A Research On Senior High School English Teachers' Professional Identity In Guilin

Teachers' professional identity has significant influence to teacher education and teachers'professional development.Teachers' professional identity development promotes teachers' professional development,students' learning as well as the ability to cope with national education reforming and updating circumstances.At present,researches on teachers' professional identity both abroad and at home have some flaws,such as uncertainties in concept,more theoretical researches and less empirical studies.Therefore,there leaves room to investigate senior high school English teachers' professional identity.Based on a questionnaire survey,supplemented by semi-structured interview,52 English teachers from five general model senior high schools in Guilin area(Guilin Yixian High School in Xiangshan District of Guilin,Guilin Zhongshan High School in Xiufeng District of Guilin,Yangshuo Senior High School in Yangshuo County of Guilin,Pingle Senior High School in Pingle County of Guilin and Lipu Senior High School in Lipu County of Guilin)are selected randomly to be the participants.The questionnaire employed is based on two distinguished Chinese scholars Wei Shuhua and Yu Huihui's scales(Teachers'Professional Identity Scale by Doctor Wei Shuhua who is from Southwest University in his doctoral dissertation,Questionnaire on Middle School Young Teachers' Professional Identity by Yu Huihui who is from Hunan Normal University in her Master's thesis).In terms of the specific requirements of the investigation,the questionnaire is adjusted to its present form.Two teachers are interviewed randomly in each school,so ten teachers in total as the supplements for the questionnaire.The present study is going to explore the following three questions:(1)What is the overall situation of high school English teachers'professional identity in Guilin area?(2)What is the situation of senior high school English teachers' professional identity under individual difference background?And how are they different in specific?(3)What are the influential factors for different professional identity?The research results show that:(1)Senior high school English teachers' professional identity in Guilin is relatively high.(2)There are individual differences in terms of gender,job titles,years of teaching,monthly income and etc.(3)Influencing factors are found in terms of personal motivation,salary and benefits as well as the recognition from society.According to the findings,the author proposed some scientific suggestions on internal and external aspects.Teacher is the internal factor,while educational administration departments and society are the external factors.For English teachers,it is vital to enhance the motivation of teaching and keeping lifelong learning theory so as to improve teachers' professional identity.For educational administration departments,effective measures should be taken by means of strengthening physical treatment to teachers and caring about teachers' psychological development.For the whole society,strengthening the recognition and respect for the teachers should be emphasized from the public.The thesis is far from perfection and leaves much room for improvement.The sample is limited so that the findings is difficult to generalize throughout China.Only four dimensions are consisted in the questionnaire and more domains should be taken into consideration.Case studies and comparison researches between pre-service teachers and in-service teachers in certain stage can be carried out in future researches.