A Survey Of English Teachers’ Subject Literacy In Secondary Schools In Changsha Based On A TPACK Framework

With the advancement of education modernization in the new era,it is of great necessity for China to build a stronger teachers team,which provides talent support for accelerating education modernization.From the perspective of the English subject,subject literacy(SL)is not only an important component of teachers’ professional development,but also a significant yardstick to measure whether secondary school English teachers are qualified or not.Besides,as teachers continuously improve their technological pedagogical content knowledge(TPACK),TPACK has gradually become the knowledge required for teachers to conduct effective teaching.Although there are profound and comprehensive researches on TPACK measurement and TPACK evaluation,studies on English teachers’ SL in secondary schools based on a TPACK framework are insufficient.The survey was conducted to investigate 119 secondary school English teachers in Changsha based on the TPACK theory put forward by Koehler & Mishra(2008)and on teacher cognition by Borg(2015).Additionally,12 teachers were invited by stratified sampling for the interview after the analysis of the questionnaire.The following questions are investigated in the study:(1)What is the status quo of secondary school English teachers’ subject literacy in Changsha city?(2)Are there any differences in subject literacy among secondary school English teachers concerning the variables of English teaching experience(measured by the number of in-service years),qualification and professional title? Are teachers’ SL levels related to the above three variables?(3)What are the factors influencing the development of secondary school English teachers’ subject literacy?The research findings show that:(1)Both junior and senior high school English teachers have above-average SL levels.Besides,the SL level of teachers in senior high schools is higher than that of teachers in junior high schools.(2)The SL levels of the teachers and their English teaching experiences are significantly different.What’s more,there is also a significant difference between teachers’ professional titles and their SL levels.Additionally,there is a high-positive correlation between the SL levels of the teachers and their English teaching experiences.Besides,the SL levels of teachers and their professional titles have a high-positive correlation with each other.The SL levels of the teachers,on the other hand,and their qualifications are not significantly different.And there is no significant correlation between the SL levels of the teachers and their qualifications as well.(3)The factors that influence the development of secondary school English teachers’ SL could be categorized into individual,school and societal factors.Such as,teachers’ teaching experiences,the school evaluation system for teachers’ teaching,money investment for modern education technology,and the training system of teacher education as well.On the basis of the research results,the author made suggestions on improving teachers’ SL levels mainly from three aspects,namely,the individual aspect,the school aspect and the education authorities’ aspect.So that the study can offer help for both the development of English teachers’ SL and further related researches.However,due to the limitation of time and energy,the researcher did not implement classroom observation and specific practices(which should be improved in subsequent researches)to further determine the status quo of secondary school English teachers’ SL through the TPACK framework and to verify the effectiveness of the suggestions.