Tài liệu An investigation into phuong dong university teachers' beliefs about teaching communicative activities in speaking lessons

M INISTRY OF EDUCATION AN D TRAINING HANOI UNIVERSITY DUONG TH I THIEN HA AN INVESTIGATION INTO PHUONG DONG UNIVERSITY TEACHERS’ BELIEFS ABOUT TEACHING COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES IN SPEAKING LESSONS SU B M IT T E D IN PA R T IA L FU L F IL L M E N T O F TH E R E Q U IR E M E N T S F O R TH E D EG R EE O F M A ST E R IN T E SO L SUPERVISOR: NGUYEN TH A I HA, M.Ed. AA^TRUHGTâiti ig g v THỜNfiTINĨHƯVIỆN ^ FDBTC 크 Г Н Г Hanoi- May, 2008. TABLE OF CONTENTS TABLE OF CONTENTS................................................................................................................................................. I ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS............................................................................................................................................Ill ABSTRACT........................................................................................................................................................IV LIST OF TABLES.......................................................................................................................................................... V CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION.................................................................................................................................... 1 1.1 BACKGROUND TO THE STUDY........................................................................................................................... 1 1 .1 .1 T h e o r etic al 1 .1 .2 Practical c o n s id e r a t io n .........................................................................................................................................................1 c o n s id e r a t io n ..............................................................................................................................................................2 1.2 AIMS OF THE THESIS........................................................................................................................................... 3 1.3 SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY............................................................................................................................4 1.4 SCOPE OF THE STUDY......................................................................................................................................... 5 1.5 OUTLINE OF THE THESIS.................................................................................................................................... 5 CHAPTER II: LITERATURE REVIEW...........................................................................................................................6 2.1 BELIEFS AND TEACHERS" BELIEFS...................................................................................................................... 6 2.2 A REVIEW OF PREVIOUS STUDIES ON TEACHERS" BELIEFS............................................................................9 2 .2 .1 B eliefs a n d prior l a n g u a g e le a r ning experiences ..............................................................................................................9 2 .2 .2 . B eliefs a n d te a c h e r e d u c a tio n ..............................................................................................................................................12 2 .2 .3 . BmEFS AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES..........................................................................................................................................15 2.3. METHODS FOR EXAMINING TEACHERS BELIEFS.........................................................................................18 2.4 COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES......................................................................................................................... 21 2 .4 .1 TYPES o f c o m m u n ic a t iv e 2 .4 .2 . Principles 2 .4 .3 T eachers ' a c tiv itie s .........................................................................................................................................22 o f im p l e m e n t in g th e c o m m u n ic a t iv e a c t iv it ie s ........................................................................................ 2 4 role in c o m m u n ic a t iv e ac tiv itie s ...................................................................................................................... 3 1 CHAPTER III: METHODOLOGY............................................................................................................................... 34 3.1 RESEARCH QUESTIONS.................................................................................................................................... 34 3.2 THE DEVELOPMENT OF VIGNETTES (APPENDIX 1 )...................................................................................... 34 3.3 SUBJECTS OF STUDY......................................................................................................................................... 36 3.4 PROCEDURE....................................................................................................................................................... 