A Case Study On A Middle School English Teacher's Application Of Practical Knowledge

Teachers' practical knowledge means the knowledge which the teacher accumulates and applies in the teaching practice after he or she discovers and apprehends the implications of practical experience, combined his or her own life experience and personal meaning of experience by the ways of experiencing, pondering and comprehending in the daily practical teaching situation. This paper uses the thinking aloud protocol method to analyze the preparation part of a junior middle school teacher with five-year teaching experience as a case study. The contents of the interview will be tape-recorded and transcribed. It aims to analyze the experienced teachers' practical knowledge to give the novice teachers some implications in teaching. This paper uses the practical knowledge, textbook evaluation and textbook adaptation theories to analyze the teacher's transcription. After the analysis, the writer concludes that the teacher has used the practical knowledge in the form of knowledge of self, instruction, students, curriculum and subject matter in three types of classes, named listening and speaking, reading and review class. Studying the experienced teachers is very important for they are not only the traditional knowledge transmitters but also the teaching experts. After this study, the writer finds that the teacher has used his practical knowledge to make the students feel interested in learning. This study is only the start of the future study of teacher education. The writer hopes that this will have some contributions to the future studies of teachers' practical knowledge.