Feedback from first-year teachers: rethinking the transfer problem in China

Abstract

This article reports the findings of a small-scale, follow-up investigation into the transfer problems encountered by first-year teachers in China, and the interactions that emerged among the teachers’ preconceptions of teaching, university teacher preparation programmes and teaching school contexts in their first year. Participants were surveyed both pre-graduation, after finishing their teaching practice in Year 4 of their B.Ed. programme and after their first year of teaching, when the transfer problem was newly emerged. This study finds that first-year teachers were not challenged solely by transfer problems emerging from differences among their preconceptions of teaching, university teacher preparation programmes and teaching school contexts, but also by the lack of learning support they had when teaching in the wider, radical changing social context. This study gives voice to the perceived learning needs and related supports of first-year teachers in China.

Keywords:

• First year teacher
• transfer problem
• moral-political education
• learning supports
• China

Notes

1. If the subject mentor teacher were also a class head teacher, pre-service teachers may have only one mentor teacher in middle school.

2. Some famous schools in China have several branch schools, either within the same city or in a distant province. These schools are independent, despite sharing education resources.