A Study Of Current Professional Standards For ESL Teachers In The United States

Nowadays,the key of international competition lies in education,and the quality of education depends on teachers.Language education is an important component of education and an important embodiment of national soft power,which plays an irreplaceable role in international competition.The United States has been a multilingual country since ancient times.The continuous growth of a large number of overseas immigrants and other kinds of non-native English learners has put forward higher requirements for English as a second language(ESL)teachers.The development of teachers’ professional standards in the United States has always been in the forefront of the world.It has established a multi-disciplinary,multi-level and multi-dimensional system of teacher professional standards,which runs through the stages of pre-service and in-service in the development of teachers to ensure teacher quality in a trinity.As a part of the national teacher professional standard system,ESL teacher standards,including two parts—the initial standard and accomplished standard are considered as pointers and norms for ESL teachers’ pre-service training and in-service development;Besides,the standards are revised and improved with the times.There is an ancient civilization and splendid culture in China,attracting people all over the world.The promotion of Chinese language and Chinese culture will be beneficial to “The Belt and Road Initiative”.It is the fundamental guarantee for promoting cultural exchanges between China and foreign countries and the important support for the construction of the community of human destiny.With the increasing number of foreign people coming to China,the Pre-K-12 learners can not be ignored.This puts forward more professional requirements for Chinese as a second language(CSL)teacher in China,especially for those who teach underage learners.However,this field is often ignored.ESL teacher professional standards in the United States,which are mature in development and rich in practical experience,are similar to those of CSL teacher professional standards in terms of groups and contexts.The international advanced professional standards for second language teachers from preschool to grade12 can be used for reference in the cultivation and development of CSL minors’ teachersin China.Based on the above considerations,this paper selects three sets of current professional standards for ESL teachers: “Standards for the Recognition of Initial TESOL Programs in P-12 ESL Teacher Education(2010)”/“Standards for Initial TESOL Pre-K-12 Teacher Preparation Programs(2018)”(2010 and 2018 versions are in parallel,so both of them belong to the scope of the current standards)and “English as a new language standard”(accomplished teacher standards)as the corpus to make a comprehensive interpretation of the current professional standards for Pre-K-12 English teachers in the United States,to explore the background,actual state,overall characteristics,effectiveness and drawbacks of the series of standards and the reference significance.ESL teacher professional standard is the product of the development of the times and social needs,behind which lies the elements of politics,culture,language,education and needs.Therefore,this paper first puts the current ESL teacher professional standards in the United States into a grand social and historical background,and makes an in-depth exploration of the background of ESL teacher professional standard in America,traces its origin and finds out the causes from the perspective of the development requirements of national language policy and the overall environment of society,culture and education,and the actual needs of teachers,students and discipline development.Then,guided by Shulman’s Theory of Teacher Knowledge,it makes an individual analysis of the three sets of standards for the two stages(pre-service and in-service)of the ESL teacher professional development from the following aspects: the institution and subject of the standard,the basis and core idea of the standard,the framework and content of the standard,the teacher certification based on the standard and the characteristics of the standards respectively.Meanwhile,the parallel of new and old versions of pre-service standards makes it possible to explore the continuity and development of the same standard in different periods from a diachronic perspective,so as to analyze the characteristics of pre-service more comprehensively in the scope of current standards research.After full and thorough analysis of current pre-service and excellent(in-service)ESL teacher standards in the United States individually,guided by Kumaravadivelu’s Language Teacher Education Theory,this paper disrupts the original structure of the standard,makes a contrastiveanalysis of the standards in different teacher development stages in basic elements,overall framework,specific content and standards based certification systematically from the perspective of the integrity of ESL disciplines and system of ESL teachers’ professional standards,to find out the similarities and differences between different standards,the causes and the internal relations.The study further excavates common features and characteristics of the current ESL teachers professional standards in idea,structure,content,perspective,discourse and certification,and explores the impact of the teacher professional standards.In addition,combined with the development requirements of the national language policy and the practical needs of the society,this paper also analyzes the current situation of the development of second language teachers,instruction and teachers’ professional standards in China.Referring to the research of ESL teachers’ professional standards in the United States,this paper puts forward some thoughts and Enlightenment from seven aspects.It is hoped that this paper will bring some implications for the second language research,the formulation and improvement of CSL teacher professional standards,reform and optimization of teacher education,improvement of teachers’ quality and teaching level,as well as the spread of Chinese and Chinese culture.