英语专业毕业论文-Research on English Language Teachers’ Professional Quality in Senior High Schools under the New Curriculum Re.doc

BA Thesis of YuLin Normal University1. Introduction With the rapid development of economic globalization and information and technology, English plays a very important role in international affairs. In June 1999, the official document “Decision on the Deepening of Education Reform and the Full Promotion of Quality Education” heralded the reform of the existing curriculum construction and content. In June 2001, the State Council ratified the “Decision on the Reform and Development of Basic Education”, further clarifying the task of setting up the new elementary education curriculum. Based on these two documents, New Curriculum Reform in elementary education has been expanded gradually from the experimental zones to the whole nation. On the basis of “Concise Outline of the Curriculum Reform in elementary Education”, the New National English Curriculum Standard (NECS) is formulated by the Ministry of Education (MOE) in China for Senior High Schools English teachers. On one hand, teachers are the core participants in the reform. Only the quality of teachers has been improved the goal of the New Curriculum Reform can be achieved. On the other hand, the New Curriculum Reform is a new growth point for teachers professional quality and brings new challenges to all the English language teachers. English language teachers professional quality is the most essential part in teachers quality. It directly affects training the talent of 21st century.In the context of the New Curriculum Reform, teachers professional quality should meet the requirements of the reform. So the purposes of the thesis can be described as follows:(1)To enhance an understanding of the status of Senior High School English teachers in terms of their concepts, knowledge, skills and attitudes to professional quality.(2)To find out what difficulties and problems exist in their teaching or professional quality and what their professional needs are.(3)To explore some effective approaches of accelerating English language teachers professional quality so that they can put the concepts of the New Curriculum Reform into practice.It can be seen from this paper what status of English language teacher professional quality are and some suggestions will be provided on how to promote teachers professional quality. The author divided the paper into seven parts.Part One offers the introduction of the paper, which describes the background and the scope of the study. Part Two offers a literature review of the paper. It first reviews the definitions of teachers quality and previous studies on English language teachers quality abroad and at home. Part Three offers the theoretical frameworks of the paper. The author presents the importance of English language teachers professional quality. Part Four introduces the objectives of the survey, the subjects of the survey, instruments, the data collections and the data analysis. Part Five is about discussion. The author discusses the problems of English language teachers in Senior High Schools. And then the author discusses the causes of English language teachers professional quality. Part Six provides some ways of English language teachers professional quality in Senior High Schools based on the results of surveys and discussion. Part Seven is conclusion. The author draws a conclusion based on the findings of the research and results of the survey.2. Literature Review2.1 The definitions of teachers qualityThe quality of teachers is their ideological and psychological features shown in their educational activities which determine the effect of their education and teaching and influence their students moral and physical development. Overseas scholars published reams on teachers quality. Of all the searches, the greatest amount concerned generalizing successful teachers characteristics, categorizing characteristics and defining them. As far as teachers personal quality is concerned, they emphasized 1) teachers sympathy; 2) love to students; 3) tolerance; 4) habit and personality; and so on. Such as American educator W.C.Baily listed ten perfect qualities of teachers:1) sympathy; 2) personal appearance; 3) address; 4) sincerity; 5) optimism; 6)enthusiasm; 7) scholarship; 8) physical vitality; 9) fairness; 10) reserve and dignity. Gregory Hadley& Hiromi Yoshika Hadly (2003) conducted a survey in Japanese college students about what makes a good teacher. They summarized students views of a good teacher, including: kind-hearted, friendly individual, sympathetic but impartial, never resort to physical violence, understandable but understanding, focus on the needs of students, knowledgeable and experienced, humble, a storyteller to students, enthusiasm for teaching, a sense of humor and cheerfulness, and so on.Generally speaking, scholars and educators in our country suggested that teachers quality is divided into three aspects: teachers career morals, knowledge structure and competence structure. The scholars who insisted teachers fundamental quality structure stressed that teachers should possessed the following qualities: 1) ideology and morals; 2) knowledge; 3) competence; 4) educational psychology; 5) physical skills. While the scholars who insisted professional quality stressed that teachers professional qualities included: 1) morals; 2) knowledge; 3) professional competence; 4) psychology. Such as, YanLixin stressed, that teachers professional characters must be considered in building up the structure of teacher quality and it must be studied from its characteristics of profession, subject and teaching. Of course, there are also a few books discussing “teachers personality quality” and “something association with that”.In present China, basic education is against the background of New Curriculum Reform. Teachers quality displayed from teachers