Problems In Professional Development Of In-service English Teachers In Rural High Schools And Their Countermeasures

With the further development of basic education reform and teacher education, people have come to understand that the improvement of professional development status quo of the in-service teachers in rural high schools is the key to ELT elevation. It's the very reason why, the Outline of the 11^th Five-year Plan points out, "The goal to put into practice the training project for fifty percent of the rural teachers in the middle and western districts will get a turn of professional training" is listed in "the key projects of constructing the new socialist countryside." Our country will enlarge its investment in education, predicting that by 2010 the state financial investment in education will be increased up to five percent of GDP, which will provide not only a favorable environment for the professional development of rural in-service English teachers but also a rare chance for research on their professional development. It also endues educators and researchers of teacher education with both momentous task and challenge.At present, our model for training in-service English teachers in rural high schools, which is a top-down and pushed continuing education style, results in time consuming and low effect with a large number of problems to be solved urgently. Under the circumstances, the author pays close attention to a teacher's professional growth as the whole person from the humanistic point of view. And based on the theories of the Adult Learning, Constructivism, and Human Capital, the author attempts to explore the problems in professional development of in-service English teachers in rural high schools and their countermeasures.By way of questionnaires, classrooms observations and interviews, the author has made the survey in which the subjects included 126 in-service English teachers of 19 rural high schools, which were randomly selected from 38 rural high schools in a country-level municipality, 10 observed teacher trainees, five teacher trainers and a few administrators, who were all interviewed respectively. Based on the findings, the thesis puts forward for rural in-service teachers' professional development an ideal model, which is the combination of teachers' self-directed professional development and the social co-construction of Professional Development Schools (PDS).This thesis begins with a general review of the history of teacher education and teacher professional development and then comments on the relevant researches on teacher professional development in China, and aims at helping the readers to get a clear view of their implications, which provides a practical basis for the research on the professional development of the rural in-service English teachers. Secondly, it covers explorations of the relevant theories of the Human Capital, the Life-long Learning, the Adult Learning, and the Constructivism, providing the direction and the theoretical basis for the study. The third part of the thesis is a survey and its analysis of the professional development status quo of a group of rural in-service English teachers followed by a discussion about the relevant factors influencing teachers' professional development. With the comparison of the status quo between the rural and urban English teachers, the thesis points out the severe problems existing in rural in-service English teachers and in their in-service education system. Then comes the last chapter, which is the focus of the thesis. It explores the necessity and feasibility of pursuing self-directed professional development; according to the relevant learning theories, it puts forward some effective measures for the realization of teacher self-directed professional development, such as self-awareness, life-long self-access learning, observations and critical reflection, teaching journal writing, and teacher-research; from the viewpoints of the Humanism and the Human Capital, it recommends that the social co-construction of PDS should be implemented throughout the countryside, and in order to guarantee the sustaining development of the rural English teachers, some reasonable and effective approaches and recommendations are also offered at the end of this chapter to teacher education researchers, administrators and policy makers, rural English teachers and their principals, curriculum developer and teacher trainers.In a word, the thesis maintains that, as for the professional development of the rural in-service English teachers, the decisive factor is the integration of teachers' own self-awareness and their practical competence in the self-directed professional development, and that a harmonious external environment for their life-long professional growth is the social co-constructed PDS. Therefore, not only is this study of great practical value to the vigorous reform and implementation of teacher education for in-service English teachers throughout the countryside, but also of guidance and significance to rural English teacher education and their professional development.However, limited not only by the complications of English teacher education and the speciality of teacher education for rural English teachers but also by the small sample and survey scale, the author looks forward to further studies from more and more teacher education experts and researchers.