An Investigation Of Professional Identity Formation Of Junior High School Novice English Teachers

This thesis is about professional identity formation,which is a necessary part of teachers' professional development.With the narrative inquiry,the thesis carries on a study of the teachers' identity in a junior middle school in Weining county,Bijie Prefecture,Guizhou Province.This study adopts qualitative research as well as quantitative research.Questionnaire,which is adopted from Wei Shuha(2008),is used in this research to find out the general situation of local novice teachers' professional identity.First the questionnaire was used to survey 100 novice junior English teachers from five urban middle schools in Weining county.Then the research focused on the stories of the four participants : Miss A,Miss B,Miss C and Miss D from Weining No.8 Middle School.The data for the education narrative are mainly from interviews and classroom observations.This study discusses present identity formation situation of local novice English teachers and examines the stories of four novice English teachers throughout three months from the perspective of their interaction with school environment.Drawing on social-culture theory,it tries to answer what the situation of novice English teachers' identity is and how the identity is formed based on narrative inquiry of the four novice English teachers.The research shows junior high school English teachers in the urban area of Weinning county have a relatively high identity on the whole but slightly they lack the sense of belonging.This indicates measures should be taken to strengthen their sense of belonging and make them integrate into the school.The stories indicate that with different motivation and different family background to enter this field,these teachers are developing their own identity in the process of interaction with the school environment.Besides,teachers' identity formation is a complex process in which conflicts occur and one has to make changes to meet the environment.To find out how the novice teachers develop their own professional identity by interacting with the environment,the researcher also conducted observation in these teachers' classrooms.