without theespecially that of教师素质一直都备受关注，特别是小学教师的素质更是如此，因为小学教ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS (I)A Follow-up Study on Transferred Teachers’ English Pronunciation——A Case in Guangdongvaluable perspectives on teaching and curriculum development.1.4 Structure of the Present StudyStarting from definition, the author first of all found out some experts’ definition of “teachers’ beliefs”, and then summed it up to be a much plain one. Then the author proceeded to make analysis of the questionnaires, aiming at finding out the status quo of teachers’ beliefs in GD Province. After that, the author made further analysis on the classroom observation log, trying to find out whether the teachers’ teaching behavior was consistent with their articulated beliefs. Finally, face-to-face interviews were conducted to find out how teachers’ beliefs guide their behavior, and what teachers usually take into account in their course planning.Chapter Two Literature Review2.1 Definition of Teachers’ BeliefsDefinition of beliefs may vary according to different experts. Sigel (1985) defines beliefs as mental construction of experience, which guides behavior. Nespor (1987) and William & Burden (1997) define it as values and attitudes of the world and is also predictor of behavior. To be brief, beliefs tell behavior.In 1992, Pajares made a definition of “teachers’ beliefs” as teachers’ attitudes about education, about schooling, teaching, learning, and students (Pajares 1992). Nespor (1987), Woods (1996) and William & Burden (1997) found teachers’ beliefs is far more influential than knowledge in determining classroom work. Breen et al (2002) also infers that teachers’ beliefs and experiences strongly influenced classroom work.From all the above definitions, the author summed up “teachers’ beliefs” to be teachers’ attitudes about teaching and learning, which will affect everything they do in the classroom teaching.2.2 Teachers’ Beliefs and Teaching BehaviorThe western countries had gone through 3 decades in the research of the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and teaching behavior. Freeman (2002) subdivides the period into 3 broad time frames: work leading up to 1975, the decade of change (1980-1990), and the decade of consolidation (1990-2000).Since the 80s, an array of empirical studies of teachers’ beliefs and teaching behavior have been carried out. Freeman (2002) probed the impact of teachers’ mental lives, prior knowledge, social and institutional context, etc. on teaching behavior, and found teachers’ beliefs to have a powerful influence on their behavior. Actually, how teachers’ beliefs shape their behavior in classroom teaching has been studied in various ways (Meighan 1990; Woods 1996; Smith 1997; Breen et al 2001; Borg 2003; Burns 2005).Chinese researchers have begun to set about studying teachers’ beliefs and teaching behavior in recent years (Wang 2002; Xia 2002; Sun 2005; Lou & Liao 2005).All these studies collectively show that classroom activities are highly influenced by teachers’ beliefs. However, some researchers found their subjects to behave the other way round.Argyris & Schön (1974, 1987) argue that there is almost always a discrepancy between teachers’ beliefs and the ways teachers act (William & Burden 1997). Sun (2005) addresses that the most prominent problem in English classroom teaching to bethe gap between the newly acquired teaching beliefs and the educational practice. Wang (2002) and Lou & Liao (2005) also found such a discrepancy between their subject teachers’ behavior and beliefs. If there really exists such a discrepancy, the teaching may be inefficient or even confusing, which may bring about a series of problems in teaching and learning.2.3 The Expected Teachers’ Beliefs of the New CurriculumChances are that given better teaching, learners will learn more. The new era of education calls for improved teaching beliefs and behavior as instruments to facilitate and improve student learning. The newly implemented curriculum put forward five teachers’ beliefs as follows:Focusing on common foundation, preparing for further development;Offering various options, catering for personal needs;Optimizing the learning model, enhancing self-directed learning competence;Concerning with students’ emotion, enhancing cultural awareness;Promoting the assessment system, encouraging continuous development.