Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1Background of the Research
Since 1980s, the concepts of “reflection” and “reflective teaching” have becomehot topics in the field of teacher educational research. American professor DonaldSchon(1983) advocated that the teacher should be “the reflective practitioner”.“Reflection” and “reflective teaching” originate from the critical theory andpost-modern theory, which strengthen the teaching subject’s reflective awareness.With the development and deepening of cognitive psychology research, the teachereducational research paid more attention to teacher’s internal thinking rather thanexternal behaviors. The new requirements to the cultivation of talents were proposedin 21stcentury which makes the educational concept change to meet the educationalreform. Many researches proved that the success of educational reform rely on theteacher’s active participation and support (Chang Bo, 2000). In order to promote thequality of teacher educational reform in the west, the traditional teacher trainingmodel was gradually replaced by reflective-dominated teacher professionaldevelopment model which endowed with the right and obligation of self-educationand self-decision. Reflection is becoming a dominant paradigm in teacher educationprograms worldwide. Reflection requires the teacher’s critical analysis of theirteaching ideas, value, and practice. The professor Posner (1989) points out teachergrowth formula: experience plus reflection equals growth. He held that lack ofreflective experience is a kind of narrow experience; it is just the superficialknowledge at most. Besides, the celebrated scholar Ye Lan (2001) in China ever saidthat a teacher would not be an excellent teacher if he or she never rethinks his or herteaching. If the teacher just pays attention to acquiring teaching experience, andignoring deep rethink on his or her teaching experience.
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1.2Significance of the Research
At present, a new elementary educational reform is carrying on all over thecountry. The new round elementary education curriculum reform takes new conceptswhich challenges English teachers’ traditional teaching method. Under thebackground of new curriculum reform, teacher’s quality is one of key factors toinfluence whether the current elementary education curriculum reform can proceedsmoothly or not. Hence, it is very important to promote the English teachers’reflective ability in junior high school and realize the junior high school Englishteachers’ transformation from “artisan” to “reflective teacher”. So, research onteachers’ teaching reflection is of profound theoretical and practical significance. Reflection has not become a heated topic until 1990s, and scholars from abroadand domestic did researches on reflection and reflective teaching from differentperspectives. These researches laid a strong foundation for later research on this field. However, the current research results are not sufficient. For the researches largelyfocus on the introduction of the reflection theory or summarizing the research resultsfrom abroad.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 The Basic concepts of Reflection
What is reflection? Its derivation is the Latin ‘reflectere’, meaning to bend back’.In western philosophy, Aristotle, Plato and Locke talked about reflection. J. Locke(1959) regarded reflection to be introspection on the “ideas”. From his point of view,he thought that reflection is a kind of mental activity. B. Spinoza (1960) regarded hisepistemology as “reflection on knowledge”. “Reflection on knowledge” is “thinkingon conception”.A definition of reflection dates back to John Dewey’s (1933) description in hisbook “How We Think”. He defined reflection as the “active, persistent and carefulconsideration of any belief and supposed form of knowledge in the light of groundsthat support it and the further conclusion to which it tends”(P.9). Dewey regardedreflection as a dynamic and prudent cognitive process, it contains numbers of relatedinpidual’s inner belief and knowledge, this reflective thought generally has intimateconnection with practical problem. He deemed that a reflective teacher is a teacherwho critically examines his or her practices, comes up with some ideas as how toimprove his or her performance to enhance student’s learning and put those ideas intopractice. Based on Dewey’s theoretical basis, Schon (1983) first put forward theconcept of reflective practice in The Reflective Practitioner: How Professionals Thinkin Action. He maintained that reflective practice not only needs reflection but actionas well, it tries to bridge the gap between the theory and practice. Schon presented“reflection-in-action” and “reflection-on-action”. In addition, Schon (1983) proposedthe concept of “knowing-in-action” or “tacit-knowledge”. “knowing-in-action”involves the “spontaneous, skilful execution of an action which we arecharacteristically unable to make…verbally explicit” (Schon, 1987, p.25).