routine work should be an organic combination between physical as well as psychological characteristics and profession attainments that suit the need of modern society and peoples development in the aspects of ideology, knowledge and ability. It is not only the total amount of psychological quality, which influences directly on students growth, but also some other factors on teachers quality.2.2 Previous studies on English language teachers quality abroad and at homePromoting and improving the quality of teachers is a key to the New Curriculum Reform in China. UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) once raised “five factors and formula” for the teaching quality of foreign languages. The “five factors” refer to (1) Policies of foreign language teaching in a country; (2) Source and quality of students ;(3) Quality of textbooks; (4) teaching environment and conditions; (5)Quality of teachers. The formula is Quality of teaching = (students+ Textbooks+ Environment+ Teaching method)Quality of teachers. It is not difficult to see that the quality of teachers is the decisive factor affecting the quality of teaching directly. Peter Steven (cited ChenLin, 2002), an applied linguistics expert of Edinburgh University, summarized three points, “personal intrinsic quality, education quality and dedication,” as the essential quality of language teachers. Professor YeLan structure divided the structure of teacher quality into three parts: Teachers education philosophy, knowledge structure, and abilities. In Su Dingfangs (2002) opinion, a qualified foreign language teacher should possess sound specialized knowledge and skills, classroom teaching organization ability language, lots of theories on language acquisition, and some due knowledge of FLT (Foreign Language Teaching) method. To sum up, Experts and scholars abroad and at home make so many researches on teachers quality. Therefore, we should know much about the characteristics of English teaching in Senior High Schools in order to improve English language teachers professional quality.2.3 The characteristics of English teaching in Senior High SchoolsCompared with primary schools and middle schools, English teaching in Senior High Schools has the following outstanding characteristics:(1) The overall goal of English teaching in Senior High Schools is to train students to develop language skills, language knowledge, emotional attitudes, learning strategies and cultural awareness and other abilities.(2) The English teaching in Senior High Schools emphasizes “student-oriented”. It is said that student explore their learning potential and develop self-learning ability by initiative learning, experience or participate in any activities.(3) The English teaching in Senior High Schools pays more attention on students oral English, reading and grammar. They hope the students can express their own ideas in English.(4) The English teaching process, in Senior High Schools always is based on the needs of students, not just the idea of the teacher. The teachers in Senior High Schools dont force the students to remember, understand the materials which the teachers give to.With English teaching in Senior High Schools having so many characteristics, English language teachers should meet the demands of professional quality under the New Curriculum Reform.2.4 The demands on English language teachers professional quality In recent years, the English language teachers in Senior High Schools have been working hard to meet the challenge produced by the New Curriculum Reform. However, the gap between the administrative expectation and the actual performance is rather large. According to the New Curriculum Reform for Senior High Schools; English language teachers should try their best to create an authentic communicative environment for students to use English. They should instruct in English as much as possible to enlarge students language input and at the same time to elicit from students as much language output as possible.There are some changes for teachers adjusting to the New Curriculum Reform. Firstly, the teachers concept of language, teaching, learning and methods are renewed:(1) Views of language: from knowledge-oriented to competence-oriented (2) Views of teaching: from explanation-centered to elicitation-centered (3) Views of learning: from recitation-based to utilization-based (4) Views of methods: from authority-dominated to interaction-dominated Secondly, teachers performance in the classroom must be altered in the followings:(1) The role of teachers: from single role to a variety of roles(2) The focus of teaching: from grammar explaining to the use of language (3) The pace of teaching: from slow and loose steps to fast and linked ones(4) The medium of teaching: from the mother tongue to the target language2.5 SummaryAt present, English has become an international language. English language teachers in Senior High Schools take on the task of training students to learn English. Improving their professional quality is very important for students quality. The scholars have made some studies on the characteristics of English teaching and the demands of professional quality under the New Curriculum Reform. And experts and scholars abroad and at home have made an extensive study about teaches quality. Their studies provide not only valuable materials but also abundant theoretical basis for my research under the New Curriculum Reform. But during the process of looking up in a reference resource, we find that there are few studies about the teachers professional quality in a certain subject or a certain studying stage, especially the studies in real evidences. So far, we can find few articles or works on English language teachers professional quality in Senior High Schools. Just basing on this condition, the author will discuss what the professional qualities that English language teachers in Senior High Schools