Teacher Professionalism and Professional Development of EFL Teachers in China.doc

Teacher Professionalism and Professional Development of EFL Teachers in China作者：Yang Zho 文章来源：东北师范大学 点击数： 6446 更新时间：2004-6-15  The professionalization of teaching has had undergone a long process in China's history The training of teachers started in 1681when the first Normal School was set up by the early Christian missionaries But the concept of professionalization of teaching was not put forward until 1980s，when we no longer face the problem of an inadequate number of teachers Since then sociologists and educators have had explored the concept of teaching as a profession， and agreed that teachers are professionals next to doctors and lawyers There also arised a general notion that a profession is not equivalent to a trade     First，it has an indispensable social function    Second，it has developed consistent theories and necessary skills    Third，the profession has its own autonomous and authoritative organization    If the teaching of foreign language is a profession，then it has to possess these qualifications    How can teachers of English as a Foreign Language develop their competency to become true professionals？    This is a question that we need to ponder seriously at the beginning of the new century when the Chinese government and the society at large set an unprecedented high demand on the teaching of foreign languages    The models of teacher education programs in the past are generally based on nine-skills：    Knowledge of content of teaching and skills of teachingThis paper attempts to show that this model is no longer applicable in the new era and that our profession is multidisciplinary and full of variablesThe expertise of EFL teacher also might be compared to cognitive proficiency and specific techniques in the awareness of the working system of the profession and awareness of the multifaceted nature of language and the multidisciplinary nature of language teachingThe development of such kind of awareness and the ability to handle the competitiveness of language teaching and learning should be incorporated in the objectives of teacher education in the new century    I would like to make my point in four sections：    1Conceptualizing TEFL as a component of education in China    TEFL as a component of education in China operates as a system It can be conceptualized as a force of four levels of activities    Level 1：Language planning and educational planning Deciding what languages are taught in schools and in universities And in which part of the curriculum should it be     Level 2：Designing syllabuses， course standards， developing materials and preparing and training teachers    Level 3：Teaching and learning in a classroom    Level 4：Evaluatingassessing the outcome of teaching and learning    The job of the first level is the business of policy makers or governmental officialsLanguage policies and educational policies must react to change or the policy makers mustgive up exclusive power to bring about remedial change in the education system    Having entered WTO， the Chinese government and the public sector have set a higher demand on the teaching of foreign language It has been decided that English should be taught in primary schools and since then， new course standards have been prescribed for teaching English in Schools    The parallel activities on level two concern specialists and teacher educators They base their innovations on the theories of linguistics， applied linguistics， psychology， and pedagogy    The activities on level three are designed for the teacher“No matter how concerned the teachers may be with the immediate practices of the classroom，the practices are based on some principle or other which is accountable to theory”    Widdowson RG（1984）    Teachers should understand language teaching theories and know how to theorize    2Understanding the variables of TEFL profession    To conceptualize EFL cooperation， is to simplify it  The questions that the teacher needs to answer are manyAnd the answers are inter-twined Three of them are fundamental：    a）Why do you teach the language？    b）What to teach？    c）How to teach？    The last question is the most important for teachers    In the analysis of methods， scholars like Richard and Rodgers have shown that a method is an integration of theories of language and language learning，with consistent practices in designs and techniques    We can categorize the variables in TEFL in China as follows：    aNational Variables    national educational aids in general    national educational aids for foreign language teaching    the social situation which necessitates that a particular language has to be taught    national tests of the methods of teaching and learning    bInstitutional Variables    size of class    degree of interest    intensity of instruction    administration's support to teachers    physical resourcesavailable facilities    cVariables related to ethnic characteristics of culture    control of class discipline    stereotypes of teacher's role and behaviour eg foreign experts encountered some kind of a problem when they first came to teach in China I remember in our department in the early 80s，one of the professors from abroad sat on a desk while giving a lecture， the students were taken aback by this breach of propriety    dPupil Variables    attitude towards the language    attitudinal factors：motivation，age，past experience of learning a foreign language    eTeacher variables    courage and proficiency    attitude    motivation    professional training    experience of teaching    character    This explains the complexity of the profession and the necessity of continuing professional development of foreign language teachers    3Understanding the Role of EFL Teachers    Teacher's consciousness of their role is essential in their professional development The terms that denote a teacher's role are indeed many Different method have different as-sumption about what role the teacher plays in the classroom The term “role”has been defined in two different ways：    The first one： a role can be defined generally as“a part people play in the performance of social life-Widdowson，RG