Problems And Solutions For Curriculum Development Of Minority Pre-service EFL Teacher Education

As an under-developed ethnic minority area in west Hunan province,the English teaching quality in Xiangxi Tujia and Miao Autonomous Prefecture is relatively poor and left behind,where some,if not many tough problems needs to be solved.What's more,as the only undergraduate teaching English as a foreign language program in Xiangxi Prefecture,the English Education Major of Jishou University has shouldered a major responsibility for training English teachers in the local elementary and secondary schools.In view of this,this study adopts the combination of quantitative and qualitative case study approach,and follows the basic principles of needs analysis theory and positioning theory to explore the curriculum problems and revisit the English Education Major at Jishou University.By using literature analyses,questionnaires and interviews,this researcher has researched into the curriculum and discussed the relationship between the cultivation of undergraduates majoring in English education and the development of local minority English education.The opinions and expectations about the curriculum from senior students,past graduates,program heads and the experienced English teacher have been analyzed to find out the existing problems and some tentative suggestions have been put forward.It shows that the process of curriculum development for English Education at Jishou University follows a primarily top-down approach.The program heads play a very essential role throughout the whole process.The author suggests that the curriculum development should: 1)change ideologies on the English Education major curriculum and pay attention to the features of teacher's training and practice;2)adjust and improve the curriculum structure,optimize the proportion of each course of the curriculum,and add more practical elective courses and rearrange the teaching sequence of all courses;and 3)optimize the contents of English Education curriculum,strengthen and improve the general education curriculum,teacher education curriculum and practice curriculum,and reinforce a closer connection between the curriculum and basic education reforms.