A Comparative Study Of Middle School English Teachers' Professional Development In Urban And Rural Areas

With the in-depth reform of English Curriculum and the development of the related theories in our country,English teachers' professional development draws more and more attention of the educational experts and English teachers.However,rural English teachers' professional development still relatively lags behind,which not only affects the quality of English teaching in rural areas,but also hinders the realization of educational equity.This research makes a comparison of urban and rural middle school English teachers' professional development in Luoyang,Henan province,intending to know the differences between them from the following four aspects: the local middle school English teachers' basic conditions,teachers' professional beliefs,teachers' content knowledge and professional skills,as well as awareness,needs,present situation and evaluation of teachers' professional development.During the research,192 urban middle school English teachers and 169 rural middle school English teachers take part in the questionnaire survey.Besides,12 English teachers are interviewed including 3 urban junior middle school English teachers,3 urban senior middle school English teachers,3 rural junior middle school English teachers,and 3 rural senior middle school English teachers,in order to further explore the cause of difference between urban and rural middle school English teachers' professional development.The results of investigation and research shows that the awareness,abilities and initiative of urban and rural middle school English teachers' professional development in Luoyang are not high,and their approaches of professional development are comparatively simple;their training is monotonous in contents and forms,and in lack of effectiveness and pertinence,teachers' subsequent support and aids are neglected;in rural middle school,English teachers get rare opportunities for pre-job training and in-service training;rural middle schools lack support and guarantee of time,fund,theories and technologies in teachers' professional development.In order to solve the above problems,on the basis of theoretical and practical study,three proposals of approaches and strategies have been put forward by the research to promote middle school English teachers' professional development from three dimensions: individual teacher,community,as well as working condition and policy background.The first one is to strengthen middle school English teachers' teaching reflection abilities,the second one is to build middle school English teachers' community of practice,and the last one is to implement policies,functions and guarantees of educational administrative departments and middle schools.