A Survey Research On EFL Teachers’ Needs For Vocational Development In Junior Middle Schools

With the rapid development of globalization, the number of English learners increased as the day passed. In China, learning English is compulsory in middle school, while the period of junior middle school is the golden period of English teaching. The teacher is an important part of educational system, and the status of teachers’ vocational development concern the teaching quality. Therefore, under the background of new national situation and new curriculum standards, the teachers’ vocational development is more and more important and urgent. What’s more, people pay more and more attention on the issue of EFL(English as foreign language) teachers’ needs for vocational development in junior middle schools. Based on the teachers’ vocational development in our country, combined with previous research results, the writer investigates the EFL teachers of junior middle schools who took part in national training organized by Hebei University of Science and Technology in October 2014 and understands their needs of vocational development.On the basis of self-actualization theory, lifelong education and new curriculum requirements as well as quantitative and qualitative methods such as document analysis, questionnaires and interviews, this study takes 117 backbone EFL teachers of junior middle schools attending the national training program at Hebei University of Science and Technology as subjects. This study aims at: 1. The current development situation and existing problems of EFL teachers’ vocational development in junior middle schools in Hebei Province; 2. The restricting factors of EFL teachers’ vocational development in junior middle schools; 3. Some effective methods and suggestions to realize the EFL teachers’ vocational development in junior middle schools. The SPSS 19.0 is employed to calculate the quantitative data.The survey results show that: 1. The two major factors restricting teachers’ vocational development are the work pressure and no ways for advanced studies; 2. There are a few problems existing in EFL teachers’ vocational development in junior middle schools, such as lack of professional knowledge structure and teaching ability, monotonous in reaching content and weak teaching ability in English. By the in-depth interview, the writer also finds that teachers’ vocational development should be further studied in the future.Based on the research results and the actual English teaching situation of Hebei Province, this paper tries to put forward the ways of teachers’ vocational development from two aspects of school and teachers: training, teaching observation and attend mutual class.