Study On The Self-development Of The Middle School English Teachers

The prosperousness of a country depends on its education while the quality of its education depends on teachers who can influence the success of the whole nation's education. The development of a teacher is a consecutive, dynamic activity which can impenetrate his or her profession career. The high-developing 21century asks for self-developing teachers due to several reasons: firstly ,the 21century is such an age in which the students' desire for more knowledge can not be met only by one textbook so that teachers have to keep on studying to catch up with the development of knowledge;secondly, the development of the teachers education has become the international trend of the worldwide education reform , thirdly, the popularity of the ideas of the life-long education and the teachers' specialization all ask the teachers to have the ability of self-development;and finally the current teacher's post-vocational education system has some disadvantages which hinder the teachers' development.Self-developing teachers are those who have the internal development motivation, can reflect to his teachings, can make deep research and improvement and can adjust themselves to be fit for the social development and social conditions. These teachers not only have the quality of sustainable development but also have the personalities of self-determination, reflection, exploration and creativity. Self-development ability can help teachers to achieve their professional growth. Moreover, it is the representation of teachers as the main body of education, and it is one of the important parts of teachers' professional morals. Self-development should be the conscious activity of the teachers who would like to devote themselves to the education career.As a portion of teachers, English teachers have the common characters as all the other teachers but at the same time they have something special. One reason is that language develops and changes very quickly. The speed of the renewal of language knowledge is faster than the other subjects so that English teachers should absorb new knowledge from time to time. The other reason is that English teachers act as the disseminator of the western culture, the bridge of the cultural intercommunication between the East and the West and the operators of cultivating excellent foreign language talents, they do better than the other teachers in advancing the human qualities ofstudents, increasing the students' knowledge of the cultures of other nations and helping them to learn the advanced science and technology of western countries. Therefore English teachers should become the self-developing teachers, especially the middle school English teachers because they are the guides of students' English study.Even though it is really necessary for teachers to become self-developing, after the questionary research and interviews with some English teachers of Xuchang city of Henan province, the author finds out that the self-development ability of the middle school English teachers is weak and then reveals the reasons leading to the result. One reason is that the current teacher's continuing education system hinders the enthusiasm of their self-development. Moreover, the middle school English teachers lack of the consciousness of self-development and the knowledge of self-development measures.How to help middle school English teachers to achieve self-development ability? Under the study of some foreign countries the author finds that the teachers action research, the school-based training and study communities are helpful for Chinese English teachers because these models pay much attention to teacher's self-determination, subjective activity, internal development motivation and desires for study. They focus on the training and improving of teachers' reflection ability. Besides, they emphasis the importance of groups in which teachers can talk and study freely, get necessary suggestions and support from each other so as to boost the self-development.Studying these literatures the author finally puts forward some suggestions for the self-development of the Chinese middle school English teachers. It is pointed out that creating school's study atmosphere, amending teachers evaluation system, teaching teachers the useful measures of self-development such as how to reflect to teachings and cooperate with colleagues are effective for the teacher's self-development.