1． Introductionl
1.1研究背景和研究目的
在激烈的竞争中，所有的国家都在寻找出路，在此过程中，很多国家已达到一个共识，那就是侧重于科学突飞猛进的创新。While it is universally known that whatever kinds ofinnovations depend on the elites who come from highly-qualified education .Hence, greatimportance has been attached to the educational reforms around the world. TheUNESCO (1966) once stated that teachers were one of the crucial factors for the successof any kind http://www.1daixie.com/dxyylwof educational reforms. Without their active participation or help, theeducational reforms cannot be successful.
Since the 1980s, all the countries began to call for the necessity of promotingteacher professional development. Though attached great importance worldwidedecades. And it was reported in one of UNESCO's 1998 educational conferences that asany other kind of profession, teaching was a learning profession; those engaged in thisprofession should seize every opportunity to update their knowledge and skillsthroughout their career on a regular basis.(明远，2004), which is in accordance with therequirements of life-long learning.
Meanwhile, English, functioning as a window to the world, has been one of themost important compulsory courses in almost every developing country in the world.Since China's accession to the WTO and other regional or international organizations,the need for more proficient English learners is increasing. Still, the English education inChina has received much criticism for it is time-consuming and has little effect. Tochange the situation and meet the needs of the trend of lifelong learning, a new round ofeducational reform has been carried out from the experimental areas to the whole country and the Chinese Ministry of Education has also issued a "continuing education" project,hoping to involve all the primary and middle school teachers in this great undertaking ofprofessional development to narrow down the urban-rural divide(S!淑华，2000).Though the educational reform is with good intention, some unique characteristicsin this country bring challenges to its full implementation. China is a "rural country"where the education of the country depends on that of the rural areas. Since thel980s,English has been http://www.1daixie.com/dxyylwa compulsory course in the elementary and middle schools. However,English is taught as a second language in China and still is an in-class course that largelydepends on the teachers' way of teaching. Therefore, the quality of English education ispositively correlated to the quality of English teachers. While the quality of Englishteachers in China is still low (刘道义&龚亚夫，2001) and the situation is likely to beseverer since the urban-rural divide makes working in rural areas dissatisfying and makesit difficult to attract or retain qualified teachers there.
2． 文学评论
本章是是文献综述，针对教师专业发展（TPD）的理论框架提供了一个深入的了解，本章包括五个方面。The first part is about how teaching was recognized as a profession, thendefinitions of TPD are presented and rationales for and dimensions of TPD are explained.Finally, relevant studies on rural teacher professional development at home and abroadare reviewed to offer some insights for this thesis.
2.1 Teaching as a profession专业教学
Though it is now universally recognized as a crucial profession in the world,teaching has undergone some disputes on whether it should be counted as a profession.
Based on the definition of the Collins Cobuild Dictionary (1995 ： 1313)， "aprofession is a type of job that requires advanced education and training." Teachers whowork in the teaching filed usually are those who have been enrolled in universities,especially the normal universities and have received teacher training. In this sense,teaching should be assumed to be a profession. Bailey et al. (2009) summarized fourcriteria that should be taken into account for a career to be a profession: the existence ofadvanced education and training ， the establishment of standards of practices andcertification, an agreement on the theoretical and empirical base and people in the fieldacting as the advocates of this profession. They think whether teaching should beconsidered as a profession depends on where you look (Bailey et al, 2009). Meanwhile,there is some doubt about its professionalism. Liu (2002) argued that at least six featuresshould be required for a career to be a profession: professional expertise, professionalmoral, professional training , professional development, professional autonomy andprofessional organization. He thought that teaching should be considered as in the intermediate state of profession and semi-profession (Bailey et al, 2009), which meansteaching is not a mature profession yet like medicine, engineering, architecture, etc.(Bailey et al, 2009). It was not until 1966 that UNESCO first publicly made theannouncement that teaching should be regarded as a profession if it could improveteachers' personal growth, social position and working conditions.
3. Research Design....................................... 36-41
3.1 Research context .......................................36-37
3.2 Subjects....................................... 37
3.3 Instruments .......................................37-38
3.3.1 Questionnaire....................................... 37
3.3.2 Interview .......................................37-38
3.4 Data collection and analysis....................................... 38-41
4. Findings .......................................41-66
4.1 Teachers' low level of motivation for TPD....................................... 41-44
4.2 Contributing factors .......................................44-66
4.2.1 Societal factors .......................................45-49
4.2.2 School factors....................................... 49-58
4.2.3 Teachers' challenges in teaching....................................... 58-61
4.2.3.1 Large classes .......................................58-59
4.2.3.2 Difficulty in managing students....................................... 59-61
4.2.4 Teacher factors .......................................61-66
Conclusion结论
Except for measures taken on the part of state and school, teachers' own initiativeshould be aroused so that they can be fiiUy engaged in TPD. Though faced with societal,organizational and role-related distress (Iwanicki, 1983), teachers can adopt somerelaxation strategies (such as self-indulgence, deep breathing, etc.) and learn to budgettheir time and energy more effectively (Gann, 1981). More importantly, teachers shouldhave more self-directed development. As the study of Mushayikwa & Lubben (2008)showed, self-direction was critical to teachers' professional development, especially forthose who were working in deprived environments. To carry this out, the collaborationand coordination of all parties concerned is needed.
Limitations of the study should be acknowledged. Since the scope of this surveywas narrowed down to a small scale, the generalisability of the study is under question.Besides, though the study aims to have a better understanding of the factors contributingto the teachers' reluctance to engage in TPD, the discussion of the relationship betweenone particular factor and the reluctance was not in-depth enough. However, the issuesexplored in this study have hopefully offered insights to people interested in the topic.