（cited from Senior English Curriculum 2003:2-3）As a matter of fact, such beliefs were raised to meet the new demands of our society, to meet the new learning needs of our students. On condition that teachers’ beliefs and teaching were consistent with the New Curriculum, fruitful teaching outcome would be yielded.However, the questions are: What’s the status quo of teachers’ beliefs? Do they behave in accordance with their articulated beliefs? And what do the teachers usually take into account in teaching? To find out all the corresponding answers, the author carried out a survey of teachers’ beliefs and teaching behavior in GD Province.Chapter Three MethodThe survey consisted of 3 instruments: ① a teacher questionnaire developed by the author (consisted of three sections: Section One--personal data and experience, etc; Section Two--a 25 item teacher belief section based on the 5 guidelines of the New Curriculum in senior high published by the Ministry of Education (Item 1–5 on Belief 1, Item 6-10 on Belief 2, and the rest may be deduced by analogy); Section Three--2 open questions about teachers’ beliefs and teacher concern) (See Appendix 1); ②an observation log (comprising general information and a 10-period classroom observation log (See Appendix 2); ③an interview outline (See Appendix 3).A pilot study was conducted in one TypeB school from Guangzhou in early September 2005. Based on the feedback from the pilot study, the author made revisions in the survey instruments.3.1 The Participants10 schools from 5 of the cities in GD Province participated in this study. The participants were carefully chosen: the capital city of GD--Guangzhou (广州), two peripheral cities--Foshan (佛山) and Nanhai (南海), two relatively remote cities--Puning (普宁) and Shantou (汕头), respectively. 10 researchers divided the 10 schools among them during their teaching practices. However, only 8 schools’ data were intact and possible for analysis. Altogether, there were 27 teachers from these 8 schools.Table 1 summarizes the characteristics of all the subject teachers. 18 worked in Grade One, and 9 worked in Grade Two. There were 17 female and 10 male teachers. The teachers had varying degrees of general teaching experience ranging from 1 to 43 years. The average teaching experience across the sample was 12.7 years. Among them, 26 teachers had received the New Curriculum training.Table 1. The Teachers’ CharacteristicsGender Grade Curriculum Training Male Female One Two Received Not Yet Average Teaching Experience (year)No.101718926112.7For the sake of being as objective as possible, School 7 and School 8 also excluded in the following discussions, because only one subject teacher was available from each of these two schools. Consequently, the following results and discussions were based on 6 schools.3.2 Procedures3.2.1 The Teacher Questionnaire SurveyFirstly, the researchers invited the teachers to fill in the Teacher Questionnaire (TQ) and fixed a time with the teachers for classroom observation. Teachers filled in the general information and indicated the level of endorsement of each of the 25 items using a 5-point Likert-type scale comprising the categories “strongly disagree,” “disagree,” “somewhat disagree, somewhat agree,” “agree,” and “strongly agree,” scored as 1 through 5, respectively; then they responded to the 2 open questions concerning with teachers’ opinions and suggestions of the New Curriculum (see Table 2).Table 2. The 2 Open Questions in the Teacher QuestionnairePlease write down your opinions and suggestions of the New Curriculum1. The mostobvious changes①…②…③…2. The most urgent problems to be solved ①…②… ③…As is shown in Table 2, Question 1 tells whether teachers have noticed the most obvious changes of the curriculum. And Question 2 enables the author to perceive the teachers’ most concern, which would serve as a basis to find out whether teachers adopted particular teaching strategies to enhance their students’ weak point, since they have noticed where the problems lied.3.2.2 Classroom ObservationAs there may exist a discrepancy between teachers’ beliefs and behavior, and apart from this, teachers may overstate or understate the beliefs underlying their actual practice. Therefore, whether teachers teach in accordance with their beliefs can only be revealed from the observation of practical teaching.Hence, the second data collection method was based upon a substantial classroom observation log. The researchers recorded 10 periods of English classes of every subject school. The 10 English classes were not specifically chosen, but observed at random, generating a thorough and objective data. The observation focused onclassroom activities, multimedia applied, textbook dealt, assessment forms, and optional courses, etc.3.2.3 The InterviewIn order to comprehend more about how teachers’ beliefs guide their behavior, and what teachers usually take into account in their teaching, face-to-face interviews were added, and the interview with teachers was semi-structured. Table 3 shows the outline of the interview.Table 3. Outline of the Semi-structure InterviewInterview Subject: Senior High English Teachers in Guangzhou①How do you usually design a lesson? And what about activities?