A Study On Professional Competence And Needs For Professional Development Of EFL Teachers In Guangxi Junior High Schools

Since the21stcentury, EFL teacher professional development has become one of thecentral issues of global education development. There are many factors influencing EFLteacher professional development, such as EFL teachers’ professional quality, professionalcompetence, needs for professional development, teaching skills, and teaching principles.Although quantities of empirical studies on EFL teachers’ professional competence andtheir needs for professional development have been carried out at home and abroad, fewstudies on the relationship between EFL teachers’ professional competence and their needsfor professional development. Therefore, the thesis reports the characteristics ofprofessional competence and needs for professional development concerning the juniorhigh school EFL teachers in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, aiming to probe intothe relationships between teacher professional competence and needs for professionaldevelopment. Therefore, the following six research questions are addressed:(1) What are the characteristics of EFL teachers’ professional competence in juniorhigh schools?(2) What are the needs for professional development of EFL teachers in junior highschools?(3) Are there any significant differences between EFL teacher professionalcompetence and school type and between needs for professional development and schooltype?(4) What is the relationship between professional competence of EFL teachers injunior high schools and their needs for professional development?1094junior high school EFL teachers in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region areinvolved in the survey. The questionnaires are Scale of Professional Competence of JuniorHigh School EFL Teachers and Scale of Needs for Professional Development of JuniorHigh School EFL Teachers. Through the Statistic Package for the Social Science16.0Version (SPSS16.0), the results of statistical analysis are presented as follows: (1) The EFL teachers in junior high schools in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regionare of strong professional competence. Among the three dimensions in teacher professionalcompetence，the middle school EFL teachers have a high level of knowledge and attitudeand general teaching competence while they have a medium level of English languageteaching competence. Besides, there is no significant difference between teacherprofessional competence and school type.(2) The EFL teachers in junior high schools in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Regionhave strong needs for professional development. Among the three dimensions in needs forprofessional development, the middle school EFL teachers have high training motivationand strong needs for training content while they have a medium level of needs for trainingmodel. There is no significant difference between needs for professional development andschool type.(3) The professional competence of key middle school EFL teachers have a predictiveimpact on their training motivation and needs for training content while it has no predictiveeffect on needs for training model.(4) The professional competence of ordinary middle school EFL teachers has apredictive effect on their needs for professional development. The higher the professionalcompetence is, the stronger the needs for professional development are and vice versa.Based on the findings above, some suggestions are put forward to teacher trainingprograms. Due to the inevitable restrictions in research, there are some limitations in thestudy. Therefore, the recommendations are proposed for future research.