Introduction
1.Research Background
During the latest decades, education reforms have evolved on a global scale,from a sole focus on the implementation of professional development reformprograms to a gradually increasing emphasis on the significance of participants'experiences and skill construction. In China, high school English education is facingup with the innovation of curriculum. Ministry of Education issued the reform schemeof NMET in 2014. According to the reform scheme, students will have two chances totake English test during three-year high school education since 2017. The change ofEnglish test is the first step of the entire reform of College Entrance Examination.There are many reasons for this resolution. Firstly，traditional exam-orientededucation offers students only one chance which determines their future even theirwhole life. In this situation, students are always stressed out. The reform of Englishtest shows the deliberate consideration of equality and equity since students can haveone more chance. Secondly, it's difficult to examine one's academic proficiencythrough two tests because it's hard to guarantee the reliability and validity of bothtests. Tests used should follow testing and educational principles. English languagetesting is much mature than other subjects in China. Therefore, reform of CollegeEntrance Examination starts form English.However, it doesn't mean that English is not important any more. Conversely,English education will become more and more important along with the process ofglobalization since Language is one of the indispensable tools for interculturalcommunication. Therefore, it's urgent to enhance the quality of English education. Inthis circumstance, the reform of NMET is advantageous for the development of seniorhigh school English education. What's more, it offers a chance for senior Englishteachers to change simultaneously.
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2.Significance of the Study
In this situation, quality education becomes the focus both at home and abroad. Itis generally acknowledged that language learning is a process of learning and teaching.Teaching is an indispensable part of it. There are large number of theoretical studiesand discussions and partial qualitative and case studies on reflection. However,Griffiths (2000) points out only little quantitative researches have been done to verifythe effectiveness of teachers' reflection, not to mention how teachers’ reflectioninfluences their professional development.There are several papers which have proved the close correlation betweencollege EFL teachers' reflection and teachers’ professional development. However,there are few empirical researches done to study the correlation of high schoolEnglish teachers' reflection ability and their professional development. It is of greatsignificance to do this kind of research. In this essay, the author is trying to do deeperresearch to present a clear status quo of senior school English teachers' reflectionability and find it out if there is a correlation between senior school English teachers’reflection ability and their professional development. And if it does exist, in whichdegree do they correlate. At the end of the paper, suggestions for educationaladministrators and high school English teachers will be given.
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Chapter OneLiterature Review
1.1Reflection
The term reflection originates in ancient Latin and French terms connoting"bending back" on oneself. From the perspective of philosophy, reflection refers to human activities of exercising introspection and the eager to leam more about theirfundamental nature, purpose and essence. Reflection is generally regarded as acontinuous process of self-criticizing concerning recent and past knowledge andpractice with the purpose of making improvement. However, different scholars havedifferent views towards reflection.In educational field, Dewey firstly presents the conception of reflection in 1933.In his description, reflection refers to active, elaborative and unceasing thinking ofany belief or presumptive form of knowledge which aims to test and verify thoseideas which support it. And by the same way, it extends the further conclusions. Hebelieves that reflection is different from thinking for thinking is natural whilereflection should be taught as a skill and thinking habit in education. Reflection isthus more than just thinking; it is a recursive intellectual process involving action(experience), reaction (reflection), more (experimental) action and more reflection.