②How do you like the present textbook? And how do you apply it?③Do you think it is necessary for students to enhance their cultural awareness?How do you help your students enlarge their scope of background knowledge?The author arranged interviews with 12 Senior One English teachers from 6 schools (Comprising Type A, Type B and Type C schools) in GZ, 2 teachers from every subject school participated in the interview. The interviews were recorded implicitly by mp3, and were transcribed into written language later.3.2.4 Data AnalysisAll data were analyzed using the Statistical Package for Social Scientists (SPSS)，release 10.0 and Microsoft Excel, release 2003.Mean and standard deviation of the TQ were analyzed by using Descriptives; histograms were generated by using Excel to illustrate the results more plainly. And within-group differences of 25 teachers’ beliefs of the 6 subject schools were analyzed by using One-way ANOVA.Chapter Four Results and DiscussionAfter all the data were collected, the author began to arrange the data and analyze them. Firstly, the author sorted out all the received questionnaires. And found out the valid percent of the TQ was 100%. Table 4 indicates the general information of the questionnaires obtained from the 6 schools.Table 4. Information of the Received TQQuestionnaire Received Valid Invalid Valid Percent Number25250100%4.1 Status Quo of the Teachers’ Beliefs4.1.1 Mean and Std. Deviation of the TQStarting from data analysis, the author carried out Descriptive Statistics analysis to analyze the TQ, showing that all the means of the 5 beliefs are within the range of“3.5 to 4.4”, therefore, conclusion can be drawn that all the subject teachers “Agree①” with every belief advocated in the New Curriculum. Then the author put the data from Figure 1 into the Microsoft Excel, generating a histogram as follows:Beliefs N Mean S.D.B 125 4.0560.4917B 225 3.9920.6843B 325 4.3600.5132B 425 4.3440.5050B 525 3.9040.5200As is illustrated above, the histogram indicates that the means of Belief 2 (Offering various options, catering for personal needs) and Belief 5 (Promoting the assessment system, encouraging continuous development) score the lowest among the five beliefs. The causes of this result maybe: optional class and formative evaluation, etc. are newly advocated, compared with the other beliefs; and it takes time to get thorough endorsement from all the teachers. Whereas, those of Belief 3 (Optimizing learning model, enhancing self-directed learning competence) and Belief 4 (Concerning with students’ emotion, enhancing cultural awareness) score relatively high, because learner-centered and background knowledge have been heard of long before.After that, the author made another Descriptive Statistics analysis to find out themean and standard deviation of the teachers’ beliefs in every subject school. Figure 2 illustrates the results of the Descriptive Statistics analysis. Mean of 4 of the subject schools is also within the range of “3.5 to 4.4”, a same conclusion can be drawn that these schools “Agree” with the New Curriculum; and School 2 and School 3 got a mean higher than “4.4”, what’ more, mean of School 2 is within “4.5 to 5”, which indicates that teachers from school 2 “Strongly agree” with the New Curriculum.Schools N Mean S. D.S 15 3.7280.4502S 24 4.5300.3523S 34 4.4100.3965S 43 4.0933.3717S 53 3.7867.2344S 66 4.2067.4236Total25 4.1312.4607Figure 1 and Figure 2 reveal that teachers from every subject school “ Agree” or “ Strongly agree” with every teacher’ s belief put forward in the New Curriculum. Figure 2 also indicates that teachers’ beliefs differ in different schools. The histogram displays impressive differences among the subject schools plainly, and school 1 & 5 bear a great distance from School 2 &3 in the endorsement of the New Curriculum. To confirm this hypothesis, a One-way ANOVA analysis was conducted.4.1.2 A Comparison of Teachers’ Beliefs in Every Subject SchoolWhen means of