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Author: Yang Gao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Library of Congress Subject Heading
Languages : en
Pages : 192
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Book Description
This mixed-methods study explored characteristics of Chinese EFL teachers' beliefs of reading and teaching reading. In addition, it investigated the relationship between English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' stated beliefs and their actual practices. Specifically, two relationships were explored in this study. The first one was whether EFL teachers' stated beliefs about reading are in/consistently indicated in their stated beliefs about teaching reading. Second, the study also aimed to understand whether EFL teachers' stated beliefs about how they teach English reading are consistent with their actual practices in classrooms. Participants in the study included 96 university EFL teachers who were faculty members from three different universities in a city in Northeast China. Within an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, data collection and analysis occurred in two phases. The first part was a quantitative survey of 10 open-ended questions modified according to Burke Reading Interview (BRI). It solicited the participants' beliefs about reading and teaching reading. Statistical analysis was then conducted to describe the data collected in this quantitative part. For the second, qualitative part, classroom observations were used to collect data on teachers' actual practices. The findings of the study showed that three theoretical orientations about reading (behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism) were matrixed with three different belief systems (dominant, dual, and multiple belief systems). The matrix indicated a complex belief system about reading and teaching reading among these EFL teachers. Within the matrix, relationships among different beliefs were non-linear and unpredictable. In terms of the constructivist theoretical orientation, the findings indicated a statistically significant but weak association between stated beliefs about reading and stated beliefs about teaching reading. The findings also indicated both consistencies and inconsistencies, with inconsistencies being more prominent between stated beliefs about teaching reading and actual practices in the classroom. The study finally discussed the findings based on the three research questions and provided implications for EFL teachers and teacher team leaders.
Author: Yang Gao
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Library of Congress Subject Heading
Languages : en
Pages : 192
Get Book Here
Book Description
This mixed-methods study explored characteristics of Chinese EFL teachers' beliefs of reading and teaching reading. In addition, it investigated the relationship between English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' stated beliefs and their actual practices. Specifically, two relationships were explored in this study. The first one was whether EFL teachers' stated beliefs about reading are in/consistently indicated in their stated beliefs about teaching reading. Second, the study also aimed to understand whether EFL teachers' stated beliefs about how they teach English reading are consistent with their actual practices in classrooms. Participants in the study included 96 university EFL teachers who were faculty members from three different universities in a city in Northeast China. Within an exploratory sequential mixed-methods design, data collection and analysis occurred in two phases. The first part was a quantitative survey of 10 open-ended questions modified according to Burke Reading Interview (BRI). It solicited the participants' beliefs about reading and teaching reading. Statistical analysis was then conducted to describe the data collected in this quantitative part. For the second, qualitative part, classroom observations were used to collect data on teachers' actual practices. The findings of the study showed that three theoretical orientations about reading (behaviorism, cognitivism, and constructivism) were matrixed with three different belief systems (dominant, dual, and multiple belief systems). The matrix indicated a complex belief system about reading and teaching reading among these EFL teachers. Within the matrix, relationships among different beliefs were non-linear and unpredictable. In terms of the constructivist theoretical orientation, the findings indicated a statistically significant but weak association between stated beliefs about reading and stated beliefs about teaching reading. The findings also indicated both consistencies and inconsistencies, with inconsistencies being more prominent between stated beliefs about teaching reading and actual practices in the classroom. The study finally discussed the findings based on the three research questions and provided implications for EFL teachers and teacher team leaders.
Author: Gao Yang
Publisher: Critical New Literacies: The P
ISBN: 9789004506527
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 178
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Book Description
Using the complex dynamic system theory, Yang Gao reports the characteristics of the Chinese EFL teachers' belief system and further explores the relationships between the stated beliefs and the actual practices among the Chinese EFL teachers.
Author: Hongying Zheng
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 3319230093
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 185
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Book Description
The volume is a practical introduction to the ways in which the teachers deal with classroom events in the context of change for researchers, teachers, administrators who wish to implement curriculum reform to EFL in schools. The author provides insights into the beliefs of Chinese teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL), and their pedagogical choices in the context of the National English Curriculum Reform. The complex nature of EFL teachers’ beliefs about EFL teaching and learning are exposed, how their beliefs interact with mental and actionable processes triggered by classroom practice, and how their beliefs co-adapt with contexts to maintain the stability of the teachers’ belief systems. This is the first study to present complexity theory in a narrative context of education, exploring the non-linear and unpredictable features of the relationship between the teachers’ beliefs and practices. Integrating complexity theory with interpretivist, ecological and sociocultural perspectives, this book contributes to the research agenda by providing a systematic framework for examining teacher beliefs as a whole, and examining the extent to which western theory may be applied to Chinese educational contexts.
