Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs: A Sociocultural Perspective [1st ed.] 9783030471699, 9783030471705

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English Language Education

Xinyu Mo

Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs A Sociocultural Perspective

English Language Education Volume 20

Series Editors Chris Davison, The University of New South Wales, Australia Xuesong Gao, The University of New South Wales, Australia Editorial Advisory Board Stephen Andrews, University of Hong Kong, China Anne Burns, University of New South Wales, Australia Yuko Goto Butler, University of Pennsylvania, USA Suresh Canagarajah, Pennsylvania State University, USA Jim Cummins, OISE, University of Toronto, Canada Christine C. M. Goh, National Institute of Education, Nanyang Technology University, Singapore Margaret Hawkins, University of Wisconsin, USA Ouyang Huhua, Guangdong University of Foreign Studies, Guangzhou, China Andy Kirkpatrick, Griffith University, Australia Michael K. Legutke, Justus Liebig University Giessen, Germany Constant Leung, King’s College London, University of London, UK Bonny Norton, University of British Columbia, Canada Elana Shohamy, Tel Aviv University, Israel Qiufang Wen, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China Lawrence Jun Zhang, University of Auckland, New Zealand

More information about this series at http://www.springer.com/series/11558

Xinyu Mo

Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs A Sociocultural Perspective

Xinyu Mo School of Foreign Languages Guangxi University of Science and Technology Liuzhou, Guangxi, China

ISSN 2213-6967     ISSN 2213-6975 (electronic) English Language Education ISBN 978-3-030-47169-9    ISBN 978-3-030-47170-5 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47170-5 © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 This work is subject to copyright. All rights are reserved by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors, and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, expressed or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. This Springer imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Switzerland AG. The registered company address is: Gewerbestrasse 11, 6330 Cham, Switzerland

Foreword

This book considers the complex issue of the teaching and learning of English language reading in a Chinese context and issues for teacher education. Invoking a theoretical framework grounded in teacher beliefs, it explores the context of the teaching and learning of reading in Chinese higher education. A strength of the book is that these issues are explored from the perspective of teachers’ personal beliefs, expectations, histories, as well as future imagined professional identities. The findings have wide ranging implications for educational policy, curriculum, pedagogy, and teacher education. In particular, these results contribute to the development of a knowledge base for the preparation of English language teachers and an effective model for the teaching of second language reading within China and beyond. The Education University of Hong Kong Ting Kok, Hong Kong

John Trent,

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Acknowledgments

During my Ph.D. journey, I have learned, experienced, and shifted myself to become a researcher on language teacher beliefs. Thanks to my past teaching experience, I can see the influence of my complex and contradictory beliefs on my teaching. However, the research project would not have been completed without the continued guidance, support, and encouragement from my supervisors, participants, friends, and family. Among them, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my principal supervisor, Dr. John Trent, for his invaluable guidance, support, and help throughout the journey. I particularly appreciate his meticulous attention to the thesis structure, key details, his patience in sharing his reflections on how to construct a conceptual framework, as well as his promptness in providing feedback of my drafts and responding to my e-mail inquiries. I also gratefully acknowledge all the participants in the study who were willing to share with me their beliefs, attitudes, feelings, and opinions about their teaching and work. Without their unselfish support, cooperation, and commitment to the study, I would not have finished such a strenuous project. I thank them for their time, patience, and willingness to share their stories and teaching experience with me. I want to extend my gratitude to participants’ universities, department deans, and classes of students who provided their support, hospitality, and contribution to the study. Many thanks go to my associate supervisor, Dr. Gregory Paul Fairbrother, who provided his guidance on my fieldwork and comments on the methodological aspect of the thesis. I would like to extend my thanks to Professor David Coniam, Jacqueline, and Dr. Fok who offered valuable opinions at the stage of developing the research proposal. I also acknowledge the Hong Kong SAR government, the University Grants Committee, and Graduate School of the Education University of Hong Kong for offering me a postgraduate scholarship and necessary financial assistance during my research journey.

