A Research On Information Literacy Of Junior Middle School English Teachers In Rural Areas Of Southern Guangxi

The development of education informationization necessitates the integration of technology and English curriculum for English teaching. Information literacy has become one of teachers’basic literacy. Many researchers have studied teacher information literacy on its connotation, current situation and training approaches and have obtained fruitful achievements. But the subjects have been limited to college English teachers. Junior middle school English teachers have been ignored, especially the teachers in rural areas. Besides, the difficulties in the improvement of teacher information literacy have seldom been researched. Therefore, this study investigates the overall situation of teacher information literacy of junior middle school English teachers in rural areas and makes an analysis of the difficulties in the improvement of teacher information literacy, hoping to offer some effective suggestions.In this study, by means of quantitative analysis and qualitative analysis, questionnaire and interview are adopted to investigate the situation of junior middle school English teachers’information literacy in rural areas of southern Guangxi. The participants are 47 junior middle school English teachers in rural areas of southern Guangxi. The questionnaire in this study is based on the questionnaire of teacher information literacy of Guo Xiaoying (2011) and some necessary adjustments are made according to some senior scholars’ suggestions. There are eight dimensions in this questionnaire:information consciousness, information knowledge, information competence, information ethics, professional information literacy, integration of information technology and English curriculum, research and self-development. This study addresses three research questions:(1) What is the overall situation of information literacy of junior middle school English teachers in rural areas of southern Guangxi? (2) What are the difficulties in information literacy improvement of junior middle school English teachers in rural areas of southern Guangxi? (3) What are the expected measures for information literacy improvement of junior middle school English teachers in rural areas of southern Guangxi?The results show that:(1) English teachers in rural areas of southern Guangxi have a relatively high level of information literacy. (2) The answers in the interview reveal that the difficulties in teacher information literacy focus on lack of resources, integration of the acquired information, limited training and applying technology into teaching. (3) Three measures are provided on the basis of teachers’expectation, including making good use of the existing resource, combining technology training with teaching practice and creating reasonable incentive mechanism and management system.Based on the findings, some suggestions are provided for the development of junior middle school English teachers in rural areas, including suggestions for teachers, suggestions for schools and suggestions for training departments. For teachers, they can:(1) make plans for specific technologies learning and apply the learning technologies into teaching practice; (2) improve the capacity of integration of acquired information and raise research awareness and initiative; (3) strengthen collaboration and communication with peers. For schools, they can:(1) work out the relevant policy for teachers’ information literacy assessment; (2) offer more chances for teachers to take information literacy training and apply technology into curriculum; (3) provide effective resources for teachers. For training departments, they can:(1) make the training content targeted and concentrate on integration of technology and curriculum; (2) establish platform for teachers’communication and resource sharing.