A Case Study Of Two Novice High School English Teachers On Their Professional Adaptation

Faced with a new round of education reform, professional adaptation and so on, novice English teachers of senior high school starting their career are under much stress. This essay is targeted at two novice teachers in their first year of work. Narrative inquiry and case study method are adopted in the study, along with a combination of observation, interviews and journals, to explore their adaptation process, uncover the influential factors of their stress and ways of stress coping.Thrilled and enthusiastic about the teaching job, one novice teacher does gain respect of students, school authority and colleagues due to their high teaching quality and smart mode of class managing, thus, feeling happy with the process of professional adaptation. While the other, when running into reality shock, may feel discouraged. And, more or less, novice teachers experience pressure from this process in the form of puzzles, anxiety and so on.The moment they enter into their career, novice teachers are supposed to shoulder a variety of duties, either as knowledge peddler or creator of scientific research; either as supervisor of student groups or their buddies in life. They have come into a new personal network with parents, colleagues and school authorities around. Only by being equipped with the ability of resistance and ability to take on responsibility can they cope with the stress positively and gradually grow into an effective teacher. Factors like prevocational training, personality, gender, the context of being a teacher all count in the process of stress coping.Adaptation stress, stress coping, sense of efficiency and professional growth obviously interact. The ways to cope with stress differ among them. Nevertheless, they all choose to build up a good interpersonal network. One important finding is that by providing support and assistance and offering positive assessment and recognition, the school can help to relieve novice teachers’stress. Anyway, they gradually acquire and develop critically the knowledge, skill and emotional intelligence essential to professional growth.