A Study On English Teachers' Reflective Practice In Senior High School

Reflective practice was originated from the west general education,and later has influenced on ESL / EFL education.During the late 1990 s and the early 2000 s,some scholars and researchers in China began to concentrate it on ESL / EFL education and made a great deal of practice and research.Much previous practice and research on reflective practice for teaching has demonstrated that there exists a strong correlation between critical reflection and teachers' professional growth.However,there is still room for further exploration on English reflective practice in senior high schools in China,particularly in multiethnic context like Yunnan.Therefore,the present study is a partial response to this gap.This study aimed to explore the current situation and the influential factors of English reflective practice in senior high schools of Yuxi city,Yunnan Province.By adopting questionnaire survey and carrying out in-depth structured interviews,121 English teachers who came from 8 senior high schools in Yuxi responded to the questionnaire and 5 of them were interviewed to offer detailed information for the further study.Quantitative analysis and qualitative research based on the statistical results from SPSS 19.0 were conducted to the data analysis.The findings obtained from the study showed that: Firstly,the reflective practice level of English teachers in senior high schools of Yuxi was in a medium level.Most of the English teachers understood the definition of reflective practice and its significance,and they often carried out reflective practice but only a few of them kept it down.Most of them only reflected just in mind without writing reflective diaries or reflective thesis.They preferred reflecting their teaching practice after class.Secondly,the contents and ways of reflective practice are relatively simple andtraditional,lacking of creation and breaking.According to the survey,most of the English teachers carried out reflection practice from students' homework,test papers and the classroom teaching.The favorite way of reflective practice the participants took was thinking without writing.It was also found that reflective practice had been influenced by many factors,such as heavy teaching task,no enough time and energy,and lacking of theoretical guidance and evaluation systems.From the results of reflective practice,there were no significant differences between the teachers working in Yuxi city and the ones working in the counties.Thirdly,according to the participants,reflective practice could help teachers gradually improve their ability of judgment,thinking and analysis,and acquire more practical knowledge,which was an effective way.But the accurate functional testing of reflective practice cannot be quantified and it is hard to operate at present because there is no agreed standard to measure it.Based on findings above,the implications for English teacher individuals have been put forward in the last chapter.The limitations of the study were reported and recommendations for further research were suggested in the end.