Case Study Of Student Teachers' Personal Practical Knowledge Of Teaching English Reading

Teacher personal practical knowledge is an important part of teachers'professional quality and the research on it is the breakthrough of teachers' professional development.A critical issue in education today is that students fail to read on grade level(Houge,Geier&Peyton 2008),so improving students' reading abilities must be a goal.Hence investigating student teachers' personal practical knowledge of teaching English reading is of theoretical and practical significance.Adopting the case study method and conducting content analysis of the data from classroom observations,interviews of teachers,as well as relevant teaching files,this study provides a detailed information about two student teachers' personal practical knowledge of teaching reading to 16-18 year old students.Two research questions are addressed:1.What are the contents of student teachers' personal practical knowledge about English reading teaching?Are there any changes of student teachers' PPK before and after teaching practice?2.What factors concerning internship hold dominant position in shaping the content of student teachers' personal practical knowledge of teaching English reading?Major findings of the study can be summarized as follows:Firstly,five categories of knowledge are described and illustrated,they are:(a)subject matter knowledge,(b)student knowledge,(c)knowledge of curriculum,(d)knowledge of pedagogical strategies,and(e)knowledge of milieu.And there are some developments of student teachers' PPK before and after teaching practice.Secondly,student teachers develop their personal practical knowledge through interaction with the students,the mentor teachers and through reflection after teaching practice.In the end,the research results enlighten us:we should envisage the significance of personal practical knowledge to the growth of student teachers,and the role of teacher education programs in the development of student teachers' personal practical knowledge.Consequently the study sheds light on the teacher education programs.