the beliefs were compared, the One-way ANOVA results indicated that teachers’ beliefs in different schools differed significantly, sig. = .047, P<0.05 (illustrated in Figure 3). Since 26 out of the 27 teachers have got the New Curriculum training. The possible causes of such difference may be due to teachers’ different interpretation of the New Curriculum, restraint of their students’ level or confinement of the particular teaching context in every subject school.Figure 3. One-way ANOVA of Teachers’ BeliefsSum of Squares df Mean Square F Sig. Between Groups 2.1555.431 2.786.047 Within Groups 2.93819.155Total 5.09324To make a classification of all the subject schools, Homogeneous Subsets analysis was directed. Figure 4 demonstrated that teachers’ beliefs in School 1 and School 5 were significantly different from those in School 3 and School 2, for they are not in the same column. School 4, 6, 3 and 2 are identical in terms of endorsement of the New Curriculum, because they are in the same column.Figure 4. Homogeneous Subsets of Every Subject SchoolN Subset for alpha = .05Schools123School 15 3.7280School 53 3.7867 3.7867School 43 4.0933 4.0933 4.0933DuncanSchool 66 4.2067 4.2067 4.2067School 34 4.4100 4.4100School 24 4.5300Sig..134.054.170Uses Harmonic Mean Sample Size = 3.913.Descriptive Statistics of the TQ revealed that all subject teachers from GD Province “Agree” or “Strongly agree” with the New Curriculum. And One-way ANOVA analysis illustrated that teachers’ beliefs varied from one school to another. School 2 and school 3 scored the highest among the 6 schools, which indicated that they endorsed the New Curriculum the most. However, chances are that some teachers showed great approval to the New Curriculum just because they knew about it from the teacher training. However, how they behave in actual teaching still remains a question. Furthermore, teachers’ articulated beliefs is one thing and how they apply their beliefs into teaching is another thing.4.2 The Relationship between Teachers’ Beliefs and Their Teaching BehaviorTo find out whether teachers teach in light of their beliefs, analysis of the answers to the 2 open questions in the TQ was conducted. With the teachers’ most concern in mind, further analysis on whether teachers adopted particular strategies to tackle the obstacles was directed.4.2.1 Teachers’ Articulated BeliefsThe data revealed almost 72 opinions and suggestions put forward by all the subject teachers. Table 5 listed out five most widely shared categories of teacher concern for each question.Table 5. Teacher Concern on the Current Curriculum and TeachingItem 1. The most obvious changes of the New Curriculum① more demanding for teachers and students;② renewal and increase of the capacity of the textbook;③ more interaction between teachers and students;④focus more on cultivating students’ integrative ability in learning, knowledge applying,participation, cooperation and communication;⑤ closer to authentic daily life.Item 2. The most urgent problems to be solved① the renewal of teachers’ teaching beliefs and students’ expectations of teaching;② the conflict between the New Curriculum and the College Entrance Examination(the conflict between integrative skills development and exam-oriented education);③ the conflict between students’ ability and the highly demanding new teaching materials andactivities (esp. listening);④ the coherence of the junior high textbook and senior high one (esp. vocabulary);⑤large capacity of the content in the textbook versus inadequate course hours (not enoughtime for assimilation and consolidation).To sum up, most teachers have noticed the renewal of the curriculum and have perceived its characteristics and advantages. They also found the current curriculumto be more demanding for their students, owing to the dramatically increased capacityof the textbook and limited course hours. In the meantime, they call for coherence ofthe junior high and senior high curriculum, and new testing formula. These are theshared concern of most teachers, however, the questions are: Since they’ve noticedthe problems, did they adopt particular teaching behavior to make up for this? Or howmany teachers have attempted to? Only substantial observation could tell.4.2.2 Observation Log of Practical Classroom TeachingBearing the teachers’ most concern in mind, the author proceeded to analyze allthe data on the teachers’ behavior in the classroom as recorded in the 6 researchers’ classroom observation logs. The 10-period classroom observation logs recorded morethan 5 teachers from Grade One and Grade Two in every subject school. Hence, thesedata covered a range wide enough to represent the whole subject school.Classification and analysis of the observation log revealed that most schools adopted the textbook New Senior English for China, while schools in Foshan and Nanhai adopted the one Senior High English. Nearly all the schools applied the textbooks flexibly by supplying extra materials, omitting, adapting, or simplifying the contents to meet their students’ particular level. In terms of multimedia facilities, 2 schools were found to be equipped only with radios and projectors. 