Yogyakarta (Indonesia) EFL teachers' conceptualizations of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) as represented in their structural curriculum design and practice

Curriculum changes in Indonesian schools have assigned a central role to Indonesian EFL teachers to act as effective instructional curriculum practitioners and adapters. The present study examined Indonesian EFL teachers’ conceptualizations of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) (Shulman, 1987) as represented in their instructional (Wette, 2009) curriculum design and practice. Combining Shulman’s (1987) PCK with Graves’s (2000) framework of course development processes, the first part of the inquiry examined Yogyakarta (Indonesia) EFL teachers’ conceptualizations of PCK in terms of forms, strategies, and pedagogical concerns, as reflected in their instructional curriculum design. In the second part of the inquiry, Andrews’s (2007) modified model of PCK was applied to the framework of L2 reading instruction (Irvine-Niakaris & Kiely, 2014) to explore EFL teachers’ conceptualizations of knowledge about texts (KAT) and knowledge about reading instruction (KARI). Graves’s (2008) model of a dynamic system of curriculum development,which elucidates the role of socio-educational context in curriculum development, is adopted to examine the influence of socio-educational context on teachers’ conceptualizations of PCK in their instructional curriculum design and practice. A qualitative multiple-case study involving purposive within- and cross-case sampling techniques (Miles, Huberman, &Saldana, 2014; Stake, 2006; Yin, 2014) was employed to select six EFL teachers; three experienced and three inexperienced teachers, of public junior high schools in the Special Province of Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Multiple sources of data, including instructional curriculum design assessments, pre-lesson semi-structured interviews, stimulated-recall interviews, classroom observations, and teaching transcripts, were collected. The findings highlight the macro and micro patterns of the teachers’ conceptualizations of PCK in five processes of instructional curriculum design, and those of the teachers’ conceptualizations of KAT and KARI. The macro landscape of the teachers’ conceptualizations of PCK in their instructional curriculum design and practice was shaped by the extent to which the teachers engaged with the influence of the National Examination (NE), a high-stakes examination applied nationwide within the Indonesian education system. In the case of the experienced teachers, the macro landscape of their conceptualizations showed the teachers’ high commitment to the demands of the NE. In contrast, the inexperienced teachers’ macro construction of their conceptualizations reflected a certain degree of detachment from the NE. The teachers’ polar different macro conceptualizations of PCK were realized in their micro constructions of conceptualization in their instructional curriculum design and practice. In terms of instructional curriculum design, the experienced teachers’ micro patterns of conceptualization within the five processes of instructional curriculum design were guided in favour of the NE. On the other hand, the inexperienced teachers’ micro patterns of conceptualization in designing their instructional curriculum formed more non-NE-based instruction. As related to the conceptualization of PCK in instructional curriculum practice, the teachers’ KAT showed their insufficient understanding of how to properly explore texts for meaning making as required by text-based teaching characterizing the applied curriculum, namely the 2006 School-based Curriculum, in the Indonesian EFL context. Meanwhile, the teachers’ KARI for organizing reading instruction demonstrated the teachers’ insufficient knowledge about organizing instruction within the organizing principles they adopted. Finally, their KARI about reading instruction revealed instructional reading strategies for fostering the students’ reading comprehension, by giving clues in the students’ native language and applying a testing-oriented strategy, and for raising the students’ awareness of reading skills. Implications of the study address the need, with reference to the findings of the study, to accommodate follow-up actions to improve teachers’ transformation process for designing and enacting their instructional curriculum in pre- and in-service teacher training programs.