A Narrative Study On The Junior Middle School Novice English Teacher’s Practical Knowledge

Teacher practical knowledge is the reflection and internalization of teachers’ teaching experiences.Its profound influence can promote teaching results and the development of teachers.Since students are developing,teachers’ practical abilities are needed which highlight the cultivation of teacher practical knowledge.With the cultivation of teacher practical knowledge,novice English teachers tend to deal with English teaching and student management more flexibly that promote them to go through the adaptive period.However,teacher practical knowledge is tacit,situational,and highly personal,it can be found that the research on teacher practical knowledge is hard to carry out due to its need to take into account both theoretical excavation and practical presentation.Thus,the utilization of suitable research methods to articulate the teacher practical knowledge is needed for further teacher educational development.This narrative study is conducted to investigate the cultivation of the junior middle school novice English teacher’s practical knowledge.In the research process,three research questions are introduced as follows:1)What are the components of the junior middle school novice English teacher’s practical knowledge?2)What is the generative process of the junior middle school novice English teacher’s practical knowledge?3)What factors affect the cultivation of the junior middle school novice English teacher’s practical knowledge?In answering those research questions,the study lasts for about nine months.In the process of selecting the research subject,here comes the component classification according to previous studies.After comprehensive consideration,the junior high school novice English teacher is selected as the research subject.During the narrative study,the instruments are interviews and observation.It aims to collect data on the research subject’s English teaching.Then this study employs qualitative methods to analyze the data collected and finds that specific knowledge of junior middle school novice English teacher’s practical knowledge,its generative process,and factors affect the cultivation of that junior middle school novice English teacher’s practical knowledge.The results of the narrative study have been generalized in the following.Firstly,with the qualitative analysis methods,the novice English teacher develops her knowledge about self-cognition,the English subject,students,and teaching context.As for knowledge about self-cognition,it externalizes in the novice English teacher’s self-evaluation,teacher identity,and career pursuits.Then in light of the knowledge about the English subject,it covers English content knowledge,pedagogical knowledge,and resource knowledge.The knowledge about students contains students’ knowledge and emotional needs and evaluation of students,while the last knowledge about teaching contexts involves teaching environment,aids,and wisdom.The second is conducted to present the generative process of the novice English teacher.It reflects three stages including the initial,transitional,and innovative stages.Based on the data collected,the research subject focuses more on textbooks and self-achievement in the initial stage and its knowledge about self-cognition has been developed,then it turns to the transitional stage which focuses on students and the English subject while the knowledge about students and the English subject carried into cultivation.The last one is the innovative stage where the research subject emphasizes teaching contexts and resources.In this stage,novice teacher develops certain abilities to deal with problems in English teaching.Lastly,relating the results of components of the novice English teacher’s practical knowledge to its generative process,it can be found that internal factors contain previous English learning and teaching experiences.Considering the influential direction from surroundings to the research subject,it points out external factors like English teachers’ teaching environment,colleagues,and students’ parents.The narrative study of the junior middle school novice English teacher’s practical knowledge states that novice English teachers have the responsibility to cultivate teacher practical knowledge for further professional development and the promotion of students’ English learning.