A Case Study On The Comparative Analysis Of Novice And Expert Teachers’ Pedagogical Content Knowledge In Senior High School

This thesis makes a comparative analysis of novice and expert English teachers’PCK(Pedagogical Content Knowledge) in senior high school. PCK, as the core of teacher knowledge base, represents teachers’ personal teaching experience. It represents the combination of specific subject knowledge and pedagogical knowledge, and it also includes teachers’ distinctive understanding of the subject. In the mid 80s, Shulman at Stanford University completed a project named "The knowledge growth in a profession project" (1986). It aimed to find what knowledge builds on both subject matter knowledge and knowledge of pedagogy, how teachers acquire this knowledge, how it develops, and how they use it in their teaching time. Shulman (1986,1987) proposed a form of formal and specific content knowledge that namely "pedagogical content knowledge". Therefore,the in-depth study of different teachers in different disciplines PCK for promoting professional development is of great significance for the quality of education. Later Grossman (1990)proposed a four-dimension model of PCK which provides a theoretical framework for subsequent studies of PCK.The purpose of the researches is to find out the differences between novice and expert teachers, make clear the rules from novice to expert teachers, so as to provide a scientific basis for teacher training, shorten the development cycle of novice teachers and become expert ones as soon as possible. Based on the framework combining Grossman’s PCK theory with Cochran’s, this research adopted the qualitative and quantitative research method to compare and analyzed PCK of the senior high school English teachers. This thesis aims to explore the following two questions: first, what are the differences between novice teachers’ and expert teachers’ PCK in the senior high school? Why does the difference exist? Second,how does the expertise of expert teachers develop from a novice teacher? What promotes the development of it? In order to solve the two questions, the researcher selected an expert teacher and a novice teacher from the internship school as the subject samples, and conducted the comparative study by interviewing those two teachers.Meanwhile, 122 students were surveyed to collect their opinions about their own teachers’PCK. Finally, the researcher analyzed the development of the expert teacher’s PCK in order to find out the way of teacher specialization.With the interviews and data analysis, the researcher summarized the following differences between novice and expert English teachers: first, in terms of the knowledge of teaching objectives, the expert teacher pays attention to not only language knowledge and skills but also cultural and emotional aspects, while the novice teacher pays more attention to language knowledge and skills; second,in the aspect of curriculum knowledge,the expert teacher is better at connecting the knowledge students have learned, while the novice teacher is weaker at arranging the teaching content; third,in terms of the knowledge of students’understanding,the expert teacher has better understanding of senior students,physical and mental characteristics and cognitive level because of his rich teaching experience, whereas the novice teacher lacks teaching experience, so her understanding of students’ learning situation is not complete; fourth, with respect to teaching strategies, the expert teacher supports of teaching with flexible teaching skills and selecting strategies should depend on the characteristics of students. Beyond that, expert teachers are adept in emotional instruction and pay more attention to the communication with students. While novice teachers focus on the use of a variety of teaching modes to improve the effectiveness of teaching, but its essence is to reflect the individual qualities. Based on the differences above, this thesis puts forward some suggestions to promote the PCK of beginning teachers.As to the PCK development of novice teachers, the researcher suggests: first, novice teachers should learn advanced pedagogical theories and apply them to practice.; second,they need to rethink about the knowledge of English curriculum and deepen the structure of English knowledge; third, consider ELF from the view of students and choose the suitable content and methods for them; fourth,novice teachers should emphasize upon professional reflection.Because of the limit of the researcher’s ability,this thesis has some shortcomings: the research time is not so sufficient; research subjects are so small,consisting of only two teachers in one school. Considering the findings and shortcomings, therefore, the following researchers can try to enlarge the research subjects,or make comparative studies of female and male English teachers’ PCK in order to enrich the relevant studies of PCK.