36 CHAPTER IV: DATA ANALYSIS AND DISCUSSION................................................................................................37 4 .1 D a t a A nalysis ..................................................................................................................................................................................37 4 .1 .1 . T eachers ' reac tio n t o th e fo ur sets o f d e c is io n s ......................................................................................................... 3 7 4 .1 .2 . P ractical a r g u m e n t s related t o 4 .1 .3 . V ig n ette 1 .................................................................................................................. 3 8 Practical a r g u m e n t s r e la te d t o V ig n ette 2 41 4 .1 .4 . PRACTICAL ARGUMENTS RELATED TO VIGNETTE 3 .................................................................................................................. 4 3 4 .1 .5 . P ractical a r g u m e n t s 4 .1 .6 . Se u h n it ia t e d related t o V ignette 4 ...................................................................................................................4 5 practical a r g u m e n t s ................................................................................................................................... 47 4.2. SUMMARY AND DISCUSSION....................................................................................................................... 47 4.3 RECOMMENDATIONS......................................................................................................................................52 CHAPTER V: CONCLUSION.................................................................................................................................... 54 REFERENCES............................................................................................................................................................56 APPENDIXES............................................................................................................................................................62 APPENDIX 1: A VIGNETTE-BASED INSTRUMENT FOR ELICITING TEACHERS BELIEFS ABOUT COMMUNICATIVE ACTIVITIES............................................................................................................................. 62 APPENDIX 2 :............................................................................................................................................................69 BACK GROUND QUESTIONNAIRE.........................................................................................................................69 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I acknowledge with profound gratitude a great many people who have had constant beliefs in me before and during my research. M y gratitude is specially expressed to Ms. Nguyen Thai Ha for being my thesis supervisor. I thank her for her endeavor in helping me to shape my ideas and realize my aims. I am so grateful for her constant and invaluable support and comments on the topic, methodology, and the logical flow o f the study. I also depend on her patient editing in an effort to help me write better. I have also been privileged to have her sharing with me the materials on the area o f teachers’ beliefs and communicative activities during the course o f my thesis writing, more meaningful, her telling me how to make use o f those materials. Her advice and support has mentally encouraged me to accomplish my thesis. M y very particular thanks go to all the lectures at Foreign Language Department in Phuong Dong University for being w illin g to participate in my study, for their cooperation during the process o f data collection. Finally, I also owe my husband, my respected parents and my younger brothers and sisters a debt o f gratitude for their spiritual support and stimulation whenever I got stressed during my thesis writing ABSTRACT Research on teaching has, during the past two decades, increasingly focused on beliefs that underline teachers’ classroom practices rather than on their behaviors. The teachers’ beliefs have been proved，in those studies, to “ strongly affect the materials and activities the teachers choose for the classroom， ’ (Borg, 2001). The aims o f this study were to investigate the beliefs o f English teachers in Phuong Dong University about teaching communicative activities in speaking lessons and the extent to which such beliefs influence their actual classroom practices. This idea was based on the premise that communicative language teaching (CLT) approach brings a theoretical but not a practical innovation to those teachers’ teaching. Two research questions have been made (1) what are the teachers5 beliefs about teaching communicative activities and (2) how do those beliefs influence the teachers teaching practices. In an effort to find out the answers to the research questions, Vignettes have been designed to collect the data. The respondents are 19 teachers who were responsible for teaching speaking and listening for English Department in Phuong Dong University. The results o f the present study show that, in their speaking lessons, the teachers’ teaching communicative activities bases on their beliefs about those activities. In other words, there is consistence between the teachers9 beliefs about teaching communicative activities and their teaching practices. Moreover, there exist teacher’s pre-existing