A Comparative Study Of English Teachers' Identity Between Public And Private Senior High Schools

In recent years,researches on English teacher identity has gradually become a hot topic in the field of foreign language teacher education.Previous studies on the identity of English teachers are mostly qualitative.Although the quantitative analysis of the overall status of English teachers' identity is gradually increasing,there are few comparative studies on the identity of teachers in public and private schools.Therefore,this study takes senior high school English teachers in Henan Province as examples to explore their identity,by using a combination of quantitative and qualitative methods based on sociocultural theories.This study focuses on the following three questions: 1)What is the general identity of senior high school English teachers? 2)What is the identity of English teachers in private and public senior high schools? 3)Are there differences of English teachers between private and public senior high schools in terms of identity,if yes,what are they?The questionnaire in this study draws on the “Senior High School English Teachers' Identity Questionnaire”,which has been tested with good reliability and validity.The author first collected questionnaires filled out by 192 senior high school English teachers,interviewed 6 of them,and then used SPSS 22.0 to analyze the questionnaire data by descriptive statistics,correlation,and independent sample t-test.Based on the results of the questionnaire and interview,the main findings of this study are as follows: First,the overall level of senior high school English teachers' identity is high,but a few senior high school English teachers are experiencing identity crisis.Second,the proportion of teachers with high seniority(more than 10years)in public schools is higher than that in private schools,and the proportion of teachers with low seniority(1-3 years)in private schools is higher than public schools.In the self-evaluation of teachers,generally speaking,the self-evaluation of public and private senior high schools is more reasonable,and a few teachers in public senior high schools think that the self-teaching level is poor.Third,there are significantdifferences in the identity of English teachers in public and private senior high schools(p<0.05),which are in the aspects of professional identity,personal identity and situational identity respectively.Private senior high school teachers show higher identity than public senior high school teachers.Finally,the author proposed some suggestions from personal,school and social environment aspects,to promote the development of senior high school English teachers' identity.Then,the limitations of the study and recommendations for future development are also stated.