A Study On The Instructional Design Ability Of Novice English Teachers In A High School Teacher Professional Learning Community

Nowadays,education assessment focuses more on the comprehensive quality of students.Teaching goals should switch from the teaching of knowledge to the teaching of knowledge,skill,process,method,emotion and value.In 2014,the reform of English college entrance examination in China also shows the importance of ability cultivation.Thus,higher demands have been made in classroom teaching.Teaching design,as the start of teaching,is especially significant.In the past,teaching design was the individual work of teachers.Because of the necessity of teaching,teaching and research groups have gradually formed.However,teachers are forced to take part in activities organized by some teaching and research groups,or even worse,experienced teachers dominate everything in such groups.Now,with emphasis on the education and higher cooperative awareness of teachers,teaching and research groups are turning into professional learning communities,which feature the culture of cooperation and the establishment of common goals.This change of teaching and research groups has some positive effects on teaching.Novice teachers,however,still lack some abilities for instructional design.For example,they cannot analyze students properly and they are not familiar with various teaching methods.There is still room for novice teachers to improve their instructional design abilities.This study aims to explore whether a professional learning community has some effect on novice teachers' abilities to design classroom teaching,and what effect it has if there is any.Two novice teachers in Shanghai JP Middle School were selected as the major subjects of this study.For the purpose of data objectivity,the leader of the JP Middle School teaching and research group was chosen as a subsidiary subject.Ground theory was employed to guide the process of data collection and analysis.Semi-interviews and participant observations were used to gather data.During the data analysis process,novice teachers were asked to questions immediately once they occurred.This practice guaranteed the completeness of data.The results of all data analyses show that novice teachers do have some problems in teaching design,especially in term so the analysis of students,the design of teaching process,the selections of teaching contents,decisions on teaching methods and the time management of instructional design.As members of the teaching and research group,novice teachers can join such activities like cooperative teaching design and collective mentoring.Novice teachers cooperated with each other autonomously.The findings indicate that this teaching and research group has constructed a culture of cooperation,sharing and equality.This culture matches the major feature of a professional learning community.Thus,the teaching and research group in JP Middle School can be regarded as a professional learning community.It is in such a community culture of professional learning and by attending group activities that these two novice teachers improved their teaching design abilities.Based on the successful experience of the teaching and research group at JP Middle School,some suggestions are listed to help a traditional teaching and research group develop into a professional learning community for teachers.Schools should pay more attention to the development of professional learning communities,and teachers should enhance their cooperative awareness.This study has two limitations: firstly,the sample size is too small;secondly,the initiation of the study is not early enough.These two problems should be taken into consideration in further studies.