Research On PCK Of Novice English Teachers In Rural Junior High Schools

China Rural Education Development Report 2017 reveals that most junior middle school students in China are in rural middle schools.Despite the continuous improvement of school conditions in rural middle schools in recent years,the development of basic education is imbalanced.Rural education is relatively backward compared with urban education.Many novice English teachers in rural junior middle schools cannot meet the needs of the development of basic education in the new era,and their professional abilities are in urgent need of improvement,which has become the bottleneck of rural middle school education development.Therefore,improving the quality of novice English teachers in rural junior middle schools has become a crucial task in the reform of basic English education in China.Previous studies have found that one of the means to promote the professional development of English novice teachers in rural junior middle school is to improve their Pedagogical Content Knowledge(hence PCK).It was first proposed by Shulman(1986),an American educator.As the integration of subject knowledge and teaching knowledge,the core of teachers' professional knowledge,it thus constitutes the basic premise of promoting teachers' professional growth.A questionnaire survey was conducted,from four dimensions,among 49 novice English teachers in rural middle schools in Wanzhou District of Chongqing:English-subject-related knowledge,student-related knowledge,knowledge related to English teaching situation and knowledge related to English teaching strategy.After the survey with questionnaire,the author interviewed five teachers.In order to better understand the PCK development level of the novice English teachers in rural junior middle schools in Wanzhou District of Chongqing,the author conducted a questionnaire survey with 102 students,hoping to obtain more objective data.The survey results show that there are still many problems in the development of PCK of the novice English teacher in rural junior middle schools.In terms of English-subject-related knowledge,many novice English teachers in rural junior middle schools are aware of the importance of English intercultural communication knowledge in classroom teaching,but they rarely penetrate it in actual classroom teaching.They seldom read academic books,and magazines and lack thorough understanding of English teaching research development trends.In terms of students-related knowledge,many novice English teachers in rural junior middle schools are unable to predict in advance the English mistakes that junior middle school students are likely to make,and it is difficult for them to sum up the methods to avoid mistakes.They lack knowledge about the division of students' understanding level,and are unable to arrange teaching content according to the corresponding knowledge.Theoretically,they understand that teaching should be carried out based on the current level of the students they are teaching,but they fail to effectively use English learning strategies to instruct students in accordance with their aptitude and individual differences.As for knowledge related to English teaching situation,they fail to make good use of class culture-building to arouse the atmosphere of learning English and usually use Chinese to organize instruction,are unable to effectively motivate the student through the methods of observation,experience and inquiry to construct their knowledge.The expansion of students' English learning channels needs to be strengthened.In terms of knowledge related to English teaching strategy,many teachers are deficient in the knowledge of teaching organization strategies,questioning strategies and evaluation strategies.The knowledge of language skills teaching strategies and language knowledge teaching strategies are mostly at the theoretical level,which makes it difficult to put them into practice.Based on the discussion of the teacher PCK,associated with the survey results and problems found in this study,and for the purpose of the development aspirations of the novice English teacher PCK in rural junior middle schools,this paper proposes the following strategies and suggestions.In the aspect of pre-employment education:(1)strengthen the testing of English instruction-skill-type courses;(2)increase the time of teaching practice and strengthen the clinical guidance of practice.In terms of post-employment training:(1)value the effectiveness of the training content.The specific measures include: enrich teachers' knowledge of learner characteristics according to the status of rural middle school students;enrich teachers' knowledge of teaching situation according to the classroom environment of rural middle school;optimize English classroom teaching strategies for rural middle school students;(2)improve post-employment training.The specific measures are to formulate strict attendance plans;establish an open and orderly teacher training organization system;establish teacher training incentives and evaluation mechanisms.In the personal aspects of rural junior middle school English teachers:(1)develop good habits of instruction reflection.The specific measures are to extend the content of reflection,improve the reflection process,and undertake group reflection.(2)improve the self-access quality of rural teachers.