下载掌阅APP，畅读海量书库
立即打开
China has the largest volume of teaching English as a foreign language and English language teacher education in the world (Cortazzi & Jin, 1996; Wang & Wang, 2000). Along with its policy of developing the country with science and technology, China realised how inefficient its education in English as a foreign language was. There have been many debates in China about what makes English language teaching successful, and what makes it unsuccessful. These debates reflect the changes and developments of foreign and second language teaching worldwide, and represent the unique quality of TEFL in the Chinese environment. Moreover, they indicate that research on language teaching and on language teacher education cannot really be separated when the issue of language teaching is concerned.
In the past fifty years, there have been debates worldwide about how language should be learnt and what makes language learning successful. The central concern of these debates is the focus of research in language teaching. A shift has taken place from research in method to research on learners and to research on the classroom (Wood, 1996). Language teaching research worldwide has experienced a shifting of the research focus which has led to changes and developments in classroom practice in countries where TEFL is significant in the national curriculum; and China is no exception. In studying the changes and developments of TEFL in China in the past fifty years, the features of the shift fall into three categories as follows.
The Method Debates and the Dilemma in Classrooms
Second or foreign language teaching has a long history extending over centuries, and the debates on how language should be learnt have accompanied this history. According to Howatt (1984), most of the second or foreign language teaching research in the field has produced a large number of articles and books about the question of teaching methods. These publications would either advocate one approach over another, or claim one approach or method is more effective than another. For example, there have been debates on whether the audio-lingual method is better than the grammar-translation method, or if the functional/notional approach is better than the structural approach, or if the process-based approach is better than the product-based approach (Wilkins, 1976).
China has a long history of foreign language teaching, which dates from the years of the "Silk Road" in the Tang Dynasty. There is a history of at least a century during which modern foreign languages were formally taught in official language schools (Fu Ke, 1986). Over that century, the foreign language teaching literature examined the question of teaching methods. The method debates have three features.
Firstly, influenced by western research, a large number of experts attempted to distinguish the characteristics of a particular approach to English language teaching in China. They attempted to advocate one approach over another based on conceptual comparison. In the 1960 s, 1970 s and early 1980 s, western ELT experts and teachers' had theoretical debates about the merits of one method over another. For instance, Wilkins (1976) compared the "functional/notional approach" with the "structural approach" which represented different views on the nature of language. Another example is that Krashen & Terrell (1983) advocated a "natural approach" which stressed the natural acquisition of a language. Littlewood (1981) and Brumfit & Johnson (1979) favoured "the communicative approach" which stressed the philosophy of communication in language teaching. Some experts tried to distinguish the notion of "process" from that of "product" (Widdowson, 1981). During the Cultural Revolution, English teaching was at its lowest ebb. However, as English teaching became one of the signposts in Chinese educational reform in the late 1970 s, Western debate caught the attention of Chinese researchers, especially those who had the chance to receive a Western education. Their approach was the same as in Western countries; that is to say, a large number of papers and theses focused on the comparison of approaches and methods. For example, Li Xiaoju, in her research project named CECL (Communicative English for Chinese Learners), tried to break down the resistance to communicative approaches engendered by decades of traditional methods, which emphasised language forms rather than use (Li Xiaoju, 1990). Liu Daoyi, with a strong preference for the communicative approach, worked with British experts to develop a new set of textbooks based on the communicative approach, which is now used in most middle schools in China (JEFC—Junior English for China, 1993; SEFC—Senior English for China, 1993). Teachers were persuaded to change the way they taught English from an approach using the traditional method, that is, the Grammar-translation method, to a modern one, that is, the Communicative Approach.
Secondly, attempts have been made to advocate one approach over another on the basis of empirical or quantitative studies. Influenced by the large number of examples of quantitative studies, some Chinese experts carried out empirical research to demonstrate that one approach or method was more effective than another. For example, Zhang Sizhong (1993) was greatly influenced by traditional Chinese language teaching and, after an experiment in over one hundred schools, advocated a method which focused on vocabulary teaching and the teaching of reading. Zhang Zhengdong (1995) undertook a 10 year experiment on a three-dimensional approach to foreign language teaching in China, in which he insisted that the structure of language teaching should embrace students', the target language (English) and the teaching environment. He claimed that his experiment had proved the success of the three-dimensional approach in English teaching in China (Zhang Zhengdong, 1995). Other researchers, like Zhang Jianzhong (1993), also claimed to have established their own method through quantitative experiments. Therefore, it is not surprising that teachers' in classrooms were often confused with which is which, and had the feeling that language teaching was changeable, just like fashion.
Thirdly, attempts have been made to assert the importance of the "context" of teaching English as a foreign language. Such research has made claims on the basis that it respects typical Chinese characteristics in the Chinese environment. Researchers along this line claim the superiority of local conditions over Western methods like "the communicative approach". They claim that the local method suits the local circumstances. In such research projects, all methods being studied had to satisfy the feature of "by Chinese within the Chinese environment" (Li Guanyi, 1994; Zhang Zhengdong, 1995). In these researches, one gem of Confucius philosophy, the theory of Zhong Yong ("movement to the mean") functions implicitly. " Zhong " means "middle," not leaning to one side, neither going too far nor falling short; "Yong" means "ordinary." Zhong Yong means the opposite of extremism, excess, one-sidedness, departure from the normal. Influenced by the theory of Zhong Yong , a great number of researchers considered the effectiveness of teaching in the setting of the Chinese environment more important than those endless theoretical debates (Li Guanyi, 1994). teachers' who agree with this view tend to value their own teaching experience more than research results.
