A Study On The Balance Of The Professional Development For Primary School English Teachers

The new curriculum reform, instructed by National English Curriculum Standard, has not only provided an opportunity for the development of English education of primary schools, but also posed more demands and challenges for primary English teachers. Teachers who carry out the primary English education play a significant role in this process. So the success of the reform will largely depend on the teachers'professional proficiency improvements. Then two unavoidable questions are what the current situation of the primary English teachers'professional proficiency is, and whether they can meet the needs of the new curriculum reform.Based on the previous studies on the essential factors of the English teachers'professional development at home and abroad, together with a consideration of the requirements put forward by English Curriculum Standard, this paper summarizes the essential factors of primary English teachers'professional development. According to the essential factors summarized above, Seventy English teachers from the urban and rural areas of Beibei district were investigated with the aid of questionnaire, interview and comparative analysis in order to explore the balance of their professional developments. The results showed that there are some differences in professional knowledge, professional skills and professional attitudes between urban and rural primary English teachers. Among them, both urban and rural teachers are weak in discipline theory knowledge,drawing, singing, dancing, playing and making abilities,research ability,planning of professional development and professional identity aspects. Compared with the urban teachers, rural teachers are deficient in educational and scientific theory knowledge,English language knowledge,language skills,designing and organizing teaching abilities,using modern education technology ability,teaching management ability and education idea aspects. It mainly dues to regional difference; unbalance of English teachers' in-service training learning opportunity; difference of primary English's subject status; unbalance of English teaching resources'configuration; difference of English school-based research activities carried out; differcece of the source of primary English teachers, the majority of part-time teachers in rural area; difference of attitudes toward teachers' professional development. Based on these findings and some theories, some suggestions on how to achieve balance between the urban and rural primary English teachers on their professional development were given by the study.By doing the research, the author gets a better understanding of the current condition of primary English teachers'professional development, and perceives the imbalance between the urban and rural as a problem to be solved. Therefore, it is important to improve primary English teachers'professional development, narrow down the gap between the urban and rural teachers'professional development, and eventually achieve a balance.