A Case Study On English Teachers’ Cognitive Development And Influencing Factors In Small Class Teaching

Teacher cognition is one of the central themes of researchers on foreign language teacher education. Teacher cognition refers to what teachers know, believe and think with regards to various issues related to teaching, such as curriculum, teaching, evaluation and teacher-student relationship. Its main research areas include teacher knowledge, teacher beliefs and teacher decision making. And the development of teacher cognition refers to the process of obtaining knowledge, accumulating experience. As teacher cognition is the driving force of teacher behavior, studying teacher cognition has important theoretical and practical implications for classroom teaching, curriculum reform and teacher development. The study focuses on the cognition of middle school English language teachers in small class teaching. It aims to explore the development of teacher cognition and its influencing factors in the context of small class teaching.This study adopts case research methods and selects three English teachers in small class teaching. Qualitative data are obtained through semi-structured interviews and are analyzed through topics. The study intends to find the development of teacher cognition before and after small class teaching. The study finds that, teachers have both traditional and modern beliefs in small class teaching and also lack of necessary cognition of small class teaching. And it shows that teachers’ cognitive development goes through three stages. Many factors affect the development of teacher cognition. In this paper, the influencing factors include internal and external aspects.Therefore, the Enlightenment of this study is to further deepen the small class teaching reform, establish and improve teachers’ training mechanism; at the same time, the school should create a harmonious external environment to help teachers develop during the reform. The most important is that teachers should pay attention to their own development and strive to be qualified teachers of the reform. This study is helpful to promote the understanding of teachers’ development in small class teaching.