A Narrative Inquiry Into The Practical Knowledge Of Novice TCFL Teachers

A great number of novice TCFL(Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language)teachers choose to work overseas with the arrangement of Hanban,the Office of Chinese Language Council International.Due to lack of teaching experiences,these teachers encounter challenges in terms of adapting to unfamiliar working environment in their teaching practice.Therefore,these teachers are obliged to acquire some TPK(Teachers' Practical Knowledge)skills to improve their expertise.TPK relates to the accumulation of teachers' teaching experience derived from their constant teaching and self-reflection,as well as the instructors' understanding of both teaching and education.Moreover,it has been widely accepted that TPK skills can significantly improve teachers' class teaching effectiveness.Therefore,this study focuses on the TPK of three novice TCFL teachers,trying to answer the following three research questions:(1)What kinds of TPK did these three novice TCFL teachers possess while teaching abroad and how well did they master TPK?(2)How did the three novice TCFL teachers develop their TPK?(3)What factors influenced the TPK development of the three novice TCFL teachers?This study adopts narrative research method.Three novice TCFL teachers' portfolios including their teaching journals,reflective logs,casual conversations and interviews(semi-structured interview and retrospective interview)with the participants have been used.The findings are shown as follows:(1)The TPK of three novice TCFL teachers contains eight aspects:knowledge of self,knowledge of the Chinese content,knowledge of pedagogy,knowledge of the learner,knowledge of Chinese culture and cross-cultural communication,knowledge of test and assessment,knowledge of classroom management and knowledge of teaching materials.The mastery of the three novice TCFL teachers' eight aspects of knowledge is decreased in sequence.(2)The approaches that the three novice TCFL teachers adopted to develop their TPK are:teachers' critical reflection,teachers' self-improvement through CoP(Community of practice),teachers' pre-service and post-service training and teachers' narrative research activities.(3)Factors that influenced the TPK development of the three novice TCFL teachers are:teachers' personality,self-belief,constant self-reflection,significant persons encountered during their teaching career,teachers' group culture,self-improvement through the learning community and teachers' training mode.The limitations of this study exist in the following aspects:1.Research sample size is not big enough.2.The researcher didn't interview the subjects' colleagues,students and the head of Confucius Institute,or more valuable information may be provided.Further study can be explored in the TPK of novice TCFL teachers in the future.