The Narrative Inquiry On English Teachers' Professional Self-identity In Private Middle Schools

The degree of a teacher's professional self-identity attaches vital importance to the arrangements of his/her teaching designs and the achievements of his class activities,which can be acknowledged as one's great drive to speed his/her growth in perfected teaching and his/her ideal image as a teacher.The study of a teacher's professional self-identity has to be conducted under the distinction of certain subjects as well as certain periods of a teacher's career when it has been advanced to a certain stage,in order to find out the basic laws of the development and changes of teachers' professional self-identity,and thus play an active part in promoting teachers' professional development.Former researchers have already covered many different aspects of the research,but none has done any such researches into teachers in private schools,who have already developed to a giant new force in China,and who are playing a magnificent role in China's educational reform and development,as a result of the fact that private schools and educational organizations have been largely developed in recent years,which contributes hugely to the reform and development of China's education.So there leaves great necessity that we should do special research into the professional self-identity of the teachers in private private schools.And this research has been specialized in studying of the English teachers in private schools.This research has done some narrative inquiry on the experiences of three senior high English teachers in a certain private school in the south of Shaanxi Province,aimed to explore: firstly,the present situation of the professional self-identity of the English teachers in private middle schools,secondly,the relationship between the variation of the degree in self-identity and their teaching practice,and thirdly,the factors that has a great influence on their self-identity and the approaches to overcoming the crisis and achieving the improvement in their professional self-identity.This research has adopted the method of narrative inquiry,during which course,several interviews were made with the three teachers and some relevant information from their Tecent Blogs,some of their self-prepared teaching materials and training materials as well as their own written thoughts related to their teaching practice was sorted and analyzed.The study shows that the professional self-identity of the senior high English teachers in the private school is in a relatively high standard.In addition,the main factors that affects the degree of professional self-identity involve in two aspects.One is the teaching achievements.the more outstanding the teaching achievements are,the higher standard of the teachers' self-identity they get.The other factor lies in the relationship between the teacher and his/her students.The better the teacher gets along with their students,the higher standard of their self-identity they get,and the happier they feels.As a consequence,the main approaches to overcoming the crisis and achieving the improvement in their professional self-identity is to take measures to help the students learn more efficiently in order to get greater teaching achievements.Meanwhile,as an English teacher,one should always devote their true love to the students,trying to acquire better relationship with the students.So this research has offered great instructive significance to the teaching practice,and has also performed important practice on the application of the research method of narrative inquiry to the field of educational researches.