21582440211, September.
    10. Winskell, Kate & Sabben, Gaëlle, 2016. "Sexual stigma and symbolic violence experienced, enacted, and counteracted in young Africans’ writing about same-sex attraction," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 161(C), pages 143-150.
    11. Shisong Jiang, 2021. "“When Paradigms Are Out of Place”: Embracing Eclecticism in Legal Scholarship by Academic Turns," Laws, MDPI, vol. 10(4), pages 1-16, October.
    12. Florian Léon, 2022. "The elusive quest for high-growth firms in Africa: when other metrics of performance say nothing," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 225-246, January.
    13. Houshmand Masoumi, 2021. "Residential Location Choice in Istanbul, Tehran, and Cairo: The Importance of Commuting to Work," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(10), pages 1-18, May.
    14. Zachary P Neal, 2017. "Well connected compared to what? Rethinking frames of reference in world city network research," Environment and Planning A, , vol. 49(12), pages 2859-2877, December.
    15. Tanja Lepistö & Tiina Mäkitalo-Keinonen & Tiina Valjakka, 0. "Opportunity recognition in a hub-governed network – insights from garage services," International Entrepreneurship and Management Journal, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-24.
    16. Holbig, Heike, 2015. "The Plasticity of Regions: A Social Sciences–Cultural Studies Dialogue on Asia-Related Area Studies," GIGA Working Papers 267, GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies.
    17. Wagner, Sebastian & Brandt, Tobias & Neumann, Dirk, 2016. "In free float: Developing Business Analytics support for carsharing providers," Omega, Elsevier, vol. 59(PA), pages 4-14.
    18. Lyall, Catherine & Tait, Joyce, 2019. "Beyond the limits to governance: New rules of engagement for the tentative governance of the life sciences," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(5), pages 1128-1137.
    19. Martin Dubrovsky & Miroslav Trnka & Ian Holman & Eva Svobodova & Paula Harrison, 2015. "Developing a reduced-form ensemble of climate change scenarios for Europe and its application to selected impact indicators," Climatic Change, Springer, vol. 128(3), pages 169-186, February.
    20. Anna Karpova & Aleksei Savelev & Nataliya Maksimova, 2021. "Modeling the Process of School Shooters Radicalization (Russian Case)," Social Sciences, MDPI, vol. 10(12), pages 1-26, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:sae:sagope:v:11:y:2021:i:4:p:21582440211052932. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: SAGE Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.