A Case Study Of PCK In A University Teaching-excelled Teacher

Teacher is the practitioner of education reform and a key player in teachingspecialization. Therefore, the specialized teacher decides the specialized teaching. So far,most college English teachers have obtained at least bachelor’s degree, and some evenachieve higher degrees. However, they can’t automatically become a qualified Englishteacher. As a qualified English teacher, professional knowledge is important. But it is notenough, in that a good English teacher owns not only subject knowledge but also theknowledge of teaching—PCK. In the1980s, Shulman came up with the concept of PCK ata study in Stanford University. Later, researchers at home and abroad enriched anddeveloped the connotation of PCK from different perspectives, and then studied thespecific subjects on PCK. However, there has been little research on PCK development ofexcellent tertiary-level English teachers. Therefore, this project adopts the methods ofliterature analysis and case study, for the purpose of researching the development of PCKin college EFL teachers during their teaching process.Based on the literature analysis, this study selects an excellent English teacher in anormal university as the studying subject. Through semi-structured interviews, observingvideotape of lessons and lesson plans, the data collection is finished in one year.Interviews are the major sources of data for investigating the development of the teacher’sPCK. Classroom observation and teacher’s reflection journals provide supplementary andcomplementary information.Results of the study show that teacher reveals different views on the components ofPCK, concerning her stage-based professional development. During the pre-servicetraining, she regarded subject-related components as the major PCK components.However, upon turning into a teacher and accumulating much experience, she thought thataffective factors became more important. Besides, based on the interviews with her, it can be concluded that her main sources of PCK come from her work experience, includingnew curriculum training, public class activities, reading professional books and her ownteaching experience and reflection.Based on the discussion of the results, PCK is found as an integrity of fivecomponents: subject matter knowledge, curriculum knowledge, general pedagogicalknowledge, knowledge of students, and knowledge of resources. And the components ofPCK were interrelated with each other. If one component of PCK changed, it alsoinfluenced the development of the others. Therefore, this study puts forward that PCK is adynamic concept, which is co-influenced by personal, cultural and contextual factors.