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Abbreviations

BAK Belief, Assumption and Knowledge CET College English Test CLT Communicative Language Teaching CSES Civil Service Examination System EAP English for Academic Purposes EFL English as a Foreign Language ESL English as a Second Language ELT English Language Teaching GEC General English Course IELTS International English Language Testing System L2 Second Language MA Master’s Degree MOE Ministry of Education NEEC National Enrollment Examination for College PD Professional Development PNEE National Postgraduate Enrollment Examination PhD Doctor of Philosophy PPT (Microsoft) PowerPoint PoP Patterns-of-Participation QAUE Quality Assessment for Undergraduate Education SEC Specialist English Course SEL Social and Emotional Learning SET Student Evaluation of Teaching TCFL Teaching Chinese as a Foreign Language TBLT Task-Based Language Teaching TEM Test for English Majors TOEFL Test of English as a Foreign Language TU Teachers’ Unions

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Contents

1 Introduction����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������    1 1.1 An Overview of Teacher Belief Research����������������������������������������    2 1.2 Studies on Language Teacher Beliefs and Practices������������������������    4 1.3 Rationale and Aims of the Book ������������������������������������������������������    8 1.4 The Methodological Approach ��������������������������������������������������������   12 1.5 Structure of the Book������������������������������������������������������������������������   19 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   19 2 ELT and EFL Teachers in Chinese Universities������������������������������������   23 2.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   23 2.2 The Study of Chinese EFL Teacher Beliefs��������������������������������������   25 2.3 ELT Reform in Chinese Universities������������������������������������������������   27 2.4 EFL Reading Instruction in Chinese Universities����������������������������   30 2.5 Challenges for Chinese EFL Teachers����������������������������������������������   33 2.5.1 An Examination-Oriented Education������������������������������������   33 2.5.2 The Traditional Roles of the Teacher������������������������������������   35 2.5.3 Unfavorable Working Conditions ����������������������������������������   37 2.5.4 Barriers to Teachers’ Professional Development (PD) ��������   40 2.6 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   42 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   43 3 A Framework for Analyzing Teacher Beliefs����������������������������������������   49 3.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   49 3.2 A Sociocultural Perspective��������������������������������������������������������������   50 3.3 Defining Teacher Beliefs������������������������������������������������������������������   51 3.4 Theoretical Foundations��������������������������������������������������������������������   53 3.4.1 The General System Theory ������������������������������������������������   54 3.4.2 The Nature of Context����������������������������������������������������������   54 3.4.3 Theories of Action����������������������������������������������������������������   54 3.4.4 Patterns-of-Participation (PoP) ��������������������������������������������   55 3.4.5 Functions of Teacher Beliefs������������������������������������������������   56

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3.5 A Theoretical Model ������������������������������������������������������������������������   56 3.5.1 Theoretical Beliefs����������������������������������������������������������������   57 3.5.2 Action Beliefs ����������������������������������������������������������������������   57 3.5.3 Context Beliefs����������������������������������������������������������������������   57 3.5.4 Beliefs About Teachers’ Roles����������������������������������������������   58 3.5.5 The Belief System����������������������������������������������������������������   59 3.6 The Underlying Assumptions of the Theoretical Model������������������   59 3.7 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   61 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   62 4 Theoretical Beliefs������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   65 4.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   65 4.2 Reading for Expanding Vocabulary Knowledge ������������������������������   66 4.3 Reading for Gaining Structural Knowledge��������������������������������������   70 4.4 Reading for Building Background Knowledge��������������������������������   72 4.5 Reading for Promoting Students’ Comprehension ��������������������������   75 4.6 Reading for Enhancing Students’ Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������   78 4.7 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   82 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   84 5 Action Beliefs��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   87 5.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������   87 5.2 Teaching Background Knowledge for Comprehension��������������������   88 5.3 Building Main-Idea Comprehension������������������������������������������������   93 5.4 Promoting Comprehension by Focusing on Key Details������������������   98 5.5 Building Rapport with Students��������������������������������������������������������  103 5.6 Developing Language Skills for English Exams������������������������������  106 5.7 (In)consistencies Between Theoretical Beliefs and Action Beliefs����������������������������������������������������������������������������  109 5.8 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  112 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  113 6 Context Beliefs������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  115 6.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  115 6.2 Concerns on Teachers’ Workload ����������������������������������������������������  116 6.2.1 Instructional Work����������������������������������������������������������������  116 6.2.2 Non-Instructional Work��������������������������������������������������������  119 6.3 Concerns on Instructional Freedom��������������������������������������������������  122 6.3.1 Student Characteristics���������������������������������������������������������  122 6.3.2 Assessment Practices on Student Learning��������������������������  125 6.3.3 High-Stakes Tests������������������������������������������������������������������  126 6.4 Concerns on Teacher Evaluation������������������������������������������������������  129 6.4.1 The Annual Assessment��������������������������������������������������������  129 6.4.2 Academic Promotion������������������������������������������������������������  132 6.5 Teachers’ Sense of Vulnerability������������������������������������������������������  134 6.6 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  137 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  138

