Reflective Thinking To In-service Middle School English Teacher's Professional Development: The Integration Of Theory And Practice

Like people in many other professions, the middle school Englishteachers in China are faced with a challenging and demanding 21st century, in whichEnglish teaching Profession plays an increasingly important role in the rapid progress ofglobalization. English, as an international language, will be widely used in varioustrades. Therefore, middle school English teachers will have a lot to do in this campaign.They ought to seek professional development before they could possibly play a betterrole as required by their profession.Based on the above awareness, this thesis focuses on the middle school EFLteachers' self-development through reflective teaching (RT) and tries to find out theimportance and effect of reflection to their professional development. The authorintends to prove that reflective thinking is one of the effective ways to help in-serviceEFL teachers become the ones who could not only teach but also carry out the research.The following original questions were raised before studying:1. What are teaching and research ability of these in-service EFL teachers and whatcaused this situation?2. How do the participants understand teaching theory, teaching practice and theirrelationship, and what kind of attitudes do they have?3. After reflecting their own teaching experience thoroughly and logically, whatkind of career plan for their future professional development could they make?30 participants who are in-service middle school EFL teachers with certainteaching backgrounds and now studying for the Master of education degree in educationin Shaanxi Normal University were invited to participate in the research. They wereguided to do the group discussion as a way to practice peer observation for cooperative reflection and to study the theory of reflective teaching and answer questionnaires forindividual reflection. All their answers and performances offered the author data toprove the intended ideas. Besides, the author used the method of interview to collectdetailed information for some individuals.By doing the research and analyzing the data collected, the author found that:1. The participants showed very rich and excellent experience in their teachingpractice, but a lack of motivation, ability and interest in doing research on teaching;2. During the cooperative reflection, the participants showed more in interest inlearning teaching skills than teaching theories, but they do have improvement inunderstanding the importance and the ways of practical reflective teaching;3. The participants generally could develop practical career plans for their ownprofessional progress and advancement both in teaching and research at the same time.The above findings indicated that the ability of reflective teaching means a greatdeal to the middle school EFL teachers' professional progress and achievement.Through reflective teaching and action research, successful EFL teachers will continueto develop throughout their professional lives.According to the results found in the research, the author also made somesuggestions bout reflective teaching model. First, education distraction authorities andschools should not only announce RT again and again but also help the teachers to findthe ways and methods to practice it. Second, for the in-service teachers, the keyimportance of reflective teaching for their professional development is not only thequantity of how many opportunities it provides to consider their events and classroompractice but also the quality of how it provides the momentum for increasing theirprofessional competence. They may find peers in the working environment to worktogether to have time-saving and practical solutions to their teaching and research. Atlast, there are some suggestions for the researchers. It's necessary and important that theresearchers keep in touch with the in-service EFL teachers for their reflective teachingpractice and research in order to benefit in a mutual way.