An Investigation On Rural Senior English Teachers’ In-service Training For Teachers’ Professional Development

Teacher quality is the core of high quality education. According to the Chinese government’s National Outline for Medium-and Long-Term Educational Reform and Development (2010-20), more efforts have to be made to develop teachers of noble ethic, new teaching idea, strong reforming consciousness, high teaching level and great practical ability. Teachers of high quality and specialization are the key points and guarantee of the students’ health development, the schools’ improvement and of the high quality of the education. However, the education in rural regions especially English teaching still lags behind the developed areas, which cannot meet the people’s needs and causes the unfairness in education. To improve teachers’ quality, the teachers’ in-service training plays an important role. However enough attention has not been paid to English teachers’ in-service training in rural regions. At present, there are a lot of theoretical and general studies on teachers’ professional development and in-service training, but the investigations into senior high school English teachers’ in-service training for their professional development in rural regions are very rare.This investigation takes the author’s working school, Shan Nan Senior High in Shangluo city of Shaanxi Province, as a sample. Based on the theory of teachers’ professional development combined with the life-long education and adult education theory, taking the English teachers in Shan Nan Senior High as the object, by employing the instruments of literature research, questionnaire and interview, this investigation is carried out to investigate the status quo of senior high school English teachers’ in-service training for professional development, focusing on the problems existing in senior high school English teachers’ in-service training and their professional development. By analysis and discussion, this investigation attempts to find the problems of rural English teachers’ in-service training, and then to provide the suggestions for the administrative departments of education, training institutions and local schools, hoping to make a reference to the similar regions.