A Comparative Study Of Teachers’ Professional Identity Between Expert And Novice English Teachers In Middle School

Currently, there are quantities of researches on teachers’ professional identity.Generally there are four categories: the first type concentrates on the definition,components, formation and influential factors of TPI. The second one focuses on the current situation of teachers’ professional identity in certain areas, subjects,schools. Some other researches focus on the current situation of teachers’ professional identity in certain areas, subjects, schools. And the other studies try to find out the method used in studying TPI. However, the researches on the understanding of different phases of teachers’ development, the comparison between teachers in different phases and effective strategies of accelerating teachers’ development are in urgent need.This paper tries to explore three questions:1. What is the general pattern of teachers’ professional identity(TPI) of expert and novice teachers in middle schools?2. Is there any difference in TPI between expert and novice teachers? If so, in what way?3. Do gender, degree, professional rank have any effect on TPI in expert and novice teachers?A questionnaire which is adopted based on Wei Shuhua’s(2008) research will be applied to investigate the differences of teacher professional identity between expert and novice English teachers in a middle school. The participants are 149 in-service English teachers from seven different middle schools in Jiangxi Province, including71 expert English teachers who have been in service for more than ten years and 46 novice English teachers who have been on the job for less than six years in middle schools.The results are as follows: Firstly, both novice and expert teachers have high level of teachers’ professional identity, which is unbalanced in six aspects. Additionally,though expert and novice English teachers in middle schools have strong professional identity, the level of the former is higher than the latter in every dimension, especially in occupational awareness, professional emotion and professional expectation. Finally,teachers’ gender, age, degree and rank can influence teachers’ professional identity.Besides, some suggestions are put forward on the development of novice and expert teachers separately from the view of government, schools and teachers themselves.Above all, the author makes a tentative research on the comparison of novice and expert English teachers in middle schools.