A Study On The Status Quo Of School-based Teaching And Research Activities In College English Teacher Community

Along with the deepening of college English education reform, the demands on College English teachers’ professionalism are becoming higher and higher. However, the traditional "top-down" teacher training model has failed to satisfy the needs of college English teachers’ professional development. In recent years, a "bottom-up" school-based teacher professional development model has drawn worldwide attention from scholars in the field of education. Under the guidance of Constructivism, this model values the effect of teachers’ cognition, practice, as well as the interactions and collaborations among teachers in the process of teacher professional development. It holds that teacher education should be aiming at providing circumstances for teachers’ constructive learning. Under this trend, several scholars have proposed teacher development models for teachers to conduct school-based teaching and research in professional learning communities, which advocate combining teachers’ self-development with teachers’community development on the basis of school premise, and eventually promoting teacher professional development at school.In China, studies on college English teachers’school-based teaching and research activity are now in its infancy, and few empirical studies have been done on this issue. Besides, very few researchers in this field have considered of combing teachers’ self-development and community development in the process of school-based teacher development. Therefore, under the guidance of Social Constructivism theory and Group Dynamics theory, this study has taken96college English teachers from four universities and colleges in Hunan province as its research subjects and has investigated the status quo of college English teachers’ school-based teaching and research activities, college English teachers’ development in teaching and research activities, and factors affecting college English teachers’ teaching and research activities.Results of this study show that school-based teaching and research mechanism has been preliminarily established in college English teacher communities, and most college English teachers are positive about their teaching and research activities. Secondly, college English teachers have the awareness to develop themselves in teaching and research activities, and teachers have more awareness of self-development than that of community development. In addition, teachers in different developmental phases perform differently in teaching and research activities. To be specific, novice teachers, who are in their surviving phases, have the lowest degree of recognition on their teaching and research activities. While experienced teachers, who are in their consolidating and improving phases, have the highest degree of recognition on their teaching and research activities. Meanwhile, this study also discovers a few problems existing in current teaching and research activities, including lack of teacher initiative, lack of cooperation, overemphasizing teaching and underemphasizing research, and lack of supportive conditions.This study has provided authentic and reliable statistical references for college English teachers’ teaching and research activities, and also provided an opportunity for college English teachers to reflect on their development in teaching and research activities, which helps promote teacher professional development. Additionally, the results of this study have provided some significant implications for school administrators and teacher education researchers.