A Narrative Inquiry Into English Teachers’Professional Development From The Perspective Of Peer Coaching

As an original ecological approach to teacher professional development with schools as bases and teachers as subjects, peer coaching is receiving increasing attention from education experts and school organizations at all levels. However, it still exists just as a kind of experience in the school practice at present and is badly in need of intensive studies. Based on this hot issue, the study is conducted, aiming to explore what peer coaching activities vocational school English teachers are experiencing in their professional life, what impacts these coaching activities have on their professional development and the major influencing factors of their growth in peer coaching.The study was conducted in N vocational school in Zhejiang province, by narrative inquiry and case study, with an English teacher named Lily(an assumed name) as the research object. By means of classroom observation, interviewing the participant, her colleagues and the headmaster; reading her teaching reflection and journals; reading the documents of instruction and research activity plans and activities records, the author made a thorough inquiry into Lily’s professional life, which are reproduced in the form of stories from five different spatial dimensions: office communications, group lesson preparation, having lessons with heterogeneous, making research project and inter-school instruction and research activities. Based on the stories, the psychological and behavioral changes of Lily during the peer coaching activities are analyzed, from which a research conclusion is made that peer coaching is an efficient approach to Lily’s growth in three perspectives of professional knowledge, professional competence and professional emotions. Meanwhile, the following major influencing factors which contribute to Lily’s growth in peer coaching are clarified:teacher’s personality, the collaborative atmosphere and support from the school organizations. Based on the study of the case, the thesis returns to theories, pointing out the existing obstacles to peer coaching and putting forward some corresponding suggestions at the end of the thesis, with a view to shedding some lights on other teachers’ professional development in our country.This thesis consists of six chapters. In Chapter One there is a brief introduction of the origin, aims and significance of the study. In Chapter Two literature reviews of relevant researches on peer coaching, teacher professional development and English teachers’ professional development are presented. In Chapter Three the research methodology is elaborated, which includes four key points:the research questions, research methods, the research participant, data collection and data analysis. Chapter Four presents the results of narrative inquiry which mainly involve some typical peer coaching activities the participant attends in her professional life from five spatial dimensions. Then in Chapter Five the narrative accounts presented in the previous section are analyzed and discussed. Two parts are included in this chapter. The first part is the analysis of the professional growth of the participant from the following three perspectives:knowledge, competence and emotions. The second part analyzes the major influencing factors of the participant’s growth in peer coaching. In the last Chapter the thesis ends with a conclusion of the research findings, the existing obstacles to peer coaching, some corresponding suggestions, and the limitations of the study.