should own under the New Curriculum Reform. In addition, this paper attempts to offer some suggestions about training and improving teachers. And the author hopes to provide the foundations for teacher training.3 Theoretical frameworks3.1 The characteristics of the New English Curriculum Reform The New English Curriculum Reforms basic aims are to carry out quality education and to improve students development. The purpose is to train the students to have the synthetically language ability. According to the regulations of learning a foreign language, and the present situation and requirement in the development of foreign language teaching, we should make positive innovations on the base of inheriting the achievements of the former reform in the English Curriculum, and try hard to make English teaching of our country reform greatly in purpose, target, contents, strategy, means, evaluation, and etc. Besides, we should try hard to adapt the requirement of educating talented person. Compared with the former English syllabus, the new curriculum standard has the following outstanding characteristics: (1) The determination of the objective of English curriculum makes it the starting points to develop students and try to reflect the theory of quality education.(2) The purpose of English Curriculum is to mainly educate the students language ability and propose the study methods personal experience, practice, participation, exchanges, and cooperation.(3) Promoting the “mission type” teaching, and implementing the educating of teachers language ability in the teaching process.3.2 Necessary professional qualities An English language teacher should know the art and craft of teaching. The craft of teaching relates to the teachers specific knowledge of the subject matter, knowledge on teaching that subject matter and knowledge on teaching in general. The art of teaching involves the combination of knowledge and experience in the many decisions that teachers make as they interact with learners. In detail, an English teacher will integrate several areas of knowledge and practice. These areas of knowledge and practice include (Lange, 2000)(1) Competence in English language (2) Understanding of how the target language is taught (3) Practice in the application of knowledge about the subject and teaching in teaching situations(4) Opportunities to reach an understanding of both the art and the craft of teaching (5) Evaluation of teaching3.3 Significance of English language teachers professional quality In the new century, there are so many new things appearing, being a teacher, especially a Senior High School English language teacher, to keep up with the quick pace of modern world is necessary. Senior High School English language teachers need a wide range of knowledge in order to guide learners when they need; we also need to know the usage of modern technology in our class presentation. Nowadays, most young Senior High School English language teachers graduated from Normal universities or comprehensive universities, but we can not deny there are still some, especially elder ones who graduated from colleges or even lower level schools, which results in the failure of achieving the above goals. The quality of teachers education is the very foundation of the teaching quality. So teachers professional quality is very necessary and helpful for Senior High School English language teachers to be qualified in their position.Professional quality of Senior High School English language teachers emphasizes teachers lifelong learning ability. They do not only have skillful language skills and teaching techniques but have the ability to improve and create new ways out. For example, there is a new concept in the new curriculum, that is, the awareness of culture. Being a teacher of English, he or she first needs to have such awareness and cultural knowledge. Some teachers may not be ready for this change, then, they need to make up this gap by reading lots of relative books and the best way is to make notes whenever they see or read something useful in their teaching. By this kind of accumulation, teachers will be ready for this change. Professional development of Senior High School English language teachers also pays attention to the role of teachers in the development process. Teachers are not only the objective of teacher professional development, but also the subject of this process. They are the key element in professional development. But many Senior High School English language teachers think their job is only to teach the book and they have nothing to do with research because research activities are authoritys task. This wrong concept leads to both the lost of professional autonomy which is the core of professional development, and the result of low research ability which represents teachers academic level. Because of this wrong concept, Senior High School English language teachers professional quality goes slowly and inefficiently.3.4 SummaryAs having so many characteristics of the New English Curriculum Reform and the Significance of English language teachers professional quality which I mentioned above, the teachers in Senior High Schools should pay much attention to their professional quality. Professional quality for English teachers is beneficial to both students and teachers. Especially under the circumstance of the New Curriculum Reform, English language teachers might take this opportunity to update their teaching concept methods, master scientific research methods, improve their competence and become a complete professional. Therefore, the author makes a questionnaire basing on this condition to find out what problems exist in their teaching or professional quality and then to explore some effective ways of improving their professional quality. 4. Methodology4.1 ObjectivesTo meet the requirements of New Curriculum Reform and make English language teachers training mo