A Narrative Inquiry Into Effects Of Expert Evaluation On College English Teachers’ Classroom Teaching

With the deepening reform of college English, great attention has been paid to the growth and development of tertiary foreign language teachers. To meet the increasing requirements in teaching and education at present, college English teachers should seek effective ways to improve their overall teaching quality. Teacher evaluation, related to all aspects of teachers‘ professional development, can motivate teachers to make constant improvements in teaching practice, which is considered to be a quintessential part in teachers‘ professional development. As experts are experienced in teaching, they are supposed to have a deeper insight into classroom teaching. Thus, they can not only provide teachers with valuable instructions but also give them convincing professional advice for teaching. So far, expert evaluation has become a powerful means to motivate teachers to reflect on their teaching and achieve professional development. Narrative inquiry, as a qualitative research method which requires teachers to make frequent reflections on their own teaching practice, has been widely employed by researchers at home and abroad to explore teachers‘ professional development.This research aims at exploring the effects of expert evaluation on college English teachers‘ classroom teaching, in hope of enriching relevant researches in the field of expert evaluation and teachers‘ classroom teaching and professional development.This research mainly focuses on two research questions:(1) What are the contents of expert evaluation on teachers who have attended the SFLEP national college English teaching contest according to the participants‘ reflective journals in this research?(2) What effects does expert evaluation have on the teachers‘ classroom teaching after they have attended the SFLEP national college English teaching contest? And in which specific aspects have the effects been embodied?This research carries out an empirical research by narrative inquiry. The research subjects are two college English teachers from a 211 University in Jiangsu Province who have attended the SFLEP national college English teaching contest. The researcher conducted classroom observations for three months from March to May, 2015. Each time she would take notes during the classroom observation. Meanwhile, the researcher collected the participants‘ reflective journals which consisted of the evaluation opinions provided by the experts in the teaching contest and the reflections and adjustments the teachers made in their teaching practice after attending the teaching contest. In addition, the author carried out respective interviews to further explore their inner thoughts about expert evaluation and the implementation of classroom teaching. Through all the means above, the researcher collected a large quantity of qualitative research data relevant to this research.The research results indicates that the experts in the teaching contest took various aspects of the participants‘ classroom teaching into evaluation: teaching design, teaching objective, teaching content, teaching methods and means, teaching organization and teachers‘ comprehensive quality and so on. They spoke highly of the participants‘ performances in the teaching contest, and at the same time they pointed out that there were several aspects that the teachers needed to make improvements in teaching practice. This research also finds that expert evaluation has had positive effects on teachers‘ teaching philosophy and teaching practice. According to expert evaluation, the participants combed and renewed their teaching philosophy and applied the teaching philosophy into teaching practice. In the teaching practice, the participants reflected actively and adopted useful teaching strategies to perfect teaching design and enhance classroom interaction. The experience of attending the SFLEP national college English teaching contest has had great influences on teachers. It served as the guidance for teachers to better know themselves. It also urged teachers to make constant progress so as to improve their teaching quality, which was of great significance to their professional development.