5. Discussion
5.4 The Impact of Context on the Teacher’s Cognition and Practice
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(Rubie-Davies, 2006). Joy, on the contrary, despite also trying to take care of students with different English abilities with differentiated learning criteria, on most occasions, left her students the control of deciding the mastery level they want to achieve, as in the examples of designing 5-level oral exams, worksheets with multilevel sections, and various supplementary materials. By doing so, Joy on the one hand offered choice for her students, which was noted as one determinant of agency (van Lier, 2008); on the other, avoided the possible impacts of her differentiated expectations on students’
learning. As a matter of fact, Joy did not only adopt an attitude of valuing learner agency in her teaching practices, but also took the same attitude when faced with the various decisions that students made with regard to their English learning.
Recognizing that multiple factors could be at play in each student’s investment in his/her English learning, Joy said she could only try as hard as possible in teaching multilevel English classes, and respect the decisions students made with regard to their English learning.
The results of the present study and related studies on teaching English to multilevel English classes shows that teachers’ cognitions about teaching English in multilevel classrooms could be largely informed by their cognitions about students.
Joy’s conception of students as multidimensional agents led her to conceptualize a balanced picture of teaching and learning in large multilevel English classes, which might also suggest the need for future research to further investigate the relationship between teachers’ cognitions, practices and students’ learning (which does not receive much attention in the present study) in large multilevel English classes if we seek to have a more balanced, holistic and in-depth understanding of teaching and learning in such classes.
5.4 The Impact of Context on the Teacher’s Cognition and Practice
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As shown in the above section, the teacher’s cognitions and practices of teaching in multilevel English classes are mediated by her cognitions about students, who are critical stakeholders in the teaching contexts where the teacher is situated.
This section follows the previous section in discussing the impact of other contextual factors on Joy’s cognitions and practices of teaching English to multilevel classes.
From the results of the present study, it was found that in teaching large multilevel English classes, Joy could not simply implement practices that were informed by her cognitions, but she also needed to negotiate her practices within the teaching contexts where she was located. Such a finding is in line with the framework proposed by Borg (2006), who indicated that contextual factors determined the extent to which teachers could implement classroom practices congruent with their
cognitions. But what was not mentioned in Borg’s framework is that the extent to which teaching contexts can impact on teachers is not static but dynamic. Joy’s case shows that the degree that certain contextual factors could constrain her, or her capacity to find room for the realization of her cognitions had to do with the amount of time she had spent in that particular context. During her early teaching experiences, Joy said her adoption of various practices was constantly questioned by the more conservative principals, students’ parents and colleagues, who respectively posed constraints of varying degree on her teaching practices and teacher autonomy (Benson, 2010). Teacher autonomy is a construct that Benson understood “both as a working condition that allows room for teachers’ professional discretion and as the teacher’s capacity to create this working condition within prevailing constraints (p. 263)”. In the case of Joy, as she spent more time in the Fa Fa junior high school and came to prove that her various practices were not simply tricks but could actually engage students and develop their English abilities and even earned recognition from others outside the school, she was then gradually granted with more room for teacher
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autonomy. And even to some hard-core opponents to her teaching style, she developed some coping strategies, such as asking the Academic Affairs Office not to assign her to teach in the classes whose homeroom teachers are not willing to try a variety of classroom practices.
However, even though she felt she was allowed more freedom by her teaching context than before, at the time of this study, Joy still perceived three main contextual factors that restrained her use of various practices in large multilevel English classes, which respectively were pressure to prepare students for studies in the senior high school, her grammar-oriented colleagues teaching in the same grade level and her own hectic schedule.
