A Study On Current Situation And Countermeasures Of English Teachers′professional Development In Rural Middle Schools

Along with the social development, as the strategic measure of increasing national strength and international competitiveness, basic education reform has become common in many countries, accordingly cultivating high-quality teachers has become the global pursuit. In 2001, the Ministry of Education issued"the Basic Education Curriculum Reform Program (Trial)", formulating that the new curriculum system would be introduced gradually to the whole country in 2005-2010. In fact,the implementation of the new curriculum puts forward higher requirements for teachers' professional qualities and teachers' innovation ability. However, as an agricultural country, the basic education in rural areas plays an important role in the whole nation's education system, and especially along with rapid progress of modernization, urbanization, and industrialization, the investment for rural children education has been increased and the rural children also experience the process from"going to school"to"choosing a better school". Nevertheless, it is true that China's rural education still cannot meet the needs of society and parents; the loss of rural school students has been a widespread phenomenon. English teaching in rural middle school is still falling behind, the urgency and importance of rural English teachers' professional development still not get enough attention. It is obvious that the present domestic research on teachers' professional development still focuses on theoretical studies, the related empirical studies on rural English teachers' professional development is still rare. Therefore, the present study focuses on the research and exploration into the investigation and countermeasures of rural middle school English teachers' professional development. The study aims to find out the present situation of English teachers' professional development in rural middle schools, their subjective demand for the professional development and the current situation of various trainings. Through analysis and discussion, the study intends to explore the existing problems and the causes, further, it probes into the countermeasures for promoting rural middle school English teachers' professional development, and then it tries to put forward some referential suggestions.This study is based on the theory of teachers' professional development, lifelong learning theory, action research theory and the theory of constructivism. The research instruments include literature, questionnaires, and data analysis. The subjects of the research include 160 English teachers in 20 rural middle schools of Qingzhou, the investigation involves their basic situation, the awareness and the present situation of their professional development, the internal and external causes that influence their professional development, and their demand for professional development. The questionnaires to the study are given to 160 English teachers and 144 are available. The data are analyzed by using percentage methods and the returned questionnaires have a broader representation.Through the investigation and data analysis, this study holds that for the teacher team in rural middle schools, the poor work environment and economy condition lead to low job satisfaction, and therefore the poor stability. In addition, due to the poor guiding role of the education administration, it leads to the imperfect situation of sex ratio, age structure, title structure of rural English teachers and there is an increasing gap between the urban and rural teachers. Furthermore, there are many self problems in their professional development, such as less clear belief for education, low professional knowledge, poor language teaching theory, lagging teaching idea, weak teaching skills, and a lack of the awareness and competence for self development,reflecting and education research. At the same time, the external environment also influences the teachers' professional development. Such as the unbalance of urban and rural education resource allocation leads to the poor working environment; the resources, such as school buildings,library,multimedia teaching equipment in rural schools, fail to meet their teaching requirements. And because of the deficiency of teachers' development approach, teachers' further development activities are hard to be carried out. Further, there is a lack of the awareness and capability for the school functional departments to optimize school management and create space for teachers' professional development. Besides, due to the shortage of rural education funds, as the main approach to learning after-employment, the training can't be operated scientifically, which leads to the unbalanced level of teachers' participation and opportunity; and it also results in the situation that the training content and form can't be closely combined with the teachers' practical needs.The study holds that English teachers' professional development in rural middle schools is restricted by their own factors, as well as external factors of the school and the education department. Thus, to prompt the professional development level and improve English education in rural middle schools, we should pay close attention to the individuals and groups professional development of English teachers from two perspectives, namely the internal factors and external guarantee. Firstly, the teachers themselves should develop the consciousness for professional development, place emphasis on increasing their professional knowledge, their ability and professional level in learning and reflecting. Secondly, the school leaders should continuously innovate their educational ideas, establish the concept of teachers' professional development, construct the harmonious campus culture of cooperation, and actively carry out the school-based training for teachers' professional development. At the same time rural middle schools should try to optimize school management and establish the professional development team so as to guarantee continuous development of their teachers. Finally, the education department should improve the external guarantee system for teachers' professional development, emphasize the stability of rural teachers. The education administration should also actively explore different levels of training modes for new English teachers, teachers of non-English majors and post-career teachers training, enhance the targeted feature and the actual effect of the training content, so that the teachers in individual and group can acquire better and faster professional development.