Narrative Research On The Formation Of An English Teacher's Personal Theory

The personal theory of middle school English teachers plays a very significant role in guiding their teaching and in promoting their own professional development. However, English teachers'personal theory has been ignored for a long time. It is gradually formed in English teachers'living and learning experiences, and exists in their current teaching life in order to support their teaching behavior. English teachers'personal theory is individual, so it is not suitable to all. But it can influence teachers'teaching quality; what's more, it plays an important role in facilitating teachers'professional growth. Being different from the traditional research which is logic and rationalistic, this research is based on English teachers'current situations. In addition, walking into the investigated subject's daily life in person, the author understands the subject's life style, teaching incidents and teachers'personal theory. The author also hopes that this paper can provide some virtual material for other correlated researchers.The author adopts narrative inquiry, choosing a middle school English teacher as the object of study. The researcher describes the object's life experiences and teaching action by using narration after keeping an eye on her life experiences for a long time. In this way, the object's personal theory can be displayed vividly, livelily and authentically and readers also can get certain illumination from the description and analysis of specific situations.This paper presents the object's teaching scenes where her personal theory exists in a form of many teaching and life stories. The paper also lays out the background and reasons why her personal theory has been formed. Understanding the features of the formation and development of the object's personal theory is very functional in comprehending the trend of personal theory's development and in facilitating their professional growth.After research, we find that middle school English teachers'personal theory contains abundant connotation. It not only refers teachers'rational understanding of education and teaching, but also refers the theoretical conduction that is not realized by teachers and that is hidden behind teachers'action. This paper analyzes the personal theory from the perspective of teachers'role, students'status and teachers'attitude. After analyzing the formation of teachers'personal theory, I find that it is formed in a natural way and that it is especially individual, connotative, practical, holistic, dynamic and relatively stable. But English teachers'personal theory still has other features: complexity, creativity and exploratory. It is English teachers'internalization and integration to communal English theory. It is also English teachers'cognition to their own teaching practice, which is formed in their continuous exploration for teaching and education. English teachers pay more attention to teaching techniques and teaching skills, but they seldom consider the meaning of teaching and their own professional promotion. Therefore, the teaching researches should be done with regard to teachers'living condition and professional growth, on the basis of which the improvement and consummation of teachers'personal theory could be discussed.