Author: XiaoDong Zhang
Publisher: Peter Lang Group Ag, International Academic Publishers
ISBN: 9783034330534
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Textbooks have long been considered a pivotal learning and teaching resource in classrooms. However, there is a paucity of research on how teachers use textbooks in relation to their beliefs, with analytic methods in such studies mainly restrained to content-based thematic analysis. To this end, from the perspectives of Halliday's (1994) systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and Vygostky's (1978) socio-cultural theory (SCT), this book explores how a Chinese college English teacher acts upon his beliefs and uses textbooks to mediate his students' English learning in his classroom. Drawing on constructs of the SFL-based appraisal and speech function as well as interview excerpts, the study reveals that in the textbook-based classroom the Chinese college English teacher acts upon his beliefs that are constructed by diverse contextual factors. Implications of this study include using SFL and SCT to explore educators' beliefs and practices and also providing effective teacher education for Chinese college English instructors to reshape their beliefs so that they are better prepared to use textbooks in classrooms.
Author: Yi Du
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 9811019118
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 268
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Book Description
This book investigates first language (L1) and second language (L2) use in Chinese university classrooms, focusing on the experiences of four Chinese EFL teachers who were teaching non-English major students at four different proficiency levels. It examines these four teachers' actual use of L1 and L2, including the distribution of their L1 and L2 use; the circumstances, functions and grammatical patterns of their language use; and their language use across different frames of classroom discourse. It also explores their attitudes and beliefs regarding this issue in depth, as well as their own perceptions of and reasons for their language use and possible influencing factors. Through its detailed analysis of the teachers' language use, as well as their respective beliefs and decision-making techniques, this book contributes to L2 teachers' professional development and L2 teaching in general, especially with regard to establishing a pedagogically principled approach to L1 and L2 use.
Author: Xiaodong Zhang
Publisher:
ISBN: 9783034330534
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
Textbooks have long been considered a pivotal learning and teaching resource in classrooms. However, there is a paucity of research on how teachers use textbooks in relation to their beliefs, with analytic methods in such studies mainly restrained to content-based thematic analysis. To this end, from the perspectives of Halliday's (1994) systemic functional linguistics (SFL) and Vygostky's (1978) socio-cultural theory (SCT), this book explores how a Chinese college English teacher acts upon his beliefs and uses textbooks to mediate his students' English learning in his classroom. Drawing on constructs of the SFL-based appraisal and speech function as well as interview excerpts, the study reveals that in the textbook-based classroom the Chinese college English teacher acts upon his beliefs that are constructed by diverse contextual factors. Implications of this study include using SFL and SCT to explore educators' beliefs and practices and also providing effective teacher education for Chinese college English instructors to reshape their beliefs so that they are better prepared to use textbooks in classrooms.
Author: Shan Chen (PhD.)
