An Investigation Of The Recognition Of Special-post English Teachers' Identity

Teachers' identity refers to their understanding of themselves,their teaching roles and environment,which are formed in their teaching practice.Teachers' identity not only affects the self-recognition,but also has great practical and theoretical significance for teaching quality and their professional development.Currently,as a special group,special-post teachers refer to teachers who teach in remote areas after graduation.They are novice teachers.However,most current researches on the identity of foreign language teachers focus on senior high school English teachers and college English teachers.Researchers on special-post English teachers' identity are few.What's more,researchers stress teachers' professional identity,expect their affection and behavior.Therefore,this study investigates into identity recognition of 94 teachers from 14 middle and primary schools in Qingjian County,Shannxi Provice.The researcher adopts questionnaire and interview.The study aims to answer the following questions:1.What is the special-post English teachers' identity on the cognitive level?2.What is the special-post English teachers' identity on the affective level?3.What is the special-post English teachers' identity on the behavioral level?4.What are the factors affecting special-post English teachers' identity?After analyzing the data by SPSS17.0,the author found the following conclusions.Firstly,the mean value of the identity recognition of special-post English teacher is 3.30,which demonstrates that the overall level of identity recognition of 94 special-post English teachers is relatively good.Secondly,the results of SPETs' identity are not balanced in three dimensions.The identity on cognitive level is relatively high,and the mean value reaches 4.15,while the identity on affective level(2.85)and behavioral level(2.45)are not optimistic.Thirdly,the study shows that the identity in three dimensions has significant difference for teachers who have different years of teaching.On the cognitive level,the identity of one-year teachers is lower than that of two-year teachers and is lower than that of three-year teachers because the longer the teachers teach,they more clearly understand their teaching roles,profession and environment.On the affective level,the affective recognition of the two-year teachers is lower than that of the one-year teachers and three-year teachers because the two-year teachers reduced passion for teaching English.On the behavioral level,the identity of the one-year teachers is obvious lower than that of the three-year teachers because the one-year teachers are lacking in confidence,English professional skills and English knowledge.Lastly,it find that personal factors and environmental factors affect special-post English teachers' identity in three dimensions.Personal factors are about teachers' emotion and attitude,and their English professional abilities and knowledge.Environmental factors involve school culture,the relationship between colleagues and students,and school environment.Finally,the author puts forward some suggestions to improve the identity recognition of special-post English teachers from three aspects.First of all,special-post English teachers should have self-reflection on regular.They should reflect their teaching behavior,teaching achievements,their emotion and belief.Besides,the special-post English teachers should improve their professional skills and knowledge.It is not only about their English profession,such as grammar,language and all kinds of abilities,but also about the knowledge of pedagogy and psychology.Last but not least,schools and Educational Department should improve environment to support the development of teachers' identity.Through the investigation of special-post English teachers' identity,this study not only helps special-post English teachers know themselves clearly,improves their teaching method and promotes their professional development,but also promotes the understanding of the “special-post teacher plan” policy and offers reference for the improvement of the policy.