A Study Of The Diversity Of Business English Teacher Development Paths

As important participants for constructing Business English discipline which is multi-disciplinary, practice-oriented and compound and as vital practitioners for Business English teaching, Business English teachers have attracted great attention from researchers recently. It is the top priority to explore the development paths of Business English teachers in order to cultivate high-qualified Business English teachers for the sake of fostering Business English talents. This is the prerequisite of this study.This study explores the Business English teachers'development paths by analyzing the development process of twenty-one BETs who are from various regions, in different universities, with distinctive teaching ages and responsible for diversified courses. Data were collected through semi-structured in-depth interviews and Grounded Theory-orientated content analysis was adopted for data analysis. Based on the transcripts of the interviews records, by coding and analyzing, the study intends to solve the following questions:1. What development paths of BETs can be identified from their development process?2. How has each development path been formed?3. Which is the leading path at different development period?The research results are demonstrated as following. Four development paths of Business English teachers are identified, namely, educational path, teaching path, working experience path and research path. Educational path means the upgrading of educational background. Teaching path highlights the development process of Business English teaching, i.e. the initiation, development and stabilization of Business English teaching. Working experience path refers to the time and the forms of teachers'working experience. Research path means the formation and the transformation of four research types. All the development paths are presented based on milestones in teacher growing process.Moreover, the four development paths indicate that BETs development process has sequence and that at different period different path plays the leading role. According to the prominent changes in teachers'professional development process, four development periods are presented. At graduating period, educational path and working experience path are in the leading position. After being English teachers, educational path, English teaching path and research path are the leading paths. All the four paths are important for teachers because those teachers need to explore BE teaching when they are transforming to BETs. Finally, those teachers regard themselves as BETs, dedicating to BE teaching and BE-related research, which means teaching path as well as research path plays a dominating part.The research result contributes to the understanding for the developmental and growing process of Business English teachers. Therefore, it can guide the cultivation of Business English teachers.