A study on the perception of ‘teachers’ by secondary school pre-service teachers through metaphor analysis

The purpose of this study was to analyze how prospective secondary school teachers, who will become the next generation of teachers, perceive teachers by applying a metaphor analysis method. For this purpose, survey responses were collected from 118 university students taking a teaching course at H University in Daejeon, and 111 of them were analyzed using metaphor analysis methodology. The research results are as follows. Prospective secondary teachers' perceptions of teachers were divided into three categories: people with professional competencies, people with emotional competencies, and my future job. First, the image of a person with professional capabilities, a leader/guide role, and an all-rounder/skilled person appeared. Second, people with emotional competency include people who bring immaturity to maturity (gardeners or caregivers), recipients and providers of a safe environment, people who allow students to experience good emotions and develop their talents, and people who can reveal their true feelings. Third, in recognizing teaching as my future career, the meaning of the profession as a teacher, the reason and motivation for choosing to be a teacher, a job that requires continuous effort, and concerns regarding teachers were expressed. These results are meaningful in that they provided basic data for instructors who teach prospective secondary school teachers to refer to when understanding the characteristics of their learners.