beliefs, which have much influence on the teachers’ ways o f applying communicative activities in their teaching practices. The most important finding is that, the teachers themselves hold conflicting beliefs about teaching communicative activities that cause the hesitation to apply them in their teaching practices. Those conflicting beliefs are likely to result from the limitation in their understanding about those activities. Besides pointing to the need for further studies, the study brings out recommendations for teachers themselves，for the teacher educators，and teaching workshop organizers in professionally developing. LIST OF TABLES Table 1: Teachers’ reaction to the four sets o f decisions Table 2: Practical arguments related to the Vignette 1 Table 3: Practical arguments related to the Vignette 2 Table 4: Practical arguments related to the Vignette 3 Table 5: Practical arguments related to the Vignette 4 V CHAPTER I: INTRODUCTION This chapter starts with some practical and theoretical considerations that initiate the interest in the topic to be studied. The aims o f the study and the research questions are also presented. It states the significance o f the study and concluded with the outline o f the thesis. 1.1 Background to the study 1.1.1 Theoretical consideration Until the 1970s, researchers on teaching primarily focused on developing the teaching materials and methodologies to improve teachers9 teaching behaviors. However, the educational innovation resulted from those studies often failed because they did not match teachers’ ideas about what “ works” in practices (cf. Ghaith & Yaghi， 1997). That means，those studies were usually the descriptions o f what a teacher had to do in order to implement the new teaching materials and methodologies successfully or the researchers prescribed teachers9 behavior (Rosenshine & Steven, 1986). It was because o f the regular failures o f the educational innovation that “ the main stream educational research in the last 25years has recognized the impact o f teacher cognition on teachers9 professional lives and this has generated a substantial body o f research” (Borg, 2003:81). Consequently, research on teaching has increasingly focused on cognition that underline teachers’ classroom practice rather than on their behaviors (Calderhead， 1995, Woods, 1996， Carter, 1990). This was considered as paradigm shift in studies on teaching. A truth recognized by a number o f authors in this “ main stream ， ，is that teachers1 cognitions, although in many cases are unconsciously held, have an effect on their classroom behaviors, influence what students actually learn, and are a potential determinant o f teachers* teaching style ( Bennet， 1976; Clark and Peterson’ 1986; Bums, 1990; Nunan, 1990; and Stem and Keislar, 1977). Teachers’ cognitions were commonly defined as “ the set o f tacit beliefs and values about what constitutes effective foreign language teaching and learning” and “ formed through out the teacher’ s experiences as learner” (El-Okda, 2005:1). It follows, then, that the teachers9 tacit beliefs about teaching and learning might constitute the main component o f the knowledge base o f their teaching practices. This resulted in a fact that, when a new approach was introduced, it would be in competition with well-established theories o f language teaching and learning, which were the product o f previous teaching and learning experiences, prejudices, and beliefs (Freeman and Richards, 1993). Unless these tacit beliefs are uncovered, teachers would continue to teach in the same way as they were taught. This would prevent them from seeing other viable alternative route inside the classroom. The investigation o f teachers' tacit beliefs, therefore, can help teachers identify their difficulties when implementing curricular innovations in the classroom (Dingwall, 1985) which may enhance their professional teaching status, can help the educational researchers establish appropriate supports that are needed in in-service teacher development (Breen, 1991)，and may help the teachers’ educators make their teachers9 training courses more effective. 1.1.2 Practical consideration It is popularly known that, communicative language teaching (C LT)，w ith the goal o f teaching learners to use language for meaningful communication, “ has served as a major source o f influence on language teaching practice around the world” (Richard, 2006: 2). W ith its goal, communicative language teaching is concerned w ith all the skills and their use in a natural integrated manner, the emphasis o f this teaching approach, however, is particularly on communication and on ways o f promoting speaking skill (Sheils， 1993). Influenced by the above teaching innovation (C LT )，teachers o f English in Foreign Language Department in Phuong Dong University have an ambition to reach the goal o f developing the students9 communicative competence, specifically through speaking and listening lessons. This means, those teachers have to commit themselves to a communicative procedure in their teaching (see 2.5) not traditional ones. 2 However, CLT seems to be a theoretical innovation but not a practical innovation to those teachers. This is shown through a fact that, different teachers have different attitudes toward organizing and implementing communicative activities, regardless o f what the researchers think is good for learners’ communicative competence and the fact that teachers