Dr. Xu Manfei, 

Ph.D, Associate professor

School of Foreign Studies

South China Normal University

The Ministry of Education of China (MOE) has launched and implemented an important nationwide in-service teacher training project since 2010. The MOE expects that the trainees’ ability of incorporating new teaching and learning approaches and methods, resources and technology into their actual classroom teaching will be effectively enhanced and that they are able to continuously improve their teaching skills, and thus improve English education quality in China. The School of Foreign Studies of South China Normal University (SCNU) has been responsible for one of the programs under this big project since 2010, i.e., the Senior High School English Teachers Training Program. 50 “backbone” teachers from around 20 provinces are selected for a 10-day face to face training program which takes place on the campus of SCNU. Starting from 2014, another group of 50 university level teachers who are trained as trainers is added to the program. This training program is highly challenging as the trainees all have rich classroom experience and they are the head teachers or the key teachers in their respective schools. As for the university level participants, the majority of them are associate professors, and some senior lectures or professors specialized in English teaching and pedagogy.

This report briefly presents our practices of the program for the past five years, with a focus on our successful experience and a reflection on some areas to be further improved. We held a strong belief that higher quality teachers is key to the improvement of English education in mainland China. We have adopted a task-based approach to the program and developed it into a 3 PIs model which requires trainers to present and illustrate topics logically connected, trainees to participate and be involved in the activities, and to practice and interact both face to face and online. From the beginning to the end of the training, trainees are given different kinds of task which require both single active involvement and close cooperative group work.  

 

Abouth the speaker: Dr. XU Manfei is Associate Professor of Applied Linguistics and English at South China Normal University. Her main research has been in Applied Linguistics, Corpus Linguistics, teacher training, and teacher education.

She completed her Ph.D. study in 2009 in Guangdong University of Foreign Studies with a topic devoted to epistemic stance markers in spoken English. She currently focuses on developing training programs for in-service English teachers and teaching materials for pre-service English teachers in China.

Her major publications include Small words in Chinese EFL Learners' Spoken English (with Prof. He Anping, 2003), Schemata Theory, Corpus Linguistics and Foreign Language Teaching (with Prof. He Anping, 2004), Application of Corpora to Foreign Language Education: Theory and Practice (co-editor, 2004), Linearity and Dynamity of Epistemic Markers in Spoken English (with Prof. He Anping, 2011),   On the Problematic Use of Foreign Language Vocabulary from a Semantic Schema Perspective (2011). As a co-author, she published four textbooks (2003, 2013, 2014, 2015) for English major students in mainland China.

As Vice Dean of her school, she is in charge with its B.A. programs and teaching management. Besides, she is responsible for developing and organizing teacher training programs for local, provincial and national teacher development projects. 

She was awarded Excellent Teacher of Classroom Teaching by her university for four times.