The debates above have had great influence on classroom teaching: changes and developments in terms of syllabus, teaching material and teaching method in classrooms have resulted from these discussions. However, the method debates are problematic for two reasons. One of the reasons concerns the criteria for success and how success is measured (Wood, 1996). Different methods make different assumptions about the nature of language and language learning. When measuring success, they implicitly make choices about the criteria of success and the methods of measuring it. For instance, the grammar-translation method and the audio-lingual method consider success differently, and the communicative approach has its own criteria for success and its own way of measuring success. This problem makes it difficult for teachers' to discern the nature of efficient teaching, and teachers' are in doubt about the efficiency of each method. As a result, for example, the teachers' studied in this investigation questioned the necessity of changes and developments in their practice.
The other problem concerns contradictions between actual teaching activities and the theories that teachers' claimed as influences on their work. As Wood (1996) points out, there is a lack of results to help determine the best approaches or methods for producing success in language learning. It is frequently found in classrooms that teachers' attribute their success to one method, for instance the "communicative approach," whereas their students' might claim that grammar and translation helped them greatly in English learning, not the communicative activities in the classroom. These debates have given teachers' the impression that the development of English teaching is a victim of fashion, particularly if research focuses on method only. This problem led teachers' in this investigation to question "experts" and "researchers," and to consider that changes and developments are the business of those who are doing the research.
Research on Learners and the Gap between Theory and Practice
Research on the learner started in Western countries in the 1960 s (for example, Corder, 1967; Oller & Richards, 1973). Over the years, studies of the natural order of language learning and first and second language acquisition, learner strategy, learner style and individualisation have frequently appeared in the literature (Wenden & Rubin, 1987; OMalley & Chamot, 1990). This trend has influenced research on language teaching worldwide, and English teaching in China is no exception.
While debates on methods were continuing in China, research on learners began to emerge, influenced by the theory of second language acquisition. One group of researchers focused on the study of Chinese learners (Littlewood, 1999; Wen Qiufang, 1997; Wu Benhu, 2002). Their work has exerted an influence on the newly publicised National English Curriculum, where it is claimed that the learner is central in English language learning and teaching. The argument is that learners strategies should be taken seriously by teachers' and researchers in the reform of English language teaching in the next five to ten years (Wang Qiang & Wang Lei, 2000). However, this argument is now experiencing the problem of who should study learner strategy, as explained below.
In order to understand the above problem, it is necessary to understand how the study on learner strategy came into being. The idea of focusing on learners mainly originated from researches in the 1970 s. Oller & Richards (1973) were the first to conduct a study on the learner which aimed at understanding the learning process and to study causal factors in language learning. Dulay & Burt (1973) carried out a research on whether there was any regularity to the order of particular language items, for example, from simple to complicated, or from easy to difficult. In later years, in the field of second language acquisition (SLA), Krashen (1981) examined five hypotheses on language acquisition. He expanded one of these hypotheses, the natural order, into an overall philosophy of language teaching practice. He noticed that some learners could speak a language well without knowing the grammatical rules, whereas others knew the rules well but could not speak the language fluently. He put forward the notion of the natural process of acquisition and the conscious process of learning. According to his view, the acquisition of a language item occurs when learners are exposed to the meaning of the item that they can understand, and they are "ready" to acquire it. As learners are different in learning style, learning strategies and preferences, modifications of the language input to the learner can make it more comprehensible, and enhance the acquisition of the language.
However, when Chinese scholars take the same track while focusing on Chinese learners, two types of problems arise. Firstly, the new terminologies along with the research failed to help teachers' to understand the research. For instance, the terms "learning" and "acquisition" are quite confusing for teachers'. It has been asserted that "it will be almost impossible to say whether someone has learnt or acquired a certain piece of language" (Harmer, 1991:38). Terminologies like these make many teachers' step back and leave research to "experts." Secondly, in China, as well as in other countries (Joyce & Showers, 1980), research is traditionally carried out by professional researchers, and teachers' main task is classroom practice. Because of the gap between the understanding of researchers and that of teachers', the research results focusing on learners are usually placed in the library. teachers' seldom read them and take them seriously. This tends to put research into learners in a difficult situation: those who meet students' are not interested in research, because even the terminologies are distant from them; whereas those who actually do research on learners have few chances to meet the learners, because they are not teachers' who meet students' daily. As a result, changes are made to documents, such as the use of terms like "learner-centred" or "learner strategy" in the national syllabus, but in fact, the meaning is quite vague to most teachers'. They still feel lost as to what determines the success of language teaching.
The second problem of research on learners is the lack of the target language environment which is crucial for second language acquisition. In China, it is almost impossible to provide enough natural exposure to English in most ordinary schools, though teaching conditions have improved greatly recently. Teachers' have realised the importance of language exposure, but few related changes and developments have been seen at the classroom level, such as the use of multimedia to assist language learning and the reduced use of Chinese in classrooms. This problem has been realised and taken into consideration in the New English Curriculum Standard (Wang Qiang & Wang Lei, 2000).
In sum, research focusing on what learners do has brought about changes and developments in ELT education in China, but to what extent these changes and developments affect actual classroom teaching remains an open question.
Classroom Investigation and the Obstacles
While Chinese researchers and teachers' are debating about methods or about learner strategy, the idea of classroom investigation, or action research, is gradually appearing in journals and magazines in China. They agree with Fanselow (1977) and Allright (1988) that it is impossible to introduce a new method as an experiment and then wait to assess its effectiveness. This idea presents the difference between "experimental" research and "naturalistic" research, in which the former uses the classroom to apply new ideas, whereas the latter collects information from the classroom. To people who favour the idea of classroom investigation, the classroom itself is the focus of research whenever teaching and learning is concerned.