Contents

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7 Beliefs About Teachers’ Roles ����������������������������������������������������������������  141 7.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  141 7.2 The Sense of Responsibility��������������������������������������������������������������  142 7.3 Love for Students������������������������������������������������������������������������������  144 7.4 Job Satisfaction ��������������������������������������������������������������������������������  146 7.5 The Adaptive Function����������������������������������������������������������������������  148 7.6 Conclusion����������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  152 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  153 8 Conclusion������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  155 8.1 Introduction��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  155 8.2 A Summary of Participants’ Beliefs and Practices ��������������������������  156 8.2.1 Angel’s Beliefs and Practices�����������������������������������������������  156 8.2.2 Linda’s Beliefs and Practices������������������������������������������������  157 8.2.3 Edith’s Beliefs and Practices������������������������������������������������  158 8.2.4 Lynch’s Beliefs and Practices ����������������������������������������������  158 8.2.5 Leon’s Beliefs and Practices ������������������������������������������������  159 8.2.6 Lychee’s Beliefs and Practices����������������������������������������������  160 8.3 A Shared Belief System��������������������������������������������������������������������  161 8.3.1 Being Sensitive to Situational Demands������������������������������  162 8.3.2 Having an Affective and Evaluative Component������������������  163 8.3.3 Having an Adaptive Function�����������������������������������������������  164 8.3.4 Being Interwoven with Teacher Knowledge������������������������  164 8.3.5 Having a Hierarchical Structure��������������������������������������������  165 8.3.6 Having Dynamic Interactions Within and Across Groups of Beliefs������������������������������������������������������������������  166 8.3.7 Being Related to Teacher Identity����������������������������������������  166 8.4 Methodological Implications������������������������������������������������������������  167 8.4.1 Considering the Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Teacher Beliefs ����������������������������������������������������������������  168 8.4.2 Studying the Initial Conditions of Participant Teachers ������  168 8.4.3 Unveiling the Complex Relationships of the Belief System������������������������������������������������������������������������  169 8.4.4 Recognizing the Affective and Evaluative Nature of Teacher Beliefs ����������������������������������������������������������������  169 8.5 Practical Implications������������������������������������������������������������������������  169 8.5.1 Critical Incident Analysis������������������������������������������������������  170 8.5.2 Administrative Documents Analysis������������������������������������  171 8.5.3 Academic Reading����������������������������������������������������������������  171 8.5.4 Self-Observation ������������������������������������������������������������������  172 8.6 The Limitations of the Study������������������������������������������������������������  173 References��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  174 Appendices��������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������������  177

