Senior High School English Teachers' Professional Development And INSET

With the development of economic globalization,English has become a must in daily communication which drives more and more Chinese including adults to learn English.Undoubtedly,the quality of English teachers plays a decisive role in the teaching process.However,a lot of English teachers are unable to teach English flexibly and effectively,for English as a language is developing rapidly and changing all the time.What teachers have learned at colleges or university is not sufficient for them to cope with the complexities in teaching,which forces them to keep on learning for survival in the field of education.INSET offers English teachers an opportunity to broaden their horizons and enrich themselves and it is also increasingly regarded by many countries as a key strategy to the promotion of teachers' qualities.The present research aims to explore the senior high school English teachers'willingness of and demands for INSET as well as their satisfaction with the current INSET.Thanks to the support and cooperation of the teaching researcher in Putuo district,the survey is smoothly carried out among the teachers in this district with questionnaires and interviews.The findings reveal that teachers generally hold a satisfied attitude towards the existing INSET and have registered strong willingness to attend the INSET on account of various demands.By comparing the existing INSET with teachers'demands,four suggestions are put forward to further enhance teachers' satisfaction,namely,the adoption of multilevel training to cater to teachers' variant demands,the extension of training content to incorporate the cultivation of language competence,the improvement of the value of INSET through the combination of theory and practice and the diversification of training modes.Meanwhile,two implications are proposed to pass on the merits in future INSET,such as the advocacy of teaching researchers' spirit of persistent study and the arousal of teachers' initiative to do action research on their own or with others' assistance.And the theory of teachers' professional life cycle and adult learning theory are employed to support related analysis.The whole thesis consists of six chapters.Chapter one is an introduction to the research background,the significance of the research and the structure of the thesis.Chapter two is the literature review.Chapter three is the research design with research questions,subjects,instruments and procedures described.Chapter four presents the related analysis and findings of the collected data.Chapter five is concerned with the suggestions and implications based on the research findings.The last chapter is a conclusion of the thesis,including a brief summary and the limitations of the research.