A Study On Teacher Autonomy In College English Curriculum Enactment

This study aims to probe into teacher autonomy in College English curriculumenactment, the characteristics and the factors preventing college English teachersfrom actively and creatively enacting the college curriculum, as well as the ways toimprove the enactive competence of the college English teachers. The study startsfrom the following reasons, which is the focus of Chapter One:1) There exists ageneral call, implicit or explicit, for the teachers to give their initiative into full playby the era, our national strategic plan, general trends of the college English reform,autonomous development of the teachers and students;2) There is still inadequacy inthe study of teacher autonomy against lots of the overwhelming importance attachedto learner autonomy, and disputes over the definition of teacher autonomy still exist,and more empirical studies are needed;3) Problems have emerged along with theachievement since the practice of College English curriculum. And there exist manymismatches between the idealized requirements and actualized practice, between theperceived curriculum and the operationalized curriculum by the teachers. Themismatches reduced the actual objectives of college English practice to simpleknowledge accumulation, actual content to standardized textbook-based knowledge,and actual mode to examination-oriented indoctrination, thus making formal officialcurriculum shrink in value. This study focuses on:1) redefining teacher autonomy,especially in terms of curriculum enactment;2) probing into the actualized enactivecompetence of college English teachers in an empirical study;3) analyzing the factorshindering teachers from creative enactment of College English curriculum anddeveloping ways to improve their enactive competence.The study then centers on a theoretical review of researches into teacherautonomy, including the origin, definition, underlying factors and measurement,which is the focus of Chapter Two. The author holds that defining teacher autonomyis of great importance in that it determines the direction, content and result of thestudy. Based on the research findings available, along with the specific context of college English teaching, the study deconstructs and reconstructs the notion of teacherautonomy after drawing implications from relevant theories such as ProcessPhilosophy, Constructivism, Humanism, Curriculum Reconstructionism, andPrinciples of Curriculum Implementation. Through this analytical process, adefinition of teacher autonomy in College English curriculum enactment is workedout, as well as its structural characteristics and concrete content manifestations. Thisredefining process is included in Chapter Three. The author believes that teacherautonomy in curriculum practice refers to the creative curriculum enactment withactive reflection-involved and multi-directional, interactive curriculum negotiation interm of curriculum goals, content and mode instead of the passive, authoritative, andone-directional curriculum practice on the part of teacher. This creative curriculumenactment is embedded with the following eight structural characteristics: strongself-initiative, high sense of responsibility, great self-control, strong independence,active reflection, sound and clear goals, pioneering creation, and high aspiration.After the operationalization of teacher autonomy in curriculum enactmentthrough theoretical analysis, the author conducts an empirical study with theself-designed and revised research instruments, probing into the actual enactivecompetence of college English teachers. The design, administration, results anddiscussions of the field study are all included in Chapter Four and Chapter Five. Thestudy focuses on the developmental features at the eight structural characteristics andthe correlations between teacher autonomy and such demographic features as gender,educational background, academic title and school type. The underlying factorspreventing teachers from creative enactment in real practice are also investigated. Theresults show that the general autonomy of college English teachers remains atmoderate level and it develops in an unbalanced way in terms of the eight structuralcharacteristics. College English teachers generally have quite high sense ofresponsibility and high aspirations for more knowledge and greater skills, yetrelatively low level of self-control and less sound and clear aim in real curriculumpractice. Teacher autonomy shows less correlation with such variables as teacher sex,age, and school type but higher correlation with variables like educational background and academic titles. School location also shows great correlation with teacherautonomy, with teachers from universities in underdeveloped areas showing greaterlevel of autonomy than their counterparts from universities in developed capital cities,which refutes the hypothesis. The curriculum enactive competence of college Englishteachers is still less than desired in that their teaching objectives are simplified,restricted to basic knowledge accumulation and skill cultivation, ignoring thinkingand emotional intelligence aspects, their teaching contents are standardized, confinedto formal set textbooks, with less life, cultural and social flavor in content, andteacher-dominated “teacher talks, students listen” way of teaching is still widespread,lacking adequate inspiring, exploring and cooperating interaction. Factors affectingthe curriculum enactive competence of college English teachers are also detected.Based on these findings, in Chapter Six, the author proposes some ways to improvethe curriculum enactive competence of college English teachers from followingaspects: accurately understanding formal curriculum, flexibly creating in real practice,continually reflecting throughout practice, self-initiated learning and researching andnurturing a positive autonomy-support organizational culture. Finally, in ChapterSeven, a summary of the study is given, including the general content, the creationand contribution, the limitations and future possible directions of the study.The study is generally meaningful and significant in that it adds to the literatureof teacher autonomy study both theoretically and empirically from the newperspective of curriculum enactment. The research expands the horizon of the teacherautonomy, enriches its connotation, investigates the general autonomy level of collegeEnglish teachers and their enactive competence in curriculum practice, and offersconcrete suggestions to improve enactive competence. The results are conducive tothe new round of college English reform, the final actualization of general aim offoreign language education, and the all-round improvement of the students and...