A Case Study Of The Development Of New English Teachers' Pedagogical Content Knowledge In The County-level Senior High School

Pedagogical Content Knowledge(PCK)is one of the basic elements of teachers' knowledge,and can promote teachers' professional development effectively.PCK was initially come up with by a famous American scholar Shulman,who defined PCK as that teachers reorganize teaching content knowledge in a way students are able to accept easily.This case study focuses on the PCK development of a new English teacher in a county-level high school during one term,by means of interview method,classroom observation,and case record.And it is centered on the following questions:(1)What is the current situation of PCK the new English teacher has shown?(2)What are the characteristics of her PCK development?(3)What are the factors that influence the PCK growth?The results show that the research object teacher has obtained a certain degree of PCK while the quality is not high.She has a clear understanding of the descriptive knowledge,such as concept of education,the general knowledge of English curriculum and the English teaching methods,but the performance during teaching practice is not sufficient and lacks of flexibility;the knowledge of students needs to be further improved and developed;the understanding of knowledge about education situation and teacher herself is not enough.At the beginning of this career,the author has obvious blindness over the forming process of PCK,and there are also differences between the cognition of PCK and the actual teaching practice.Analysis and research show that the factors affecting new English teachers' PCK growth mainly include pre-service and post-service education,and the most important are the accumulation of teaching experience and the daily communication with colleagues.