A Study On EFL Teacher Leadership In Chinese Middle Schools

Teacher leadership refers to the comprehensive performance of teacher leader behavior.Teacher leadership is one of the important factors of teacher professional development.However,studies of teacher leadership are insufficient in China,especially for the study of leadership in a specific domain.Therefore investigating English teacher leadership in middle schools as well as the situation of their teacher leadership can be meaningful.By analyzing the data,the thesis tries to find out what the current situation is and factors that can influence the development of teacher leadership,suggestions are also discussed on how to develop English teacher leadership in Yunnan province.This study has applied questionnaire and interview methods to investigate two questions.(1)What is the situation of middle school English teacher leadership in Kunming city?(2)What factors can influence the development of teacher leadership?The questionnaire is divided into six dimensions,which are personality influence,education prospect,education influence,education decision making,education creation and education study capability.The findings of the first question are(1)most English teachers in Kunming city are aware of little or nothing about teacher leadership.The way of teacher self-learning is simple,negative.The work responsibility of English teacher is low and awareness of collaboration of English teachers is weak.(2)opportunities to perform and develop English teacher leadership are limited.English teachers show weak performance of each dimension.As for the second question,the findings are(1)the background information,for example gender,teaching age and bachelor,are the important factors that can influence the development of teacher leadership.(2)Limited resources for teacher learning is also another factor.English teachers lack resources to access to professional teacher development.The study shows that the middle schools did not play a positive role to help English teachers develop their teacher leadership.The implication of the study is that due to poor teacher leadership,English teachers should strengthen the awareness of teacher education.Schools should create more opportunities for English teachers to perform their leadership by making training of teacher leadership,creating bonus system.