A Comparative Study On TPACK Levels Of English Teachers In Urban And Rural Junior High School

TPACK(Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge)provides a new angle for teachers’ professional development,and has a significant impact on enriching teachers’ modern teaching knowledge and improving teachers’ curriculum teaching ability under the information background.As far as English subject is concerned,English course adapting to information is the requirement for English teachers in the information age.The research on TPACK about English teachers contributes to understand the present TPACK circumstance of English teachers,and it is helpful to provide specific suggestions to improve TPACK level of English teachers according to the research results.The research on TPACK for English teachers at home and abroad mainly focuses on five aspects: improvement and expansion of TPACK frame,teacher education of TPACK,influencing factors of TPACK,measurement and evaluation of TPACK,present situation investigation and development strategy research of TPACK.However,few studies separate urban teachers from rural teachers.The conclusion of the research without distinguishing the research object cannot reflect the TPACK status of rural teachers alone,nor can it reflect the TPACK status of urban teachers.Only by making clear the TPACK level of urban and rural teachers respectively,can we find out their differences,find out their shortcomings and repair the limitations.Based on this,this research chose 160 English teachers from urban and rural middle school respectively in Shandong province as research objects,and uses the mixed research method to get the present circumstance of TPACK level of urban and rural middle school English teachers,analyze their differences in TPACK level and get the reasons which make an influence on teachers’ TPACK level.The research found the following conclusions: 1.The TPACK level of urban English teachers is higher than rural English teachers.(1)On the whole,the TPACK level of urban English teachers is higher than rural English teachers and there is a significant difference.(2)From all dimensions,the level of urban English teachers in all dimensions is higher than rural English teachers,and there is a significant difference in TK,TCK,TPK and TPACK dimensions.2.The factors affecting TPACK level of urban and rural junior middle school English teachers include demographic factors and contextual factors.(1)Demographic factors: the teaching age,educational background and professional title of urban teachers can cause significant differences in the TPACK level of urban teachers.The teaching age and educational background of rural teachers can cause significant difference in TPACK level of rural teachers.Different professional titles and different regions have significant interaction on teachers’ TPACK level.(2)Contextual factors: The factors influencing the TPACK level of urban and rural English teachers are mainly concentrated in three aspects,namely teachers’ beliefs,teacher learning and communication,the teaching facilities of school.Based on the above conclusions,suggestions on TPACK development for junior middle school English teachers are given.This research also puts forward references for future research directions to provide some enlightenment for future researchers in this field.