University English Teachers’ Perceptions And Actions About Teacher’s Role

The concept of teacher as role originates form America, social psychologist George Mead firstintroduced it into social psychology and created the role theory. The so-called teacher’s role refers tothe behavior model which displayed by teacher in education system. This model is decided by teacher’sspecial social status and conforms to the social expectation of teacher. It is of positive significance forteacher to analyze the role of teacher and clear teacher’s own identity. In the past, teacher was dubbed alot of reputations from different angle, such as candle, gardener, human engineers of the soul. However,with the development of time and society and people’s promotion of educational idea, these reputationsgradually fade. Rethink the role of teacher is the top priority if we intend to transform teacher’steaching concept.With social development and introduction of new English teaching methods, the role of teacherhas gone through tremendous transformation, from the traditional role as authority in class to new rolesas reflective practitioner and transformative intellectual. This study was conducted in the form ofquestionnaires and investigated university English teachers’ perceptions and their self-evaluation on theteachers’ role. The content of the questionnaires was designed from six aspects, which are the relationsbetween students and teachers, basic English teaching concept, class interaction, teaching design, thecultivation of student’s thinking style and life-related activities. This thesis analyzes the correlationbetween teachers’perception and action.Results showed that, although many of the teachers know about the properties thatteachers must have, they also know that they are unable to practice these behaviors in class.In addition to this, teachers’ opinions about this subject do not differ according to gender,seniority and education background. This article hopes to sort out university Englishteachers’ cognitions on teacher’s role through the investigation of university Englishteachers’ perceptions and actions about teacher’s role.