A Study On Teacher Knowledge Of English Major Pre-service Teachers In A Normal University

In general education, teachers play the key roles in teaching. Teachers with professional qualities are always the key point of an effective educational process. For this reason, teachers with high quality and ability are considered to be the qualified and professional teachers for the present age. Perfect teacher knowledge structure is considered to be the foundation for being a qualified teacher; meanwhile, it also has crucial impact on students’ development. From 1980 s, research on teacher knowledge has become one of the popular issues in western countries and then became an important topic in China.Theory of teacher knowledge proposed by Shulman(1987) is adopted in this research. Based on Shulman’s(1987) theory, teacher knowledge in this research was classified into four dimensions including educational theoretical knowledge, knowledge of curriculum, subject matter knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge; the factors which influenced pre-service teacher’s teacher knowledge status in a normal university located in northeast China was also examined by analyzing the course design for English major pre-service teachers.Qualitative research and quantitative research are both adopted in this research. The result of the research shows that difference exists between grades regarding teachers’ teacher knowledge. 1. Sophomore year pre-service teachers’ educational theoretical knowledge was significantly higher than pre-service teachers in freshman year and junior year; 2. Junior year pre-service teachers’ knowledge of curriculum was significantly higher than pre-service teachers in freshman year and sophomore year; 3. Sophomore year pre-service teachers’ subject matter knowledge was significantly higher than pre-service teachers in freshman year and junior year; 4. The development of pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge increases, and pre-service teachers’ pedagogical content knowledge was significantly related to the knowledge of curriculum. Through analyzing the course standard and course schedule for English major pre-service teachers, it can be summarized in the following way. 1. Courses related to educational theoretical knowledge were offered to sophomore year pre-service teachers, but no courses offered to freshman and junior pre-service teachers; 2. Courses related to subject matter knowledge were offered to pre-service teachers in freshman, sophomore and junior. Most of these courses were offered to sophomore year pre-service teachers; 3. Courses related to knowledge of curriculum were offered to junior year pre-service teachers; 4. Courses related to pedagogical content knowledge were offered to pre-service teachers in freshman year, sophomore year and junior year while junior year pre-service teachers were offered more courses covering pedagogical content knowledge. It can be seen that, course design has a significant impact on teacher knowledge of English major pre-service teachers.According to the result of the research, two problems were found in pre-service teachers’ teacher knowledge development. First, English pre-service teachers’ teacher knowledge level is lower. Second, the structure of English pre-service teachers’ teacher knowledge was unreasonable. Meanwhile, suggestions for improving pre-service teachers’ teacher knowledge were also provided in this paper. Curriculum schedule and educational policies can be changed to meet the needs of pre-service teachers’ teacher knowledge structure; Instructors can offer more opportunities for pre-service teachers to practice teaching.