An Investigation Into The Adaptability Of Senior High School English Teachers' Roles Under New Curriculum Criterion

With the rapid development of science and technology in the modern society, the economic globalization is unavoidable and the cultural communication is getting more and more frequent. English, as an important tool, is playing a more and more significant role. High quality English talents are urgently needed. As an important part of fostering high quality English talents, senior high school English teachers are responsible to foster English talents from low level to high level.The English Syllabus (revised) for basic education will be replaced by the English Curriculum Standard for basic education in the new round basic education curriculum reform. In new curriculum criterion, the start point is to promote students'development, the main theme is to foster students'language ability, and it advocates task-based teaching. These concepts are the challenge to the thoughts and the practice of the teachers. Many-sided roles should be taken on by the teachers, who are promoters of students'all round development, organizers, guides and participants of learning activities, course developers, masters of new educational technology and researchers to education and teaching. But in teaching reality, there is some distance between teachers'roles and the expectation of society. When they act as the new roles, there is always clash in their mind. A questionnaire was made to senior English teachers in Hui Middle School and other schools which INU 2005 English Education Masters are in, some English teachers in Hui Middle School were interviewed and class observation was done in Hui Middle School to investigate the adaptability of English teachers'new roles for high school English teachers under new curriculum criterion. The result of the questionnaire shows that 69% teachers investigated can adapt the roles required by new curriculum reform and 31% can't adapt the roles required by new curriculum reform. The result of the interview shows most teachers want to adapt the new roles. The interview and class observation shows teachers act well as a facilitator, an organizer, a guide, a participant, and a cooperator, but they don't act well as a researcher and a reflector. The analysis shows in present situation, because of the evaluation system of entrance exam rate, lack of EFL theory knowledge for English teachers, over population in class, and lack of enough cooperation between teachers, English teachers are limited to be their correct roles at present. The investigation shows that in order to help senior English teachers reset their roles, enough humane concern should be given to teachers, a perfect scientific evaluation system which is benefit of English teachers'development should be established, we should profound new curriculum reform, provide more go-on learning chances for teachers, improve the EFL resources in school and make much more use of the resources, and enhance cooperation among English teachers.