This tendency has been greatly influenced by western researchers in TEFL. From the 1980 s onwards, classroom investigation, or classroom-centred research as it is called by Wood (1996), began to develop. Language teachers' and researchers realised that the classroom had previously been kept as a "black box" (Long, 1980). All-right carried out systematic observations in the classroom, aiming at "knowing enough about classroom language learning and teaching to be able to help classrooms become more productive places to work in" (Allright, 1988: xvi). Malamah-Thomas claimed that classroom interaction is "of such crucial importance that the factors which enter into this interaction should be subjected to careful and crucial examination" (Malamah-Thomas, 1987: vii). He believes that research into the classroom can help teachers' take the initiative in learning, through their own experience of teaching, and the effective exercise of the craft of pedagogy (Malamah-Thomas, 1987).
In China, researchers and teachers' have been traditionally regarded as having different roles, so researching the classroom has encountered problems. Not many papers or books on the subject were to be found until quite recently, though several projects are now working to find out what happens in the Chinese classroom and how classroom research can help to develop classroom practice (Wu Zongjie, 1995; Wu Xin, 1998; Wang Qiang, 2002).
The difficulties of this type of research are caused by several factors. The first results from the traditional gap between theory and practice. Traditionally, researchers and teachers' play different roles in language teaching. Research projects are supposed to be carried out by researchers and the task of teachers' is to implement the results of research. The second reason derives from research into language teaching. Many Chinese researchers tended to focus on second language acquisition (SLA), and their papers and books seemed to indicate that SLA research alone offers solutions to the problems in English language teaching in China. The third reason concerns the perceptual and interpretative biases which researchers may bring to the classroom. Classrooms are regarded as private are-as, and classroom observation is not widely accepted. Also, researchers and teachers' may well have different understandings about what happens in the classroom. The differences in their beliefs, knowledge and assumptions about the learners, the learning process and the evaluation criteria indicate that developing an understanding between the teacher and the researcher is crucial.
The above issues are not peculiar to China, but are particularly important in this research. This is because although classroom investigation has been carried out in some schools, the amount of change and development driven by this remains open to further question. teachers' who are involved in this present research have all conducted some kind of classroom investigation. Their experience reveals, as is shown in Chapter 9, that the complicated situation in China is the key point for the understanding and realisation of changes and developments.
Broadly speaking, where changes and developments of TEFL in China are concerned, there are three gaps which have to be taken into consideration.
Firstly, changes and developments in research on language teaching and those in the practice of language teaching do not go hand in hand. That is, theories say one thing, and practices say another. Theories recommend changes and developments, but in practice it is not desired (Wu Xin, 1996). For example, one approach, the Communicative Approach, may be a matter of hot debate among researchers, while teachers' in the classroom still keep to their own way of working and have little interest in it. The situation in teachers' universities is worse, because when student teachers' (in this study) went to carry out their teaching practice in schools or universities, they found that what academic experts taught them was of little help in real situations. In order to make their work valid, they had to learn how to teach from the very beginning. This problem was caused by different understandings among experts, researchers and classroom teachers'.
Secondly, there are problems when a debate comes to a conclusion and the educational authorities decide to implement an innovation based on research. This is because teachers' responses are frequently contrary to what is expected and required. They may use new the new materials (or curriculum, or syllabus), but make little change in classroom practice, and hang on to their existing beliefs about teaching. Or, they may use new materials (or curriculum, or syllabus), change their style of working in the classroom and use new techniques, but not understand the rationale for them. Or, they may use new materials, claim that they have understood and accepted the rationale, but never change in the classroom. From the research, it appears to be rare for teachers' to accept change at all these levels (Wu Xin, 2001). It is obvious that research on language teaching has its limitations when the role of the teachers' is neglected (Freeman & Richards, 1996; Wood, 1996). Methods, learners and the classroom are important but, without the teacher, nothing can happen.
Thirdly, in past research in English language teaching there have been detailed descriptions of methods, the learner and classroom procedures. But until quite recently not much can be found about what teachers' think of the method and the learner, and how they understand and interpret the teaching process (Wood, 1996; Freeman & Richards, 1996; Borg, 2003). There is even less about how Chinese teachers', who have a strong Chinese cultural background and preferences but teach a Western language, think about their work, about their students', and about themselves. The lack of such research makes it difficult to explain why some Chinese can speak English confidently and fluently, while large numbers cannot even though they have spent about ten years studying English. Little can be done to improve the practice at the classroom level when there is little information on what teachers' think about their teaching and on the problems existing in teaching and student learning.
The above problems are the spark for the research question of the study. That spark led the author to think and to study changes and developments of TEFL in China and eventually focus on changes in teachers'—their knowledge, their beliefs and their behaviours in classroom. The reason for this is that, as Borko & Putnam state, "for many teachers', new approaches and new roles they have to take represent a substantial departure from their current practice"(Borko & Putnam, 1995:35). They need to think in a new way about themselves, their students' and their knowledge of the subject and teaching and learning process. All these "new" ways require "change" and "development" in teachers' mentally and psychologically, and most importantly in their behaviour.
