Professional Awareness and the Development of Foreign Language Teachers

1. Professional Awareness and the Development of Foreign Language Teachers ZHOU Yan National Research Center for Foreign Language Education, BFSU

2. Outline I. Language education as a profession II. Complexity in language education III. Challenges in professional development IV. Resources for professional development

3. Is There a Difference between … • Teaching as a job and teaching as a profession? • English teaching and English education?

4. Definition of Education • The process of training and developing the knowledge, skill, mind,character, etc. especially by formal schooling. -- Webster’s New World Dictionary of the American Language

5. The Purpose of Education • Education means change: moral intellectual psychological physical

6. English Education • Promoting changes in those fields through English learning • Producing people with English language competence in various fields

7. University Education Is a Privilege in China • Experts in a special field • Critical and independent thinkers • Leaders in all walks of life

8. The Challenges We Teachers Face Today • High expectation from students, parents and administrators • Teach and publish • Pressure to raise the passing rate of CET • Little difference between working life and family life

9. The Attitude Determines • Teaching as a job: Something you have to do to earn a living; • Teaching as a profession: Something you enjoy doing to make your life more meaningful.

10. Job Teaching is daily routine work; • Profession Teaching is your life career.

11. Job You don’t want to think about it when you are out of the classroom; • Profession You forget the difference between in and out of the classroom;

12. Job Don’t want to make any changes in teaching because it means more efforts; • Profession Open to changes because they may lead to improvement in teaching;

13. Attitudes Leads to Commitment • Teaching focuses on texts • Education focuses on students A Craftsman vs. A Professional

14. Increasing Our Professional Awareness • By understanding our profession • By making our teachers professionals and educators

15. What Is a Profession? • An occupation requiring advanced education and training, and involving intellectual skills, as medicine, law, theology, engineering, teaching, etc. - Webster’s NWDAL

16. A profession needs constant upgrading of the knowledge in the development of the field. • A profession requires continuous development on the part of the people who engage in the field. • A profession takes a lot of research efforts to increase its success and efficiency in operation.

17. Teaching Is a Profession • It meets the above-mentioned standards. • It sets a high demand on the people who engage in the field. • It provides opportunities for teachers to develop in different aspects.

18. Personal Development Working with the brightest young people puts us under great pressure for • Professional development • Intellectual development • Academic development • Moral development

19. Professional Development • How to become a good teacher competent effective in teaching caring reflective

20. Intellectual Development Cognitive competence search select understand critically evaluate Communicative competence express

21. Academic Development • Move up in the academic rank • Keep up with the latest development • Reach out to the world

22. Moral Development As a model for the students, a teacher’s • view of life • social behavior • value judgment can have a direct impact on the growth of the students

23. A Challenging Career • We are being evaluated by the brightest young people in the country all the time. • We are being remembered for good or bad by our students. • We can make all the differences in their lives.

24. A Rewarding Occupation Being a teacher allows you to grow in all aspects; Being a teacher enables you to become a better and fully developed person in time.

25. II. Complexity in Language Teaching • Something special about language teaching • Language learning process • Factors involved in language teaching • Factors at work in the learning process

26. What makes language teaching different from the teaching of any other subjects?

27. Language does not only have a system of its own, it carries meanings, ideas, philosophical understanding and the value judgment of the target culture.

28. In the process of language learning, the students are exposed to all these cultural aspects. While learning the language, they are absorbing the culture, the belief and the ideology of the target country.

29. Language Learning Is Social in Nature Learning through interactions Learning from all sources pair work and group work

30. Language Learning Process competence

31. Factors Involved in Language Teaching language competence linguistic competence cultural awareness learning process psychological support personal confidence affective ……

32. Keeping Them All Under Control • You are more than a teacher or a craftsman; • You are a professional; • You can be an educator.

33. Factors at Work in the Process of Learning a Language • Positive beliefs • Good learning strategies • Efforts • Self-confidence • Attitude • Interest • ……Language learning

34. Research Findings Correlations • Positive beliefs about the language/LL • Good learning strategies efforts self-efficacy attitude • Learning achievement

35. Negative Attitude/Attribution The highest correlation is found between these two variables. It shows that students with rather negative attitude towards English learning will likely attribute their undesirable performances to such factors as teachers, time, luck and other factors.

36. Learners’ Inappropriate Beliefs about LL • EL is just like learning any other subjects: memorizing the rules, reading … • EL means a lot of rote learning and gap-filling/MC • Blind faith in a large size of vocabulary • EL means passing all the required exams • EL is only a tool for future career

37. A Vicious Circle in EL • Test-oriented learning • Selective noticing • Problematic strategies • Undesirable scores • Lack of motivation • Lack of confidence

38. III. Challenges We Face in PD • Tools of the tool • Slaves to publications • Small potatoes • Institutional loners

39. Teachers’ View of Themselves While belittling themselves as such on the one hand, they are also very self-confident and individualistic on the other.

40. The Trapped Teachers • Instrumental • Overwhelmed • Frustrated • Wander along with the tide • Forget about their professional responsibility • Needs to be empowered

41. ELT in China • Test-driven • Focused on language only • Instrumental and practical Something is seriously missing in this approach to language learning.

42. What Is Missing in China’s ELT ?The concern for the overall development in both learning and teaching

43. A Cultural & Educational Understanding of LT • Deconstruct the grammatical structure • Explain the meaning of the content

44. More Important Tasks • Cultivate their minds to appreciate different points of views to critically evaluate different cultures • Develop their abilities to work with others to speak up in public to build up their own confidence …

45. What Leads to Effective Teaching? • Commitment • Command of the language • Confidence • Care for the students • Communicative ……

46. IV. Resources for Professional Development

47. Findings from an ASS-funded Research Project • A Study of the Models of Professional Development for University Teachers of English in China

48. Models for PD in China • A summer institute-DUTE ( formal/intensive/comprehensive) • The visiting-scholar program (informal/off campus) • A project-based teacher-learning community (in-service) • An MA in TEFL program (formal/on campus) • A theme-based short-term model for PD

49. Methods • 49 universities in 6 regions • 920 valid questionnaires • More than 30 interviews

50. Finding 1: Discrepancies • Between teachers’ espoused needs and real needs for effective teaching • Between their claimed beliefs in language teaching and their classroom behavior • Between their real interest and real needs