A Study On The Professional Development Of English Teacher In Senior High School: In Relation To The Curriculum Reform

Historical experience shows that the development of the economydepends on education, and the ascension of education quality is ultimatelyachieved through teachers. Nowadays with the worldwide needs of EnglishLanguage Teaching (ELT) and especially the urgent demands of the newround China National English Curriculum Reform showing up, Chinese EFLteachers are facing the great challenges for their professional development. Itis known that high school English teachers are supposed to be the facilitatorsof learning, the explorers and the implementers of the national Englishcurriculum. As English teachers and their professional development do havegreat impact on their students, teaching and most importantly the curriculumreform, it is necessary to have a study on the current situation of EFLteachers’ professional development (TPD). Besides, teachers’ professionaldevelopment has gradually become the central agenda of education reform forthe countries all over the world. In the trend of worldwide teachers’professional development, teachers’ professional development has become ahot spot in the study of education reform in China since the1990s. As aninternational language, English plays a significant role in the process of our country open to the outside. However, there is an abnormal phenomenon inthe present English teaching that is "more time consuming, lower efficiency".So improving the level of English teaching becomes the urgent task.Enhancing English teachers’ professional quality is the key to theimprovement of English teaching. Therefore, how to promote the teachers’professional development has become an urgent problem to be discussed.The purpose of this study is to explore the current situation of highschool EFL teachers’ professional development in the city of Bayannaoerthrough surveying and interviewing the teachers from five high schools ofBayannaoer Inner Mongolia in order to provide readers clues and implicationsto think about how to carry out the reform effectively from the perspective ofteachers. Therefore, it is important to complete this study and contributemeaningful suggestions to in-service teachers and their TPD under the reformof new curriculum.The research questions for this study are as follows:Main research questions:1) How the English teachers in Bayannaoerconduct their classroom practice?2) How the English teachers in Bayannaoerunderstand the NEC and what difficulties they met?3) What is the presentsituation of English teachers’ professional development and how to improvetheir PD?Based on the investigation and research conducted by Che Qi(2007) and Liu Xin(2011), this study discusses the situation and demands of teacherprofessional development of EFL teachers from five high schools inBayannaoer, Inner Mongolia, from the following aspects: the basic teachingconditions of EFL teachers, teachers’ views on the new requirements of theNEC and their career, teachers understanding of NEC and the ways ofpromoting their professional development. By adapting a surveyquestionnaire and related interviews and employing qualitative-based andmixed-method of data interpretation, the author drew a conclusion.The results of the current study indicate that1) the English newcurriculum idea has been accepted by most of the high school English teacher.2) Most of the teachers have a positive and optimistic attitude towards thenew curriculum reform.3) Only a small number of English teachers in highschool pay attention to research of teaching.4) The majority of Englishteachers in high school think that the support, guidance and the way ofevaluation for teachers play a very important role in TPD.5) Good teamcooperation is very important for high school TPD.6) Changing ideas,enhancing the consciousness of self development is the key to TPD.This thesis consists of five chapters.Chapter One Introduction introduces research background, significanceof the study and the structure of the whole thesis.Chapter Two Literature Review reviews on the definitions, main approaches and relevant studies and theories at home and abroad.Chapter Three Methodology illustrates research questions and purposes,subjects, instruments and the procedures of data collection and analyses.Chapter Four Results and Discussion interprets the data from teachersaspects.Chapter Five Conclusion provides the major findings and implicationsand points out limitations of this study and suggestions for further research.