A Contrastive Study Of Professional Development Of Senior High School English Teachers Between Urban And Rural Areas

Teachers’ professional development has been one of the hottest topics ineducation research at home and abroad in recent years. It is also an important projectof theoretical value and practical significance in current educational reforms.Improving the English Foreign Language teacher’s quality is very necessary andimportant to the education. It is the crucial factor to improve the level of foreignlanguage teaching; therefore people pay more and more attentions to teachers’professional development.English curriculum reform offers good opportunities for the development ofEnglish foreign language teachers (EFLT) and also brings the challenges to them. Forthe rural English teachers living and working in the closed and backward condition,there is a certain disparity of English teachers’ quality between urban and rural seniorhigh school. Although a lot of researchers have done many researches on teachers’professional development (TPD) from various perspectives, the comparison of ruraland urban English teachers’ professional development in senior high school, which isa rarely studied area.This research mainly uses questionnaires and interview to collect the data.140English teachers from6senior high schools (3urban senior high schools,3ruralsenior high schools) are chosen as the subjects, including90urban English teachersand50rural English teachers. They are from Y city, in Jilin province. This researchtries to find the differences of English teachers’ professional development of seniorhigh school between urban and rural areas and put forward some suggestions on TPDand future teacher training.The questionnaire includes4aspects: teachers’ belief and attitude, teachers’professional knowledge and ability, school circumstance, teachers’ demands forprofessional development. In order to know further the views on the teachers’professional development from the English teachers from urban and rural senior highschool,12English teachers were interviewed including6urban English teachers and6rural English teachers. And the interview is used to further explore the underlyingcauses leading to the differences of senior high school English teachers between urbanand rural areas.Through the questionnaires and interview, some important issues emerge fromthe research as follows:(1) From the point of view of teachers’ belief and attitude, both urban and rural English teachers are full of confidence and passion to the career,loving education career. But the minorities of the rural English teachers are notsatisfied with the working environment.(2) From the point of view of teachers’professional knowledge and ability, both urban and rural English teachers think theyhave a good grasp of the English grammar and reading ability. While most of ruralEnglish teachers think their intonation, pronunciation and even oral communicationcompetence need to be improved. As to the ability of doing scientific research, mosturban and rural English teachers are under the same circumstances. But only theminorities of teachers have worked on doing the scientific research.(3) From thepoint of view of the school environment, urban senior high schools provide betterhardware and software for teachers’ development than rural senior high schools.(4)From the point of view of the teachers’ demands for professional development, mosturban English teachers have a stronger sense of professional self-development thanthe rural English teachers. The urban English teachers are eager to improve thetheoretical quality and the ability of doing scientific research. Most rural Englishteachers hope to accept more and more new educational theories.According to the problems found in the above study, suggestions on promotingthe English teachers’ professional development in senior high school are put forwardfrom3aspects of English teachers, schools and the educational authorities:(1) As tothe English teachers, especially the rural English teachers, they need to improve therealization of professional development and have the concept of lifelong learning andfaith.(2) The schools should encourage and support teachers to improve theirself-development, take measures to lead and promote the professional development ofteachers and provide some opportunities for the teachers to attend training.(3) Localgovernment and educational authorities should take a flexible strategy according tothe status of the senior high school English teachers’ professional development,especially for rural English teachers, providing a wide range of training opportunitiesto promote the professional development of senior high school English teachers.