may have been equipped with principles to guide them in the teaching o f communicative activities. For example, some teachers think that it ， s better to help students to master grammatical structures before students speak while others choose to teach grammatical structures while or after students speak. Plus some teachers want students to discuss lessons in groups or in pairs while the others wish to make the discussions as the whole class so that they can control students speaking. Moreover, some teachers try to make students confident when speaking by supplying the most comprehensible materials while the others choose to give students the materials which resemble real- life situations even i f they are not easy to follow. It is clear that, apart from the general principles o f teaching communicative activities, there must be both subjective and objective reasons for these differences. In other words, beside the knowledge the researches provide teachers with, do teachers themselves have their own understanding o f the students, the activities, the materials? Or are there “ incompatibilities between the philosophy o f an approach and teachers’ theories” (Wagner, 1991) which possibly partly influence their teaching practices? I f yes what did teachers believe that shapes their teaching practice? Whether those beliefs “ strongly affect the materials and activities the teachers choose for the dassroom， ， ， (Borg， 2001)， are a potential determinant o f teachers' teaching style (Clark and Peterson, 1986) and make them “ interpret new information in the light o f their own theories” (Wagner, 1991)? And what formed those beliefs? Or to what extent did those beliefs influence their teaching practices? Those questions initiated the present study. 1.2 Aims of the thesis The aim o f the present study is to fin d out the university teachers，beliefs about teaching communicative activities in speaking lessons. 3 Specifically, it has the following objectives: • investigating the university teachers’ beliefs about teaching communicative activities in speaking lessons • examining i f the teachers9 beliefs have influence on their teaching practices In order to reach these aim s，the following questions were answered: • What are the university teachers’ beliefs about the ways communicative activities should be taưght in speaking lessons? • How do the teachers’ beliefs influence their teaching practices? 1.3 Significance of the study Uncovering teachers’ beliefs can lead to a better understanding o f the complexities o f teaching (Verloop， 1989) and, as such can contribute to more insight into the relationship between educational theories and teachers’ practices. This can shorten the gap between the theory and practice in language teaching, which is important when teachers apply a new teaching approach Moreover, there are a number o f teachers recruited every year in Phuong Dong University. Knowing how to elicit the teachers’ beliefs can be very helpful to those novice teachers when they are arranged to observe the senior teachers， lessons. As, w ith valid and reliable instrument which was expected to be found in this study novice teachers would find it easy to a have realistically complex picture o f the cognitive aspects o f teaching (Clark & Lampert, 1986) which help them identify what they want to look fo r，w hat they want to understand about the lessons o f the senior teachers. The present study, in addition, w ith the aim o f exploring EFL University teachers’ beliefs about teaching communicative activities in speaking lessons hopeftilly to has made a significant contribution to the attempt to investigate foreign or second language teachers， tacit beliefs about teaching. Because grammar teaching and literacy instructions in Teaching English as Foreign Language (EFL) and Teaching English as Second Language (լշ) contexts have been awarded some attention, however, “ other major areas, such as the teaching o f speaking and listening, remain unstudied from a teacher cognition perspective” , Borg (2003:105).. 1.4 Scope of the study The study is confined to the beliefs investigation o f teachers in English Department in Phuong Dong University, so the number o f respondents o f the present study is too small to be the representatives o f all EFL university teachers. This makes the conclusion made in this study not generalized. 1.5 Outline of the thesis The study starts with Chapter I which includes theoretical considerations and the practical o f the study, the aims o f the study and the research questions. It also states the significance and shows the scope o f the thesis. Chapter II, literature review, focuses on two main issues. One relates to beliefs, teachers’ beliefs and the methodologies used in the studies on teachers’ cognition. The other relates to communicative activities, the principles o f implementing the communicative activities, and, the role o f teacher in communicative activities. Chapter III restates the research questions, describes the instruments design and the procedures used. It also introduces the subject o f the study. Chapter IV presents and analyzes the data collected from the Vignette. Some discussions, recommendations and suggestions for fiirther studies are also presented in this chapter. Chapter V ， finally, completes the study w ith a brief overview o f what the researcher has done. 5 CHAPTER П: LITERATURE REVIEW Chapter II，literature review, focuses on two main issues. One relates to beliefs, teachers’ beliefs and the methodologies used in the studies on teachers9 cognition. The other relates to communicative activities, the principles o f implementing the communicative activities, and the role o f teacher in communicative activities. 