A Survey Of EFL Teachers' Reflection And Beliefs Based On Transformative Learning Theory

Teachers' reflection and beliefs have been considered as crucial factors for their professional practice and professional growth; because reflection makes a bridge between teaching theory and teaching practice,and beliefs combine teaching cognition and teaching practice together. Many papers have made studies on teachers' reflection and beliefs respectively, but few studies combined these two factors together. This study includes three questions:(1) What's the present situation of EFL teachers' reflection from the perspective of transformative learning theory?(2) What's the present situation of EFL teachers' beliefs from the perspective of transformative learning theory?(3) What's the relationship between EFL teachers' reflection and beliefs from the perspective of transformative learning theory? This study aims at providing a reference for the research of teachers' reflection and their beliefs.This thesis is divided into six chapters. Chapter one is introduction, which illustrated the research background, the significance and the aim of the study. In Chapter two, the thesis reviewed the literature in relation to EFL teachers' reflection and beliefs. Chapter three introduced the transformative learning theory and social constructive theory to construct the theoretical framework. The fourth part is research design,114 in-service high school EFL teachers came from Gansu, Jiangxi, Shandong, Shanxi, Sichuan province and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region and Xinjing Uygur Autonomous Region were chosen as the participants of the investigation.The researcher applied Questionnaire for Teacher's Reflection and 9interview questions developed by Jinfen Xu, Banban Li and Andy Curtis' s(2015) to analyze current situation of teachers' reflection; and Questionnaire for Teacher's Beliefs(Horwitz,1999) to analyze current situation of teachers' beliefs; and Pearson correlation analysis in SPSS17.0 was used to present the relationship between teachers' reflection and their beliefs. Chapter five showed the results and discussion in detail. According to the results,(1) the high school EFL teachers' overall reflection level is relatively high(M=3.97),which means most of them are reflective teachers from the perspective of transformative learning theory. The teachers reflect most on Moral, Affective, Meta-cognitive and Classroom Management aspects, then on Critical and Cognitive factors, and reflect least on the Practical factors.(2)the mean percentage for teachers' belief is relatively high(M=3.65), which means most teachers hold a correct view on foreign language teaching and learning.(3) high school EFL teachers' reflection is significantly related with their beliefs(r=.617**), namely, the more reflection one has, the more correct beliefs one will hold. The sixth chapter discussed the conclusion, limitations and implication. The conclusion showed that reflection can improve teachers' practice ability and facilitate their professionaldevelopment, and it has a positive effect on teachers' beliefs towards foreign language teaching and learning.