On The Model Of School-based Collaboration For High School English Teachers

There is a school-based tendency in the sphere of teacher development and school-based teacher development has become one of the most important applied models. In school-based teacher development, it is school authorities that take the responsibility for teacher development. School authorities are supposed to provide all the resources and conditions for teachers in their professional development. At the same time, school authorities play a supervisor role in the whole process. While school-based teacher development is emphasized, teacher collaboration also receives much attention and becomes one of the research focuses. More and more attention is paid to teacher communities when teacher development is discussed. It is advocated that teachers should collaborate with one another and move forward together to final development. In this situation, school-based teacher development is connected with teacher collaboration naturally.For the last decade, it is due to the English new curriculum reform in China that professional development of high school English teachers has become more and more important. English teaching and learning theories are mostly introduced from abroad, and that is why English language teaching is different from the teaching of other subjects. English teachers face the difficulties in learning and adapting theories abroad in China's English teaching context. In this circumstance, teacher collaboration is regarded as one of the best ways for English teacher individuals to work together and form teacher communities in order to deal with their professional situation. Furthermore, the communicative features determine that cooperative learning should be applied in English classrooms. By cooperating with each other, opportunities for using English increase and communication is enhanced. On all counts, high school English teachers should work collaborately to promote co-development. For the exploration of how high school English teacher effectively collaborate in a school-based context, the present dissertation chooses the model of school-based collaboration for high school English teachers as the research topic.This research chooses several kinds of research methods which include literature research, investigation research and case study. Four research questions are focused on: (1) What is the theoretical basis of the model of school-based collaboration for high school English teachers? (2) What is the realistic basis of the model of school-based collaboration for high school English teachers? (3) What should be included when building up the theory of the model of school-based collaboration for high school English teachers? (4) What should be included when discussing the practice of the model of school-based collaboration for high school English teachers?The main findings in this research include: (1) Teachers play a predominant role in school-based collaboration, but there are another two key roles which mainly influence the collaboration process. These two roles are principals of schools and hosts of collaborative activities. (2) External force is needed to bring along teacher collaboration. From teachers' wishful thinking, they intend to participate in teacher collaboration and desire for development in collaboration, but in reality, they need a great deal of support and help before they get involved in collaboration activities. (3) External force mentioned above comes from school authorities. School authorities are supposed to empower teachers to start up collaborative activities and assume supportive and unfaltering attitude towords teacher collaboration. School authorities should provide teachers with suitable policies, systems and resources in a persistent way. (4) External force also comes from hosts of collaborative avtivities. Hosts of collaborative activities take the responsibilites of organizing collaborative activities. In this organizing process, each teacher's intrests and needs should be considered. (5) Teahcers' subjective initiative should be emphasized in collaboration, and teachers' cosciousness of collaboration, attitudes towards collaboration and collaborative abilities should be fostered. (6) School-based teacher collaboration activities should guarantee teachers enough collaborative taste and leave enough time for teachers to adjust to a better situation while carrying through collaboration. (7) Collaboration achievements which can enhance teacher collaboration should be consciously collected in the process of collaboration.This dissertation consists of six chapters:Chaper 1 serves as the introduction. In this part, the significance of teacher collobration to high school English teacher development and the rsearch design of this dissertation are briefly discussed.Chapter 2 is literature review. In this chapter, some of the related researches are reviewed. The main characteristics of the literature are analyzed and some questions are put forward for further research.Chapter 3 builds up the theoretical bases of teacher collaboration. From the perspectives of philosophy, sociology, psychology, organizational behaviour theory and pedagogy, some of related theories are analyzed and discussed.Chapter 4 analyzes the real situation of how high school English teachers collaborate. In the first half part, the analysis is based upon the questionnaires which are collected from 108 high school English teachers in the city of L. In the second half part, the analysis is based upon the data which is collected from the case study.Chapter 5 concerns theory construction of the model of school-based collaboration for high school English teachers. This chapter illuminates the elements, relationship among elements, the goals, the principles, the characteristics and some basic operating rules of the model of school-based collaboration for high school English teachers.Chapter 6 practically discusses the model of school-based collaboration for high school English teachers. It mainly explores the practical conditions for the model and the basic practice procedures of the model. It also elaborates how schools function in teacher collaboration and what aspects hosts of collaborative activities and teachers should be required and fostered.