Research On Middle School English Teacher’s Professional Competence In The Context Of English Key Competence

As a new goal of English curriculum reform in basic education,English key competence has attracted wide attention in academic circles.At present,the relevant research on English key competence mainly focuses on the following two aspects: one is the analysis of the connotation and essence of English key competence;the other discusses the methods and strategies of cultivating students’ English key competence.As the promoter and transformer of English key competence,middle school teachers of English play an important role in the development level of students’ key competence of English subject.However,fewer studies have been made of foreign language teachers’ professional competence.The relevant researches mainly focus on the definition and theoretical analysis of the key competence of English teachers without enough empirical research.Therefore,based on the definitions of English teachers’ professional competence advanced by different experts and scholars,and assisted by the basic principles of ecological education theory,this study aims to investigate the current situation of English teachers’ professional competence from such five dimensions as English language competence,English teaching competence,humanistic competence,information competence and self-development competence.To a certain extent,it reflects the professional quality of Zhoushan English teachers in the elementary education stage.This study attempts to explore the following three problems by taking Zhoushan Archipelago New Area as an example: 1)The status quo of the professional competence of middle school English teachers;2)Difference analysis of English teachers’ professional competence with different genders,teaching age,professional titles,educational backgrounds and teaching schools;3)Analysis of the existing problems and development demands of middle school English teachers in the development of professional competence.In this study,152 middle school English teachers in Zhoushan Archipelago New Area were selected as the survey objects.The questionnaire data were analyzed mainly through descriptive statistics,independent sample T-test and single factor analysis of variance.The research results are shown as follows: 1)The results of the current situation analysis show that the overall situation of English teachers’ professional competence is above the average level with the average score of 76.95,but there is still a lot of room for improvement in information competence and self-development competence;2)The results of difference analysis show that there are significant differences in the level of teachers’ professional competence in terms of the different level of teaching schools,among which the level of English teachers’ professional competence in the provincial key schools is the highest;3)The results of demand analysis show that the heavy score-oriented teaching tasks and the pressure of frequent inspection and assessment become the main factors to hinder the improvement of English teachers’ professional competence.In addition,English teachers not only lack of the skills to make use of information resources and information technology,but also lack of the corresponding training opportunities.Based on the above conclusions,we make some suggestions and strategies on how to improve English teachers’ professional competence in the middle school from such three aspects as education administration department and schools,teachers’ own development and education for normal university students in order to promote the development of middle school English teachers’ professional competence.