A Comparative Study Of Teachers’ Practical Knowledge Between Novice And Expert English Teacher Of Senior High School: Evidence From Narrative Inquiry

Teaching is a professional career, and the teachers’ professional developments, to a great extent, depend onthe teachers’ knowledge, in which, the teachers’ practical knowledge is the base for the teachers’ professionaldevelopments. The teachers’ practical knowledge is the accumulation of the teachers’ teaching experience fromtheir constant practical teaching and self-reflection, and their understanding of teaching and education as well.The teachers’practical knowledge is personal, experienced and contextual.As a qualitative research method, narrative inquiry provides a proper method for the study of the teachers’practical knowledge which regards the teachers as subjects to explore the teachers’ learning experiences,teaching events, and teaching experiences.Based on the evidence from narrative inquiry, the present study made a comparative study of teachers’practical knowledge between novice and expert English teacher of a key senior high school in Lanzhou and triedto answer three questions:1. What kinds of TPK do the novice English teachers and the expert English teachershold while teaching in the senior high school? And what are the similarities and differences between them?2.How is the TPK generated and developed for the expert English teachers based on his/her TPK?3. How can thenovice English teachers obtain and develop their TPK?To attain the reliability and validity of the research, the triangulated approach was applied which involvesthe examination of different data collection. During half a year of field investigation, the author explored theresearch questions through the interviews with two participants, the classroom observation, the conversationswith their students and other written portfolios collections. The research text was based on the transferring,analysis, categorization and comparison of the field text. The layout of the questions in the interview wasaccording to the three dimensional space of narrative inquiry, which defined by a temporal continuum (past–present-future), a personal-social continuum, and place. Finally the author concluded the answers to theresearch questions through the narration of the teachers’ learning experiences, teaching events, teachingexperiences and significant persons in their professional lives.The present study made the following conclusions by analyzing the data from the field text:1.The twoteachers’practical knowledge in the present study contains four aspects: knowledge of self, knowledge of subject,knowledge of students, and knowledge of educational contents. Among these, there were distinctive differencebetween the two teachers in the knowledge of subject and knowledge of students.2. There are internal factorsand external factors contributed to the generation and development of expert teacher’s TPK. The internal factors involve the teacher’s personality, her self-belief and her constant self-reflection in teaching experiences; theexternal factors include the significant teachers in the teacher’s life and herself-improvement through theCommunity of Practice.3. The approaches for the novice English to obtain and develop his TPK are as follows:through the teacher’s critical reflection; to obtain the practical knowledge through the COP; turning theoreticalknowledge to practical knowledge.The present study plays the significant role for exploring the generating and developing factors of noviceand expert English teacher’s TPK of senior high school, and it will help the teachers, especially the noviceteachers to cultivate and develop their TPK based on their ready knowledge and draw the educational researchersand policy-makers in the schools more attentions to listen to the teachers’ real voice and thus makeadministrators in schools provide the harmonious and scientific atmosphere for the teachers’ professionaldevelopment. Moreover, the author also pointed out the comparative study between the novice and expertEnglish teacher’s TPK of senior high school needs wider and deeper exploration in the future.