During the last few decades, Europe has been undergoing changes in the area of higher education with increasing attention to the learning of languages, particularly English language. Nowadays, most of the English taught at universities in Europe is English for Specific Purposes (ESP). In the Czech Republic, the situation of novices teaching ESP at universities is very demanding as their previous education prepared them just for teaching English for General Purposes (EGP) at secondary schools. Therefore, the objective of this research is to describe the complicated process of creating and developing their pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) during the first three years of university teaching.

The research is supposed to answer the following question: How is the PCK of Czech university novices teaching ESP created and developed? This relatively wide question can be divided into several sub-questions which are focused both on the general areas of teacher knowledge influencing PCK (knowledge of context, subject matter knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge) and on the individual components of PCK (conceptions of purposes for teaching subject matter, curricular knowledge, knowledge of instructional strategies, knowledge of students’ understanding) according to Grossman (1990):

- conceptions of purposes for teaching subject matter: How were teachers formulating the purposes for teaching ESP during the first 3 years of teaching?

- curricular knowledge: How were teachers acquiring and extending their knowledge of ESP curriculum organization and materials during the first 3 years of teaching?

- knowledge of instructional strategies: How were teachers acquiring and extending their knowledge of ESP instructional strategies and subject matter representations during the first 3 years of teaching?

- knowledge of students’ understanding: How were teachers finding out ESP students’ conceptions and misconceptions during the first 3 years of teaching?

- knowledge of context: How were teachers acquiring and extending their knowledge of the specifics of the university and ESP students during the first 3 years of teaching?

- subject matter knowledge: How were teachers acquiring and extending their knowledge of their students’ branch of study and ESP during the first 3 years of teaching?

- general pedagogical knowledge: How were teachers extending their general pedagogical knowledge during the first 3 years of teaching?

Research in the field of the PCK development of teachers in various fields of education utilizes a wide range of data collection methods, for example individual interviews, group interviews, text analyses or teaching observations (Brebera & Kostková, 2008; Henze, van Driel, & Verloop, 2008; Píšová, 2008, 2009; Píšová & Brebera, 2007; Seymour, 2006; Seymour & Lehrer, 2006; van Driel, Verloop, & de Vos, 1998).

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