In the literature of foreign language teacher education, "teacher training" is the term used most frequently. But, the term "training" is questionable because it is associated with training in skills or crafts. The term "teacher education" has come to replace "training" gradually, in which courses in general linguistics, applied linguistics, testing or research methodology for teachers' form the main part of programmes (Liu Runqing, 2000). These courses are aimed at encouraging teachers' theoretical understanding. More recently, the notion of teacher development has tended to be accepted better, for it encourages teachers' to reflect, to observe their teaching behaviour and to carry out professional enquiries. This means that teacher education tends to focus more on teachers—how to help teachers' to acquire knowledge and develop beliefs about language teaching, form the habit of reflecting, and to develop themselves at work. Therefore, teacher preparation, as Richards (1998) claimed, should go beyond the training of basic teaching skills to education in the beliefs, knowledge, and thinking that underlie their successful use. In teacher development, changes in teachers' behaviour along with their knowledge and beliefs have become the core of the whole matter. However, there remains the question of how changes can happen in teachers' and how much external changes affect changes in teachers' and how much teachers' knowledge and beliefs affect their behaviour. Therefore, this research contends that understanding teachers' knowledge, teachers' beliefs and teachers' behaviours plays a crucial role.
In using the three words "knowledge," "belief" and "behaviour" together here, we are not only concerned with their definitions, their similarities and differences. What is more important for us is to understand them because they are for one thing the core of this research. For another, it is evident that it is impossible, firstly, to understand teaching without implying that there is a view of knowledge and beliefs among teachers' and, secondly, to understand change and development in teachers' behaviour.
The concepts of knowledge and beliefs have created a long-standing and complicated debate in the field of educational philosophy. There has been much research on them, but they still remain "a messy construct" (Pajares, 1992). The debate on knowledge has long been addressed as an epistemological problem in educational philosophy, because research on the nature of knowledge and the forms of knowledge has greatly influenced the how education should be undertaken (Hirst, 1974; Scheffler, 1965; Barrow & Woods, 1988; Barrow & White, 1993; Carr, 1998; Audi, 1998). The understanding these concepts has influenced the understanding of the concept of education. Also, understanding the concept of belief itself is problematic. Researchers regarded it as a different concept from knowledge as well as a concept intertwined with knowledge (Griffiths, 1967; Rokeach, 1972; Armstrong, 1973; Audi, 1998; Fenstermacher, 1994). In this study, we regard knowledge and belief as being of the same nature in the process of situated cognition and situated learning in the Chinese context. Therefore, the two words are mentioned together in certain situations, and used individually in other situations.
Post-modern writers may doubt whether the concept of "knowledge" exists, but we take it for granted that teachers' behaviour will be affected by their knowledge and beliefs from the outset of this study. Therefore, it is helpful to take some time here to study current research on knowledge, belief and behaviour, so that this study itself will be built on a well-founded theoretical base. There will be more discussion in the chapters which follow, where we further examine through the fieldwork of the project how teachers' knowledge and beliefs affect teachers' behaviour and to what extent their knowledge, beliefs and behaviours will change.
Knowledge
There are different views on the understanding of knowledge. Broadly speaking, the understanding of knowledge fall into two main categories, the classical viewpoint and the view of constructivism. These different viewpoints have provided perspectives for this study and have helped to clarify the nature of knowledge which the study aims to understand from the standpoint of the Chinese English teachers' who participated in it.
The classical viewpoint on knowledge
For centuries, classical philosophers have developed the branch of philosophy known as epistemology, or theory of knowledge. Knowledge, according to them, has been understood through three broad philosophical approaches (Scheffler, 1973). The rationalistic tradition takes mathematics as the model science, where mathematical truth is general and necessary, and not dependent on experience. In the empiricist tradition, natural science is the basic model, where experience reveals natural phenomena. The ideal education for the empiricist tradition is to train students' not only in logical habits but also in learning from experience through accurate observation, reasonable generalisation and willingness to revise. The pragmatic tradition stresses the experimental character of empirical science, focusing more on the active phases of experimentation. No matter which approach is adopted, the nature of knowledge must satisfy three conditions—belief, truth and justification. Audi further developed the notion of knowledge as true belief based in the right way on the right kind of ground (Audi, 1998:243). The appropriate kinds of ground are developed through, basically, perception, memories, introspection and reasoning; more importantly, through pragmatic experience and inferences deriving from these experience. In the case of this research, there are several situations which reflect knowledge in this approach. When discussing the reasons for their certain teaching behaviour, teachers' frequently mentioned "I remember," "In my experience...," or "The book says...."
Another issue important to classical philosophers is the purpose of education. Even though Siegel stated "it would be folly to pretend that epistemologists have achieved widespread agreement on matters of basic doctrine (in education)" (Siegel, 1998:19), classical philosophers of education held the central view that it is possible, and desirable for students' to gain knowledge and engage in rational enquiry, to develop an appreciation of such enquiry, and to conduct their believing, judging and acting accordingly (Siegel, 1998). In order to achieve this purpose, two sorts of knowledge play their roles—propositional knowledge, or knowledge that , and procedural knowledge, or knowledge how . Hirst (1974) developed the concept of knowledge as "forms of knowledge," which established the fundamental basis for school curriculum. According to Hirst, there are seven forms of knowledge: logic and mathematics, the physical sciences, the knowledge of our own and other minds, moral knowledge, aesthetic knowledge, religious knowledge and philosophical knowledge. These forms of knowledge have some relationship with the categories or "subjects" in schools such as history, physics, and chemistry and so and forth. In many countries, the classical philosophical viewpoint has dominated education: it focuses on knowledge as justified true belief, and is delivered in different subjects. teachers' who teach the courses should be equipped with adequate knowledge accordingly. It is that issue that launched this research. "Knowledge" in this thesis mainly indicates Chinese English teachers' knowledge about teaching English as a foreign language in China (TEFL in China). At the beginning of the study, efforts were directed at working out the knowledge base for a TEFL teacher and the extent to which Chinese English teachers' have obtained the knowledge.
