A Narrative Inquiry Into Professional Development Of Young College English Teachers

Due to constant expansion in China's Higher Education which inevitably leads to a serious shortage of English teachers, a large number of undergraduates with non-teacher-training background have taken the job of college English teaching. The professional growth of this group now becomes the top priority of the current development of college English teachers. The professional quality of teachers is not born with but acquired and improved during their development. Outstanding teachers, as prominent representatives of teachers group, must have something worthy to be learned from.This study uses narrative inquiry in education, one of the qualitative research methods, to probe into the professional development of four college English teachers. Through semi-open interviews and classroom observation of research participants, this study aims to expose the stages that the outstanding teachers experience in their professional development and the factors that promote or hinder their development.The research reveals that these teachers have experienced three stages in their development:concern of themselves, concern of teaching content and concern of students. They have good qualities like devotion to teaching and their students, constant pursuit of integration between their subject matter knowledge and pedagogical ability, broad concept of foreign language teaching and critical reflection on teaching practice. These qualities construct the intrinsic motivation of their professional development. Some external factors such as change of teaching environment, collaboration between colleagues, observation of demonstration class and opportunities of studying abroad promote their development. But their arduous teaching load, the lack of research team as well as irrational evaluation and promotion system constitute obstacles which constrain these teachers from sustainable development.The findings of this research will shed some enlightenment to the professional development of college English teachers as well as the management departments of college English teaching.