The Contrastive Study Of Middle School English Teachers' Professional Development In Urban And Rural Areas

The prosperity of a nation depends on the education and the quality of the education depends on the teachers. The quality of the teachers can influence the success of the education. In recent 20 years, teachers'professional development has already caught more and more people's attention.A great number of researchers have contributed to the study on it. The researches on teachers'professional development are from various perspectives. Some aim to introduce its theoretical basis. Some try to define its relevant terms. Some discuss its characteristics. The others explore the ways of teachers'professional development. However, the comparison of rural and urban middle school English teachers'professional development is a rarely touched area.This study tries to explore the differences of the teachers'professional development between the teachers in urban and rural areas and attempts to give some advice on teachers'development and future teacher training.This study mainly uses survey and interview to collect the data. The questionnaires are distributed to 242 English teachers from 32 middle schools, including 104 urban English teachers and 138 rural English teachers from Handan, Hebei province. The questionnaire is intended to get the teachers'information on the following aspects: knowledge of English language, teaching skills or methods, knowledge of relevant theories, ability of doing research, teachers'self-analysis of their development. The schools'measures of promoting teachers'development are also investigated. 12 teachers were interviewed including 6 urban English teachers and 6 rural English teachers. The purpose of the interview is to find out more information on teachers'professional development.The major research findings in this research can be summarized as follows: (1) As to the knowledge of English language, both urban and rural teachers feel that their grammar needs not to be improved. Most urban teachers feel that their vocabulary needs to be improved but most rural teachers feel that their knowledge of language function needs to be improved. (2) As to the teaching skills, the majority of teachers are not very satisfied with their teaching skills. More rural teachers want to enhance their teaching skills than the urban teachers. (3) As to the knowledge of relevant theories, more rural teachers than urban teachers have not received systematic training of theoretical knowledge. (4) Urban and rural teachers are similar in doing the scientific research. Only half of them have done it. (5) As to teachers'self-analysis of their professional development, both urban and rural teachers feel that they have the potential for further development. Both groups of teachers state that too much pressure is the main difficulty in their self-development. (6) As to measures taken by schools in promoting teachers'professional development, urban schools provide better hardware and software for teachers'development than rural schools.Based on the research findings, several suggestions are given to promote urban and rural middle school English teachers'professional development as follows: (1) The teachers, especially rural teachers, should strengthen the further study of the language and relevant theories, improve their teaching skills and research ability. (2) Schools should take some measures to promote teachers'professional development. (3) The government should try to reduce the disparity between urban and rural education.