Chapter One General Introduction
1.1 Introduction At the beginning of the research course in the relative field, much attentionmainly focused on the concept, conditions and the effectiveness of learner autonomy,whereas the studies of teacher autonomy began in the mid 1990s. Besides, mostresearches are in relation to the meaning and concept of teacher autonomy (Little,1995; McGrath, 2017; Aoki, 2017; Smith, 2017, etc), the characteristics and qualitiesof autonomous teachers (Breen & Mann, 1997), the relationship between teacherautonomy and learner autonomy (Little, 1995; Gardner& Miller, 1999) and thecategories of teacher autonomy and the elements affecting teacher autonomy (Pearson,1998; Pearson&Moomaw, 2017). Since the beginning of the 20thcentury, it has been awidely accepted assumption that teachers’ professional development is the keyelement in Educational revolution. This is a two-sided concept that on the one hand itrefers to a teacher’s academic and teaching capability, on the other hand it is adevelopment of teachers where it is seen as a career or profession. More specifically,this concept includes the improvement of professional work in certain field, theinnovation of teachers’ teaching ability and the cultivation of teachers’ work ethic andpersonal charm.Researches concerning teachers’ professional development abroad have beensystematic and the theoretical base is firm, whereas domestically, this field has beeninvestigated until the latter half of the 20thcentury. Although it is far from perfectcompared with other theoretical field, it is still and will be a very important focus inthe researches in teacher education. Teachers’ autonomous development is aneffective way of achieving professional development; as Lamb (2017) claimed thatteacher autonomy is “the goal of professional development, a call for professionalism,and ultimately the resistance to hegemonic discourses”. Therefore, it is significantboth theoretically and pedagogically to further investigate how teacher autonomycontributes to teachers’ professional development.
1.2 Research background Teacher autonomy has been a hot topic in second language education since thepublication of Holec’s report Autonomy and Foreign Language Learning to theCouncil of Europe in 1981. It has already become a major emerging concern atvarious conferences; therefore, the analysis of teacher autonomy will be of great helpto the understanding of learner autonomy and the facilitation of SLA (Yan, 2017). Research abroadThe recent twenty years have seen an ever increasing amount of attention toTeacher Autonomy in second language teaching literature, a large number of booksand papers concerning the topic of teacher autonomy has shown that autonomousteaching and related researches have become one of the mainstreams of languageteaching pedagogy and professionalization in western countries.In the field of foreign language research abroad, many researchers (Allwright,1990; Little, 1995; Littlewood, 1999; Benson, 2017; Lamb, 2017, etc) have conductedvarious studies on teacher autonomy. Many among them (Benson, 1997, 2017; Holec,1981; Lamb, 2017) have worked on the definitions of learner autonomy and teacherautonomy, and the relationships between learner autonomy and teacher autonomy.Richard (2017) attempted to clarify the different dimensions of teacherautonomy and illustrated the usefulness o，英语论文网站，英语论文范文 |
