浅议教师对“偶发性交互性形式教学”的既定信念与其课堂实践

张 玫

摘要: 作者简介:张玫(1979.4-),女,汉族, 陕西延安人,澳大利亚悉尼大学硕士,讲师,北方民族大学外国语学院大学英语教学部主任,研究方向英语语言教学法。

【摘要】 语言教学与文化教学密不可分,本文从归纳文化在不同层面的多重定义入手,在深入探讨其对语言教学中听、说、读、译方面潜移默化的影响的基础上提出了语言教学中文化教育的几种有效方法,希望对其它英语教师有所裨益。本文是一篇针对Bustarkmen, Loewen & Ellis(2004)基于纵向定性个案研究的实证性文章的评论。 本文先详细回顾了该文章的理论支撑,实验过程,并通过观察记录和自我报告的数据分析表明教师对"偶发性交互性形式教学"的既定信念对其课堂实践的影响甚微。本文还进一步讨论了该实验的优缺点、笔者的反思及对未来深入研究的建议,希望对其它英语教师进一步推动国内相关研究及课堂教学实践有所裨益。

【关键词】教师的既定信念、偶发性交互性形式教学、课堂实践

On “Teachers' stated beliefs about incidental focus on form and their classroom practice”

ZhangMei

【Abstract】The paper is a critical review on Bustarkmen, Loewen & Ellis's (2004) empirical article based on its longitudinal qualitative case study. The article first reviews its theoretical framework and the empirical process detailedly and through an analysis on data from observational records and self-reports, it reveals tenuous links between the teachers' stated beliefs about incidental focus on form and their practice. Implications and limitations of that research, the author's reflection and suggestions of the future studies were also discussed. Hopefully, it is helpful to other English teachers to promote the domestic research and the classroom application as well..

【Key words】Teachers' stated beliefs, incidental focus on form, classroom practice

I. Introduction

In response to Borg's (2003) call for investigations of relating specific teaching aspects to teachers' cognition, the article attempts to explore the relationship between teachers' stated beliefs about incidental focus on form and their classroom practice. The study employed a design of longitudinal qualitative case study. Sample consisted of 3 NS teachers from the same private intermediate language school in New Zealand. Data contained observational records and self-reports. The results revealed tenuous links between the teachers' stated beliefs about incidental focus on form and their practice. Suggestions of the future studies were also discussed.

The above is a summary of the Basturkmen et al.'s (2004) Study. The detailed review will be given as follows:

II. Theoretical background

After defining focus on form from different perspectives (Howatt, 1984; Skehan, 1998), its positive function of promoting language acquisition (Long, 1991)was noted, followed by notion of 'planned' and 'incidental' focus on form (Ellis, 2001). By citing numerous researches on planned focus on form (eg. Doughty & Varela 1998), stating the fact that recent incidental focus on form frequently occurred in CLT and pointing out incidental focus on form episodes (FFEs) varying with classes in many ways (Eliis et al., 2001, a, b), the researchers found a foothold in incidental focus on form.

Referring to Linde (1980), the definition of teachers' beliefs was given, followed by discussion of its important roles in teachers' instructional practice (Burns, 1992; Johnson, 1992) and their mutual relationships (Borg, 2003; Fang, 1996; Pajares, 1992). With both observational and self-report data, the researches on how teachers understood their work (Burns, 1992; Borg, 1999; Breen et al., 2001) and how teachers' stated beliefs were correlated to their practices (Fang, 1996; Johnson, 1992; Hsiao-Ching, 2000; Borko & Niles, 1982; Nunan, 1987; Kumaravadivelu, 1993) were discussed. The result revealed there tended to be insistencies between stated beliefs and practices, especially on on-line improvisation. Afterwards, possible reasons were explained (Garden, 1996; Woods, 1996; Richards, 1998). Based on the above reports, the research questions were raised.

III. Empirical Research

Method

Teaching Context

One private intermediate language school in New Zealand, with a set of "communicative tasks" prepared in-house for teachers to use in CLT

Sampling

Due to the same choice of CLT instructional material, 3 NSS ESL male teachers were chosen out of 12 classes observed teachers.

(Note: in the study, teacher and class information were shown in Table 1.)

