| In 1986,Shulman firstly proposed the concept of pedagogical content knowledge(PCK),which was seen as the unique knowledge that could reflect the professional characteristics of teachers.Since then,pedagogical content knowledge has been commonly recognized as important for teachers' professional development and it has stirred great responses among researchers.As an important part of the masters of English education program,teaching practicum can help pre-service English teachers better prepare for future teaching.For most pre-service English teachers,teaching practicum is their first time to connect with classroom practice.Though previous studies have suggested that pedagogical content knowledge can be developed through classroom practice.Little attention has been paid to the role of the teaching practicum in pre-service English teachers' PCK development.Therefore,to enrich research in this area,this paper adopted multiple case studies and the four participants were all masters of English education from a key normal university.During the teaching practicum,they were assigned to different internship schools,including senior and junior schools and the teaching practicum lasted for eight weeks.Through exploring the changes in their PCK during the teaching practicum,this paper aimed to answer the following questions:(1)How did pre-service middle school English teachers'PCK change during the teaching practicum?(2)What were the influential factors contributing to the changes of PCK in the process of teaching practicum?The research results show that in the teaching practicum,the four pre-service English teachers have witnessed an overall improvement of PCK even though the components of PCK may vary to different degrees.Among the six components,the knowledge of learners grows rapidly and obviously while the changes in curricular knowledge are the least obvious.It should be noted that the development of knowledge of learners has promoted the development of other components.Their knowledge of themselves gets deepened in the teaching practicum since the four pre-service English teachers have had a more comprehensive understanding of the teaching job and their responsibilities.The improvements in their subject matter knowledge mainly occur in the process of class preparation and classroom practice.In terms of conceptions of teaching purposes,the pre-service English teachers mostly stick to developing students' ability to use English.Only one or two of them have been more inclined to the purpose of passing examination under the influence of their mentors and also their internship schools.Concerning knowledge of pedagogy,the changes are quite different among the participants.Faced with the gap between what they have learned about pedagogical knowledge and the actual teaching and also the different levels of students,some participants choose to strictly follow the teaching methods of their mentors in the process of teaching,lacking flexibility.While others can select appropriate teaching methods in a more flexible way.Besides,in the teaching practicum,the most influential factors of the changes in PCK include the mentoring relationships,reflective teaching,peer coaching,and also the knowledge base they have already learned before the teaching practicum.Besides,the influence of the internship schools can't be neglected with all the classroom practices rooted in the internship school.Based on the research findings,this study can provide implications for pre-service English teachers to develop their PCK in the teaching practicum.Firstly,for the masters of English education program,more attention should be paid to developing pre-service English teachers' curricular knowledge and training their ability to conduct peer coaching.Secondly,for the pre-service English teachers,frequent reflection on teaching practice is very necessary.Lastly,a positive mentoring relationship contributes a lot for the development of pre-service English teachers'PCK. |
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