A Case Study Of Novice English Teachers' Teaching Efficacy In Junior High Schools

The novice stage of teachers' development is a crucial stage to further teachers' growth in becoming skilled teachers.It sets the tone and path for their teaching methodology and their overall future teaching ability,thereby affecting both the height and depth of their professional development.The efficacy of a teacher's teaching ability is one of the key factors affecting the growth of novice teachers.In order to become an excellent teacher,one must have a comprehensive system to evaluate the efficacy of their teaching methodology.There are many studies on teaching efficacy in academic circles.These studies have both theoretical and empirical aspects.However,there is still an insufficient number of studies that specialize in focusing on the group that is novice English teachers in middle schools,and on the teaching efficacy of novice English teachers in middle schools from an empirical standpoint.On this basis,our aim is to employ an empirical study by making a case study on the teaching efficacy of novice English teachers' in junior high schools.This study primarily explores the following issues:(1)What is the current state of novice English teachers' teaching efficacy in junior high schools?(2)What are the factors affecting the ability of novice English teachers in junior high schools to monitor and improve the efficacy of their teaching ability?Three novice English teachers from a junior high school in Changsha were selected to participate in the six-month study.Student and teacher questionnaire surveys,classroom observation and in-depth interviews were used as research tools.The research data was obtained through a reliability analysis and a descriptive analysis using the SPSS22.0 software.The main findings of this study are as follows:(1)In a general sense,according to the results of the questionnaire,the current situation of novice English teachers' teaching efficacy in junior high schools has the following four obvious characteristics: 1)being of a lower than average level;2)teaching instability with a high level of fluctuation;3)high expectations with a low level of student achievements;4)a low sense of existence.(2)Compiling the questionnaire survey of novice English teachers in junior high schools at the start of the study and combining it with the latter part of the case study,we find that there are several main factors that influence the feedback and improvement of the teaching efficacy of novice English teachers in junior high schools.The factors are as follow:from teachers' point of view,their own professional knowledge and level of educational background;expectation level;and experiences of success and failure.Apart from the perspectives of the teachers themselves,such factors as students' classroom feedback,novice teachers' identity tags,theoverall educational environment and a mechanism to incentivize the teachers,etc.Research shows that teachers with strong and stable efficacy of teaching have rather higher expectations for their students,accordingly,they have more due diligence in education and teaching,and higher expectations for their career and life.Therefore,it is of great significance to attach great importance to the construction of a scientific approach to teaching efficacy and applying it to the development of novice junior high school English teachers.We believe that in order to scientifically construct the teaching efficacy of novice English teachers in junior high schools,we should first learn to objectively observe and reflect on the efficacy of teachers' teaching,constantly adhere to further one's learning in teaching effectiveness,and construct a rather scientific attribution method;secondly,we should constantly improve the level of teaching expertise,teaching ability and seek to increase the levels of success;thirdly,we should understand the students and establish a good relationship with them;finally,we should often reflect and summarize the teaching process,and constantly improve upon it.Although this study seeks to make innovations and breakthroughs on the basis of previous studies,there are still some shortcomings and limitations.For example,we only conducted a questionnaire survey on the teaching efficacy of 21 novice English teachers in junior high schools,by having such a small number of samples we were presented with limitations.The teachers' self-report form is often filled in a subjective manner,and the data obtained by this method is likely to be inconsistent with the actual situation.In addition,because teachers' teaching efficacy is a dynamic process of continuous development and our knowledge is limited in processing questionnaires and interview data,the data extracted can be concluded to some extent be regarded as simple.