A Study Of Current Situation Of EFL Teacher Identity In Rural Primary Schools In The New Age

Teacher identity is teachers’ positive feeling and recognition of their personal roles,professional roles and social roles,which is formed in the interaction between teachers and their profession in the specific social context.Teacher identity is the internal motivation of teacher’s career development.The Opinions on Comprehensively Deepening the Reform of the Construction of Teachers in the New Era(2018)(Following as Opinions)have stressed the strategic significance of creating high-quality professional and innovative teachers to fulfill the expectations of the Party and people.Undoubtedly,teacher identity is one of the keys to achieve the goal.Meanwhile,the Opinions also underlines a major effort to enhance the treatments of rural teachers and further implement the rural teacher support plan.In this context,EFL(English as a Foreign Language)teachers in rural primary schools as an integral part of the teaching staff,their identity is significant to the quality improvement of compulsory education in rural primary schools and the development and revitalization of rural areas.Therefore,it is of great significance to explore the EFL teacher identity in rural primary schools.However,there are sparse studies on the EFL teacher identity in rural primary schools.So the main purpose of this study is to explore the current situation and influencing factors of the EFL teacher identity in rural primary schools,and then put forward reasonable suggestions for improving the EFL teacheridentity in rural primary schools based on the study results.Then,the study selected 83 EFL teachers as the subjects from 30 rural primary schools in Ordos by random sampling as subjects,and collected data with questionnaire investigation and interview.Based on the existing literature and the data collected,this study attempts to explore three research questions by combining quantitative and qualitative research methods: Firstly,what is the general situation of EFL teacher identity in rural primary schools?What is the current situation of the four dimensions of EFL teacher identity including career identity,major identity,personal identity,and situated identity? Secondly,are there any differences in EFL teacher identity and its four dimensions among rural EFL teachers with different gender,age,years of teaching,professional titles,educational backgrounds and on-the-job status(formal teachers or temporary teachers)? Finally,what are the factors that affect the EFL teacher identity in rural primary schools? Then,The quantitative data collected by the questionnaire investigation were quantified by SPSS22.0.At the same time,the study also conducts face to face interviews with 6 subjects to collect qualitative data.The qualitative data analysis takes advantage of the grounded theory with the assistance of NVivo11 to explore and deduce the deep-seated factors that affect EFL teacher identity in rural primary schools.The main conclusions of this study are as follows: 1)A high-level EFL teachers identity in rural primary schools can be concluded.Specifically,among the four dimensions of EFL teachers identity,career identity gets the highest value,followed by major identity,personal identity and situated identity successively.2)No significant difference exists among EFL teachers with different educational backgrounds,age and years of teaching on the dimension of career identity,major identity,personal identity,and situated identity.3)The EFL teachers show gender difference in terms of EFL teacher identity and the dimensions of career identity and major identity.Moreover,the difference exists between the teachers in different on-the-job status in EFL teacher identity and the dimension of situated identity.Meanwhile,there exists a difference in professional titles in terms of situated identity as well.4)The main factors that affect the EFL teacher identity in rural primary schools can be divided into two categories: individual factors and social factors.The individual factors mainly contain the professional value,professional development,work involvement,sense of belonging.The social factors involve material security,social status,interpersonal relationship,and working environment.Finally,this study puts forward the following suggestions for boosting the EFL teacher identity according to the study results.1)The government should promote the rural teachers’ acquisition of other social resources on the premise of ensuring the income of the teachers.2)The education department should create a good learning and communication environment for rural EFL teachers and improve the training mode of EFL teachers to meet the teachers’ professional development needs.3)Rural primary schools should advance their management models,perfect the teacher evaluation system,and promote the construction of the school’s human environment.4)EFL teachers in rural elementary schools should raise their awareness of professional development,and actively explore scientific and suitable professional development methods for themselves.What’s more,EFL teachers should establish cultural awareness to enhance their sense of the local culture.