According to Joy, the causes of her pressure to prepare her students for studies in the senior high school were two. One was the pressure to prepare and familiarize her students with the teaching style of teachers in the senior high school, most of whom were pictured by her as teaching in a rather traditional way placing their teaching focuses mostly on lexis and grammar; the other was the pressure to prepare students for the exam to senior high. As a matter of fact, examination pressure was cited in many studies to be one major factor that prevented teachers from carrying out practices congruent to their cognitions (Benson, 2010; Chang & Su, 2010; Nishino, 2012; Richards & Pennington, 1998). In their study of five novice teachers’ first year teaching experiences, Richards and Pennington (1998) found that despite their belief in communicative language teaching, the five teachers, under the pressure to cover the required materials and prepare students for exams, adopted an approach that
emphasized lexis and grammar. The divergence of teachers’ practices from their cognitions was also reported in the study of Nishino (2012). In investigating the relationship among Japanese high school teachers’ beliefs, practices and contextual factors concerning communicative language teaching, Nishino found that the pressure
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to prepare students for university entrance exams led the teachers to focus their teaching on grammar and reading rather than communicative skills, in which they claimed to have a strong belief. Such pressure was especially intensified with the approach of exams, as one of the teacher participants in Nishino’s study said he would start preparing his students for the exams when they entered into the 10th grade.
Likewise, situated in a socio-educational context where entrance exams determined to a great extent the future of students, Joy admitted that she had to and indeed started to decrease the use of various practices and focus her teaching on grammar and reading when students were in the 9th grade.
Another two factors given by Joy to explain the lack of correspondence between her cognition in variety and classroom practices during the classroom observations of the present study were her colleagues and her own heavy workload.
Although teaching distinct classes, Joy and the other English teachers teaching the 9th grade had to cooperate on certain occasions, which included cooperatively designing test and exam papers for all 9th-grade students. Her colleagues tended to place a strong emphasis on grammar in the test and exam papers, to which Joy felt it was impossible for her to change their belief in grammar teaching and could only be compelled to spend more time explaining trivial grammatical points in class so to prepare her students for the tests and exams. Such impact from colleagues was also described in Richards and Pennington’s (1998) study. In their study, in addition to exam pressures, the five novice teachers were also found to experience considerable pressure from their more experienced colleagues to conform to the well-accepted routines and practices. Such pressure was reported to consequently “discourage experimentation and innovation, and encourage a ‘safe’ strategy of sticking close to prescribed materials and familiar teaching approaches (p. 187)”.
Besides the aforementioned two contextual factors, Joy felt she was also
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restricted to find spaces for her implementation of various practices due to her heavy workload, which was found to be a restrictive factor to teachers’ cognitions in the study of Richards and Pennington (1998) and that of Crookes and Arakaki (1999) as well. In their study, Crookes and Arakaki noted that overwork consumed their teacher participants’ desire for reading research articles to further professional development and accumulate teaching ideas. Some of the teachers even said that such heavy
workload posed some sort of threat to their quality of life and teaching. As most of the teacher reported to work for about 50 hours per week, Crookes and Arakaki remarked that under such situation “it is not surprising that a proven repertoire of teaching ideas and a cautiously pragmatic attitude was common (p. 17)”.
From the above discussion, one can find that the degree of teacher autonomy, or the extent to which teachers can implement practices that conform to their cognitions, is the interactive result of teachers’ internal capacity to find spaces to realize their cognitions and the surrounding teaching contexts’ willingness to allow room for teachers to put their cognitions into practices. But just as indicated in the case of Joy, part of the teacher’s capacity to find room for implementation of her cognitions had to do with the amount of time that she had spent in the context, with more time spent in the context leading to increased understanding and trust and finally control from the teaching context. This, just as Benson (2010) noted in his study, “some degree of professional freedom is required if the internal capacity for teacher autonomy is to grow, while the teacher’s exercise of this capacity can also widen the space of
professional freedom in which it is exercised (p. 263)”. This study hence suggests that to foster and sustain teachers’ professional development in large multilevel English classrooms, more freedom and support should be granted to teachers for
experimentation and innovations by their teaching contexts. At the same time, teachers may also need to enhance their cognitions and practices so to gain a wider
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space for professional freedom. Considering novice teachers and teachers new to a particular teaching context may be granted with less freedom to put their cognitions into practices, teacher educators may need to engage these teachers in anticipatory reflection to prepare them for the possible pressure from constrictive contextual factors and to think of ways to find and widen spaces for teacher autonomy within those constraints. On the other hand, the teachers may also need to be cautioned against internalizing those constraints to the extent that they believe that only certain practices are possible within the constraints (Richards & Pennington, 1998). As Lamb (2000) put it, “teachers need to understand the constraints upon their practice but, rather than feeling disempowered, they need to empower themselves by finding the spaces and opportunities for manoeuvre (p. 128)”.
