An Investigation And Analysis On New English Teachers' Beliefs In Middle Schools In Hohhot

Teachers' beliefs refer to the ideas or opinions on language, language teaching and learning, learners, etc that teachers hold and believe, and they form an interrelated system which can affect their thoughts and behavior. The study of teachers' beliefs has attracted much attention in recent years, and there is more evidence to indicate that teachers' behaviors in class are highly influenced by their beliefs. Many researchers (Pajares,1992; William &Burden, 2000; K. E. Johnson,2006) think that teacher's beliefs have greater influence than knowledge teachers have on teaching behavior, and the latter is the reflection of teachers' beliefs.In the context of new curriculum reform, English teachers are expected to make changes in many ways, such as teachers' beliefs, course content, teaching approach, etc. Xia (2002) states that change of teachers'beliefs is one of the core tasks, and is the key to the success of the reform. According to the studies of domestic researchers (Zhou,2008; Guan,2009;江加宏,2010), it is found that traditional English teachers'beliefs are gradually substituted by the advanced ones, but teachers are not completely adaptive to them, and inconsistency exists between beliefs and classroom practice. There are quite a few studies of English teachers, especially new English teachers, in Inner Mongolia which is one of the latest provinces to launch the new curriculum reform, therefore in order to understand the status quo of new English teachers' beliefs in this area and to what extent the beliefs are carried out in classroom practice, an investigation has been conducted with new English teachers in Hohhot chosen as the research subject.According to New Curriculum Standards, English teachers should realize the objective of learning English is to communicate with others; English teaching is shifting from being teacher-dominated to being "learner-centered", that is to say, teachers provide authentic learning resource and opportunities for students to use the language, furthermore, they are expected to encourage students to take part in the teaching process to improve communicative competence improved.The investigation is conducted from five subsets of teachers' beliefs system, i.e. teachers' beliefs about language, learners, language learning, language teaching and professional development. On the basis of the review of previous study at home and abroad, both qualitative and quantitative methods have been adopted. The participants are 55 English teachers who have taught no more than five years in nine middle schools in Hohhot which have been chosen by means of stratified-random sampling, and interview and classroom observation are conducted among 5 new English teachers who have been selected randomly from the nine schools.Based on the analysis of the collected data and summary of the profile of interview and classroom observation, the following findings are obtained. The majority of the new English teachers in middle schools in Hohhot accept the beliefs based on the new English curriculum:first, English a means to communicate and exchange information with others; second, students are the subject of learning and they should find effective learning strategies that suit themselves; third, it is important to create authentic learning environment for students to learn English; fourth, English teachers are not only language transmitter, but multi-role educators, moreover, teachers agree with communicative teaching approach and try to realize learner-centered teaching mode; fifth, professional development is really important to new English teachers, and they expect to improve their pedagogical skill and research ability. However, most of them find difficulty in carrying out the beliefs, and English teaching still focus on traditional teaching method and teacher-centered teaching mode. The inconsistence between beliefs and practice is mainly due to the influence of social and cultural environment and the practical teaching situation. Social environment and the difference between teachers' beliefs and actual situation of students may be responsible for that.Based on the research, some implications are proposed for teacher training in the future.