The Status Quo Of The Professional Development Of Senior High School English Teachers In Wanzhou District: Problems And Countermeasures

Education sets foundation for a prosperous country.Quality of education depends on the quality of teachers.Since the 1990 s,the professional development of teachers has been an essential issue in teacher education research in China.Moreover,the quality of senior high school education is even more important as senior high school is a transitional stage that cultivate talents before the higher education.With the continuous social development and economic globalization,English has taken on more significance,and the cultivation of highly-competent workers with an international vision and relevant language skills are emphasized in various countries,therefore,English education in senior high school has become a critical link.However,China has a shortage of English teachers at present,and the professional development of English teachers has,to a large extent,impeded the integral English teaching from upgrading,and fails to adapt to the current economic and social development.The thesis begins with the professional development of high-school English teachers in WanZhou District,combines the actual situation in WanZhou with domestic and overseas research achievements,and conducts an analysis to demonstrate the real situation of high-school English teachers ’professional development in the district and identify the bottleneck and its causes,and finally arrives at conclusions with strategies offered to promote the professional development of high-school English teachers in WanZhou.Based on the teacher professional development theory,this thesis has applied documentary literature,questionnaires and data analysis to investigate English teachers in five middle schools in WanZhou District.A total of 144 questionnaires have been distributed and 144 withdrawn effectively.Data has been processed into percentages,which is highly representative.First is literature review that defines teacher professional development,professional development of English teachers,professional development of high-school English teachers,etc.since the professional development of high-school English teachers has differed from that of primary school and junior high-school English teachers.Senior high school is a special stage for the physical and mental development of students,which requires seniorhigh-school English teachers to be a versatile of professional abilities.Additionally,this part expounds and comments on domestic and overseas researches in the area.Then presents the investigation and analysis on high-school English teachers’ professional development in WanZhou.The investigation was carried out in respect of teachers,scientific research and training,teaching,teachers’ professionality and abilities,and teachers’ awareness of self-professional development.Questionnaire survey and data analysis show gender imbalance,lack of professional development leader and young teachers’ hesitance to work in rural township exists for teachers as a whole.Next,regarding the environment,teachers feel stressed before onerous teaching tasks,which exhaust their time and energy for self-improvement.Furthermore,insufficient funds provided by schools and the government as well as few education and training opportunities due to the limited economic development has formed objective factors that impede teachers’ professional development.Combined with the survey results.,try to proposes strategies to promote the professional development of high-school English teachers in WanZhou.The research is of the opinion that WanZhou high-school English teachers ’ professional development is affected by educational administration,school management and teachers themselves.The improvement should consider the following three aspects.Firstly,a complete education mechanism for in-service teachers should be established with a fair and rational distribution of resources to enhance the social status and income level of general high-school English teachers.Secondly,school-based training system should be perfected to strengthen teacher’s in-service training.Lastly,teachers should foster an outlook on learning featuring life-long study,upgrade their scientific research abilities,and regard teaching reflection as an effective method to promote practical wisdom.Limited by the author’s theoretical knowledge and research ability,the research has relatively few samplings,which could affect the comprehensiveness of the facts reflected.However,the results shed some light on directions for future researches:WanZhou high-school English teachers’ professional development calls for cooperation of the education authorities,schools and teacher themselves;the development of times leads to new requirements for teachers’ professional development,so that future researchshould go further and have a wider range;different studying phases and regional differences also have varying requirements for teachers ’professional development,therefore future research should be conducted for different studying phases and regions.