A Study On Mediation Features In Classroom Teachings Of English Teachers In Middle School

In October 2018,the Ministry of Education put forward a proposal on implementing the Excellent Teacher Training Program 2.0.It pointed out that amid the new era,based on the new requirements of comprehensively promoting the modernization of education,and the new mission of fully implementing the basic task of Khalid ents,first-class normal universities and first-class normal major should be constructed,in order to cultivate primary and secondary teachers with profound educational feelings,solid professional basis,bravery of teaching innovation as well as comprehensive education and life-long learning ability.Mediation Theory was put forward by Feuerstein in 1980,a prominent scholar.This theory argued that each child’s growth and learning processes were greatly affected by the “significant adults” who here were regarded as mediators.As a result,teachers should act as mediators to finally help learners develop the good habit of life-long learning in order to tackle challenges brought by the world.In recent years,researches about Mediation Theory mostly have focused on the teacher groups in higher education and high school education,instead of the teacher group in middle school education.In order to figure out whether differences exist between middle school English teachers’ cognition and practice of twelve mediation features or not,the author takes twelve English teachers from grade 7,grade 8 and grade 9 in No.52 Middle School of Zhengzhou as research subjects,and uses three research instruments including questionnaire,classroom observation and interview to study:(1)What cognition do the English teachers in this middle school hold towards mediation features?(2)Whether the English teachers in this middle school play the role as mediators or not? If they do,what are the distribution characteristics of mediation features in their classroom teachings?(3)Are there differences existing between the middle school English teachers’ cognition and practice of the twelve mediation features? If there are,what are the reasons for these differences?Some findings are presented as follows:(1)Except one teacher thinks the mediation feature “An awareness of change” is least important,the left eleven teachers think the twelve mediation features are all very important.(2)These middle school English teachers do act as mediators while the distribution of twelve mediation features is not even in their classroom teachings.In general,the using frequency of the twelve mediation features is not close,and the order of them based on the using frequency of twelve English teachers in their classroom teachings is: “Shared intention”,“A sense of competence”,“Challenge”,“Purpose beyond the here and now”,‘Sharing”,“Control of behavior”,“Significance’,“Individuality”,“A sense of belonging”,“A belief in positive outcomes”,“Goal-setting” and “An awareness of change”.Among them,“An awareness of change” and “Goal-setting” are not conveyed in their classroom teachings at all.(3)Reasons causing differences between teachers’ cognition and practice of mediation features include teachers’ limited knowledge about Mediation Theory and mediation features,teachers’ teaching style and the inherent differences between people’s cognition and practice and so on.