Research On The Changes Of EFL Pre-service Teachers' Practical Knowledge Of Reading Teaching In Professional Learning Communities

In recent years,the research of practical knowledge has penetrated into different discipline fields and presents diversified characteristics.Based on the cultivation requirements of international talents,China has always attached great importance to the improvement of foreign language teaching quality and the professional development of foreign language teachers.Practical knowledge is a key factor of teachers' professional development,so the research of foreign language teachers'practical knowledge has raised concern in Chinese scholars.Although some of the scholars have conducted empirical research on the practical knowledge of foreign language teachers based on local teaching reality,few researches on specific foreign language curriculum have been conducted,and the existing researches mainly investigate the connotation and representation of the practical knowledge from a static perspective.The emergence of professional learning community has reformed the traditional mode of teacher training and provided a favorable learning environment for teachers'professional development.For the past few years,the researches on the organizational form and construction way of professional learning community from the perspective of teachers' professional development have emerged in endlessly.Also,a number of researches on the effects of teachers' professional learning community have been conducted in both theoretical and empirical levels,but discussion on the influencing process is absent.In view of this,with Situated Learning theory as the theoretical framework,this research adopts the case study method in qualitative studies to investigate the internship life of pre-service English teachers in professional learning communities,attempting to reveal the changing content and form and construction characteristics of teachers' practical knowledge of reading teaching from a dynamic perspective.In order to achieve the above research objective,the following research questions are proposed:1.What are the changes of pre-service English teachers' practical knowledge of reading teaching in professional learning communities?2.How do pre-service English teachers construct their practical knowledge of reading teaching in professional learning communities?According to the above research questions,with three pre-service English teachers as the research objects,this research adopts qualitative research method to investigate the changing content and form and construction characteristics of the teachers' practical knowledge of reading teaching in professional learning communities through multi-source data collection.The research findings are as follows:on the one hand,all the three pre-service English teachers' practical knowledge of reading teaching changed in professional learning communities,which is mainly embodied in the changes of student knowledge,subject matter knowledge,curriculum knowledge,pedagogical content knowledge,teachers' knowledge of self and knowledge of milieu.Each knowledge category further covers changes in different aspects,and the changing forms include addition,modification and enhancement.On the other hand,in the professional learning community,the pre-service English teachers' practical knowledge of reading teaching is constructed and developed during the reflection of problematic scenarios and the consultation in the community,and characterized by initiative and interaction.This research makes the following recommendations on how student teachers carry out continuous learning in the community and how teacher educators improve and develop educational practice projects:first of all,pre-service teachers and teachers' educators should re-examine the structure of teachers' knowledge and pay attention to the important role of practical knowledge in teachers' professional development.Secondly,teacher educators in universities should establish a close relationship with internship schools to construct professional learning community together and hold more teaching practice-based activities such as seminars.What's more,teacher educators in the internship schools should organize more subject-based group activities,such as collective lesson preparation and evaluation,and exert the community's supporting role for the development of pre-service teachers'practical knowledge.Finally,pre-service teachers should increase their reflective and learning awareness.To achieve this,one of the ways is writing the reflective diary,and they should exert their subjective initiative and actively communicate with members of the community.