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2.2 The Theoretical Basis for Reflection
Teaching reflection refers to reflection on action. Only understanding the actionitself thoroughly, can the teacher’s reflection be effective. So, the basis of teachingreflection is the understanding of action. The behavioral theory is the theory ofunderstanding and changing the behavior. Through the behavioral theory, we canknow the nature of behavior, and also further guide how to improve behavior byreflection. The behavioral theory dates from the sociologists, philosophers, andprofessional practitioners’ exploring on “how to combine personal thoughts andactions”. The behavioral theory argues that the teachers have the declaration theoryand the use theory at the same moment. These two modes of theories are sometimesconsistent when the teachers match the thoughts with the motions; but sometimesinconsistent when the thoughts is not accordance with the actions. The declaration theory is a sort of theory what the teacher believed, butimplemented or not in action. If someone asks the teacher what will he or she do insome circumstance, the response of the teacher is the declaration theory. Thedeclaration theory can be expressed easily by words, such as, the motto of “theprocess of learning is happy”, and the concept like “student-dominated”.
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Chapter 3 Research Design ..........19
3.1 Research Questions ..........19
3.2 Research Participants .......19
3.3 Research Instruments .......20
3.3.1 The Questionnaire ....20
3.3.2 The Interview ....22
3.4 The Research Procedures .......23
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion.......24
4.1 The Overall Current Situation of Junior High School English ......24
4.2 Teachers’ teaching reflection in Respect of Gender........27
4.3 Teachers’ teaching reflection in Respect of SchoolLocation........29
4.4 The Differences of English Teachers’ teaching reflection .......32
4.5 The Differences of English Teachers’ teaching reflection......36
Chapter 5 Conclusion .....39
5.1 Major Findings....39
5.2 Limitations and Suggestions .........40
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.1 The Overall Current Situation of Junior High School English Teachers’ teaching reflection
Research on the overall current situation of junior high school English teachers’teaching reflection in this thesis mainly refers to the reflective level of sevendimensions, which includes practical, cognitive, affective, meta-cognitive, critical,moral, and classroom management. The author takes the average scores that thefactors containing the items of the questionnaire as the factors’ scores, this averagescore is to measure the reflection level of the seven dimensions. The seven factors’average scores is the teachers’ overall level of reflection. Table 4-1, a descriptivestatistics of overall current situation of junior high school English teachers’ teachingreflection, indicates the mean value and the standard deviation of every factor. According to table 4-1, the overall current situation of junior high school Englishteachers’ teaching reflection is at intermediate level, the overall mean is 3.5984.Junior high school English teachers reflect more on moral (M=4.3215) and classroommanagement (M=4.1749) than affective (M=3.6298), mata-cognitive (M=3.5390),critical (M=3.2411). Among the seven factors in teachers’ teaching reflection, themean of cognitive (M=3.1617) and practical (M=3.1206) are at the least.All English teachers in junior high school pay more attention to moral andclassroom management. The causes of this phenomenon are as follows. At first, Chinanot only stresses the teacher’s dignity and the absolute authority from ancient time,but attaches importance to moral education as well. Under the cultural tradition, mostof teachers realized that they must take themselves as an example to the students, andthey should take care for students as their duties.
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Conclusion
Based on previous researches done by others, this study was designed to find outthe status quo of middle school English teachers’ teaching reflection from sevendimensions. They are practical, cognitive, affective, meta-cognitive, critical, moral,and classroom management. The study was conducted through questionnaire andinterview to the English teachers.The results are as follows: first, the overall reflective level of secondary Englishteachers’ teaching reflection is at intermediate level. The English teachers’ teachingreflection of junior high school is better on dimensions of moral and classroommanagement than aspects of affective, mata-cognitive, and critical. Among the sevenfactors in teachers’ teaching reflection, the mean of cognitive (M=3.1617) andpractical (M=3.1206) are at the least. Second, there is no significant difference on theoverall level of reflection between male and female teachers, but there is significantdifference on the dimension of cognitive, and the reflective leveol of female teacher isbetter than the males. Third, there is no significant difference on the overall level ofreflection between the teachers in urban school and those in rural schools. However,there is significant difference on dimensions of critical, moral, and classroommanagement, what’s more, the teachers’ teaching reflection in urban school are allhigher than those in rural school on the three dimensions. Forth, with theaccumulation of the teaching experience, the richer teaching experience, the higherteachers’ reflective level; and likewise, the shorter years of teaching, the lowerteachers’ teaching reflection level.
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References (omitted)