The Study Of Teacher Change In An In-service Primary English Teacher Training Program

As an important way to improve education, teacher change in professional development has been attached great importance in the educational research community. Lots of researches have been done on the essence and process of teacher change and force affecting teacher change. However, researchers haven't done a very good job of documenting teacher change in professional development, nor of describing precisely which aspects of professional development most contribute to teacher change.The present study made an attempt to examine teacher change in Tin Ka Ping Foundation English Teacher Training Program. This study aims to investigate what changes this program brought to the teachers in the rural areas of Chongqing, which factors most contributed to the teachers'change from the viewpoint of training model of this program.The subjects were 34 primary teachers from the rural areas of Chongqing. They attended five-stage Tin Ka Ping Training Program for a year. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were used to collect data each stage. Data were analyzed by Glaser and Strauss (1967)'s grounded theory method and Strauss and Corbin (1998)'s constant comparative method. The results indicate that 1) the combination of school-based training and intensive training supported the teachers'change more than any single training format. This practice promoted change transferring from one domain of teachers'change environment to another. This finding supports the Interconnected Model of Teacher Professional Growth (Teacher Professional Growth Consortium, 1994). 2) Observing model classes and sharing experiences in the school-based training facilitated the teachers'change. Observing models promoted the teachers'transition from theory to practice and helped them realize their students'potentials. Sharing experiences gave the teachers'chances to work with and learn from other teachers and promoted the resolution of the teachers'inner cognitive conflicts. 3) The teachers benefited much from"Demonstration-Reflection-Practice"mode in intensive training, which accords with Kolb (1984)'s four stages in experiential learning. This mode of training gave the teachers concrete experiences and gave them lots of chances to reflect and practice. 4)The teachers'teaching interest and confidence improved greatly, which can be proved by the change in the teachers'attitude toward the program, the change in their digestion degree of training content, the change in students'reaction in the classroom, and the change in the teachers'self-development; the teachers'teaching concepts changed greatly, which can be shown in the following aspects: relationship between teacher and learner, collective lesson preparation, student-centered teaching and reflection; the teachers'professional quality improved on the aspects of professional dedication, English proficiency and professional skills. 5) Even though the teachers acquired a deeper understanding of some teaching concepts, or changed some of their previous teaching concepts, they had great difficulty in putting into practice the teaching concepts they learnt. The major obstacle was at the time when they went back to their classroom, they were left on their own to struggle with various problems which arose out of their everyday teaching activity.