Case Studies Of The Professional Development Of EFL Teachers In Chinese Context The Self As Source

As one of the most important carriers of information in the internationalcommunity, English has penetrated into all fields of social life and has become asignificant strategy for national educational development and internationalexchanges. Consequently, professional development of EFL teachers is becoming afundamental theme in foreign language educational researches.On a basis of a literature review of the teachers’professional development in ageneral sense, in terms of EFL field, and on taking the self as source, the researchreports the unsatisfactory aspects in the present researches on professionaldevelopment of EFL teacher in China, specifically speaking, the current researchesare, in most cases, short-term narrative stories from perspective of teachers orqualitative analysis from perspectives of the teacher researchers instead of theteachers concerned, and lacking in due attention to theorization of teacherprofessional development. A new form of teachers’professional development withits definition, connotation, features and model is accordingly proposed. According tothe researcher, there is a hierarchy in the classification of the concept of the self assouce, that is to say, firstly, awareness of autonomous professional development ofthe teachers; secondly, practices of investigating and exploring into as well asresearching and reflecting on their teaching, scientific researching and teacheremotion; thirdly, spiral action research including self-plan, self-implementation,self-adjustment, self-reflection and self-evaluation by the teachers themselves toimprove their own professional development. A single-case study focusing on thenine-year action research on the researcher’s professional development with the self,a multiple-case study including within-case and cross-case analysis and responsesfrom a large-sample questionnaire filled by EFL teachers at a tertiary level arepresented to address the following three research questions:1. To what extent is the researchers’action research on her own professionaldevelopment with the self as source effective? What changes and influences does sucha research bring to her professional beliefs, professional knowledge, professionalcompetency, professional emotion and awareness for autonomous professionaldevelopment? What changes and influences does such a research bring to the improvement of her students’study and other aspects and to the educational instituteand professional community where she works and joins?2. In a general sense, what are the core elements of professional development ofEFL teachers with the self as source?3. With the presupposition that the EFL teachers are all engaged in practices ofteaching, researching, learning, reflection and cooperation, in what way do the threelevels of the self as source enhance the effectiveness of their professionaldevelopment?As the first nine-year empirical study on EFLteachers’professional developmentwith the self as source, this research stands itself out for its application of SPSS19.0to the analysis of the quantitative data and of Nvivo10.0, the updated tool in theinternational research circle, to the analysis of qualitative data, as well as someanalysis methods in case study method such as recapitulation sheet and matrix charts.After an in-depth analysis of the professional development materials of the researcher,of two teacher researchers, Professor Nunan and Ms. Zhong, of a brief analysis of theprofessional development materials of six distinguished experts in EFL circle and ofthe narrative responses from questionnaires filled out by a large number of EFLteachers at a tertiary level in Shanghai and six provinces, it is found that theresearcher’s professional development is feasible and effective for her, and thatteaching, researching, learning, reflection and cooperation are the core elements forEFL teachers in terms of their professional development and that, supposing that theteachers have already engaged in the teaching, researching, learning, reflection andcooperation activities, all of the three levels of the self as source can improve theprofessional development of individual EFL teacher in a progressive way, the moreresemblance their professional development bears to action research, the moredesirable and satisfactory their professional development might be, and theprofessional development with the self as source based on the self-directed actionresearches is believed to be the most effective.Theoretically and technically speaking, the research presents a comprehensiveliterature review of the EFLteachers’professional development with the self asresource，definitions and explanations of the orignial key terms and to collect andanalyse the data with various research methods and advanced research tools. Practically speaking, the research presents a longitudinal research lasting morethan nine years and a bottom-up empirical study from single-case study tomultiple-case study and then to a large-sample questionnaire, leading to anincreasingly higher empiricism and generalization.Despite the problems that the mainly qualitative research with research methodsof case study, and narrative inquiry is predestined to be criticized by its subjectivity,that the research methods are not skillfully and effectively handled and that there isnot sufficient attention to the external influencing factors or relevant evaluation ofsome of the researches reviewed, this research is expected to serve as a constructivetheoretical and empirical exploration of and reference for the professionaldevelopment with the self as source for the EFL teachers who are eager to promotetheir professional development, aiming to encourage and help these teachers toconduct their professional development research through teaching, researching,learning, reflection and cooperation and gradually establish more professionaldevelopment communities. In this case, the current professional development and thequality of EFL teachers and the EFL education will be improved, contributing to makeour country more powerful.