A Study On Senior High School English Teachers’ PSD

As is known to all, teachers play a dominant role in education. If there were no highly qualified teachers, it would be impossible for students to receive high-quality education; therefore, the level of teachers’ professional development(TPD) is the major factor that will cast a direct impact on the quality of education. Currently, high school education plays an important role in Chinese national educational system. As one of the major courses in high school, becoming the substantial part in the entire quality-education system, foreign language education(FLE) aims to gradually solidify the foundation of students’ foreign language learning, develop their capability of using language for communication, and prepare them for securing a study chance in a college or university, hunting for jobs and achieving life-long learning and self-development in the future. At present, however, the professional status and value of senior high school(SHS) English teachers in China hasn’t been completely acknowledged in the society,English teachers’ professional standards and qualifications need to be certificated more properly, and the existing problems and obstacles in the process of English teachers’ professional self-development(PSD) haven’t drawn due attention yet. Therefore, it’s high time that we drew the attention of the public and government to SHS English teachers’ PSD, made continuous efforts to forge a healthy environment and system for their development and kept on giving encouragement, support and guidance to SHS English teachers for their pursuit of PSD. And the study on SHS English teachers’ PSD requires to be further broadened and deepened.This thesis is a survey on the English teachers from four senior high schools in Ganzhou City, particularly and systematically dealing with their state of PSD. Knowledge on pedagogy, psychology and administration is applied to comb through the related theories. Based on the author’s internship at No. 3 Middle School of Ganzhou and her personal teaching experience, an investigation is designed and carried out to find out the real situation of SHS English teachers’ PSD by means of classroom observation,questionnaire, interviews and so on.In the research, the author has five findings:(1) the subject teachers are weak intheir desire for PSD and content with their current state, lacking long term plan and goals for their professional development;(2) most teachers are realistic in setting their career goals and there is inadequate motivation in pursuing PSD;(3) teachers attach more importance to practical approaches rather than theory learning and they are lack of capacity for future development;(4) job burnout is the major obstacle for most teachers’ PSD; and(5) teachers pay attention to reflection on teaching phenomena and teaching difficulties, but their reflection is not deep enough to improve their scientific ability and harvest abundant research accomplishment. To solve the above problems, the author starts with setting objectives and content for SHS English teachers’ PSD, puts forward three principles for them to follow and provides strategies from the perspectives of government, school and teachers themselves.This research will not only enrich the resources for the research on TPD by providing authentic data, but also help the subject teachers know better about their current state and achieve their PSD.