2 schools haven’t offered optional courses yet, and only 50% of the subject schools carried out formative evaluation. Table 6 outlines some other basic practical teaching information collected from the classroom observation.Table 6. The Practical Teaching InformationClassroom Activities Optional Courses Multimedia ApplicationFormativeEvaluationSchool 1Reading, chorus, discussion,survey, competition of words,writing, retellingNew Concept English;WritingRadio,computerNot yetSchool 2Reading, chorus, discussion,role-play, writing, listeningAudio-lingua-visual English;Learning by SingingRadio,computerNot yetSchool 3Reading, chorus/Radio YesSchool 4Reading, chorus, discussion,drills, role-play, interview,surveyInquiry Study Radio,computerNot yetSchool 5Discussion/Radio,projectorYesSchool 6Chorus, discussion, role-play,dictationNew Concept English Radio,projector,computerYesThe above table lists out all the practical teaching information recorded in the classroom observation logs, revealing all the subject teachers’ teaching behavior. In order to find out whether these teachers’ particular teaching behavior is aligned with their concern, the author drew out the most widely shared beliefs of every subject school and tried to find out how these beliefs influenced teachers’ teaching behavior. Table 7 shows the teacher concern and their particular teaching behavior in every subject school. The results showed that teachers in Schools 1, 4 and 6 adopted particular classroom activities to enhance their students’ weak points, and to cultivate particular skills, while School 3 failed to employ expected teaching strategies (see Table 7).Table 7. Teacher Concern and Teaching BehaviorTeacher Concern Particular Classroom ActivitiesSchool 1How would English be tested in CollegeEntrance Exam (CEE)?Writing, retelling, competitionof wordsSchool 2The sequence of grammar is unsystematic N.OSchool 3①To increase students’ interest in English;②To increase instruction of culturalbackground knowledge;③To renew teachers’ beliefs;④To get rid of the conflict between the newcurriculum and CEE.Reading, chorusSchool 4Students’ oral English is too poor to carry outclassroom activitiesChorus, discussion, drills, role-play, interviewSchool 5/N.OSchool 6①The dramatically increased capacity, esp.vocabulary is demanding;②The listening parts in the textbook are verydifficult.Dictationa) N.O= not observed;b) Teachers from School 5 said they had no comment on the New Curriculum.It was striking for the author to find that Schools 2 and 3, as is shown in Figure 4, although scored the highest in the mean of TQ, actually failed to teach in accordance with their beliefs, or failed to renew their beliefs (the most concern in School 2 was “grammar instruction”). The author guessed that the explanations may be that teachers from Schools 2 and 3 were quite well informed of the new beliefs, however, they hadn’t applied them fully in practical teaching, thus resulting in the discrepancy between their behavior and beliefs.Among those schools that teachers’ beliefs and their behavior were consistent, School 4 had a relative conformity in teachers’ beliefs and practical classroom teaching, and was well equipped with multimedia and offered various classroom activities to enhance students’ integrated skills. And last but not least, it was the only one of the 6 schools that offered the optional course—Inquiry Study, in which students went into the community to do surveys (see table 6).4.3 Teachers’ Most Concern in Course PlanningAll the above analysis demonstrated that teachers’ behaviors were consistent with their beliefs in most schools, while some teachers, for example, in School 2 and School 3, failed to teach in accordance with their beliefs, although they scored the highest in the TQ. Nevertheless, chances are that these teachers may actually have come across difficulties in teaching, or in