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communicative competence
Languages : en
Pages : 614
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Book Description
The 21st century has seen the Chinese government initiating multiple nationwide reforms to improve the efficiency of its English education at all educational levels, which promotes a shift from teaching discrete linguistic knowledge to emphasizing the development of students’ communicative competence. Against this backdrop, teachers and their cognitions have been placed at the center of attention because they are the key decision makers in the classrooms, and their beliefs about how English should be learned and taught as a foreign language are one of the most influential constructs in shaping teaching behaviors and practices. With a holistic interest in understanding English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teaching within the Chinese tertiary context, focusing on the mental lives of Chinese tertiary English teachers of non-English majors, or College English (CE) teachers, this study set out to investigate the intersection between CE teachers’ beliefs, practices and identities, which has not been addressed adequately in the existing literature. Adopting a mixed-methods research design, this study involved collecting both questionnaire data to identify dimensions of Chinese tertiary EFL teachers’ collective cognitions and practices, and interview and observation data to elucidate the complex interrelationships between them. Exploratory Factor Analyses (EFA) results of the questionnaire data suggested that the collective beliefs of this cohort of teachers are a hybridity of a communicative orientation and sporadic traditional conceptions on the pedagogical level. Correspondingly, their practices demonstrated a mixture of both student-centered activities fostering communicative abilities and language-based didactic teaching activities. In terms of identities, teachers were found to identify strongly with the roles as the motivator/advocate for English learning, the facilitator for English learning, and the reflective practitioner and researcher, but generally resisted being recognized as textbook-centered scripted teachers. The in-depth multiple case study, drawing on narrative interviews and classroom observations, further probed into individual teachers’ beliefs systems, practices and identity formations. In spite of the intention to engage in communicative language teaching, the plural contextual discourses of social heteroglossia embedded in CE teachers’ working environments made teachers swing between the orientations of traditional approaches and communicative language teaching. Within this conflictive context, teachers drew on multiple I-positions which involved a dynamic range of positioning and repositioning activities as a strategy to cope with the dilemmas. Conceptualizing the CE teacher’s mind as a polyphony containing multiple discourses and voices, three patterns of identity formation were identified: (a) the active identity resolver referred to the teachers who did not allow themselves to be crippled by the unfavorable contextual discourses but chose to confront challenges by exercising agency to resolve the conflicts and tensions; (b) the passive identity resolver referred to those who were sensitive to disrupting discourses and developed emotional blocks giving rise to adoption of a passive, safe strategy by returning to the traditional teaching approach; (c) the identity seeker referred to the CE teachers who were aware of the competing discourses and were striving to define their own positions to create meaningful learning conditions for students in tertiary settings. The stories and experiences of the participants indicated the complex, dynamic, dialogic interplay between beliefs and practices, and crafting a teacher self or an identity mediating both cognitions and behaviors as sense-making mechanisms. The study has contributed to our current understanding of CE teacher’s cognitions about English language teaching and learning after ten years of a nation-wide College English reform, which is expected to inform the ongoing CE teaching and teacher development programs. It is argued that top-down reforms which neglect teachers’ subjectivities, internally persuasive discourses, and identification with the promoted teaching methodology can be hardly effective. Supporting teachers in situated identity construction and investing in the identity capital is essential for future reform initiatives. Implications of the study and recommendations for further research are also offered.
Author: Qiang Sun
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Communicative competence
Languages : en
Pages : 542
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Book Description
This thesis reports on Chinese EFL teachers’ cognitions and practices about grammar teaching in university English classrooms in China. Teachers’ cognitions are personal and situated teaching principles including their beliefs and knowledge through which teachers enact their practices in classroom teaching. Despite much research conducted on language teachers’ cognitions and practices about language teaching, little has been reported on Chinese university EFL teachers’ cognitions about grammar teaching in a context where teachers’ thinking and decision-making in the classroom are influenced by a range of psychological and socio-cultural factors. These factors range from deep-rooted Confucian teaching principles, a highly centralized education system, high-stakes examinations, to little exposure to any English language environment. This is especially true when the new College English Curriculum Requirement (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2007) was established, which was intended to develop university students’ ability to use English, in particular their ability to listen and speak in English. In order to address this issue, this study investigated Chinese EFL teachers’ cognitions and practices about grammar teaching, as a response to the new English curriculum development, in a province of China. Framed in Borg’s theoretical framework that teachers’ cognitions are not only mediated by their previous language learning experience, teacher education programs and classroom experience, but also by contextual factors, a sequential exploratory mixed-methods approach was adopted and implemented in two phases. In Phase One, a large scale questionnaire survey of 314 university teachers provided an overview of Chinese university EFL teachers’ cognitions and practices about grammar teaching. In Phase Two, an in-depth study was conducted on 10 teachers selected from the participants in the first phase. The purpose of Phase Two was to explore teachers’ cognitions and practices qualitatively and examine the relationship between their cognitions and practices as well as the reasons for any incongruence between them. The research findings