A Comparative Study Of Junior High School English Expert And Novice Teachers' Decision-making

Teachers play a significant role as directors and teaching decision-makers in teaching.To a large degree,effective teaching depends on whether reasonable decisions are made by teachers.In the 1990 s,researchers abroad have begun to focus on teachers' decision-making in language teaching and many results have been achieved.By comparison,studies on teachers' decision-making in China started later.And,there are fewer comparative studies on English expert and novice teachers' decision-making in the junior high school at home.Therefore,this study tries to explore the general situation of JHS English teachers' decisions,the differences between expert and novice teachers' decisions in lesson planning,classroom interactive and evaluative stages and crucial influential factors on their decisions.60 English teachers,including 30 novice and 30 expert teachers,in 4 junior high schools in Linfen City of Shanxi Province were investigated.6 teachers' lessons,including 3novice and 3 expert teachers from the same school,were observed and before-class and after-class interviews with 6 English teachers were taken.The data was collected,sorted and analyzed to address three questions: 1.What is the general situation of junior high school English teachers' decision-making in the lesson planning,classroom interactive and evaluative stages? 2.What are the differences between JHS English expert and novice teachers in making planning,interactive and evaluative decisions? 3.What major factors influence their instructional decisions?The major findings in this research are as follows:1.JHS English teachers make decisions based on different focuses in the planning,interactive and evaluative phases.2.In the planning stage,there exist differences between JHS English expert and novice teachers on focuses and lesson plans.In the interactive stage,there are differences between JHS expert and novice teachers on questioning and feedback-giving,teaching approaches and questions.In the evaluative stage,there exist differences between JHS English expert and novice teachers on evaluative contents and approaches.3.The major factors affecting JHS English teachers' decisions include teacher factorssuch as teachers' belief and their prior experience and learner factors such as their characteristics,English levels and learning state in the classroom.