A Study Of English Teachers’ Collaboration In Middle Schools Under A Context Of New Curriculum Reform

China has begun a new round of basic education curriculum reform since2001, whichdemands a better quality of English teachers in middle schools whose quality is directlylinked to the success of the nation’s cause of teaching and learning. During theimplementation, collaboration has been regarded as one of the essential qualities of Englishteachers in middle schools who play an important role in this curriculum reform, because itis their task to learn new contents as well as to explore new ways and rules of teaching. Inthe meantime, a spirit of collaboration has been listed out as one guideline at the nationallevel, which was extraordinarily significant for professional development of teachers andschools.The author picked97English teachers from5middles schools in Linwei Region ofWeinan City in Eastern Shaanxi Province with an aim to solve questions as well as getstrategies. Therefore, the author summarized findings in the next three parts:Firstly, all of the5middle schools in this region have been carrying out activities ofteachers’ collaboration which mainly include collective lesson planning, expert coaching inteaching, peer observation and evaluation, teaching and research activities, etc. Among theseactivities, teachers are inclined to collaborate in ways of peer observation and evaluation,collective lesson planning and expert coaching in teaching. In the meantime, freecommunication, due to its flexibility regarding both aspects of space and time, is also greatlywelcome by teachers.Secondly, most of the teachers involved are willing to collaborate with each other, buttheir phases of professional development resulted in different emphases in collaboration. Forinstance, new teachers relied heavily on teachers’ collaboration while expert teachersfrequently showed up as an instructor.Thirdly, the author discussed constraints of teachers’ collaboration, including littletime for communication because of too much work, a lack of harmonious atmospherearound the whole school and teachers’ motivations of collaboration.Hence, the author listed several ways to solve problems discussed before, including building a better collaborative atmosphere, choosing different collaboration ways fordifferent teachers, regulating school management systems and so on.