A Research On Junior Middle School English Teachers’ Professional Identity In Guangxi Rural Areas

Enhancing teachers’ professional identity is one of the main methods to improve teaching efficiency. If teachers have higher teachers’professional identity, they will have a higher level of job satisfaction. It will help reduce the loss of teachers. Besides, teachers’professional quality can also be improved, the teaching effect will be better and it is easier for teachers to face with the changes of educational reform. Students can get better education at the same time. In recent decades, many researchers have investigated teachers’professional identity from different perspectives and achieved a lot of achievements. However, researchers have not investigated on teachers’professional identity in rural areas deeply yet. In this background, the author has investigated and analyzed English teachers’professional identity in Guangxi rural areas, hoping to know better about English teachers’professional identity in rural areas and to offer some scientific suggestions for improving teachers’professional identity.In this study, the primary means of data collecting is questionnaire and interviews. The participants are 35 English teachers from 5 different Junior Middle Schools in Guangxi rural areas. The Questionnaire is based on the Questionnaire of Teachers’ Professional Identity and combined with related theories and supervisor’s opinion, and the author makes some necessary adjustment by taking some senior scholars’suggestions into consideration. This questionnaire measures six aspect, including material insurance, environment support, value of role, tendency of professional behavior, occupational values and professional sense of belonging. The author interviewed five teachers randomly, which can be the supplement of questionnaire data. We can know better about the influencing factors of teachers’professional identity from the interview, the sample of which is drawn from teachers from the fives schools at random.The present study addresses the following three questions:(1) What is the general situation of English teachers’professional identity in rural areas?(2) What is the situation of English teachers’ professional identity in different social variables in rural areas?(3) What factors can influence English teachers’ professional identity of junior middle schools in rural areas?The study results show that:(1) English teachers in rural areas have higher teachers’ professional identity. (2) In different social variables, English teachers in rural areas have different level of teachers’professional identity. (3) According to the results of interview, teachers think that wages, welfare and teaching environment are main factors that influence teachers’ professional identity.Based on the above findings, the author puts forward some scientific suggestions for teachers, administrative departments and society to enhance teachers’ professional identity. For English teachers, the author puts forward three suggestions which are:(1) enhancing the willingness of teaching; (2) strengthening teachers’ vocational development motivation; (3) improving teachers’ reflective consciousness and ability. For administrative department, the author puts forward five suggestions which are:(1) reducing teachers’ workload; (2) improving the filtration of teachers’ recruitment; (3) creating a favorable working environment; (4) enhancing teachers’ professional identity based on different groups; (5) arming teachers with advanced teaching philosophy and teaching methodology. For society, they are supposed to do the following things. Firstly, recognition from the society can be obtained by teachers; Secondly, the government can make a promise to teachers.