A Survey Of Senior High School English Teachers’ Role Beliefs From The Perspective Of Teacher’s Metaphor

Teachers’ role beliefs refer to teachers’ understanding and recognition of their roles.Teacher’s metaphor is a carrier for teachers to express “what a teacher is” through metaphor,which helps teachers really understand their roles as teachers.In this study,teacher’s metaphor is also a tool to illustrate the teachers’ role beliefs tendency.It can reflect the general situation of teachers’ role recognition.This research takes Conceptual Metaphor Theory and Humanism as its theoretical foundations.The questionnaire and the interview are applied to conduct this study.And 70 senior high school English teachers from 5 cities and 9 senior high schools in Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region are selected as research subjects for this study.Questionnaire of Senior High School English Teachers’ Role Beliefs from the Perspective of Teacher’s Metaphor is adapted from the original one applied in Saban’s(2004)study.This questionnaire contains two dimensions(teacher-centered dimension and student-centered dimension)and ten metaphors to describe teachers’ role beliefs in each dimension.This research attempts to answer the following three questions:(1)What are the general characteristics of senior high school English teachers’ role beliefs from teacher’s metaphor perspective?(2)From the perspective of teacher’s metaphor,are there any demographic differences in teaching age and educational background among senior high school English teachers’ role beliefs?(3)What are the factors that influence senior high school English teachers’ role beliefs from teacher’s metaphor perspective?The research shows that(1)the 70 teachers show a low-level belief tendency to agree with such metaphorical roles in the teacher-centered dimension,as the “Potter”,“Commander”,“Judge” and “Guard”;and a high-level belief tendency to agree with such metaphorical roles in the teacher-centered dimension,as “Shopkeeper”,“Driver”,“Jockey”,“Technician”,“Doctor”,and “Mechanic”;a high-level belief tendency to agree with metaphorical roles in the student-centered dimension.(2)Novice teachers and experienced teachers,teachers with MA degree and teachers with bachelor degree all show a high-level belief tendency to agree with metaphorical roles in the student-centered dimension.While compared with novice teachers and teachers with MA degree,experienced teachers and teachers with bachelor degree show a higher level of belief tendency to agree with metaphorical roles in the teacher-centered dimension.(3)The factors that influence these teachers’ role beliefs can be categorized into two aspects: internal and external.The former contains teacher’s learning experience and personality;the latter includes education policy(requirements of new curriculum standards and the college entrance examination),school policy,and teaching environment.According to the findings,some implications are given for the development of teachers’ role beliefs from the perspective of teachers,schools,and education researchers.Teachers should strengthen their professional identity and establish a good relationship with students;schools should set reasonable academic performance goals,provide various learning opportunities for teachers,and create a relaxing and harmonious teaching environment;education researchers should make reasonable adjustments to the examoriented evaluation system and attach importance to the cultivation of normal university students.