Understanding The Collective Inquiry In The English Teaching Research Group (ETRG)

The New Curriculum Reform of Basic Education calls for an innovation of the teaching research system and transformation of the institutional functions. School-based research and teachers' professional development promoted by research become hot issues in the educational field. The thesis aims to investigate the collective inquiry within the English Teaching Research Group (ETRG) of a high school and attempts to research the following questions:1) What is the substance of teachers' collective inquiry in the ETRG?2) How do the teachers interact in the collective inquiry?3) How does the collective inquiry influence teacher development within the ETRG?The research approach was case study. The case was the ETRG of a common high school with school-based research speciality. The data collection occupied the first semester of the academic year 2006-2007 with research methods including questionnaire, participant observation and interview to triangulate the authenticity of data in the form of meeting records, a questionnaire, journals, documents and interviews, etc. Lave and Wenger's community of practice and Senge's learning organization shaped the theoretical framework. Halliday's systematic functional grammar was adopted as an analytical tool to interpret collective inquiry from discourse angle.The study found that the substance of collective inquiry was how to improve students' English scores under the changes of the test form in national college entrance examination of Guangdong province by consolidating vocabulary intensely and adapting for new test form in advance as teaching strategies. It revealed the singleness of the inquiry discourse. The way teachers interacted while inquiring illustrated the transition from institutional dominance to autonomous discourse, specifically, the transition from asymmetry to symmetry in interactional control and the transition from imperative to consultative in discourse strategies. The collective inquiry influenced teacher development in many ways. Its "exploratory talk" revealed more reciprocal, stimulated teachers' critical thinking and generated more "communal knowledge", which propelled teacher development within ETRG Its non-system thinking inhibited the collective inquiry, which caused the side effects that English language was taught in a fragmentary way and learning stages were disconnected. The driving force behind was the way the school evaluated teachers, which limited the substance of collective inquiry, created a "defensive routine" that inhibited the full engagement of the members and further inquiry of some valuable issues.Based on the ecological perspective of teacher development, the study has some implications for teacher development within the ETRG as a community of inquiry that can enhance learning opportunities for teachers as well as the life of a teacher with an inquiry stance. Teacher individuals as researchers need to involve themselves into more exploratory talk. The ETRG as a community needs to promote effective interaction among teachers and construct more communal knowledge in facilitating teachers to be researchers. For a high school, more supports and empowerment are evoked within the existing administrative system for teachers to inquire fundamental solutions to students' problems collectively and to practice their research fruits. For in-service teacher education, lesson study is an effective way of teaching research, in which the problem or puzzle teachers are really interested in can ensure their mastership in collective inquiry.