2.1 Beliefs and teachers9 beliefs Since 1970s, there have been a variety o f studies on teachers’ beliefs. Respectively, the researchers have used various synonyms to define the word “ beliefs， ， (e.g. cognition, attitude, perceptions, conceptions, etc.). Dilts (1999) defined beliefs as judgments and evaluations that people make about themselves, about others and about the world around them. However, despite this seemingly simple definition, and despite the fact that they are considered “ the most valuable psychological construct to teacher education， , (Pintrich 1990)，beliefs are in fact d ifficult to conceptualize. It might be a reason why people use the word “ b e lie fs， ，a in a variety o f ways. In his insightful article on the problems o f researching the role o f teacher beliefs, Pajares said: “ •••Defining beliefs is at best a game o f player’s choice. They travel in disguise and often under alias—attitudes, values, judgments, axioms, opinions, ideology, perceptions, conceptions, conceptual systems, preconceptions, dispositions, im plicit theories, explicit theories, personal theories, internal mental processes, action strategies, rules o f practice, practical principles, perspectives, repertories o f understanding, and social strategy, to name but a few that can be found in the literature." (Pajares 1992: 309) This researcher also suggested a synthesis o f beliefs drawn from his review o f the literature on the topic which can be concluded that beliefs are formed early and tend to self- perpetuates and that “ individuals tend to hold on to beliefs based on incorrect or incomplete knowledge even after scientifically correct explanations are presented to them ， ， . Thus “ beliefs appear to be static, resistant to change and are generally not affected 6 by reading and applying the findings o f educational research” . Moreover, beliefs are hierarchical in nature, arranged to correspond with their attachment to other beliefs. The beliefs o f teachers, as inferred in his review, are created through a process o f accumulation and social construction as they negotiate their way through their own school experience. The Pajares’ review, also, illustrated the notion that beliefs play a critical role in defining behavior and organizing knowledge and information. This seems to be compatible with Richards’ s (1998: 66) idea when he defined teachers’ belief as: “ •••the information, attitudes, values, expectations, theories, and assumptions about teaching and learning that teachers build up over time and bring with them to the classroom ， ， . It can be interpreted from the above ideas that, teachers come to the classroom with their own system o f beliefs and, to some extent, these determine many o f the choices they make in relation to what and how they teach. Nespor (1987)，in a deeper sense，analyzed the reasons why teachers tend to rely more on their beliefs than on research-based theory. He said: “ ..•teachers’ beliefs play a major role in defining teaching tasks and organizing the knowledge and information relevant to those tasks. But why should this be so? Why wouldn’t research-based knowledge or academic theory serve this purpose just as well? The answer suggested here is that the contexts and environments within which teachers work, and many o f the problems they encounter, are ill-defined and deeply entangled, and that beliefs are peculiarly suited for making sense o f such contexts.” (Nespor 1987: 324) According to Nespor (1987)，beliefs are helpful in teachers’ problematic teaching contexts. As a results, teachers9 beliefs “ strongly affect the materials and activities the teachers choose for the classroom， ， ， (Borg, 2001). Similarly, Hampton (1994) noted that teacher’ beliefs or “ personal constructs” determine how they approach their teaching. Additionally, other researchers (e.g. Bailey, 1992; Golombek, 1998) affirmed the notion that changes in teachers，beliefs precede changes in their teaching practices. Therefore, investigations o f teachers’ beliefs is necessary in order to gain a better understanding o f what goes on in the classroom (Borg 2001) and the understanding o f belief structures o f educators is essential to improving teaching practices. 7 In this study, the term teachers，beliefs is defined as “ statements teachers made aboit their ideas, thoughts, and knowledge, that are expressed as evaluations o f what 'should \շ done， ，'s hould be the case，and 4s preferable， ， ，( E llis et al, 20이). This term can be fourd to be compati Die with the nature o f teachers’ beliefs listed above and with the meth(d used to elicit teachers’ beliefs in this study- the vignettes. It can be seen that the synonyms o f the word “ beliefs， ，that listed above share a lo t of similarities wmch make this word less abstract. There exists, however, a source of conftision about the concept o f beliefs, that is the distinction between beliefs aid knowledge. This confusion has resulted in difficulties in examining teachers’ behe:s (Clandinin & Connely, 1987). Several studies have found that beliefs are not so much different from knowledge since beliefs constitute a form o f knowledge (Clark ard Peterson 1986; Murphy 