A Study On Senior High School English Teachers' Technological Pedagogical And Content Knowledge In Yunnan Province

In recent years,many researchers have paid great attention to technological pedagogical and content knowledge(TPACK).TPACK provided a knowledge framework for teachers to integrate technology into teaching in their daily class.TPACK framework has been used by hundreds of studies as a theoretical framework to explore teachers' technology use in classroom settings.Nevertheless,there has been only little research about English language teachers' TPACK research in China.Therefore,this research aimed to explore senior high school English language teachers' TPACK in Yunnan province to provide support to English teachers' professional development and teachers' training about TPACK.To achieve this research aim,this study attempted to investigate the following three questions: 1)What kinds of TPACK methods do senior high school English teachers apply to teach? 2)What are the characteristics of senior high school English teachers' TPACK? 3)What are the differences between experienced teachers and less experienced teachers on TPACK in senior high schools in Yunnan province? In the study,both quantitative and qualitative methods were adopted to answer the research questions,and the instruments were filled with questionnaires and interview.The questionnaire was adapted from the Schmidt's(2009),which was recreated by the author.The questionnaire for data collection included 26 questions.In the study,the questionnaires were distributed by Wechat to investigate the subjects who were from different senior high schools in Yunnan province.231 senior high school English teachers in Yunnan province participated in answering the questionnaires.The results of the data were analyzed by SPSS software with independent t-test analysis,descriptive statistics analysis and mean score analysis.In addition,five English teachers were interviewed for qualitative data collection.The results showed that: 1)The senior high school English teachers in Yunnan province could use different forms of modern technology to teach English in class.And some English teachers were capable of skillfully integrating technology into their teaching while some made little use of modern technology,but some even did not use modern technology in class,there was a huge difference in different places of Yunnan province;2)The senior high English language teachers' TPACK level was high in Yunnan province.Teachers had the highest score in content knowledge and they were very confident in CK,but the lowest score was technology knowledge,which showed that teachers were not good at using modern technology.There was a certain gap between the highest and the lowest score of English teachers' TPACK in Yunnan province;3)There were no significant differences between experienced teachers and less experienced teachers on TPACK in senior high schools in Yunnan province.Finally,after the paper summarized the findings of the study,the author promoted some suggestions that can increase technical support and provide some useful training on improving the English language teachers' TPACK level in Yunnan province.