Professional Growth Of Senior High School Teachers In Teacher Learning Community In The Context Of Developing Students’ Core Competencies

Proposals on furthering the reform of morality education(2014)states that all schools should integrate academic quality and students’ core competencies into subject teaching based on students characteristics and school status quo.Core competencies are written into the Curriculum Standard published in 2017.These core competencies refer to necessary qualities and key abilities that students are supposed to attain to adapt to individual development and social development.In order to keep in line with the reform,large numbers of front-line teachers make every effort to seek for any practical teaching ways to cultivate students’ core competencies.Meanwhile,teachers try to achieve professional growth and enhance their abilities,thus boosting students’ overall development.In recent years,teachers’ growth in teacher learning community has aroused much attention among teachers.Under this circumstance,English teachers in No.2 Senior High School form a teacher learning community spontaneously,and attempt to push them to break their original teaching pattern.The research subjects are 18 teachers in the teacher learning community in No.2 Senior High School,who take part in constructing lessons designed to develop students’ core competencies.Based on data,including the journals,semi-structured interviews and questionnaires,this paper make a deep analysis and discussion on the basis of collaborative learning theory and the teacher development model put forward by Bell&Gilbert.The research is designed to address three questions:(1)What roles do teachers in the teacher learning community play during the process of constructing lessons aimed to develop students’ core competencies?(2)Do teachers achieve professional growth during this process?If yes,in what aspects?(3)What are the factors that influence the teachers’ growth?Three research findings are presented as follows:(1)During the process,teachers mainly play six roles:learners,researchers,reflective practitioners,collaborators,team promoters and course designers.(2)At different stages,teachers have made different progress in professional,personal and social aspects.Here are its main characteristics:at the early stage,the growth is mainly reflected in the professional aspects,such as the acquirement of basic knowledge on core competencies and teaching skills,which embodies the interaction between theory and practice.At the middle stage,teachers have made significant improvement in professional aspects such as improvement of knowledge and skills,modern educational technologies,and reflective ability;growth in personal aspect is the change of attitude;growth in social aspect is the obvious progress of communication and cooperation ability and intimate relationship among community members.At the later stage,its development mainly manifests itself in professional aspect such as the enlightenment of teaching skills and teaching ideas;development in personal aspect is the improvement of research ability and reinforcement of teaching beliefs;development in social aspect is the concern for self-development and the establishment of more intimate relationship with others.(3)The growth of teachers is influenced by personalities,reflection,individual interests and needs,support from the team,and pressure of professional titles.The paper also provides some suggestions based on the above conclusions,such as the guidance of the school,the support of team leaders and team building,which may be helpful to the future improvement of professional growth of senior high school teachers.Still there exist some limitations in this paper in that research data is not comprehensive enough and the research needs to be supplemented by quantitative research.