Rebuilding The Courage Of Teaching

This decade has witnessed the rapid development of China’s secondary vocational education. In this process however, there have unavoidably arisen quite a few problems, among which the most serious one is the misunderstanding of vocational education, ie, pushing the vocational education to skill training far from the ordinary education. The excessive emphasis of being "vocational" has transferred the school education which should have been depicted with systematic, humane and sustainable-developing into a profit-oriented training institute which makes instant instrumental products. Under the very circumstance, as one of basic courses, English teaching in secondary vocational schools is now going painstakingly. The accumulation of social tendencies, school policies and students’attitudes has gradually deprived the English teacher of his professional confidence, competence and as well as the experience of happiness. They consequently become bewildered towards his identity as a teacher, which accordingly experiences a heavy blow on the professional development.A case study, spanning ten months, was conducted to investigate this issue. Julia, a senior English teacher in a secondary vocational school was chosen as the research partner or subject, who has an experience of more than ten years involving in senior middle school education. The methods adopted in the study were narrative inquiry and case study. Data were collected in various ways including classroom observation, interviews, conversations, biographic inquiry and so on, all of which presented us a detailed landscape of her professional life. By presenting her classroom transcriptions and after-class interviews, we come to the knowledge that Julia experienced a downward spiral of identity, from an artist on the way to be an authentic teacher, a knowledge transmitter, till the present dilemma of being lost in identity. Drawing on the theories of teacher identity (Palmer,1998), personal practical knowledge (Clandinin & Connelly,1988), reflective practice (Schon,1983), and other theories on education and curriculum, the paper aims to explore the following three questions:1) How are the English teachers in secondary vocational schools living their professional life and articulate their perception of English language teaching? 2) How does their professional life perplex their own identity as teachers and then hinder the sustainable development of their profession? 3) What theoretical guidance do they follow in the practice of their professional development in an attempt to rebuild the courage of teaching?We adopted in this paper biographical narrative and critical inquiry to depict and interpret the teacher’s professional life. The purpose is to draw more attention and understanding to the current professional conditions and possible tendencies of secondary vocational schools which involve teachers of, English and other general courses.