| As a crucial aspect of teacher professional development,teacher knowledge has been one of the core topics in teacher education study.And teachers' subject matter knowledge(SMK),being somewhat decisive in teachers' selection of teaching content,methods and strategies,is the essential part of teacher knowledge.Studies of English teachers' SMK in our country concentrate on combing components of SMK,or on certain component of the whole system.However,as to teachers SMK,the point is not only its components,but the structure of the integral system,including relationships among different components.Studying the overall structure SMK system is of significance to teacher education and teacher development in ways of serving as reference system in setting pre-service teacher education curriculum and teachers' goals of individual professional development.This study aims to construct a model of secondary school English teachers' SMK structure to demonstrate what the structure ought to be,and to survey the actual stituation of teachers' SMK structure.The actual structure is explored in two dimensions: the structure teachers' possessed and the ideal structue in their mind,which reflects their view of SMK structrue.Thereby this study responds to three research questions:(1)what is the ought-to-be structure of secondary school English teachers' SMK?(2)what is the actual situation of secondary English teachers' SMK structure?(3)what views of SMK structure do secondary school English teachers' possess?This study adopts both quantitative and qualitative methods by following steps.Firstly,by reviewing important domestic and foreign studies of teacher SMK and surveying experts,this study proposes a Framework of English Teachers' SMK,and designs a scale according to the Framework.Then,this study construct a model of secondary school English teachers' SMK structure.Secondly,this study develops a questioner to investigate actual structures of teachers and analyses data in both horizontal and vertical dimensions.Finally,this study investigates teachers views of SMK structure with a scale.The study finds:(1)English teachers' SMK structure is an organic structure with categories of knowledge.(2)Teachers' actual SMK structures are no ideal.Excellent teachers and common teachers' SMK are different in structure.Teachers' SMK changes in structure in their career.(3)Teachers' SMK structures basically reflect their views of SMK structure.According to the findings,this study proposes suggestions for teacher education.Teacher education programs have to cultivate teachers' view of SMK structure,to make them clear that the importance of knowledge does not depend on how immediately it is related to teaching contents.Pre-service teacher education programs have face secondary school teaching.SMK should be posed as one of the crucial issues of in-service teacher education.Chapter 1 reviews English teacher knowledge and English teacher SMK.Chapter 2 introduces the methodology of the study,defines core items,and explains the research process.Chapter 3 explores the ought-to-be structure of secondary school English teachers' SMK,by means of constructing a universal framework of English teachers SMK,and investigates experts' view on the relative importance of each category of knowledge,hence generating an ideal model of secondary school English teachers' SMK.Chapter 4 and 5 illustrates the findings in studying teachers actual SMK structure.Chapter 4 compares knowledge structures of common teachers and excellent teachers,while Chapter 6 make a comparison among teachers from different career stages to summarize the development features.Chapter 6 explores the ideal SMK structure in teachers' eyes,and analyses it by referring to the ideal model constructed in Chapter 3.Chapter 7 makes a conclusion of the whole study,provides suggestions for pre-service and in-service teacher education and secondary school English teaching,points out limitations and deficiency of this study,hence proposing potentials for further studies. |
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