List of Boxes

Box 5.1: The Use of the Teacher-Led Approach in the Teaching of Background Knowledge............................................................89 Box 5.2: The Use of the Interactive Approach in the Teaching of Background Knowledge............................................................90 Box 5.3: The Use of the Student-Centered Approach in the Teaching of Background Knowledge............................................................92 Box 5.4: The Use of the Inductive Approach in Global Reading..................94 Box 5.5: The Use of the Deductive Approach in Global Reading.................97 Box 5.6: The Use of the Selective Approach in Detailed Reading................99 Box 5.7: The Use of the Holistic Approach in Detailed Reading..................100 Box 5.8: The Use of Social Talks in Lychee’s Lesson...................................104 Box 5.9: The Training of Reading Skills in Leon’s Exercise Lesson............107 Box 5.10: Analyzing Text Structures in Linda’s Exercise Lesson...................108 Box 5.11: Analyzing an If-Clause Exercise in Edith’s Lesson........................110

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List of Figures

Fig. 1.1 Linda’s concept map about reading instruction....................................16 Fig. 1.2 An example of a thematic analysis on context beliefs.........................18 Fig. 3.1 A theoretical model of teacher beliefs in EFL reading instruction......60 Fig. 4.1 A goal structure of reading instruction shared by participants.............84

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List of Tables

Table 1.1 A summary of participants’ demographic information......................14 Table 1.2 A summary of data collection strategies............................................15 Table 1.3 A description of five interviews in the study.....................................16

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Chapter 1

Introduction

“Stones from other hills may serve to polish the jade of this one.” An ancient Chinese proverb

Originating from the song Crane Screams in the Book of Songs, the saying means that the talents from other countries could be used to serve one’s own country. It implies an inclusive attitude towards talented people who can make a positive contribution to one’s country without considering their foreign origins. Sometimes it means getting help from other people to improve oneself. There are many examples in Chinese history that illustrate the theory referred to by this proverb. For example, Shang Yang was a talented statesman who initially worked a counselor with a lowly position for the State of Wei during the Warring States period of ancient China. Later, the emperor of the State of Qin appreciated his political talent and promoted him as the Chief Adviser. He kept his position for about 10 years and adopted many effective reform policies and measures, which enabled Qin State to defeat other states and paved the way for uniting the country for the first time. In social science research, the proverb may imply the belief that theories or research findings from other fields could be used to resolve the core issues in one particular area. In other words, it offers alternative ways to approach the research problems by borrowing or elaborating theories from other disciplines. The proverb sheds some light on the current research project, in which I will elaborate theories from other fields and develop a framework for analyzing participant teachers’ beliefs. Over the past few decades, many researchers have confirmed the important role of teachers’ beliefs in educational research (Borg, 2003, 2006; Clark & Peterson, 1986; Fang, 1996; Pajares, 1992; Skott, 2015). These researchers generally argue that teachers hold a wide range of beliefs regarding their instruction, students and their learning, context, curriculum and so on, as well as that teacher

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 X. Mo, Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs, English Language Education 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47170-5_1

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1 Introduction

beliefs have dynamic interactions with their classroom practices, are often shaped by extensive professional training experience, a variety of contextual factors and their prior learning experience, and are interwoven with other mental constructs such as teacher motivations, values, attitudes and so on. Unfortunately, the empirical study of teacher beliefs has been much hampered by a number of conceptual and methodological issues (Pajares, 1992; Skott, 2015). If empirical researchers want to consolidate its position in educational research, they should pay adequate attention to a number of critical issues such as the complexity of teacher beliefs, dynamic interactions with practices, and perplexing influences from various contextual factors. In other words, they should treat teacher beliefs as an ecological system comprised by a set of interrelated beliefs, examine their social practices beyond classroom teaching, and interpret teacher beliefs from a holistic picture of their work and lives. In this case, I attempt to respond to these issues by adopting a sociocultural perspective and construct a theoretical model to analyze a set of key beliefs held by teachers. The following sections of this chapter frame the book by providing an overview of teacher belief research first, and then focusing on studies regarding teacher beliefs and practices, elaborating the aims of the book, introducing the methodological design of the study, and discussing the structure of the book.

