Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1Origin of the Study
Teachers have always been considered as a special occupation. In 1966, theUNESCO pointed out that explicitly in About Teacher Status Construction that weshould regard the educational work as the a special occupation, this kind ofoccupation requests the teacher to study strictly and continually, then obtains andmaintains the special knowledge and the special skill. In 1994, our country enactedthe first law which provides the specialized status of teachers named The Law onTeachers, which indicates that teachers are those who fulfill the education teachingresponsibility. In 1995, the State Council promulgated the Regulations on thequalifications of teachers which stresses the requirements of how to become aqualified teacher. In 2000, our country promulgates The Regulations on theQualifications of Teachers, such as the classification of teachers’ qualification, teachercertification examinations and so on. Meanwhile, China has begun to implement thenationwide recognition of teachers’ qualification since April of 2001. The entiredevelopment tendencies about teacher occupation show us that it is necessary topromote the level of teachers’ professional development. With the growing attention to the development of teacher’s education,teachers’ professional development has become a focus for both aspects (researchersand teachers) around the world. In the 1970s and 1980s, it is the main trend of manycountries’ educational development to improve the level of teacher’s professionaldevelopment. Teachers’ education has also arisen more and more attention in China interms of teacher education reform. With the development of the reform andopening-up policy, the focus of emphasizing teachers’ quantity has moved to, that ofteacher’s quality. Thus, it is a timely issue to explore teachers’ professionaldevelopment, through which we are able to better support those teachers.
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1.2The Significance of the Study
Nowadays, the knowledge and economy have developed quite quickly, so theteachers’ profession development faces a great challenge. The new curriculum reformprovides some new resources and chances for our teachers’ professional development.All of these make higher demands for teachers’ quality, especially in remote minoritynationality areas, teachers’ own and external environment restrict the developmentfrom teachers themselves to teacher profession. It is necessary to find problems ofEnglish teachers’ professional development in these minority nationality areas.In recent years, many scholars pay their attention to teachers' professionaldevelopment in China. The theoretical basics of most existing research are based onforeign scholars’ research, there are more concepts on the experience summary andclarification. On the other aspects, the research methods are also very limited, wecan’t find questionnaire and interview methods as quantitative analysis, and theempirical research is also less. However, little attention has been given to the Englishteachers in rural minority areas in Yunnan province and little research has been donein the field of the professional development of those teachers. This study uses bothquestionnaire and survey methods to give voices to the teachers and attempts toexplore the situation of their professional development. After finishing this research,we can find out some corresponding countermeasures in order to promote the level ofteachers’ professional development in these areas.
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Chapter 2 Literature Review
2.1 Definitions of Teachers’ Professional Development
The connotation of teachers’ professional development is rich, it also has themultiple meanings. There is a viewpoint from Ye (2001) who represents that teachers’professional development is the unceasingly process with the growth of teacher'sprofessional knowledge and the renewing of teacher’s intrinsic specialized structure(Ye, 2001). Otherwise, the definitions from Zhu (2002) are more concrete，forexample , he found that inpidual teachers must develop their ability for study andresearch constantly during the next three process, these are, the process of pre-serviceteacher training, the process of teaching, and the process of on-the-job training, thenthe teachers can have the progressively professional view to achieving proficiency intheir area (Zhu , 2002 ). Professor Liu (2003) also claims that teachers’ professionaldevelopment is a dynamic process to upgrading the quality of teachers’ professionalknowledge and belief system, the propulsion is based on teacher's professionalconsciousness, the main auxiliary route is teacher education (Liu, 2003).Carr-Saunders (1933) put forward his own understanding of “professional”, which is“professional” is a special career which should be engaged in people who have certainkinds of knowledge and skills (Carr-Saunders, 1933). These definitions of teachers’professional development are different, but the main idea generally center around twoaspects reveals teachers ' professional development, these are the perspective ofteachers' professional quality and teachers’ professional growth.
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2.2 Dimensions of Teachers’ Professional Development
There are many research factors which have great connection with teachers’professional development. According to the views of Ye (2001), the factors toinfluence teacher’s professional development include five aspects: the professionalismof teachers, professional beliefs, professional knowledge, technical skills and teachingwisdom (Ye, 2001). Professor Deng (2012) stated some ideas about teacher’sprofessional development in his study Southeast Chongqing Multi-national AreaCountryside Teacher Career Development Investigation and Ponder, this study focuson teachers’ professional development which is related to teacher’s personality,specialized knowledge, specialized ability, policy safeguard and continuing education(Deng, 2012). Overview the previous research of teachers’ professional development,most of them have the same study dimensions, such as teachers’ belief, teachers’knowledge and teachers’ capacity.
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Chapter 3 Methodology .....18
3.1 Research Subjects ......18
3.2 Research Questions....19
3.3 Research Methods......20
3.3.1 Questionnaire ........20
3.3.2 Interview .........20
3.4 Data Collection ....21
3.4.1 Data from Questionnaires .......21
3.4.2 Data from Interviews ........23
3.5 Data Analysis .......24
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion........25
4.1 Analysis about Teacher’s Basic Information........25
4.2 The Current Situation of English Teacher’s Professional Development in ...27
4.3 Teacher’s’ ProfessionalDevelopment in Yunnan Minority Rural Secondary Schools ......34
4.4 Development of EnglishTeachers in Yunnan Minority Rural Areas .....35
Chapter 5 Conclusion.........41
5.1 Main Findings ......42
5.2 The Limitations and Suggestions for Future Research ....44
5.3 Summary ........45
Chapter 4 Results and Discussion
4.1 Analysis about Teacher’s Basic Information
We can get English teachers' general structure distribution in Yunnancompulsory education secondary schools with the descriptive analysis on teacher’sgender, age, ethnic, education attainment, years of teaching experience and so on. According to table 4.1, 21% are male teachers, 71% are women teachers, thisreflects the number of women teachers is far more than male teachers in Yunnanethnic rural areas , the proportion of male and female teachers vary widely .Theemergence of this situation shows that the number of local knowledge men is less ormore choosing other professions. What is the situation different of nationalities in thisarea? According to table 4.1, the han nationality teachers accounted are 48%，onstatistics of the subjects, we found total number of minority is 44%, including the Huinationality，Yi nationality， Bai nationality， Lisu nationality , Tujia nationality andso on. Compared the numbers of minority teachers in this area with other places, theproportion of minorities in local middle school English teachers is quite significant. Itreflects indirectly that the number of ethnic minority region is more, that means, theseteachers consistent with the sample requirements in this study.
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Conclusion
Teachers’ professional development plays an important role to educationalimprovement and reform. Considering the specific aspects of Yunnan minority ruralarea, all of the leaders of supporting system must pay more attention about how toimprove the level of English teachers’ professional development. The previouslystudy in this thesis have told us the most important factor to influence teachers’professional development in this area is supporting policies, that means teachers inthis area want the government’s policy-making can more care about the situation oftheir work and life. Of course, the author also wants to find more useful informationrelated to this study, so in this chapter the main findings of this study on teachers’professional development will be presented. The limitations of the study and theaccording recommendations for further studies will be proposed as well. Through the previously parts, we have known that two research methods whichwe have been used to investigate the situation of English teachers’ professionaldevelopment in Yunnan minority rural area, these are questionnaire and interview. Sothe main findings are also about two aspects, one is the findings from questionnaires;the other is findings from interviews.
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Reference (omitted)