A Survey On Pedagogical Content Knowledge Of Primary And Secondary School English Teachers In Minority District

With a new round of curriculum reform of basic education getting to the overall implementation phase, primary and secondary school English teachers (PSSETs) must consciously change on three levels:knowledge, ability and concept, which could adapt its requirement. So improving English teachers’Pedagogical Content Knowledge (hereinafter referred to as PCK) are not only a big challenge for PSSETs, an important link to combine teachers’teaching idea and teaching classroom behavior together, but also the key step to raise the development of English teacher education as well.This study focuses on PSSETs’PCK in Xiangxi minority districts under the background of the new curriculum reform. Based on the constructivism theory, the author takes Zhu(朱晓燕,2004) s’framework of secondary school English teachers’PCK, and uses questionnaires as well as interviews to collect data. This research takes14primary and secondary schools of Fenghuang county in the Tujia-Miao autonomous prefecture of Xiangxi as sample, surveying60local teachers and240middle school students by questionnaires, and interviewing8teachers and10students among them.Based on the data analysis, the major findings of the present study are summarized as follows:1. As a whole, PSSETs’ PCK reaches a relatively high level in Xiangxi minority areas, but there are still some problems in PSSETs’ PCK. Firstly, PSSETs lack knowledge of learners, knowledge of pedagogy and curricular knowledge. Secondly, there is obvious difference between urban and rural PSSET’ PCK in Xiangxi minority areas. Urban PSSETs’ PCK is generally higher than rural PSSETs’ PCK. Reasons for the result are concluded by four aspects.(1) Urban PSSETs’ education level is higher than that of rural PSSETs.(2) PSSETs majoring in English in urban area are more than those in rural area.(3) Rural PSSETs have more chances to improve PCK than rural PSSETs.(4) Teaching hardware facilities of rural schools are poorer than that of urban schools.2. There are both internal and external factors influencing PSSETs’ PCK. Teachers’ education background and teaching concept are very important internal factors. The higher education degree teacher gains, the higher PCK they have. And the teachers majoring in English possess more PCK than those majoring in other subjects. To some extent, the traditional teaching concept hinders the development of PSSETs’ PCK. In addition, local education environment is the main external factor that influences the development of PCK. 3. There are many ways to improve PSSETs’PCK. Besides teaching reflection, colleagues teaching communication, teachers experience as students, reading textbooks and professional periodicals are the main ways to improve the development of PSSETs. Meanwhile, the results of investigation indicate that PSSETs rarely have opportunity to take part in the competition of high quality class and further their education; they even don’t have chances to participate in educational scientific research.At last, based on the main findings, some measures are suggested to promote PSSETs’PCK in minority districts.