2000). Grossman, Wilson & Shulman (1989: 3) also set out о study what they perceive as teachers’ knowledge. Yet they concluded that “ while we ae trying to separate teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about subject matter for the purposes o f clarity, we recognize that the distinction is blurry the best” (Grossman, Wilson fe Shulman, 1989: 3). This is because, as Verloop et al. (2001:446) explained “ ...in tie mind o f the teacher, components o f knowledge, beliefs， conception, and intuitions are inextricably intertwined” . By contrast, according to Nespor (1987) beliefs and knowledge are different in sone ways. One important factor that could be drawn from Nespor’ s distinction o f beliefs ard knowledge is that beliefs are 4he bible5 or “ personal pedagogies or theories” which teachers rely on when they do not have sufficient knowledge and understanding about a given task. This author’ s distinction appears to match with his definition o f beliefs which was proved to be compatible w ith a lot o f other researchers， . It is not the purpose o f the above analysis to take part in the debate o f defining the word ^beliefs” , but to show how the word “ beliefs” is understood in this study. Moreover, the2 terms “ beliefs” and “ knowledge” are carefully distinguished to make sure that they æe not used interchangeably like in some other studies. 8 2.2 A review of previous studies on teachers9 beliefs The first study on teachers’ beliefs was conducted in the 1970s (Lortie, 1975). Over the last 25 years, there have been quantities o f studies on this field which, as reviewed in Borg (2003)，can be divided into 3 key themes: teachers，beliefs and prior language learning experience, teachers，beliefs and teacher education, and teachers，beliefs and classroom practice. According to Borg (2003)， s review, teachers，belief is an influencing factor to teachers， profession. Those beliefs are accumulated through teachers，prior language learning experience，and teacher education programs w ill have no effect on the trainees i f those trainees’ prior beliefs are ignored. Teachers， beliefs, in some cases, can be elicited from teachers’ teaching practices and teaching context is an influencing factor on the congruence between teachers’ beliefs and their instruction implementation. 2.2.1 Beliefs and prior language learning experiences The influence o f prior language learning experiences o f language teachers on their knowledge o f teaching and practices has been recently recognized in various studies in second language education and applied linguistics (Freeman, 1991; Numrich, 1996; Bailey et al., 1996; Woods, 1996; Golombek, 1998; Meijer et al., 2001; Borg, 2003). Freeman’ s (1991) longitudinal study addressed foreign language teachers’ perceptions o f classroom instruction w ith a focus on changes as they took part in an in-service graduate program. One o f the participant teachers in this study recollected how her experiences in her foreign language class shaped her classroom instruction: “ It seemed like the only way to do it [Spanish teaching]. That’ s the way I had gone from seventh grade all the way through college and, you know, that was normal. And I had learned that way and there I was teaching Spanish, and these kids would do the same” (Freeman, 1991: 443). Their narrative accounts summarized how the teachers’ instruction had been influenced by their language learning experiences Bailey et al. (1996) described a project in which seven M A candidates and a teacher educator investigated, through autobiographical writing and reflection on it, the role o f their language learning histories in shaping their current teaching philosophies and 9 practices. As a results, the writers identified several factors related to teaching and learning situations which had made their own language learning experiences positive: (1) teacher personality and style mattered more than methodology; (2) teachers were caring and committed, and had clear expectations o f their students; (3) teachers respected, and were respected by, the students; (4) as students, their motivation to learn enabled them to overcome inadequacies in the teaching; and (5) learning was facilitated by a positive classroom environment. By exploring their experiences in this manner, the authors o f this study felt they were able to begin to articulate their own theories o f teaching and to become aware o f their origins. They felt, quoting a similar study by Freeman (1992: 11) that 'the memories of instruction gained through their 'apprenticeship o f observation’ function as de facto guides for teachers as they approach what they do in the classroom， . Analyses o f actual practices, however, were not reported here. Johnson ( 1994) and Numrich (1996) did, in a better progress, shed light on how prior experience related to classroom practice. Johnson (1994) found that pre-service teacher’ instructional decisions during a practicum were based on images o f teachers, materials, activities, and classroom organization generated by their own experiences as L2 learners. She concludes that: pre-service ESL teachers9 beliefs may be based largely on images from their formal language learning experiences, and in all likelihood, w ill represent their dominant model o f action during the practicum teaching experience” . (Johnson, 1994: 450) Numrich (1996)，working with novice teachers, found that teachers decided to promote or to avoid specific