The Cultivation Of Reflective Awareness In College English Teaching

With the initiation of the curriculum reform in education, foreign language teaching offers a new request to teachers'education and development. Traditional teaching ideas and methods cannot satisfy educational demands. Under this circumstance,"reflective practice"provides an alternative approach to current foreign language teaching. Reflective teaching is a reflective process for developing teachers'expertise in problem-solving, decision-making, and complicated thinking. The knowledge gained through reflection can play a very vital role in the development of teachers'professional practice. It is reflective teaching that has become an effective way for teachers'professional development.This study aims to investigate the current state of college English teachers'reflective awareness and explore the functions of reflective teaching to college English teaching. This thesis is composed of four chapters besides introduction and conclusion. Firstly, the theoretical foundations of reflective teaching are introduced. Secondly, the author states some relevant knowledge about reflective teaching. Then the questionnaire and interview are employed to investigate the current state of college English teachers'reflective awareness. The subjects are 40 college English teachers from China University of Petroleum and Shengli Institute of China University of Petroleum. Meanwhile, an experiment which lasts 17 weeks is made to explore the functions of reflective teaching to college English teaching. The subjects are 20 college students from Shengli Institute of China University of Petroleum.The results of the study show that the current state of college English teachers'reflective awareness is not satisfactory. Although 62.5% (12.5%+45%) of the subjects maintain that they know reflective teaching, most of them, during the interview, admit that they just get the literal meaning of reflection or hear of it. And only 10% of the subjects maintain that they know reflective teaching with reference of books or through training. The experiment shows that reflective teaching exerts positive influences on college English teaching.Based on the findings mentioned above, some implications are proposed. College English teachers, on one hand, should be responsible for their professional development by reading books, materials or attending academic seminars. On the other hand, the teaching administrators should take responsibilities to organize some academic seminars for college English teachers to communicate and learn, and keep a good balance of teaching quality and teaching quantity.