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CHAPTER SIX CONCLUSIONS
In the previous chapters, the broader context where the present study was based on, the methods with which this study was conducted and analyzed, and the findings of the study have been elaborated and discussed. In this chapter, a summary of the study, pedagogical implications, limitations of the study and suggestions for future research are presented as a final conclusion of the present study.
6.1 Summary of the Study
The present study was conducted to answer two research questions: (1) what cognitions did one Taiwanese junior high school teacher hold in teaching large multilevel English classes? How did she develop such cognitions? And (2) how did the teacher’s cognitions interact with her actual classroom practices? To achieve this aim, the researcher employed a qualitative case study research design, collected and capitalized on data from various sources, including a teacher narrative, interviews, classroom observations and document analyses to investigate what cognitions that the teacher participant, Joy, held in teaching large multilevel English classes, how she developed such cognitions and how she negotiated such cognitions within the teaching contexts where she was situated. Charmaz’s (2006) coding in grounded theory and Webster and Mertova’s (2007) critical events approach were adopted to analyze the data. Member checking and peer debriefing were undertaken to ensure the trustworthiness of the present study.
From the analyzed data emerged four major cognitions and practices that Joy held in teaching large multilevel English classes, which were knowing and
empathizing with her students, building variety into teaching practices to
accommodate the diversity of students, adding differentiation into learning criteria to
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attend to the diversity of students, and admitting that things can be beyond her control.
A further probing into Joy’s professional experiences showed that Joy constructed and reconstructed the four primary cognitions and relevant practices based on her prior learning and teaching experiences. But when externalizing these cognitions in the teaching contexts where she was situated, Joy was faced with contextual factors that constrained her from implementing certain practices congruent to her cognitions.
During the classroom observations, three major constrictive contextual factors were identified to prevent her from realizing her cognition in adopting various practices, which respectively were pressure to prepare students for studies in the senior high school, her grammar-oriented colleagues teaching in the same grade level and her own heavy workload.
Such findings are virtually in line with Borg’s (2006) framework of elements and processes in language teacher cognition, except for three aspects, which prod the researcher to propose three modifications to the framework of Borg. First, the
researcher finds and argues that that in addition to the experiences of schooling, professional coursework and prior classroom practices, the framework should be extended to include and recognize the impacts that experiences that teachers develop outside the classroom could have on teachers’ cognitions (Martinez, 2011). Second, a more appropriate amount of recognition and value may need to be given to the reflective practice that teachers undertake to make meanings out of their experiences and (re)construct their cognitions and practices. Third, the extent to which teachers could carry out practices that conform to their cognitions may need to be understood as the interactive result of teachers’ internal capacity to find spaces to realize their cognitions and the surrounding teaching contexts’ willingness to allow room for teachers to put their cognitions into practices.
In addition to the aforementioned contextual factors, Joy’s cognitions and
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practices of teaching large multilevel English classes were also found to be mediated by her cognitions about students and student learning. Her understandings of students as multidimensional agents and of students’ orientation toward learning as
investments over which each student had control led her to acknowledge, respect and encourage the development of learner agency. Such cognitions about students and student learning were found to be fairly different from those described in existing studies on teaching English to large multilevel classes and also led to a more balanced picture of teaching and learning in large multilevel English classes.
