Narrative Inquiry: A College Novice English Teacher's Practical Knowledge

This thesis is a narrative inquiry on a college novice English teacher, for the purpose of exploring the English teacher's practical knowledge. More specifically, it aims at answering the following questions: Firstly, with the help of her real-life stories, what specific practical knowledge does this college novice English teacher mainly exhibit? Secondly, what are the factors that influence the formation and development of this college novice English teacher's practical knowledge? The stories themselves are also one of the research results.Regarding TPK (teachers'practical knowledge) home and abroad, there is much less empirical study than theoretical study; and most of the researches put more stress on"it should be"than"it is". What is more, most studies choose professional teachers as subjects rather than novice ones, emphasizing the subjects in middle schools rather than those in colleges or universities and doing scarce researches on specific courses, such as English teachers. The present research hopes to be of some help to college novice English teachers.According to Ye Lan's definition to"suitability"between research method and research questions,"narrative inquiry"offers a proper way to study TPK."narrative methods can be considered real-world measures that are appropriate when real life problems are investigated". It will undoubtedly enrich, on one hand, the researches on teacher professional development and initial teacher training, and on the other hand the studies to understand, improve and assess teachers'own teaching career.After literature review, Miss Meng (shortened as"M") was chosen as the research subject. The data were collected by observation in and out of class, interview after class, collection of real objects and analyzed in a holistic-content model. M's stories (teaching and researching stories; daily life stories; stories of growth) are presented by thick description.M's stories mainly highlight her three kinds of TPK, namely educational belief, interpersonal knowledge, critical and reflective knowledge. Based on that, the subject-features of English teachers'practical knowledge (ETPK) are also discussed. Then the researcher analyzes factors influencing the formation and development of M's TPK in both subjective and objective view. Finally the implications and limitations of the present research are probed.