Teacher Beliefs and Grammar Teaching Practices: Case Studies of Four ESL Teachers

This dissertation, "Teacher Beliefs and Grammar Teaching Practices: Case Studies of Four ESL Teachers" by Kam-yin, Wu, 胡錦賢, was obtained from The University of Hong Kong (Pokfulam, Hong Kong) and is being sold pursuant to Creative Commons: Attribution 3.0 Hong Kong License. The content of this dissertation has not been altered in any way. We have altered the formatting in order to facilitate the ease of printing and reading of the dissertation. All rights not granted by the above license are retained by the author. Abstract: iii Abstract of thesis entitled Teacher beliefs and grammar teaching practices: Case studies of four ESL teachers submitted by Wu Kam Yin for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Hong Kong in October 2006 This thesis reports the findings of a study which investigates the beliefs and classroom practices in grammar teaching of four ESL teachers in Hong Kong. A review of the literature is presented to show that while teacher cognition in formal instruction has attracted increasing research attention in recent years, a number of issues are not yet fully explored. In particular, relatively little has been written about teacher cognition in school settings where English is taught by non-native speaking teachers to large classes of students, who are in the classroom to learn the language simply because they are required to (Borg, 2003). This study aims to make a contribution by shedding light on this area of enquiry. It also aims to examine why teachers may hold conflicting beliefs, and how culture shapes the ways in which teachers think and act. The four participants of this study are all Chinese teachers who teach English as a second language in Hong Kong secondary schools. Using case study methodology, the study involves in- depth interviews with the teachers, classroom observations, audio recordings of the teachers' lessons, stimulated recall techniques, copies of materials used by the teachers, samples of student work, interviews with students, and metaphors generated by the teachers. A key finding is that as the teachers have different professional training and teaching and learning experiences, they each espouse a unique system of beliefs. The teachers are not aware of all of their beliefs at the same time, and some beliefs may come to the fore of their awareness while others may recede into the background. This conceptualization of the "structure of awareness" helps to explain why some of the teachers in the study hold conflicting beliefs. As the beliefs of the four teachers exhibit differences, their classroom practices also diverge. In terms of how they provide formal instruction, the four teachers can be placed on a continuum. Some teachers choose to use their grammar lessons for parsing sentences while others offer more meaning-oriented activities. The difference leads to very different learning experiences for the students. iv While differences among the four teachers' classroom practices are noticeable, there are commonalities in the ways they approach formal instruction as well. For example, all the teachers attach great importance to repetition and memorization. Their cognitions regarding these two modes of learning have been informed and shaped by the Chinese culture, and this is a line of enquiry that deserves further research. (word count: 403) Signed: ______________________ Wu Kam Yin DOI: 10.5353/th_b3734189 Subjects: English language - Study and teaching (Secondary) - China - Hong Kong English language - Grammar English teachers - China - Hong Kong - Attitudes