The above findings lead to some pedagogical implications that the present study intends to advance for four parties involved in the relevant contexts, including
teachers and teacher educators of TESOL, stakeholders of teaching contexts other than teachers, and researchers of TESOL. The pedagogical implications are elaborated below.
6.2 Pedagogical Implications
In an attempt to provide a more holistic and in-depth understanding of teacher cognitions and practices of teaching in large multilevel English classrooms and to facilitate teaching in such contexts, the present study yields implications for four parties working in the relevant contexts, which include teachers, teacher educators, stakeholders of teaching contexts other than teachers, and researchers.
Employing Borg’s (2006) framework of elements and processes in language teacher cognition as the theoretical lens to view a teacher’s cognitions and practices of teaching large multilevel English classes, the present study finds that three
modifications might need to be made to the framework of Borg. First, in his framework, Borg delineated the impacts that language teachers’ experiences of schooling, professional coursework and prior classroom practices could have on their
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cognitions. However, he failed to recognize the experiences that language teachers develop outside the classroom, such as additional educational experiences and experiences of overseas educational visits, could also have considerable impacts on teachers’ cognitions. This study suggests that the framework should be extended to include the experiences that teachers acquire outside the walls of classrooms and recognize the impacts that these experiences can have on teachers’ cognitions. Second, although the framework indicated that reflection might play a mediating role in the impact of teachers’ prior teaching experiences on their cognitions, it did not give due recognition and value to reflection as it ought to be given. With support from the present and many other related studies (Bailey et al., 1996; Ellis, 2004; Farrell, 2007b;
Wallace, 1991), this study argues that reflective practice plays a more essential role in mediating the impact of teachers’ overall professional experiences on their cognitions and practices. Third, despite acknowledging the impact that contextual factors could have on teachers’ cognitions and classroom practices, Borg’s framework failed to point out that the extent to which teachers can carry out practices that conform to their cognitions is the interactive result of teaching contexts’ willingness to allow spaces for teachers to put their cognitions into practices and teachers’ internal capacity to find room to externalize their cognitions, which also has to do with the amount of time they had spent in the sites. This study suggests the impact of contextual factors on teachers’ cognitions and practices may be more appropriately understood as the interactive result of teachers’ capacity to find room for and the teaching contexts’
volition to allow spaces for teacher autonomy (Benson, 2010).
In addition to the implications advanced for the researchers, to assist teachers in gaining a deeper and more holistic understanding of their cognitions and practices in large multilevel English classes and hopefully in facilitating teachers’ teaching in the contexts, this study also proposes two suggestions for teachers and teacher educators.
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First, teachers may need to engage themselves in constant reflective practice so as to capitalize on their personally unique experiences and derive “nutrients” out of the experiences for their cognitions and practices of teaching large multilevel English classes (Bailey et al., 1996; Ellis, 2004; Farrell, 2007b; Wallace, 1991). Such
reflection could also assist teachers in gaining a more in-depth understanding of their teaching in that they would be more consciously aware of the relationships among their cognitions, practices and overall professional experiences. However, as not every teacher could engage themselves in reflective practice without difficulties, it is hence suggested that teacher educators can cultivate teachers’ abilities and skills in
reflectivity by teaching about reflection (Gunn, 2010; Liou, 2001), providing a supportive environment for reflection (Farrell, 1999; Liou, 2001; Orland-Barak &
Yinon, 2007; Wyatt, 2010) and offering an expert other (Farrell, 1999, 2007a;
Golombek and Johnson, 2004). Second, despite the recognition that certain contextual factors may hinder teachers from implementing classroom practices that reflect their cognitions, teachers need to be cautioned against internalizing those constraints to the
Golombek and Johnson, 2004). Second, despite the recognition that certain contextual factors may hinder teachers from implementing classroom practices that reflect their cognitions, teachers need to be cautioned against internalizing those constraints to the