Abstract:

Purpose:
Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language (TCFL) teachers must be professionally trained since many researchers have reported a shortage of qualified TCFL teachers in different countries worldwide. The purpose of this paper is to make a profile of pre-service TCFL teachers scientifically and provide standards to train and evaluate pre-service TCFL teachers. Moreover, this study aims to promote public understanding and attention to the role, function, and value of teacher competency. The profile was made according to the demographic characteristics of pre-service TCFL teachers, such as gender, length of internship, and country of internship. The researcher established the profile of the pre-service TCFL teachers in three dimensions: their pedagogical knowledge, teaching skills, and psychological states and expectations.

Methodology:
This paper applies a quantitative research design. The Rasch measurement model was applied to analyze the collected data and examine the psychometric properties, including validity, reliability, and item functioning. Winsteps, with version 3.70.0, was used to analyze the outcomes of the collected data.

Findings:
The researcher categorized the involved 250 respondents according to their demographic characteristics and divided the profile into three dimensions. The first dimension is for measuring the pedagogical knowledge of pre-service TCFL teachers. The second dimension is for their teaching skills, and the third is for their psychological states and expectations as TCFL teachers in the future. The analysis revealed five thresholds for classifying the pedagogical knowledge of pre-service TCFL teachers: Highest, High, Moderate, Average, and Low. For example, most respondents performed at a high level in measuring pedagogical knowledge, with no respondents falling into the Low-level category. Female respondents who had internships in Europe and possessed 1 to 3 months of teaching experience demonstrated the highest performance. On the other hand, female respondents with internships in Oceania and the same teaching experience displayed the lowest performance. Furthermore, the profile of the findings reveals teaching skills among the respondents resulting in four levels: Highest, High, Moderate, and Average. For instance, respondents with 1 to 3 months of teaching experience had the lowest level, while those with 4 to 6 months of experience exhibited a much higher level. Respondents with 7 to 9 months and 10 to 12 months of teaching experience displayed significantly higher levels than the previous groups. Respondents who interned in North America demonstrated the highest level, and those in Oceania showed the lowest. The researcher determined thresholds for measuring psychological states and expectations, resulting in seven levels: Highest, Very High, High, Moderate High, Moderate, Average, and Low. The findings indicated that the level of psychological states and expectations increased as the teaching experience grew, and female respondents displayed significantly higher psychological states and expectations than male respondents.

Implications:
This study would increase public understanding and attention to the role, function, and value of teacher competency and stimulate Chinese language educational organizations, teacher administrators, educational policymakers, and even government agencies to show higher appreciation and pay more attention to the importance of teacher competency.

Keywords:

Teacher competency, pre-service teachers, teaching Chinese as a foreign language, Rasch measurement model, profiling.