Investigating The Identity And Professional Development Of Miao Teachers Of English In Middle Schools

The identity and professional development of foreign language teachers have received increasing attention in the field of foreign language education in the recent years,however,the identity and professional development of ethnic minority foreign language teachers have attracted much less interest,and comparatively little empirical data exists on the relationship between them.Therefore,the research on their identity and professional development is a requirement to eliminate their identity crisis and stimulate their cultural awareness,as well as for their professional development on account of they have multiple identities.Based on the above considerations,this dissertation aims to address the following research questions:1.What is the status quo of Miao teachers of English' identity in middle schools and whether there are any differences among different age groups? What are the characteristics of their identity construction process,and is there any crisis of identity for them?2.What is the status quo of Miao teachers of English' professional development in middle schools and whether there are any differences among different age groups? What kind of professional developmental ways do they mainly adopt,and is there any puzzle in the process of their professional development?3.Is there any correlation between the identity and the professional development of Miao teachers of English in middle schools? If there is,what kind of relationship exists?In view of the above research purposes,the concept and structure of ethnic minority foreign language teachers' identity are defined firstly in this research,whereby the structure can be defined in terms of such two dimensions as ethnic identity and professional identity,of which ethnic identity includes such four secondary dimensions as affirmation,exploration,commitment and behavior,while professional identity includes dimensions of teachers' preference,professional knowledge and ability,professional environment identity as well as professional values.Then,the professional development is defined according to professional emotion,professional knowledge and professional skills.With mixed use of quantitative and qualitative methods,a total of 180 Miao teachers of English of different ages in middle schools are involved as quantitative research participants in this study.SPSS 22.0 was applied to analyze the status quo of their identity,professional development and the differences among teachers of different ages,while correlation and multiple regression methods are employed to analyze the quantitative data.In accordance with the orientation of qualitative research,four Miao Middle School English teachers of different ages are selected as the research objects through purpose sampling.By using narrative research strategies,the qualitative research data from in-depth interviews,participatory observations and literature materials are collected and analyzed to explore the real professional practice,the experience of tension and inner feelings of Miao teachers of English in middle schools in the process of identity construction and professional development.Then,under the frameworks of social identity and Giddens' self-identity theories,the research examines the characteristics of their identity and identity crisis presentation,the major professional development ways and puzzles,and the relationship between their identity and professional development.The dissertation first presents the research rationale,the definition of the core concepts,the significance of the research and structure of the dissertation,and then reviews the literature of the identity,the teacher' identity,the teacher' professional development,as well as the relationship between teacher identity and professional development at home and abroad,in order to identify the contributions and limitations of the existing research and to clarify the theoretical perspectives of this research.Finally,the identity,professional development and the relationship among ethnic minority English teachers in middle schools are investigated by combining quantitative and qualitative research.The research findings are as follows:Firstly,the Miao teachers of English in Middle School have positive identity;however,teachers of different ages have significant differences in the dimensions of commitment and occupational environment identity.the characteristics of stage,situation and contradiction have been produced in their process of identity construction,in which the stage is embodied in constructing different identities at different stages,the situation embodied in the different identities can be generated from the same identity,and the contradiction embodied in the dual identity are made by the same identification.On the other hand,Miao teachers of English have identity crisis as well,which shows that Miao teachers have an negative psychology toward their ethnic identity,lower recognition of their native language,and confuse about how to balance the dilemma.Secondly,Miao teachers of English in middle school have a strong positive attitude toward their professional development;however,teachers of different ages have significant differences in the dimensions of professional teaching knowledge,flexible task goals consciousness,and rigid task target consciousness.They mainly carry out the way of taking self as resource,imitation and innovation,cooperation and communication,and scaffolding with more capable peers as the mainly ways in the process of their professional development.The puzzles are produced in the process of professional development,including uncertainty of how to balance the gap of evaluation standard for students between the teacher individual and the schools,how to effectively carry out the inheritance of ethnic culture in teaching practice,how to avoid the tendency of foreign language teaching,and how to balance the gap between the content of teaching materials and the actual teaching situation.Thirdly,there is a significant correlation between the identity and professional development of Miao teachers of English in that identity and professional development can predict mutually to a certain extent,and both of them are interrelated.The higher the ethnic identity is,the more it is easy to promote the professional development of teachers;the lower the ethnic identity is,the less it is conducive to the professional development of teachers.By the same token,the higher the professional identity is,the easier it is to promote the professional development of teachers,and vice versa.Therefore,the higher the teacher's identity is,the easier it is to promote the teacher's development of professional emotion,skill and knowledge;the lower the teacher's identity is,the less it is conducive to the professional development of teachers.At the same time,teachers' professional development will also affect the construction of identity,those who with positive psychology can construct positive identity on account of professional development;while those who with negative psychology can construct negative identity because of professional development.In terms of the above conclusions,the dissertation then explores the ways to eliminate the identity crisis of ethnic minority foreign language teachers,expounds the activity model of promoting path of ethnic minority foreign language teachers' professional development,explores the influence of ethnic identity of ethnic minority foreign language teachers on professional development,and discusses the ideal relationship between identity and professional development of ethnic minority foreign language teachers.In addition,this dissertation has conducted an empirical study on identity and professional development of ethnic minority foreign language teachers.However,the relationship between ethnic identity and professional development of ethnic minority foreign language teachers has not aroused much close concern at home and abroad.Thus,the dissertation has set out the first step to explore the relationship between them,to provide a certain enlightenment and referential value for the research field.Expects the future research in related fields to offer a more scientific and systematic explanation of this structure.