A Study Of Expectations For Roles Of English Teachers By Chinese EFL Students

Expectations for teacher roles play an essential part in the field of language teaching and has long been a research focus in this field.However,previous studies mainly deal with the content of expectations for teacher roles and the research on expectations for teacher roles in combination with other factors is rare.Therefore,the present study attempts to investigate college students' expectations for English teacher roles and its relationship with some influential factors like gender,major,career plan and motivation in English learning.A total of 499 non-English majors from a key university in Shandong Province participated in the study.With the combination of both quantitative and qualitative methods,it collected data from questionnaires and semi-structured interviews.For quantitative results,students' expectations were analyzed from the perspectives of three aspects,namely,instructional aspect,interpersonal aspect and moral aspect,and eight types of teacher roles,namely,source of knowledge,learning guide,classroom organizer,classroom manager,parental friend,creator of classroom atmosphere,conduct guide and moral guide.Then,influential factors on students' expectations were further explored by analyzing the correlation between relevant dependent and independent variables.Meanwhile,qualitative analysis was conducted through the classification of students' opinions in the interviews to support the quantitative findings.The results showed that,among the three aspects of teacher roles,college students had higher expectations for the moral aspect of teacher roles than the instructional aspect and interpersonal aspect.Among the eight types of teacher roles,students had the highest expectations for teachers as source of knowledge,followed by creator of classroom atmosphere,conduct guide and moral guide.The roles of parental friend,learning guide and classroom organizer were comparatively less expected with classroom manager the least expected.Besides,students' gender,major,career plan,motivational intensity and motivation type in English learning have been found influential on their expectations to different degrees.Based on the results and discussions,the study concludes that students'expectations for English teacher roles vary in different situations and are subject to change when different influential factors play their parts.By implications,college English teachers are advised to bear students' expectations in mind and take actions to meet students' expectations for better teaching and learning.Finally,limitations of the study are pointed out and suggestions for future studies are provided.