Practical Knowledge Of Teachers And Its Development

Teachers have a special kind of knowledge, which is called practical knowledge. It's based on their evaluation and reflection on their life histories, it's espoused and used by teachers in the everyday teaching, and it's a series of knowledge that fit for special situation. Practical knowledge is the base of teachers to make decisions; it's an "invisible hand" which directs teachers to teach. In a word, it plays a very important role in teaching. Practical knowledge is different from theory knowledge; it is created and possessed by teachers, so the research of practical knowledge tries to change the dominant position of theory knowledge, and form a new vision to practical field, and give some illuminations to the specialization of teachers. It's an opportunity for teachers to "talk", by telling their stories, episode and experiences, teachers change the embarrassing state of "silence", they rose to the stage from the curtain, and the practical discourse is well respected, teachers can express their practical knowledge in "first person", and the reality of teaching in our country is revealed in a vivid way. By comparing teachers' practical knowledge between China and Japan, the paper reconstructs the theory of practical knowledge, but also give the all the teachers opportunities to dialogue and reflect, in order to refresh their practical knowledge and perform better in teaching practice. The content of every chapter is summarized as follows.First of all, the author explains the reasons why the topic was chosen, by checking previous researches, the some problems in the research are found, and the author tries to resolve them. The paper adopts a series of research methods, such as classroom observation, in-depth interview, case study and comparative method. 14 language teachers participate in the research, they come from 4 high schools in Shanhai and Japan, two of the teachers are choose to teach LuXun's "Gu xiang", and they are recorded by VCR, then the VCR was used as an interview hint.Secondly, the paper redefines the term of practical knowledge, including explaining its essence, its elements and so on. Further more, it defends that practical knowledge represents special characters: family similarity, integrity, complexity and temporarily. The research changes hypothesis that practical knowledge is totally personal, it's not only personal, but something similar in a special culture. The teacher more relevant and the practical knowledge is more resemble. practical knowledge is integrity, which is difficult to divide. There is various ways to express practical knowledge, but subtle difference is found among them, so practical knowledge is complex. Moreover, practical knowledge is changeable, it is useful for the moment and it will change with situation.Thirdly, how practical knowledge works is discussed. Primarily, practical knowledge includes series of beliefs, the teaching situation and the element in the situation will be judged by beliefs. the series of belief is dynamic, including subsystem, various beliefs will be changed and adjusted with the situation .then, practical knowledge contains a great deal of integrated knowledge system, it comprises with subject knowledge ,knowledge of strategy, moral knowledge ,knowledge of relationship etc. The teachers will choose and reconstruct all kinds of knowledge, so it is called dynamic Knowledge community and it's the intelligent support of practical knowledge. The last but not the least, the teachers should dialogue with the situation, according to the "back-word", teachers make their judgments continuously, they will deal with certain and uncertain situation in different ways, and then new situation happens, it makes a chain of situations.Fourthly, the paper tries to express practical knowledge by words, actions and metaphors. Knowledge is naturally related with the words, so the words are the most direct and most convenient way to express practical knowledge. In the paper, teacher's stories, evaluations and episodes are used to reveal practical knowledge. It is expressed in four different ways; they are knowledge of curriculum evaluation, knowledge of student, knowledge of instruction and knowledge of circumstance. The paper explains the practical knowledge of two countries, in order to disclose the different culture character of practical knowledge and explore the reasons.Fifthly, teachers' practical knowledge is expressed by actions and metaphors. Practical knowledge is in the action; it is memorized in teachers' bodies, and will be showed in teaching actions. In this part, the author observes the two teachers from different countries who teaches "GuXiang", and notes their action in detail. The actions of two teachers are divided into three steps: before the action, in the action, and after the action. Based on the detailed depiction, the paper compares and analyzes the different action of two teachers. Although metaphor is one kind of word, it's special way to express practical knowledge. 14 teacher from 4 high schools describe the role they play in metaphors, and they also explain why they choose the metaphor, we can know better about the teachers' job, their roles in classroom and their sense of efficiency etc. moreover, the paper also analyzes the metaphors in affective dimension, moral dimension and cognitive dimension.Sixthly, the paper explores the how the practical knowledge form and refresh. Teachers' growing tracks are recorded and analyzed; it involves the relationship between their experiences and practical knowledge. Furthermore, it also discusses the form progress in the mind from the cognitive perspective .namely, practical knowledge is constructed with teachers' experiences ,theory knowledge and so forth, and it will be reconsidered by the practical community, that's why the practical knowledge is familiar in the same community. So community plays very important role in teachers' development, it shouldn't be ignored. Practical knowledge will be refreshed and developed by personal and community reflection, and it's also the process of teachers' professional development .so according to the Japanese experiences, the paper recommends some suggestion to boost Chinese teachers' development both in teacher education and in-service education.Finally, the author generalizes the research, discloses the problems and indicates the further work of the research, sponsors the cooperation between the researchers and the teachers.