However, as the research goes deeper, the concept of knowledge becomes vague, because it became apparent through fieldwork that teachers' knowledge and their belief are inextricably mixed. Consequently, it became apparent that belief must play a very important role in this research as well. The reason is that, on the one hand, belief can be turned into knowledge through evidence. On the other hand, as will be seen in the fieldwork section, teachers' in this study seldom distinguished knowledge from belief. To most of them, knowledge and belief meant the same thing. Consequently, it is perhaps not surprising that the research found that their behaviour contradicted what they have explained as their knowledge. Such contradiction was the stimulus to explore belief further (in a later section), to examine the relationship between knowledge and belief, and the relationship between knowledge, belief and behaviour.
The constructivist view on knowledge
Classical philosophers gave us basic understandings of the concept of knowledge, but constructivism provides us with broader views of their understanding. Constructivism criticises traditional philosophical viewpoints on knowledge as "objectivist," regarding knowledge as a pure entity, unaffected by biological, psychological and sociological contingencies. In other words, objectivism believes that the world is completely and correctly structured in terms of entities, properties and relations. In this world, experience plays no role in the structuring of the world and meaning is something that exists in the world aside from experience. Constructivists, on the other hand, believe that we experience a real world, but meaning or understanding of the world is imposed by us rather than existing in the world independently of us (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). As an educational theory, constructivism maintains that we construct new ideas or concepts based upon our current and past knowledge. Therefore, when the study examined how teachers' form their knowledge, teachers' experience in the past as well as in their present courses is regarded as important sources of information in this investigation. What is more important is that we noticed one issue which we have neglected at the beginning of the research. This issue concerns the fact that our target subjects live in a unique system in China, where the historical heritage has no doubt affected the forming of their knowledge, beliefs and behaviour. Whenever change and development are concerned, existing and traditional concepts and approaches play a crucial role.
Among the various viewpoints of constructivism, it is worth noting that radical constructivism even denies that humans can know reality in any ontological sense. They believe that all we can know are our models of the world and our social others (von Glasersfeld, 1989). The world cannot ever be described outside of our frames of experience. As a consequence, according to radical constructivism, there are as many worlds as there are knowers. According to radical constructivism, the notion of "fit" has replaced the traditional notion of "truth;" that is, we cannot compare knowledge with some ontological reality to establish its true value. What we can do is to check our knowledge when we interact with the world through our experience. Obviously, it is important for us to notice that radical constructivism only focuses on individual, isolated minds that construct knowledge from experiences in the world.
Instead of taking the view of radical constructivism, it is perhaps more helpful in this research to believe that in many situations, knowing and learning happen in the acts of sharing which occur in society. Social constructivism takes this view and focuses on individuals in communities in terms of how they know and learn. Vygotsky, for example, considered knowledge in terms of two views, namely, cultural and individual ways of knowing. He regarded learning as transformation of cultural knowledge to individual knowledge (Vygotsky, 1978). According to Vygotsky, everybody has his or her own knowledge repertoires. Through mutual support, we can develop high levels of expertise and knowledge in collaborative peer groups. To Vygotsky, knowledge is socially constructed through collaborative talk and interaction, and around meaningful and whole activities. This is important in our research, because we notice that teachers' interviewed in the study often mentioned "preparing the lesson collaboratively" and the benefit they got from that sort of activity. In the training programme we provide in this study, school visiting and discussions are the activities which always get the most approval from the teachers.
Taking the same view, Nickerson also points out that "defining knowledge as true beliefs' does not solve the problem, because people differ with respect to what they will accept as evidence of truth, and all human knowledge is uncertain to some degree" (Nickerson, 1993:232). Nickerson's statement leads our attention to the viewpoint of situated learning, where knowledge is regarded as lying in the context that situated us in the world, not in reflective representation. Therefore, one of the important views taken in this research is that knowledge "is not the storehouse of representations which can be called upon for use in reasoning and which can be translated into language" (Winograd & Flores, cited in Salomon, 1993:118). In this research, teachers' knowledge is not studied based on teachers' formal answers to "test on knowledge," but data is collected from teachers' committed participation in mutually oriented patterns of behaviour, which are embedded in their socially shared background of concerns, actions, and beliefs.
It is important to note the various contributions from the different viewpoints on knowledge. The different views of classical philosophers and constructivists provide tools for us to rethink the nature of knowledge, especially for setting the context of the research at the start of the project and for developing the process of data collection. While conducting the fieldwork, questions such as the following were always there to remind the researcher of the nature of the research and to understand the teachers' involved:
Is there existing knowledge which teachers can learn and apply in their teaching?
What knowledge can teachers acquire?
Can training courses provide teachers with knowledge?
How do teachers develop their knowledge so that they can become qualified as teachers in the classroom?
At the beginning of the study, the author attempted to focus on working out teachers' knowledge systems only. But this created some problems, for it was difficult to distinguish teachers' knowledge from their beliefs. Beliefs and knowledge caused more confusion as the research progressed, because we gradually talked more about teachers' beliefs, instead of teachers' knowledge—the original topic of the research.
In summary, it seems that there is knowledge which guides or affects teachers' practice. But, after studying the different views on knowledge and the changes of people's understanding, we find it important to acknowledge that "human knowledge has two particularly striking characteristics. One is its fragmentary nature and the other is the fact that so much of it is implicit" (Nickerson, 1993:238). These characteristics help us to understand teachers in a broader way and encourage us to conduct the research by linking knowledge, beliefs and behaviour together, instead of describing what the exact knowledge or beliefs are without studying teachers' behaviour. This recognition forms another theme of the research, which discusses the relationships of knowledge, beliefs and behaviour, and how the relationship might change and affect each other.
