A Study Of English Teachers’ Curriculum Awareness

Since the implementation of the new curriculum reform, teachers’ curriculum awareness has attracted widespread attention. It includes teacher’s attitude and cognition to the subjectivity of both teachers themselves and their students, to the curriculum resources, to the curriculum evaluation and to the curriculum implementation. EFL teachers’ curriculum awareness means a lot to teachers, students, schools and the curriculum reform. High level of curriculum awareness drives teachers to deal with subjectivity appropriately, to develop curriculum resources actively, to evaluate students and reflect on themselves flexibly, and to implement curriculum creatively.This case study investigated the curriculum awareness of a junior middle school in Weiyang District, Xi’an, Shannxi Province by using a questionnaire and an interview. The purpose was to investigate the current situation of the teachers’ curriculum awareness in this junior middle school and its influencing factors. The results showed that the EFL teachers in this junior middle school had high level of awareness in curriculum subjectivity, curriculum resources and curriculum implementation, but not in curriculum evaluation. The teachers held the belief of studentcenteredness in English class, put much emphasis on students’ development, and made good use of the resources other than textbooks. When implementing the English curriculum, they focused more on the interaction with the students and taught the materials according to students’ real needs. However, they did not have high level of evaluation awareness because they employed single testing method and evaluation criteria.The factors influencing the middle school teachers’ curriculum awareness were not only the curriculum capability and teaching habits of teachers, the management of school, but also teachers’ education background, teaching years, professional title and their trainee experiences. The study finally suggested the following measures to both the teachers and the school. The teachers should enrich their own professional knowledge and reflect on teaching practices all the time. The school should establish a full-scale teacher evaluation system, develop a friendly school culture and provide more training opportunities for the teachers. Only in this way, can their curriculum awareness be developed and their professional quality be improved.