reveal that, in general, Chinese university EFL teachers embraced the focus on form instruction and perceived that grammar teaching should be completed in a communicative context so that students knew how to use grammar in their speaking and writing activities. However, with regard to their practices in the classrooms, the in-depth study showed that most of the 10 teachers still adopted the focus on forms instruction in their grammar teaching. Subsequent interviews indicated that teachers’ insufficient knowledge of using the focus on form instruction and multiple contextual factors such as institutional issues, especially national examinations that are closely related to their students’ needs restricted their classroom practices. This study makes several significant contributions to teacher cognition research. First, it adds an understanding of teachers’ cognitions about language teaching and teacher professional development in different educational contexts, such as EFL environments in one Chinese province. Second, it provides further insight into the research methodology that can be used in investigating teachers’ cognitions about language teaching. The mixed-methods approach not only provides insights into teachers’ cognitions that can be generalized in similar and related contexts but also sheds light on individual teacher’s deep, personal, and situated understanding of language teaching, especially in relation to teaching English grammar. Finally, the study confirms that Borg’s theory about teachers’ cognitions provides a suitable framework for such research. Similar studies are suggested to adopt this theory to interpret their research
Author: Ryan M. Damerow
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1000769194
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 154
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Book Description
A compendium of the latest developments in research regarding English language education for Chinese-speaking learners, this volume combines cutting-edge research from multiple internationally-known scholars. The chapters offer unique insights into some of the most salient issues related to this broad topic. The seventh volume in the Global Research on Teaching and Learning English series, co-published with The International Research Foundation for English Language Education (TIRF), this book features chapters with original research written by TIRF Doctoral Dissertation Grant awardees. The volume addresses the crucial and growing need for research-based conversations on the contexts, environments, goals, and measures of success for Chinese-speaking learners of English. It includes sections on language assessment, perceptions in university contexts, and technology, especially in relation to young learners, in order to promote in-depth discussion of the teaching and learning of English for native speakers of Chinese. The volume’s 13 research-based chapters discuss topics such as the impact and implications of using emerging assessment tools; the increase in English for Specific Purposes (ESP) courses; academic speaking and writing; and teaching in an online or hybrid environment. Throughout the book the authors draw on their knowledge of their multiple contexts, as well as their learners’ needs and goals. This volume brings together innovative research for TESOL and TEFL students, language teacher educators, language policy specialists, language assessment scholars, and language teachers. Readers will become familiar with how these issues related to Chinese-speaking learners of English are being addressed in academic circles around the world.
Author: Juan Tian
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : English language
Languages : en
Pages : 213
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Book Description
Since the early 21st century, the Chinese government has been launching a new round of nation-wide curriculum reform, which promotes the replacement of the traditional testoriented view of English with the communicative-based view. However, there is a serious research gap in the understanding of how local teachers perceive and react to the tensions arising from opposing views of English as subject matter (Widdowson, 2012; Zhang- Zhengdong, 2006; 2007). Drawing on the distinction between the views of "language as an object" and "language as a tool" (Ellis, 2012), this study examines the impact of the tool-vs-object tension on Chinese secondary school EFL teachers' beliefs about English and the extent to which tension-loaded beliefs are related to classroom practices. Guided by Yin-Yang theory, this study defines the research topic (beliefs about English) as a complex, self-conflicting system which comprises Yin-Yang interplay with regard to teachers' perceptions of context (where), content (what) and pedagogy (how), and proposes an eight-trigram model for analyzing data. A multiple-case study design is employed with Yin-Yang considerations, and case selection involves four participating teachers (Jing, Yun, Yao and Ping), who are from two schools (an urban school and a rural school), which are located in the same region (Beijing, the capital city of China). The research database includes field notes, interviews and audio/video recordings of teachers' classes. Eventually, a total of 19 core beliefs emerge from the data through a coding scheme which recognizes four types of belief-practice congruence, respectively termed Manifest Congruence, Latent Congruence, Subconscious Congruence and Embedded Congruence. A detailed description of each belief is followed by an analysis of its Yin-Yang nature, and each teacher's English-related beliefs are graphically summarized in the eight-trigram model, which allows for cross-case comparisons and the emergence of general patterns. Findings show that an individual teacher tends to hold beliefs that reflect opposing orientations of language at the same time and that there exist individual differences in the way teachers absorb and resolve tool-vs-object tensions, which has an impact on their idiosyncratic practices. It has also been found that their perception of tensions can be asynchronous along the three conceptual levels, as context-related tensions are found easier to be resolved than pedagogy-related tensions, and that experientially and reflectively enhanced beliefs are more likely to achieve pedagogical consistency. An analysis in light of Yin-Yang thinking lends support to the view that teachers' beliefs are situated in an inherently conflicting and complex system, and that this is contextually defined and practically constrained. It is argued that an optimal balance of Yin and Yang is essential for the development and maintenance of a belief system, and this has important implications for EFL education, educational research, teacher education, curriculum development and assessment reform in China. Finally, limitations of the study and recommendations for further research are also suggested.