Beliefs
Although research on teachers' beliefs is abundant and growing, beliefs are difficult to define and evaluate (Eisenhart, Shrum, Harding, & Cuthbert, 1988). Beliefs are a subject of legitimate inquiry in fields as diverse as medicine, law, anthropology, sociology, political science, business, as well as psychology. There are a variety of meanings in these diverse fields. The educational research community has been unable to adopt a specific working definition, but there do appear to be a number of studies, and this helped us to understand this concept when undertaking the research.
Different from "knowledge", "belief" concerns mental attitude, as Hume explained: "belief is nothing but a more vivid, lively, forcible, firm, steady conception of an object " (Hume, 1965:87), though Abelson (1979) defined beliefs in terms of people manipulating knowledge for a particular purpose or under a necessary circumstance. Later, Brown & Cooney (1982) explained that beliefs are dispositions to action and major determinants of behaviour, though the dispositions are time and context specific—qualities that have important implications for research and measurement. Sigel (1985) also combined the two views, and defined beliefs as mental constructions of experience, often condensed and integrated into schemata or concepts that are held to be true and that guide behaviour. More specifically, Harvey (1986) regarded belief as an individual's representation of reality that has enough validity, truth, or credibility to guide thought and behaviour. And more recently, Tobin & LaMaster said that "a belief is knowledge that is viable in that it enables an individual to meet her goals in specific circumstances" (Tobin & LaMaster, 1995:226). From their discussions, we can conclude that people's beliefs are subjective attitudes and criteria, from their experience, which guide people to judge relevant objects and make further decisions. Therefore, there are four basic characteristics of beliefs—existential presumption, alternativity, affective and evaluative loading, and episodic structure (Nespor, 1987).
Basic characteristics of beliefs
Existential presumptions refer to incontrovertible, personal truths everyone holds. They are the taken-for-granted beliefs about physical and social reality and self, and they are deeply personal, rather than universal, and unaffected by persuasion. This feature is typically reflected in the research, as will be seen when we analyse teachers' metaphors of their students.
Alternativity refers to conceptualisations of ideal situations differing significantly from present realities, and in this respect beliefs serve as means of defining goals and tasks. In other words, this feature indicates belief is an ideal rather than real situation one attempts to create for some reason. This feature is typical in our field-work with those young teachers who brought to their work concepts of an ideal teaching environment formed in the university classrooms.
The feature of affective and evaluative loading indicates that beliefs have strong affective and evaluative components, and their affect typically operates independently of the cognition associated with knowledge. For instance, an English teacher might hold a strong view that language learning is a matter of vocabulary learning. He would then spend time on reciting words, no matter how negatively that "reciting" is regarded by others. They firmly believe that "reciting" has some lasting impact on students' language learning. This has been explained as follows,"affect and evaluation can thus be important regulators of the amount of energy teachers will put into activities and how they will expend energy on an activity" (Nespor, 1987:320).
Episodic structure indicates that beliefs are composed mainly of "episodically" stored material derived from personal experience or from cultural or institutional sources of knowledge transmission (Nespor, 1987). The previous episodes or events influence the forming of beliefs, and in turn, beliefs colour the comprehension of subsequent events. In this research, the above standpoint is a typical feature of belief when we get teachers to talk about how their certain beliefs are formed. All teachers mentioned their experience of being language learners and of failure or success in the history of their career.
Beliefs, then, tend to be culturally bound, to be formed early in life and to be resistant to change. They are closely related to what we think we know but provide an affective filter, which screens, redefines, distorts, or reshapes subsequent thinking and information processing (Nespor, 1987). Our beliefs about one particular area or subject will not only be interconnected, but will also be related to other more central aspects of our personal belief systems, such as our attitudes and values about the world and our place within it. Beliefs are instrumental in defining tasks and selecting the cognitive tools with which to interpret, plan and make decisions regarding such tasks; hence, they play a critical role in defining behaviour and organising knowledge and information.
Beliefs or knowledge
The problem, when studying teachers' beliefs in this research, is that it is difficult for teachers' to clearly distinguish knowledge and belief, and this makes it difficult to tell whether the knowledge or the beliefs affect teachers' behaviour in certain situations, such as when making students' read aloud every morning for half an hour. Some teachers explained that their knowledge told them to do so, whereas some said they believed reading aloud was good for memory.
It is clear, then, that all teachers' hold beliefs, about their work, their students', their subject matter, and their roles and responsibilities. teachers' beliefs about what learning is will affect everything that they do in the classroom. Even if a teacher acts spontaneously, or from habit without thinking about the action, such actions are nevertheless prompted by a deep-rooted belief that may never have been articulated or made explicit. Thus, teachers' deep-rooted beliefs about how languages are learned will pervade their classroom actions more than a particular methodology they are told to adopt or a textbook they choose to follow. This makes it important to study exactly what teachers' beliefs are, even though there is no single explanation of this question, and there are different theories about the links between teachers' belief and their behaviour.
Teachers' beliefs are defined by Clark as preconceptions and implicit theories, for they "tend to be eclectic aggregations of cause-effect propositions from many sources, rules of thumb, generalisations drawn from personal experience, beliefs, values, biases, and prejudice" (Clark, 1988:5). But Porter & Freeman (1986) termed teachers' beliefs about curriculum, pedagogy of students' learning, schooling and themselves as teachers' professional orientations. Similar to Clark (1988), Sharp and Green called teachers' beliefs teaching ideology, "a connected set of systematically related beliefs and ideas about what are felt to be the essential features of teaching... a broad definition of the task and a set of prescriptions for performing it, all held at a relatively high level of abstraction" (Sharp & Green, 1975:29). More recently, Freeman (1991) used the term "teachers' conceptions" and Wubbels (1992) the term "teachers' preconceptions." In his review article, "Research on language teaching and learning: 1999," Johnstone (2000) used "teachers' beliefs" in the summary of several relevant papers. No matter what terms are chosen, teachers' beliefs are relatively deep-rooted opinions about their profession and these beliefs can affect teaching and, consequently, learning. For example, studies have shown that a teachers' expectations can have significant impacts on students' behaviour and academic performance (Good, cited in Fang, 1996:50).
