A Narrative Inquiry About A Novice English Teacher's Practical Knowledge In A Senior High School

Teachers' practical knowledge(TPK)refers to teachers' understanding and recognition of education in the teaching practice.And it is based on teachers' personal life experience and formed through the accumulation and reflection of practical teaching.It is the key to teachers' professional development,and guides the teachers' practical teaching behavior.Paying attention to TPK fully reflects the demands on teachers' professional development in the world today.Since novice teachers are at the initial stage of teachers' professional development,it is important to enhance their practical knowledge.However,in practice,we find that novice teachers can not effectively solve the problems in the teaching practice for the lack of practical knowledge.Therefore,the research of TPK is helpful for novice teachers to pass through the transition period.Narrative inquiry takes the real world and the practical life as the starting point,and the activities that the teachers are engaged in as the most direct source for teachers' practical knowledge.Therefore there is an inherent relationship between the two.In this research,based on the systematical analysis of TPK at home and abroad,the researcher takes a novice English teacher(Miss An)in X senior high school in L city as the subject to probe three questions: Firstly,what practical knowledge does Miss An display in her teaching and daily life stories? Secondly,what factors affect her formation of practical knowledge in the process?Thirdly,what characteristics can be observed in the process of formation of her own practice knowledge?From April to June,and from September to October in 2016,the researcher studied Miss An for nearly four months by narrative inquiry.In the whole process,the researcher took the classroom observation,in-depth interviews and in-kind collection as the main methods.The author walked into the teaching field and recorded the teaching practice and life events to understand the teacher's daily teaching practice in life,expecting to be able to show the teachers' practical knowledge comprehensively and dynamically.After the date collection,combing and analysis,Miss An's stories were summarized into four aspects,that is,teaching stories,personal experience and educational stories,learning and reflective stories and dailylife stories.By understanding and analyzing Miss An's stories,the study has the following findings.First,the practical knowledge of Miss An is embodied in four aspects: educational belief,knowledge of subject teaching,knowledge of the educational situation and knowledge of students.Second,the factors affecting the formation of Miss An's practical knowledge came from both the internal and external aspects.Third,there are four characteristics presenting in the process of TPK's formation,that is,practicality,reflection,interaction and autonomy.