instructional strategies on the basis o f their positive or negative experiences o f these respective strategies as learners. For example, 27% o f the teachers reported in their diaries that they attempted to integrate a cultural component into their teaching because they had found learning about the L2 culture to be an enjoyable part o f their L2 learning experiences. In contrast, the teachers noted that they avoided teaching grammar or correcting errors because their own experiences o f these aspects o f L2 10 instruction had been negative. With respect to the latter, Numrich (1996: 139) reports that: “ Error correction was most often cited as a technique that had been used by their language teachers and that had inhibited them from speaking. In some cases it had even turned them o ff to [sic] language learning because they had felt so humiliated and uncomfortable being corrected. Because o f negative experiences o f being corrected, several teachers chose not to interrupt their students’ flow o f speech in the classroom to correct errors” . Woods (1996) reported on a teacher whose beliefs about L2 learning were influenced by the fact that while years o f formal instruction in French did not enable him to communicate in the language，six months in the company o f French speakers developed his ability to do so. As a results, this teacher developed beliefs about the superiority o f communicative techniques over grammar-based techniques in promoting L2 learning. Further insight into the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their prior language learning experiences was provided by Eisenstein-Ebsworth and Schweers (1997). The authors used questionnaires with a total o f 60 university teachers o f ESL in New York and Puerto Rico, and informal interviews with eight o f these, to explore teachers’ views about conscious grammar instruction. The majority o f the teachers felt grammar should be taught at least sometimes，with the Puerto Rico teachers more in favor o f conscious instruction than the New York group. This was explained partly in terms o f the more traditional approach to language teaching generally advocated in Puerto Rico; as one teacher in the latter group explained, “ ••• grammar has always been part o f our language learning experience, we see no reason to abandon it totally” , (Eisenstein- Ebsworth & Schweers， 1997: 247). Forty-one o f the teachers reported having a well-defined approach to teaching grammar that they were confident in. The authors report that: .teachers’ ideas regarding grammar were generally well-developed. This was confirmed by their abilities to express clear and coherent rationales for their approaches to cuưiculum and pedagogy’， ，(Eisenstein-Ebsworth & Schweers, 1997: 251). In articulating their rationales, teachers referred to various factors shaping their views, such as student wants, and syllabus expectations. However, it was their experience as teachers and learners which emerged as a particularly powerful influence on their views about grammar teaching. Still, no observation o f teaching was conducted. 11 An observation o f teaching, however, could be seen in Golombek (1998) which discussed how teachers’ language learning experiences have affected their classroom practices. Two ESL college teachers in the study carried negative language learning experiences and turned them into positive ones for their learners. One o f the ESL teachers in the study recalled one o f those moments when her teacher corrected her mistakes while she was trying to speak: “ I could talk like anything, but when he started to check my grammar... I became terrified speaking in his class 9cause I know that I was going to be corrected. Golombek， 1998: 454). As she would not want her students to live through the same painful experiences, she adopted a reverse strategy: “ I just [•••] I wouldn’t want somebody doing that to me, so I can’t do that I guess” Golombek, 1998: 454) and applied it to her own teaching. The relationship between teachers，prior language learning experiences and their beliefs can be concluded as follow: “ Teachers，prior language learning experiences establish cognitions about learning and language learning which form the basis o f their initial conceptualizations o f L2 teaching during teacher education, and which may continue to be influential throughout their professional lives” (Borg, 2003:88). 2.2.2. Beliefs and teacher education Studies investigating the effects o f professional coursework on EFL teachers，beliefs are divided into two groups, focusing on pre-service and in-service teachers. Richards, Ho & Giblin (1996) studied five trainees on an introductory practicallyoriented teacher training course in Hong Kong and found changes in their cognitions in relation to (1) their conception o f their role in the classroom, (2) their knowledge o f professional discourse， (3) their concerns for achieving continuity in lessons, (4) common dimensions o f the teaching they found problematic (e.g., timing, presenting new language), and (5) the manner in which they evaluated their own teaching. For example, with respect to the development o f a professional discourse, the authors report that: “ by the end o f the course the trainees had completely internalized the discourse and metalanguage o f the course and were able to talk spontaneously and thoughtfully about their own and others， lessons，to compare and contrast performances，and to discuss 12