Research On Professional Development Of Secondary EFL Teachers

English as a foreign language has attracted unprecedented weight with economic globalization in the world and further opening-up of China. In order to improve the state of English education and receive the challenges from the new century, the national new curriculum has been published, experimented, revised, popularized, re-revised since the start of21st century. However, teachers are the executives of education reforms and directly relate to the enforcement of advanced concepts and the success of education reforms. Although the reforms of teacher education really strengthened the quantity and quality of EFL teachers to some extent, EFL teachers’professional development is still valued and its researches will continue in width and depth to ensure marked effect of EFL education reforms and continual promotion of EFL teaching qualities.Based on theories of teacher professional development, this study aims to investigate and understand the status of professional development of secondary EFL teachers in Chinese educational context and then present some suggestions for TPD. Thus this thesis reviews the definitions of TPD, then states the constructivism perspective of learning&development and summarizes the relative researches of TPD aboard and in China. Based on these foundations, the researcher firstly investigates the status of professional development of secondary EFL teachers with general questionnaire. Its participants are110EFL teachers from four secondary schools which belong to different types of schools in Yichun. Then she selects4teachers of them by purposed sampling and maximum variation for deep interview. Before interview, the four participants fill in the pre-interview inventory in order to search interview focus. In addition, the researcher collects data from field notes for the sake of triangular verification. In all, the literature review and research design aim to answer the following four research questions:1) What learning experiences do secondary EFL teachers have and how does it change?2) What knowledge&beliefs do secondary EFL teachers hold and how does it evolve?3) What teaching practice do secondary EFL teachers proceed and how does it develop?4) What is social context which secondary EFL teachers lived in and how does it work? The results of research questions are summarized after data analysis and discussions. Firstly, these secondary EFL teachers have experienced pre-service&in-service and formal&informal learning, which have different features but influence TPD. Secondly, these secondary EFL teachers hold subject matter knowledge, PCK and beliefs about language, students, teachers and research. These knowledge&beliefs are always developing but fluctuate with realities in their careers. Thirdly, teaching practice of secondary EFL teachers is characterized from initial teaching to survival, then to mastery and personalized teaching during their careers, but each stage is distinctive in light of different situations. Finally, social context facilitates or constrains these EFL teachers’professional development to some extent, but their responses to social context are different in order to seek personal and professional balance. In addition, this thesis interprets the interactive factors of TPD with five major finding. They are:1) Normal education and professional programs play essential roles in their TPD;2) Self-directed teaching&school-based activities provide diverse paths to TPD;3) Perfection of language&teaching serve as peculiar professional qualities of TPD;4) Love for students&love for teaching function as original driving force of TPD;5) Chinese social context works as potential external stimuli of TPD. At last, it presents some feasible suggestions for TPD to educational administrators, teacher educators and secondary EFL teachers themselves.