The Present Situation And The Influence Factors Of Foreign Language Teachers’ Professional Development In Chinese Universities

With the acceleration of globalization and the further deepening of opening to the outside world,the internationalization of higher education has become an inevitable trend.The number of foreign teachers employed by Chinese universities is also increasing.Foreign teachers have become one of the important components of teachers in universities.Among them,foreign language teachers are not only a large number and widely distributed,but also have great uniqueness in many aspects.However,the professional development of foreign language teachers has not been paid much attention.By using the semi-structured interview method,author conducted in-depth interviews with 15 Japanese foreign language teachers,so as to explore the situation and the influencing factors of the professional development of foreign language teachers.The study found that the professional development of foreign language teachers in Chinese universities is not very ideal.Although the overall job satisfaction is high,there are still some problems,such as uneven teaching ability and unclear career planning.Due to the high work enthusiasm and self-learning awareness of foreign teachers,this can make up for these deficiencies to a great extent.Therefore,author believes that the main factors affecting the professional development of foreign teachers are external factors.Through the sorting of interview data,I found that the external factors include social and cultural factors,institutional factors and school factors.