A key issue in this research is how to distinguish the effect of teachers' knowledge on teachers' behaviour and the effect of teachers' beliefs on teachers' behaviour. teachers' knowledge and beliefs are often inextricably interwoven (Nisbett & Ross, 1980; Ernest, 1989; Lewis, 1990; Woods, 1996), but distinctions still exist between them.
Obviously, knowledge of a person refers to the person's acquaintance with facts, truths, or principles in the mind. According to Anderson (1985), knowledge can be categorised as declarative knowledge and procedural knowledge. Declarative knowledge is the knowledge of what , while procedural knowledge refers to the knowledge of how things or systems work. Paris, Lipson & Wixson (1983) add a third type of knowledge, conditional knowledge, which involves understanding when, why, and under what conditions declarative or procedural knowledge should be employed. More specifically, Shulman (1986) categorises teachers' knowledge into three dimensions: subject-matter (i. e. content knowledge), pedagogical knowledge, and curricular knowledge. Subject-matter knowledge includes the substantive and the syntactic structures. Though Shulman addressed this category in general, in the context of language teaching, the general ideas apply to English teachers'. Curricular knowledge refers to the knowledge of alternative curriculum materials for a given subject or topic within a certain grade, and the knowledge of the curriculum materials in other subjects that the students' are studying. Pedagogical knowledge concerns how to make ideas comprehensible to students' and this category was central, because there exists "illusory understanding" which is "the oldest problem of pedagogy" (Shulman, 2000:131). Illusory understanding means that people tend to appear to know something that they really don't know. Such a problem is not limited to students'; teachers' and other people concerned in education might hold illusory understandings in some ways. In this research, such illusory understanding can be found among teachers', tutors and administrators. For instance, "communication" is a basic concept concerning language teaching and learning. Some teachers' regarded "communication" as "two people talking to each other", and so in their class they tried to get students' to read dialogue aloud in turn to make the class more "communicative". University tutors lectured the teachers' on how to teach language, though university tutors themselves were not so sure how language can be better learned in schools. The idea of "brainwashing" is also an example of such illusory understandings, which indicates that the administrators might not understand teacher learning and teacher development.
On the other hand, the relationship between teachers' knowledge and beliefs are interwoven or overlap with each other. Woods (1996) points out that the distinctions between teachers' knowledge and beliefs are blurred. He demonstrates that in many cases it cannot be clearly determined whether the interpretations of the events are based on what the teacher knows or what the teacher believes. For example, he explained that a teacher who knows (or believes) that students' do not like to work in groups, and whose students' complained in the classroom, may interpret their complaining in line with his or her beliefs. He might explain that the complaining was caused by the students' attitudes to group work rather than their particular mood that day, or the effects of the class party the previous evening. This event is remembered by the teacher not simply as complaints, but in terms of his assumptions about what caused the complaints, and is stored as a further abstracted or generalised item of knowledge/belief. From this perspective, it is hard to distinguish between knowledge structures and belief systems. Nisbett & Ross (1980) conceptualise knowledge as a structure composed of a cognitive component and a belief component. As such, belief is viewed as knowledge of a sort. On the other hand, Lewis (1990) argues that the origin of all knowledge is rooted in beliefs, that ways of knowing are basically ways of choosing values. He insists that the two constructs are synonymous, that the most simple, empirical, and observable thing one knows will reveal itself as an evaluative judgement, a belief. Similarly, Ernest (1989) suggests that knowledge is the cognitive outcome of thought and belief the affective outcome, but he admits that beliefs also possess a slender but significant cognitive component, while knowledge also has its own affective and evaluative component.
However, what we need to remember is that teachers' knowledge is not equivalent to teachers' beliefs. The distinction between them is a valid and necessary one. Price (1965) states that knowledge is by definition infallible though it might not be able to justify; it is not a simple matter of defying the true or false question on knowledge; it can not be called either active or passive; it is something ultimate and not further analysable; and it is just the situation in which some entity or some fact is directly presented to consciousness. On the other hand, as Price also explained,
"belief is always fallible. What I believe need not be the case, however firmly I believe it, and however strong the evidence I have for it. Moreover, there is a certain indirectness about belief. When I believe truly, there is a fact which makes my belief true. But this fact is not itself present in my mind. That which is present to my mind is something else, something which in this case corresponds to or accords with a fact, but in other cases does not" (Price, 1965:76).
Therefore, we can infer from this line of reasoning that belief is fallible and indirect, whereas knowledge is less fallible and more direct.
Many other scholars have discussed the relationship between the two terms. Woods (1996) suggests that knowledge refers to conventionally accepted fact, while beliefs refer to an acceptance of a proposition for which there is no conventional knowledge, and for which there is accepted disagreement. Nespor (1987) contends that knowledge system information is semantically stored, whereas beliefs reside in episodic memory with material drawn from experience or cultural sources of knowledge transmission, such as folklore. He also argues that knowledge systems require general or group consensus while belief systems are by their very nature disputable, more inflexible, and less dynamic.