Data collection

1. Observational data: one audio-recorded class observation of each teacher with the researcher as a non-participant observer

2. Self-report:

Teachers' beliefs about 4 specific aspects of focus on form regarding the type of episode, the linguistic focus of episodes, the reason for focusing on forms and how to manage these episodes were elicited by:

1) In-depth interview with semi-structured interview protocol involving both closed and open-ended items.

2) Cued response scenarios: the teachers were individually asked to comment on what they should do in these (the same) situations.

3) Stimulated recall concluding 4 extracts records (Ellis et al., 2oo3) transcribed from each teacher's lesson.

Data Analysis

Member checking was employed in both data analysis.

Analysis of observational data to identify teacher' focus on formpractices contained identifying the focus on form episodes in each teacher's lesson and coding the particular characteristics of each episode followed by statical analysis with Pearson's Chi-square analysis.

After repeatedly reading the transcripts and listening to recordings, the researchers created a matrix of categories to analyze the self-report data to identify teachers' stated beliefs regarding definition of CLT, ideas about when and why to focus on form in communicative lessons, what aspects of language to focus on and how to manage focus on form in communicative lessons.

The two sets of data were then compared to examine the extent to which the teachers' stated beliefs were reflected in their practice.

Results

From the descriptive and statistical analysis, it could be seen that although teachers differed from three aspects of focus on form (type, complexity and response), there were no differences between linguistic focus and source. All three teachers showed a mix of congruence and incongruence with stated beliefs and their practice.

Discussion and conclusions

1. Despite similarities in their management of focus on form in the same task, three teachers also had many differences possibly resulting from their personal teaching style and the related belief systems.

2. Supposing the complexity of focus on form as a behavioral phenomenon and individual differences, differences in their beliefs existed.

3. The demonstration of inconsistencies in three teachers' stated beliefs supported the arguments of Grotjahn (1991) and Schutz (1970) and confirmed findings of Sato & Kleinasser (1999). One possibility was that teachers' stated belief reflected technical rather than practical knowledge. If so, it might be resolved by teachers' increased experiences. A better way was to view these stated beliefs as potentially conflictual rather than inherently consistent.

4. Teachers' stated beliefs were only partially reflected by the practice and these differences probably caused by situational constraints (Oskamp, 1991; Vaughan & Hogg, 1998).

5. The tenuous links between teachers' stated beliefs and their practice might attribute to the weaker links between teachers' stated beliefs and their incidental behaviors compared with planned behaviors.

6. Future investigations of teachers' beliefs, especially about unplanned teaching need to be based on both stated beliefs and observed behaviors

Reliability and trustworthiness

The reliability was achieved by agreement rate of 89.9 per cent between two code raters and also proved by calculated inter coder reliability ranging from .776 to .900. With audio-recording, SPSS software in statistical analysis and the fact P < 0.5, its internal validity was ensured. Besides, member checking and triangulation were also helpful. However, transferability of the study may be limited due to its unitary teaching context. This research design is mixed between quantitative and qualitative research.

IV. My reflection

The case study method is an empirical inquiry that investigates a contemporary phenomenon within its real-life context (Yin, 1984). Reviewing the above study, I learned that a good case study should have solid theoretical background and related literal review, which may enhance the persuasion of the study's significance. The study must be carefully designed especially for its purposefully representative sampling. Observations and self-reports are very common methods in data collection. Various and relatively objective data can be achieved by triangulation and researchers as non-participant observers. Data analysis can employ both quantitive and qualitative methods to enhance reliability and diversity. Software analysis, audio-recording, categories matrix, member checking can ensure reliability and validity. Articulate pose and tables are both necessary in results reporting. Conclusions must answer the given research questions. However, the validity of this study may not generalize due to its short observational time and single teaching context. If they could have listened to three classes of each teacher with different tasks or chosen teachers from different schools, transferability might be higher.

References:

[1]Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching [J]. 36, 81-109.

[2]Bustarkmen, H., Loewen, S. & Ellis, R. (2004). Teachers' stated beliefs about incidental focus on form and their classroom practice. Applied Linguistics [J]. 25, 245-272.

[3]Ellis, R., Bustarkmen, H & Loewen, S. (2001). Learner uptake in communicative ESL lessons. Language Learninig [J]. 51, 281-318.

[4]Yin, R. K. (1984). Case study research: Design and methods [M]. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.