the renewal and application of their beliefs.To find out the possible difficulties, interviews with teachers must be conducted to find out how teachers’ beliefs guide their behavior, and what they usually take into account in course planning. The author analyzed the answers to the open questions in the teachers’ questionnaires and the interview records of the 12 teachers, reflecting the teachers’ main concern in course planning, which can be summed up as follows:①Many demands of the New Curriculum versus limited course hours. “The NewCurriculum is much more demanding, there are so many tasks to fulfill in class that we no longer have time to review the lessons, and students intend to be oblivious of what they have learnt soon after class.” according to most subject teachers.②The conflict between integrated skills development and exam. In the openquestions in the TQ and the interview, many teachers called for a corresponding and plausible College Entrance Examination formula, which was expected to be aligned with the New Curriculum;③In lack of teaching facilities. The observation logs revealed that most areas stilllacked for the basic teaching necessities such as sound labs and multimedia, etc.(see Multimedia Application in Table 6).In a word, there existed three factors that teachers would take into account in course planning.To sum up, analysis of the questionnaires showed that teachers’ beliefs varied greatly from one school to another, the mean of which fluctuates from 3.7280 to 4.5300. Classification of the classroom observation logs revealed that teachers’ behavior was consistent with their beliefs in most schools, while some teachers’ practical teaching was disjointed from their articulated beliefs. Analysis of the teacher concern and the interview enabled the author to perceive what teachers concern the most in teaching.Chapter Five Conclusion and Research Implications The present research carried out a survey of the status quo of teachers’ beliefs and their teaching behavior in the New Curriculum context in Guangdong Province by means of questionnaire, classroom observation log and interview. By intensive analysis, the author found that firstly, teacher’s beliefs differed significantly from one school to another; secondly, teachers in most schools teach in accordance with their beliefs, whereas some teachers’ behavior was disjointed from their beliefs, although they showed that they “Strongly agree” with the New Curriculum in the TQ. In the meantime, the author got a pleasant surprise to find that one out of the 6 subject schools, a school from Shantou, had a relative conformity in practical classroom teaching and teachers’ beliefs. Finally, a more intensive analysis was made to find out the teachers’ difficulties in renewing their beliefs or applying their beliefs into teaching.All of the above findings stimulated the author to reflect and resulted in much enlightenment. The findings from the study suggested that impact of varying social and institutional context played a significant role in teachers’ thinking and action. And teacher training should always take the leading role in the long run of educational reform. To be more specific, 3 implications generated from the study. They were related to teacher training, assessment system and teaching facilities, respectively.5.1 The Importance of Teacher TrainingFrom the interviews, the author found that most teachers, especially the inexperienced teachers, expressed that they need professional guidance to help them enhance their teaching skills. In fact, continuous pre-service and in-service teacher training should be held regularly, making sure that teachers are newly informed of the societal trend and are qualified to meet the new teaching demands.As we all know, teacher training used to focus on teaching skills. However, the newly expected teachers’ beliefs and teaching skills require for more efficient training, which consists of belief renewal, professional development and multimedia application.5.1.1 Training on Belief RenewalThe present research found that many experienced teachers were resistant to the New Curriculum, some of whom were still teaching in their assumed best way, regardless of the new demands. These teachers need to be informed that the 21st century calls for new teaching skills to bring students up by using highly skilled teaching strategies and curricula that connect to the real daily life and cater for different needs of students, and motivational as well. And traditional teachers would。