In summary, beliefs are static and represent eternal truths that are not easy to change once they are formed, but knowledge is fluid and evolves as new experiences are interpreted and integrated into existing schemata; beliefs also foster schools of thought, whereas knowledge is unique to the individual; and beliefs are surrounded by an emotional aura that dictates rightness and wrongness, while knowledge is emotionally neutral. Thus, "belief is based on evaluation and judgement; knowledge is based on objective fact" (Pajares, 1992:313). In this study, knowledge and belief are sometimes mentioned together and sometimes individually, because of the complicated relationships between the two concepts and the fact that knowledge and beliefs are mixed by the teachers throughout the fieldwork. Such complicated relationships between the two terms are stressed by Grossman, Wilson & Shulman that "while we are trying to separate teachers' knowledge and belief about subject matter for the purpose of clarity, we recognise that the distinction is blurry at best" (Grossman, Wilson & Shulman, 1989:31). With a similar conclusion, Verloop, Van & Meijer explained that "in the mind of the teacher, components of knowledge, belief, conceptions, and intuitions are inextricably intertwined" (Verloop, Van & Meijer, 2001:446). Therefore, what we should recognise in this study is that explicit definitions of knowledge and belief are not important, but what is more important is how knowledge or beliefs affect teachers' behaviour and whether changes can happen in teachers' behaviour if their knowledge or beliefs change or develop.
Knowledge, Beliefs and Behaviour
From the above discussion, we know that peoples knowledge and beliefs are an important influence on the ways they organise and define tasks and learn from experience. It can be certain that teachers' knowledge and beliefs play a major role in how teachers behave in the classroom and in their daily work (Shulman, 1987; Grossman, 1990; Eraut, 1994; Lyons, 1990; Woods, 1996; Freeman & Richards, 1996; Turner-Bisset, 2001; Kennedy, 2002). However, that does not necessarily mean that teachers must behave in the classroom in accordance with their knowledge and beliefs. The relationship between them varies from very consistent to very inconsistent.
Some of the most significant contributions to the relationship between teachers' knowledge/beliefs and practices have occurred in the field of reading (Rupley & Logan, 1984; Mangano & Allen, 1986; Richardson, et al, 1991; Longberger, 1992; Meijer, Verloop & Beijaard, 1999). Reading research projects have examined how teachers' personal beliefs about teaching and learning affect their decision-making and behaviours. These researches support the notion that teachers' possess theoretical beliefs about reading, and that such beliefs tend to shape the nature of. For instance, such research indicates that teachers' teach in accordance with their theoretical beliefs, and further suggest that teachers' theoretical beliefs not only shape their pedagogy, but have a critical impact on students' perceptions of learning and teaching also.
In the field of second language teacher education, Freeman & Richards (1996), Freeman (2002) and Borg (1999, 2003) discuss on language teacher cognition, focusing on three main themes: cognition and prior language learning experience, cognition and teacher education, and cognition and classroom practice. Their research indicates that what teachers' think, know, and believe is closely related to what teachers' do in the language teaching classroom.
On the other hand, different scholars (Davis, Konopak & Readence, 1993; Sahin, Bullock & Stables, 2002) contend that although teachers' beliefs are largely consistent with their choice of hypothetical lesson plans, teachers' statements about what they believe do not always show what they do in classrooms.
From such research, three factors are worthy of notice in the inconsistency between teachers' beliefs and their practices: contextual factors, research measures, and inappropriate categorization. The most important factor is the classroom context. For example, Fang states "The complexities of classroom life can constrain teachers' abilities to attend to their beliefs and provide instruction which aligns with their theoretical beliefs" (Fang, 1996:53). This means that contextual factors, such as teacher-student relationships, classroom management and routine, the way students learn, social and emotional characteristics, and textbooks, have a powerful influence on teachers' formed beliefs, and as a result, affect their classroom practices. In this research, social factors affected the teachers' behaviours the most, either before or after the training programme (see Chapter 5 and 9).
Another source of inconsistency concerns the measures used in research. The inconsistency occurs when research applies researcher determined statements or categories, which may be different from those of the teachers. Teachers are forced to choose either one statement or the other as belonging to a particular instructional approach, while such statements do not exist in their knowledge or belief systems. Thus, Pajares stated that "beliefs cannot be directly observed or measured but must be inferred from what people say, intend and do—fundamental prerequisites that educational researchers seldom followed"(Pajares, 1992:314). Therefore, the present study avoided using scales with specific statements in collecting the data. Instead, diaries, interviews, discussions and observations were frequently used (see Chapter 4, 6 and 8), and the study's analyses are based on these data.
Inappropriate categorization in research will also lead to inconsistency. Researchers' categorizations and teachers' categorizations may be quite different. In this sense, if inappropriate categorization of teachers' instructions is made, the inconsistency may also appear. Based on this view, this study tried avoiding the existing framework of teachers' knowledge or beliefs, and drew instead on themes of the teachers' understanding based on their responses (see Chapters 4 and 5).
All the above factors combined constrain teachers' from actualizing their knowledge and beliefs when teaching. Thus, Lampert (1985) portrays a teacher as a dilemma manager, a broker of contradictory interests, who "builds a working identity that is constructively ambiguous" (Lampert, 1985:190). It is important to note that among these factors, the contextual factor emerged as increasingly important as this study progressed. We need to know how contextual factors create the inconsistency between teachers' knowledge/beliefs and behaviour. Specifically, we need to know what really matters in the change and development of teachers' knowledge, beliefs and behaviour. More discussion in later chapters will focus on this issue and we will look at some of the evidences that knowledge/beliefs are not always reflected in classroom practice (see Chapters 5 and 9).