國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
63
CHAPTER FIVE DISCUSSION
The previous chapter revealed the answers to the three research questions of the present study. This chapter provides a general picture of the findings as well as possible reasons behind them. Four sections were included in this chapter. The first two sections focus on the core beliefs and peripheral beliefs of the participant. The teacher’s actual practices will be described in section three. Section four presents the interaction between core and peripheral beliefs, and how tensions emerged from this interaction.
5.1 Core beliefs
As was presented in the last chapter, Jane’s core beliefs were all about knowledge transmission. This perspective is not uncommon in literature about teachers’ beliefs and practices. For example, similar to the participant of the present study, who laid emphasis onsynthesizing and reviewing previous knowledge, the 18 ESL Australian teachers in Breen et al. (2001) widely shared Jane’s principle of helping students to remember and recall what was taught. They employed practices such as explaining forms and functions explicitly, assigning homework for additional practice, giving memory tests on certain items and asking students to mark key points with highlighters, all of which could be witnessed from Jane’s teaching practices.
Identical results can also be found in Phipps and Borg’s (2009) study on Turkish teachers, Ezzi’s (2012) study on Yemeni teachers, and Feryok’s (2008) research on an Armenian teacher. Although the English teachers in these studies came from different parts of the world and had various culture and social backgrounds, like Jane did in her class, most participants were observed to have the features of traditional classes— grammar rules explained in mother tongues explicitly,
‧
examples given in isolation without contexts, as well as frequent use of oral or written drills like Jane did in her class. It seemed that knowledge transmission teaching pattern was still embraced in different parts of the world, not just Taiwan.
As for the expectation toward students, Jane as well as the teachers in Breen et al. (2001) valued the quality of being “active.” However, it is interesting that the two parties seemed to view “activeness” very differently. Jane’s “being active” referred to the activeness of one’s thinking, in which students were expected to “do the review work actively” such as completing homework and memorizing vocabulary in their free time. The Australian teachers’ “activeness” referred to both thoughts and expression, in which students’ were encouraged to “actively use what they learn to cope with communication outside the classroom” (p.483). This kind of thinking may be mentioned during Jane’s interview, but it was never witnessed in her actual classroom practices.
Drawing on Green’s (1971) framework on belief system as well as Phipps and Borg’s (2009) study presented in Chapter 2, a summarized illustration on Jane’s teaching beliefs is shown in Figure 1. It demonstrates the content of Jane’s core beliefs, peripheral beliefs and the relationship between them. As the figure shows, core belief occupied the major portion of the concentric circle, representing stronger intensity and higher priority in teaching practice (Green, 1971). Peripheral beliefs, on the other hand, took up a smaller portion in her belief system, signifying lower influence on behaviors. Most of Jane’s classroom practices were the actualization of core beliefs, while less time were allowed for the peripheral beliefs to come into practice. It was also found that the tensions between Jane’s beliefs and practices were the results of inharmonious interactions between core beliefs and peripheral beliefs.
As Figure 1 suggests, Jane’s core beliefs mainly originated from one generic
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
65
education philosophy—teaching as a process of knowledge transmission. As was presented in the previous chapter, Jane’s first priority was to transmit all the textbook knowledge within given time. This echoes previous scholars’ perspective that core beliefs often derive from more general beliefs about education (Green, 1971; Phipps
& Borg, 2009). Jane’s knowledge transmission teaching pattern is prevailing in Chinese teaching context where test-driven orientation occupies the center of English teaching (Chen & Tsai, 2012). The two teachers in Hsu’s (2006) study were found to employ textbooks as the main teaching source in their class due to “social teaching norms” in Taiwan. They also considered time as the major external factors that impede them from applying their beliefs. In Lee’s (2008) study, one of her
participants also attributed his limited implementation of inductive teaching to the tight teaching schedule of secondary school.
‧ 國
立 政 治 大 學
‧
N a tio na
l C h engchi U ni ve rs it y
66
Figure 1 The relationship between core beliefs and peripheral beliefs
Peripheral beliefs Grammar is necessary but should
not be over emphasized. English is a tool.
Core belief:
Teaching is a process of knowledge transmission.
In general:
Transmit all the textbook knowledge in time
Students’ role:
Being active followers in class.
Teacher’s role:
Teacher as a guide
‧
While passing on her knowledge, Jane shaped herself into a guide who conducted and directed the whole class by constantly integrating old grammar points and offering test related advice. Similar results can also be found in Wu’s (2006) study in which two participating teacher regarded themselves as guides who “point out the right direction” for students. In Wu’s (2006) words, this teaching style is somewhat more
“curriculum oriented” instead of student centered.
It is worth mentioning that context seemed to play a decisive role in shaping Jane’s knowledge transmission philosophy. The tremendous influence of context has generated substantial discussion in the area of teacher beliefs and practices
(Basturkmen, 2012; Borg, 2003; Johnson, 1996; Phipps & Borg, 2009; Wu, 2006). In Chinese society, parents, students, and schools generally hold the expectation that part of teachers’ primary duty is to hand down knowledge (Wu, 2006). Above all, textbook content is regarded as the most fundamental source of knowledge that students should master (Scollon, 1999). Helping them familiarize all the textbook content thus became teachers’ first choice. This explains the reason behind Jane’s insist on finishing the assigned textbook content within given time.
Second, Jane’s expectation for students’ role is quite distinct from current teaching trends such as CLT. Jane highly valued student cooperation and conformity as positive attitude of pursuing knowledge. In classroom observations, for example, Jane not only hoped students to follow all instructions precisely but also anticipated their learning attitude to be active and voluntary. Students should take notes, review the materials they have learned on that day and prepare for the upcoming quizzes without being demanded by the teacher. They were also encouraged to memorize new vocabulary or sentences in the class right away. In short, Jane expected her students to be active, but only mentally. On the contrary, CLT centers more on “verbal
activeness”, in which learners are encouraged to communicate with others and learn
‧
the language through using it (Brown, 2001). Jane’s knowledge transmission pattern was closer to that of one teacher in Wu (2006) who focused more on “transmitter’s end” rather than “receiver’s end”. Once the teacher had finished the knowledge transmission process, she was said to be completed her own job. It was students’
responsibility to carry out the process of digesting, discriminating and reflecting by themselves.