Action Research And Teacher Professional Development

Teaching without research or research with no support of teaching is commonly seen. Most of the teachers, especially those in rural middle schools, are engaged in teaching, neglecting research and considering it as the responsibilities of professional researchers or educational theoreticians. They have a strong desire that professional researchers or educational theoreticians provide perfect teaching theories or methods for them. Meanwhile teachers discover that it is extremely difficult to apply the findings of researchers' educational research to classroom teaching practice to improve their teaching practice. Teachers quietly regard educational research as something irrelevant to their teaching lives and see little interaction between the world of the educational researchers and the world of their own. They live in different intellectual worlds and so their meanings rarely connect.So the phrase "action research" in this thesis has the great power in that it combines "action" with "research", namely, relates teaching (practice) to research (theory). Action research is concerned with teaching while doing research and trying to bring about changes in classroom practices. Action research is especially important to the teachers in less-developed rural areas of China, who, to great degree, depend on it to promote their own professional development.Action research on classroom teaching practice is an important way for teacher professional development. This thesis provides detailed study on action research and covers the origin, the process, models, the characteristics and specific application of action research in English classroom teaching. The thesis also studies the relationship between action research and teacher professional development and expresses that action research is an effective approach to promote teacher professional development. Finally, through investigation of current situation of teacher research, the thesis shows the great significance of action research in English teaching. Action research is simple, flexible and suitable for common teachers. Therefore it is most necessary and worthwhile to advocate and accelerate action research in rural middle schools. In the end, the author makes some suggestions that teachers should put their hearts in when they are doing action research.