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1.2Teachers' Professional Development
Education calls for qualified teacher and quality teaching. Therefore, so asteachers' reflection，teachers' professional development is given more focus andexpectation correspondingly.As explained in Collins Cobuild Dictionary (1995, p.1313), “a profession is atype of job that requires advanced education and training." Lange (1990) presents theconcept that teacher development is a term used to narrate a process of continuousattitudinal, experiential and intellectual growth of teachers. According to Gebhard(1998)，professional development refers to a persistent improvement of their beliefs and practices of teaching which impenetrate their whole life career for teachers.According to Avalos (2011), teachers' professional development means teachers'learning, how they leam to leam and how they apply their knowledge in practice tosupport students' learning. Teachers can leam through participation in carious courses,in school when they reflect on their own teaching and in observation of and reflectionon others' teaching in co-operation with colleagues. Learning can occur in plannedreflection meetings between teachers, or teachers can leam from unplannedconversations with other colleagues before or after teaching, or in parent- teachermeetings. Thus, learning may occur in various ways, both formally and informally.In Underbill's opinion (1986)，teachers' professional development is a process ofbecoming qualified and professional teachers with self-reflection. Personal awarenessis considered as the key of the process. Therefore, professional development draws onthe teachers' own inner resource for change. As Bailey says that (2001)，the teacherself is considered as the beginning of pursuing professional development. In otherwords, teachers should take the responsibility of their own professional development.Hargreaves and Fullan (1922) present that teachers’ professional development is aprocess of developing of pedagogical knowledge and skills, self-understanding andecological changes.
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Chapter Three Result and Discussions.........25
3.1Status Quo of High School English Teachers’ Reflection.........25
3.1.1Status Quo of High School English Teachers' Reflection Ability.........25
3.1.2Status Quo of High School English Teachers' Professional Development......... 35
3.2Correlation Analysis and Regression Analysis.........41
Conclusions.........55
1.Major Findings.........55
2.Implications.........56
2.1Implications for Education Administration.........57
2.2Implications for Teachers.........57
2.3Measures for Improving Teachers' Reflection Ability.........59
3.Limitations604.Recommendations for Further Study.........61
Chapter ThreeResult and Discussions
3.1 Status Quo of High School English Teachers' Reflection Ability and their Professional Development
In order to make the analysis in a convenient way, both questionnaires including RILT andTPDI adopt 5-point Likert Scale. When the subject chooses "never" and "disagree" item, the scoreis 1; when the subject chooses "seldom" and "hardly agree" item，the score is 2; when the subjectchooses sometimes and "it's hard to say，item, the score is 3; when the subject chooses "often"and "largely agree” item，the score is 4; and when the subject chooses “always，，and "agree" item,the score is 5. The score presents the frequency of each item in RILT and the degree of agreementof each item in TPDI. From the perspective of Reflection Ability, it is distinct that the minimum scoreis 2.364 while the maximum score is 4.818. It signifies that there exists a bigdifference of reflection ability among high school English teachers tested. The meanscore of high school English teachers' reflection ability is 3.812 which is close to 4(often). It approves that the reflection ability of most subjects is in a medium level.Meanwhile, there is still much room for improvement. Some measures should be putforward at the school level to help teachers gain progress.From the perspective of dimensions, the score of Morality (4.4888) signifies thatmost of these teachers tested uphold the principle of objectiveness, fairness andbalance during teaching. In other words, morality refers to teachers' professionalethics. Teachers with high level of professional ethics have the belief that it isteachers' duty to take care of students both in class and after class. What's more,teachers should set strict demands on themselves for they are the moral model fortheir students.
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Conclusion
Because of the limitations discussed above, this thesis has some inevitablelimitations. There are some suggestions for the following researches in the same field.This thesis only collect data from questionnaires, including high school Englishteachers' reflection ability and high school English teachers' professionaldevelopment. These two questionnaires are enough to explore the status quo of highschool English teachers' reflection ability level and their professional development.However, the size of subjects is not big enough. And the data collected can onlypresent the situation of high school English teachers’ status quo in Ouhai District ofWenzhou. Further studies should collect data from more subjects and in a wider range.In this way, the data collected can be more representative and convincing.This thesis discusses the status quo of high school English teachers' reflectionability and their professional development by analyzing the data being collected fromquestionnaires. However, questionnaire about how to improve their reflection abilityis not distributed. After analyzing the data being collected, we can make theconclusion that there is a positive correlation between high school English teachers'reflection ability and their professional development. In order to boost theprofessional development of high school English teachers, effective methods shouldbe studied. The suggestion is questionnaire about effective methods to improve highschool English teachers' reflection ability may be adopted in further studies.
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References (omitted)