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1986; Fang, 1996). Constrained by some contextual factors, sometimes teachers’
classroom practices did not completely correspond to their beliefs. For example, Borg’s study (2003) indicated that the contextual factors, such as students, school, or curriculum may modify the beliefs or lead to the inconsistency between beliefs and action. Clark & Peterson (1986) pointed out teachers’ actions were often constrained by the physical setting or by external influences such as the school, the principal, the community, or the curriculum. The following section continued and discussed the factors that may contribute to the inconsistency between Helen’s beliefs and her actual classroom practices.
Factors Leading to the Inconsistency
According to the data from stimulated recall interviews and classroom observations, the following factors may contribute to the inconsistency between the participating teacher’s stated beliefs and actual classroom practices. The first two reasons may be textbooks and time constraints. In stimulated recall interview, Helen explained that she needed to follow a set of syllabus and textbooks required to be completed for exam purposes within limited time. Under the circumstances, getting the students to do communicative activities in the target language was not easy. Helen commented in the interview.
“有一部分是因為課程或考試的進度並不容許我做太多的溝通的活動。我必須 讓學生熟悉教科書上面的句型，這些是目前考試比較需要的，所以花很少的時間 在應用階段。”
[=To catch up with the curriculum or make room for tests, I am not allowed to conduct more communicative activities in class. I need to help students familiarize the sentence patterns in the textbook which they will need to deal with in the exams. Hence, I spent less time on communicative activities on application. ] Extract from the
interview with Helen.
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The second reason may be related to the students’ limited proficiency in English. According to Helen, most of the students at this stage could only do description in English. Their English was not good enough to engage in real communication in English. In addition, the students did not have a habit of doing discussion in class. Most of them learn English by drilling. They might be
resistant to new ways of learning. Under the circumstances, implementing communicative activities in class presented a problem for Helen. As for the information gap, according to Helen, it was difficult to conduct in her actual teaching because monitoring all groups in such a big class was not easy as she reported in the interview.
“因為到真正的教學現場時，發覺學生的程度並不足，學生目前的階段只能用 描述的方式，他描述的方式例如說看到圖片能描述出這個圖片在做什麼。至於小 組活動，大部分的學生都是用 drill 的方式來學習英語，並不習慣用討論的分式來 學習 。而 information gap, 因為其實在大班級裡使用 information 真的比較難監控 班上學生的，然後程度不足也是一個蠻大的問題。”
[=In my actual teaching, I found I couldn’t conduct some communicative activities due to the students’ limited proficiency in English. Most of the students at this stage can only do description in English. As for group work, most students are not used to learning English by discussing or communicating because most of them learn English through drilling. Moreover, it is not easy to implement information gap in large classes because monitoring the students is difficult and their language proficiency is a big problem as well. ] Extract from the interview with Helen.
Helen held true that group work was important in that it provided students more opportunities to speak and for practice in negotiation of meaning. However, it was not easy to implement real group work in her teaching due to the large class and students’ varying abilities. Thus, the group work in her class was only to allow the students to cooperate with each other in pursuit of higher grades. Its purpose according to Helen was only to increase the students’ participation, to
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encourage them to speak up in class, and not to give up learning English. Helen commented in the interview.
“這學期小組的功能只有在做競賽，目的是增加學生在課堂的參與度，讓他們 多說多參與，然後不要放棄學習英文。其實我曾經有試著在班級裏頭進行真正小 組分組，但是因為班級過大，還有學生程度差異真的太大，配合度並不是很好，
所以沒有辦法帶小組活動。”
[=The function of group work in this semester was to compete. Its purpose is to increase the students’ participation, to encourage them to speak up in class and not to give up learning English. I tried to implement “real” group work in my class, but I couldn’t make it due to the factors of large classes, students’ diverse abilities, and their unwilling participation. ] Extract from the interview with Helen.
The findings of this study suggested that the participating teacher’s teaching practices were governed by the nature of classroom life. According to Borg (2003), the complexities of the classroom environment may be a major factor contributing the disparity. Previous studies have shown that various contextual issues, such as
“mandated curriculum materials, resources, time available, habits, and student ability” (Clark& Peterson, 1986, p.289), were likely to result in discrepancies between teachers’ espoused beliefs and their teaching practices. Among various contextual factors, Graden (1996) pointed out the information about students was the most significant one to influence teachers’ practices. In other words, teachers’
choices to accommodate their students took precedence over their beliefs. The contextual issues related to students such as the students’ different learning styles or English proficiency levels seemed to make teachers’ pedagogical beliefs differ strikingly from their preferred practices.
The review of research on teachers’ beliefs suggested teachers’ theoretical beliefs were situational and were transferred into instructional practices only in relation to the complexities of the classroom. Pajares (1992) also supported the
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notion that beliefs were context specific, and thus they appeared inconsistent.
Contextual factors could have powerful influences on teachers’ beliefs and, in effect, affected their classroom practice. Despite this, some teachers are not fully aware of context as a significant factor that affects their teaching practices. Their unawareness of some of those contextual factors led the researchers to recognize that teachers do not always analyze their own teaching practices. A complete understanding of the teaching process is not possible without an understanding of the constraints that impinge upon the teaching process.
Overall, the study revealed that the participating teacher did present her instruction according to her beliefs in certain ways. The great consistency between Helen’s beliefs and her practices indicated that her classroom practices were highly associated with what she perceived. On the other hand, the minor incongruity between Helen’s beliefs and practices showed that the teaching context probably played an important role on Helen’s classroom practices. The complexities of classroom life created difficulties for teachers to implement what they believed, and this led to the conclusion that teachers’ beliefs and practices were influenced from contextual factors (Fang, 1996). The specific context where Helen worked led to the incongruence between her beliefs and action in class. The findings suggested that there was a strong association between teachers’ beliefs and practices, and teaching context played an important role on how teachers acted in their classroom practices.
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