A Study On The Professional Development Of English Teachers In Rural Middle Schools

In the21stcentury, China’s rural education has received unprecedented attention.Teachers play an important role in the development of rural education. The level of theteachers’ professional development restricts the level of rural education and decideswhether the educational reform can be achieved or not.2010-2020Long-term Plans forEducational Reform and Development states that in order to improve the quality ofrural compulsory education, we should pay more attention to rural teachers. WhileMiddle School Teachers’ Professional Standards (for Trial) is being implemented inthe rural areas, it requires teachers to promote their professional development level.English as one of the most important courses of the curriculum reform and its successalso depends on teachers.At the end of2013, the author participated in the research project which was heldby Lu Dong University and the Board of Education in Yantai, and aimed atinvestigating the professional development of teachers in senior high schools, juniorhigh schools, and primary schools. This project was held by the author’s supervisor andthe author also participated in it. The project investigated more than40,000teachers inprimary and secondary schools in the use of questionnaires through the networkplatform. The questionnaire is designed on the basis of Middle School Teachers’Professional Standards (for Trial) and Likert scale, which involves five dimensions:the basic situation, professional ideas and ethics, professional knowledge, professionalskills and training needs. And, in this study, the research sample was selected from thedata base and took1691English teachers in rural middle schools as research subjects.At the same time, the author interviewed6English teachers in rural middle schools ofthe samples.Based on the analysis, the following conclusions were drawn: the structure ofteacher’s gender, age and major is not reasonable，especially the imbalanced portionsbetween male and female; the whole level of professional ability is satisfying, for example, teachers’ class management ability, but some teachers are bad at integratinginformation technology and teaching evaluation and reflection abilities need to beenhanced. At the same time, from the aspect of training, the author found although thetraining organized by government have met teachers’ professional development needsin rural middle schools, the training content, training form, training length and trainingtime need to be further improved. This study put forward suggestions from threeaspects: teachers, school and administrative departments of education, such as: teachersshould establish consciousness of self-development and do teaching reflection andaction research. School need to reform the evaluation mechanism and establish ascientific and rational management system. Administrative departments of educationshould supply variety of training forms to meet teachers’ professional developmentneeds. The author hopes these suggestions will let the scholars and the policy makerspay more attention to rural middle teachers and satisfy their needs.