Enhancing pre-service English language teachers' professional knowledge, skills and confidence through peer microteaching lesson study (PMLS).

This evaluative project, funded by the British Council,investigated the introduction and implementation of peer microteaching lesson study (PMLS) ininitial teacher education (ITE) programmes in three teacher education departments in Chinese universities: Beijing Normal University, Shaanxi Normal University, and Hebei Normal Universityfor Nationalities.Two key research questions framed the project:1.What impact does a PMLS approach have on developing pre-serviceteachers’professional knowledge and skills?2.To what extent does participating in PMLS foster confidence and professional identity for pre-serviceteachers?The project engaged teacher-educators and pre-service teachers in PMLS. To support them, online materials (Moodle online platform) weredeveloped.In collaboration, we sought to embed lesson study in our partners’ school-based pre-service teacher education courses. We shared our experience and knowledge of differentmodels of lesson study and the principles and practice of embedding lesson study in ITE (drawing on Wood et al., 2020; Fernández 2005,2010; Dudley 2014, 2019; Baldry &Foster, 2020; Cajkler &Wood, 2015,2016a,b) to encourage our partners to develop a context-sensitive model of PMLS that is effective for developing and sustaining enquiry-oriented learning communitiesin ITE settings.