A Study On The Development Of English Teaching Competencies Of Beginning Teachers In High Schools

Beginning stage is significant to beginning teachers and it is also the beginning of an occupation with difficulties and challenges. "Well begun, half done." A good beginning is bound to help lay a solid foundation for the professional development to them. One aim of the curricular reform is to cultivate teachers who can meet the needs of education and who are of high quality and professionalization, the core of which is undoubtedly the teaching competence. The development of the basic education curriculum reform poses an increasingly common challenge to an English teacher in their teaching competence. Beginning teachers share similar type of responsibilities with experienced teachers. It is a kind of challenge especially to beginning teachers, who lack in teaching experience and thus inevitably meet with various problems in the teaching process. This study holds the belief that beginning teachers should first aim at solving their own developmental problem or realize their potentials, and therefore fulfill their self-realization in essence.Based on these, this thesis presents the following major research questions:What makes beginning teachers more competent? What are the individual teaching competencies? What kinds of problems arise in their development? What are the factors that are related? To solve these questions and to find out the factors, how can we develop those beginning teachers’ teaching competencies in high schools? What guaranteeing conditions are required? Focusing on the core issue of concern, this thesis focuses on the current situations of the beginning teachers’teaching competence, explores ways to promote it and research into the following parts of contents, using quantitative and qualitative research methods to identify problems, analyze problems and solve problems.On the basis of foreign language teaching theory and programmatic documents such as "The Exam Outline of Middle School English Teachers’qualification" and "Middle and Primary Teachers’ Profession Standard (Trial)" etc, and from the perspective of text analysis, combined with their own teaching experience, the researchers argue that the teaching competences for the beginning teachers should include the following 5 aspects under the background of new curriculum: English language competence, teaching and learning design competence, teaching implement competence, teaching evaluations, reflection as well as research competence. Meanwhile, it analyzes their individual teaching competence, including language knowledge and skills competence, language teaching knowledge and skills competence, understanding and the use of standard curriculum competence, teaching diagnostic competence, selection and the use of teaching resources competence, designing lesson plans competence, selection and the use of teaching methods and strategies competence, teaching organizational and management competence, correction competence, selection and the use of modern educational technology competence, teaching expression competence, teaching quantitative evaluation competence, evaluation of the quality of teaching competence, teaching reflection and research competence. The contents and requirements of the above competence are analyzed in details.Using different methods like questionnaires, case studies, interviews and so on, a survey has been conducted among 142 beginning teachers and 936 non-beginning teachers on the development of teaching competencies of beginning teachers in high schools. The data collected by questionnaires are made statistic analysis by software SPSS17.0.The results show as follows:the English teachers with higher level of education and heavy teaching load, lack in educational practice time.95.07% of beginning teachers think that they badly need to improve their teaching skills. The most popular training contents are closely related to their subject teaching, just like teaching skills learning, theory and case studies, teaching problem seminars, teaching case studies, observing teaching and commenting, teaching experience sharing. From the findings of non-beginning teachers, the factors including reflective teaching, self-learning, arrangement of teaching files and organizing apprenticeship can best promote the development of their teaching competence. In the orientation, the factors including the instructor’s level, the evaluation and incentive in school as well as their leaders’ concern, can have a great impact on the development of their teaching competence. Most researchers lack teaching reflection competence and teaching research competence, which can be greatly influenced by cultural environment and platform capabilities of schools. And there exist some differences in the five teaching competences between beginning teachers and other teachersFrom the angle of case study,7 beginning teachers are used as samples to explore their changes in their teaching behaviors, teaching effects and teaching confusions, and to make the data more exact, all such means have been applied as the teaching design analysis, observing teaching and collaborative lesson-planning as well as interviews. The study finds that beginning teachers are basically qualified for the teaching job though they still have these following problems. They found it difficult to apply the theoretical knowledge to teaching practice and grasp the teaching skills of listening and writing. They also lack in relevant pedagogical knowledge and research