A Survey Of English Teacher Autonomy In Vocational Colleges

Recently, the concept of autonomy has been widely discussed in the field ofsecond language acquisition and education. It is recognized that the development oflearner autonomy depends largely on teacher autonomy. As for vocational collegeEnglish teaching, teacher autonomy improves teaching quality from different levelsand affects the cultivation of learner autonomy. Therefore, it is necessary to analyzethe current situation of teacher autonomy and put forward relevant suggestions basedon the survey.Adopting questionnaires and interviews, the present study investigates thevocational college English teachers and aims to examine the current situation ofteachers performing autonomy and the autonomous competence. The data of theinvestigative procedure indicate that the teachers surveyed show relatively lowautonomy in deciding teaching plans and teaching goals; teachers’ willingness andcompetence in autonomously exploring and integrating other materials besides thetextbooks is averagely high. It is also found that the teachers surveyed perform verylow autonomy in assessing teaching both of their own and of other teachers. Theresults of academic competence investigation show that teachers have strongwillingness in academic research but the forthcoming results are not satisfactory.Similarly, in pursuit of teacher professional development, teachers are stronglymotivated but are restricted by some factors. Besides, according to results ofinterviews, teachers’ understanding in teacher autonomy is attributed into three parts:firstly, autonomy is an extension of teachers’ self-consciousness, thus theimprovement of teacher autonomy should focus on the change of consciousness.Secondly, teacher autonomy is manifested in the fact that teachers should possess theability to choose what they need during teaching and research; thirdly, it is also an important part of teacher autonomy that the teachers perform decision-making toachieve effective classroom teaching and promote their professional development.Based on the above findings, the study attempts to integrate the dimension anddefinition of teacher autonomy and implies that teacher autonomy is a manifestationof teachers’ awareness, abilities and rights in achieving teaching goals andprofessional development, and teacher autonomy is an effective way of achievingprofessional development. Finally, the paper suggests that teachers should applycoping strategies such as conducting reflective teaching and enhancing decisionmaking to promote teacher autonomy. Therefore the study will draw more attention tothe significance of teacher autonomy and the individuality of teacher researches onvocational college English teachers, and shed some light on teachers’ professionaldevelopment in this regard.