| Teachers' professional development has always been the hot topic studied by researchers at home and abroad. Especially in this economic globalization era, English has been irreplaceable as a kind of universal language around the world. Thus, English teachers' professional development has been thought highly of, especially in-service English teachers'. As we all know, the researches on English teachers' professional development are undergone from multiple perspectives; however, teachers' personal practical knowledge is the fundamental basis and fertile soil for teachers' professional development. Connelly and Clandinin (1988) firstly employ narrative inquiry to explore teachers' personal practical knowledge through the stories co-constructed by them and teachers. They demonstrate personal practical knowledge conveys teachers' teaching experience through a kind of special way that exists in teachers' past experience, present mind and body as well as future plans and actions, which, concretely speaking, consists in practical teaching.Narrative inquiry is a kind of qualitative research method firstly used in educational research, especially in teachers' practical knowledge by Connelly and Clandinin. Using narrative inquiry, researchers emphasize that educational stories in research sites should be delineated vividly so then researchers and participants co-construct the educational deep meanings implied in the stories. Teachers' personal practical knowledge is rooted in teaching practice and besides, is influenced greatly by teachers' own personality or growth experience. Researchers can excavate the far-reaching meanings, ideas and beliefs.Through referring to relevant literature on teachers' professional development at home and abroad, it is found that the researches on teachers' personal practical knowledge are comparatively less at home than abroad. Not so many domestic researchers focus on using narrative inquiry. Considering such research status quo, the present study does a narrative inquiry of an excellent female EFL teacher Diane in a middle school through interviews, class observations and reading teaching journals based on the theoretical framework, that is, Huberman's career trajectory for women and constructivism theory. There are three steps. Firstly, putting researchers and participants in scenes by the interviews, class observations and teaching journals is to collect data;secondly, transferring the data into writing version is done; finally, it is evident that analyzing the data is needed to be done comprehensively so as to deal with the research questions. Thus, the current study tries to figure out what factors influence Diane's professional development of personal practical knowledge covering favorable and unfavorable factors as well as Diane's approaches to improve personal practical knowledge in three different career stages. The study aims to give student teachers,in-service teachers especially female teachers inspiration for enhancing personal practical knowledge as well as to make up for the deficiency of domestic researches on personal practical knowledge employing narrative inquiry to some extent. The current study is conducted by the three research questions as follows:(1) What are the influential factors of the construction and development of Diane's personal practical knowledge in different stages of professional development?(2) What are the favorable factors and unfavorable factors respectively and how do they influence Diane's growth of personal practical knowledge?(3) How does Diane develop and update her personal practical knowledge in different professional developmental stages?It is found that main influential factors of Diane's personal practical knowledge are different in three professional developmental stages including favorable factors and unfavorable factors. Specifically, in the first teaching period of career launching and initial commitment, there are main favorable factors covering personality, two significant mentors and colleagues, while unfavorable factors are grammar-translation teaching method and theories in books; in the second teaching period of stabilizing and final commitment, favorable factors mainly comprise Diane's sincere and unselfish love to students and teaching as well as learning experience in America; besides, the unfavorable factor is school culture in L Middle School. In the third teaching period of new challenges and new concerns, favorable factors consist of national educational policies,family support and reflections; students' English proficiency is the restrictive factor.In brief, factors can be divided into favorable and unfavorable factors or internal and external factors influencing female English teachers' personal practical knowledge, such as, national educational policies, family, personality and so on. The suggestions for improving teachers' personal practical knowledge are as follows in the study concerning Diane's measures of constructing and prompting development of personal practical knowledge. Continuous passion and love to students and teaching are undoubtedly necessary for student teachers and in-service teachers, especially for female teachers with multiple roles. They should form the good habit of teaching reflection through revising lesson plans and polishing lessons repeatedly, writing reflection journals and the like to accumulate and improve personal practical knowledge, which helps teachers reflect and advance practical teaching experience. Besides, teaching researchers should investigate and analyze teachers' personal practical knowledge employing multiple research methods from various points which are expected to provide feasible theoretical guidance with more abundant theories as well as targeted and effective training programs for teachers'personal practical knowledge. Finally, it is not neglectable that educational decision makers and school leaders should take optimizing educational mechanism and ameliorating balanced working environment of teachers' cooperation and competition into consideration. More importantly, educational policies and training programs should be drawn up to drive teachers' professional development based on personal practical knowledge. |
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