training, unfamiliar with the students’prior knowledge and experience, and therefore find it hard to select and use of the teaching resources, unfamiliar with the entire teaching schedule and the quantitative evaluation as well as teaching reflection strategies, difficult to analyze the results of qualitative evaluation and so on. They also have some puzzles in their teaching practice, school, teaching research and teaching efficiency.Based on the interview on three excellent non-beginning teachers and one teacher in a certain foreign normal college and excellent English teachers’growing experiences and the experience of success, the suggestions are put forward for beginning teachers in their teaching competence development. In managing position, the results of the interview on the measures in helping beginning teachers’teaching competence and the way of cultivation for teaching competence of pre-service English teachers are summarized and analyzed. The result shows that there is no discipline in the school orientation; it lacks process management and evaluation on mentoring; the leaders in key schools attach great importance to induction, while the ones in rural schools not; Not enough trainings have been organized for beginning teachers, with only some staff’s instruction; pre-service programs are reasonable, but skill curricula are short of class hours; in 8-week teaching practice, the intern students only give 4 classes; the intern evaluation given by normal school remains in shallow scores evaluation and traditional manuscript records, instructors’guidance can have a great impact on improving intern students’teaching competence during internship.According to the results of the research, we point out the existing problems of the development of the middle school English beginning teachers’teaching competence are affected by the following three factors. As for personal factors, the beginning teachers’ seniority, reflection competence, self awareness, the cooperation and communication skills are included. As for contextual factors, school environment, student current situation, the pursuit of the enrollment rate, large classes of teaching, teaching evaluation mechanism are also important factors. As for the inventions to foster beginning teachers’ development, it includes pre-vocational education, the vocational education and post-vocational training. In pre-vocation, the formation and initial development of teaching competence are affected by the cultivation of pre-service teachers’ target, the establishment of pre-education curriculum, the qualified teachers, education practice efficiency, the construction of educational base and their direction of thesis research. In the stage of inductive education, the promotion of beginning teachers’ teaching competence are affected by the induction system, disciplinary training, the lack of supervision of mentoring and the arbitrary appointment of instructors. The purpose of post-employment training, content, methods, evaluation, and efficiency can have a further impact on the development of beginning teachers teaching competence.Based on the existing problems and related factors of the development for beginning English teachers, we propose a "others-driven" path and "self-driven" path for developing their teaching competence, which is "Pre-service training-Inductive education-Post-employment training" path and the "Learn-Practice-Reflect" path. And we propose different development strategies based on two different paths. Based on the "others-driven" path, four strategies include improving the quality of pre-service training, enhancing the employment education pertinence, strengthening post-education support and the establishment of "integration" electronic archives. According to the "self-driven" path, teachers can develop their teaching competence by carrying out self-learning based on individual, knowledge teaching management, writing teaching diary, analyzing critical incidents, conducting action research, having collective lesson planning based on "cooperative community", and heterogeneous forms of the same subject, conducting subject research and joining the teaching studio. Based on the research into the theory for beginning teachers to improve their teaching competence, the analysis of the survey and the reflection, aimed at the related factors and strategies for them, we put forward the following reliable conditions, including pre-employment training basic guarantee, environmental guarantee for the working conditions of schools, training guarantee at the inductive stage and conscientious guarantee of beginning teachers.In conclusion, this study analyze in details the English teaching competence of beginning teachers in middle schools to help the beginning teachers as well as other teachers more aware of English teaching skills. The research into the development for the beginning teachers’teaching competence helps schools and education authorities to develop a more scientific and effective training programs for beginning teachers. Meanwhile, as for beginning teachers, it is necessary to learn from the experience and advice of other experienced English teachers in the perspective of their own developmental needs. Finally, strategic recommendations in this thesis present four levels, which will be helpful to pre-service training of English teachers, education authorities, schools, and beginning teachers to work together to improve their teaching ability and the quality of English teaching and English teachers’professional development.