A Survey Of College English Teachers' Roles In Flipped Classroom Teaching Mode

In the new curriculum reform background,the flipped classroom teaching mode not only inverts the process of knowledge transference and internalization,but also reschedules and reorients the roles of teachers.Under the flipped classroom teaching mode,the research on college English teachers' roles tries to help college English teachers define appropriate roles,so that they can break the inherent educational ideas and establish a good teacher-student relationship,so as to create a relaxed,democratic classroom atmosphere,and finally promote the effective independent learning of students.Based on the “people-orientation” teaching philosophy,the reorientation of teachers' roles in flipped classroom teaching provides new ideas and innovative points for the educational reform of college English teaching.Therefore,this survey of college English teachers' roles in the flipped classroom aims to figure out the discrepancies which exist between college English teachers' roles in students' expectations and college English teachers' actual roles.Then,constructive suggestions will be provided to narrow the gap and improve the quality of college English teaching.The author uses social constructive learning theory,Maslow's hierarchy of needs and Siemens' s connective learning theory,and questionnaires and interview are the primary means for collecting data in this study.158 subjects participating in the present study are non-English-major undergraduates from Grade 2016 of 4 intact classes from Guangxi Normal University and their 2 English teachers.The three research questions addressed in the present study are:(1)What are the students' expectations on college English teachers' roles in flipped classroom?(2)What are the college English teachers' actual roles in flipped classroom?(3)What are the discrepancies and factors existing between students' expectations on college English teachers' roles and teachers' actual roles in flipped classroom? These two questionnaires referred to Jin Xue's College English Teacher Role Behavior Scale(2017)with slight adaption based on the authoritative researches at home and abroad in literature review of the present study,which are divided into 9 dimensions: learning resource provider,autonomous learning instructor,knowledge and culture initiator,network platform manager,classroom organizing participant,learning facilitator,study and life helper,learning outcome evaluator,and moral and emotional inductor.The findings are:(1)learning resource provider,knowledge and culture initiator,learning facilitator and autonomous learning instructor are the four roles that students most expect teachers to play in the classroom;(2)the role teachers play most frequently is classroom organizing participant;(3)On the whole,discrepancies exist between students' expectation on college English teachers' roles and teachers' actual roles in flipped classroom,especially in dimensions of learning resource provider,knowledge and culture initiator,learning facilitator and autonomous learning instructor.Four reasons cause the discrepancies: teachers' burnout,the lack of modern information technology accomplishment,the lack of communication between teachers and students and the lack of understanding of students' learning needs.Based on these findings,some implications are given to narrow the gap: firstly,teachers should enhance their ability to use modern information technology.Secondly,teachers should create more opportunities of communication between teachers and students.Thirdly,teachers should cultivate students' capability of resource integration.Finally,by this means of questionnaire,teachers should have deeper understanding of students' learning needs.