1.1  An Overview of Teacher Belief Research Although research on teacher beliefs dated back to the 1950s, it did not become a key theme of inquiry in the field of educational research until the early 1980s. The study of teacher beliefs was significantly influenced by the changing orientations in educational reform and shifting paradigms in the research of teaching. Prior to the 1970s, research in general education focused on the delivery of content while giving little attention to the role of teacher for creating opportunities to facilitate students’ learning. Such an approach sought to carefully sequence the teaching content and analyze the instructional process as a series of observable effective practices while paying little attention to complex types of purposeful actions and decisions made while the teacher positioned himself/herself in the curriculum development (Skott, 2015). The approach of teaching research in the 1970s, known as the process-product approach, was primarily based on the assumption that certain teaching acts and conditions would affect student learning outcomes, which was demonstrated in the model proposed by Dunkin and Biddle (1974). It included four types of variables: process, product, presage, and context. Product variables referred to a variety of student outcomes such as their academic achievement, attitudes, and motivation towards learning. Process variables were concerned with conditions that could facilitate or impede student learning (outcomes). Presage variables involved the characteristics and prior knowledge of students while condition variables took account of relevant factors that would affect student learning. The model focused on studying

1.1  An Overview of Teacher Belief Research

3

the link between student learning and teachers’ observable behaviors. Although it took into account presage variables that would affect teachers’ behaviors, it gave little attention to the role of teachers’ thought processes which would shape their behaviors. Studies within this approach were often conducted under laboratory conditions; data were collected by using observable categories of conditions and data analysis were relatively decontextualized and objectified in search of generalizable principles readily applied to classroom teaching (Beattie, 1995; Fang, 1996). Moreover, it viewed teaching as a set of discrete behaviors which denied the complexity of human interaction in classrooms and reduced teaching to a set of quantifiable behaviors and assumed a direct link to students’ learning outcomes (Smith, 1965). The mid-1970s marked a growing interest in the study of teacher thinking. With the advent of cognitive psychology, sociology, anthropology, and qualitative methodology, researchers began to describe teaching as a thoughtful profession in which teachers’ thoughts, judgements, and decisions were seen as cognitive processes that shape their classroom practices (Freeman & Johnson, 1998). The new line of research aimed at enhancing our understanding of how and why the process of teaching looks and works the way it does (Clark & Peterson, 1986). Researchers of teacher thinking emphasized the need of understanding classroom processes from the teacher’s perspective, defining them as the planner, decision-maker and problem solver of curriculum enactment. It coincides with a set of reform initiatives that require the teacher to play a central role in the implementation of the curriculum. The reform initiatives reflect the changing orientation on learning and the content to be taught in educational reforms (Skott, 2015). Researchers on teacher thinking attempt to understand how the teacher makes sense of work and lives, adjusts to new educational reforms, and creates the educational environment within their schools and classrooms. In the diagrammatic overview of teacher thinking research, Shavelson and Stern (1981) conceptualize the relationship between teacher cognition and classroom practices as a circular rather than a linear process. Teacher cognition is considered as a primary factor in shaping classroom events which in turn can influence teachers’ subsequent pedagogical thoughts. The recognition of the two-way interaction between them is an important step forward in conceptualizing the relationship between beliefs and practices in the field of teacher beliefs research, which reflects a more sophisticated view of teaching other than the unidirectional assumption in the early process-product approach to the research of teaching. In another perspective, Shulman (1987) introduces the notion of pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) to this field. Given the fact that teachers’ subject knowledge and pedagogy are divided into separated entities in educational research, Shulman emphasizes the need for elaboration of knowledge in the two fields. He conceptualizes teachers’ knowledge in terms of subject content knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and curricular knowledge. Shulman contributes to the field of teacher thinking by conceptualizing teachers’ knowledge from the psychological perspective and connecting teachers’ knowledge with their thinking.

4

1 Introduction

Since the 1990s, there has been a dramatic increase in empirical research on teacher beliefs. It was widely acknowledged that teacher beliefs play a crucial role in changing teachers’ practices (Lerman, 2002; Wilson & Cooney, 2002). Fenstermacher (1979) argues that if our purpose and intent are to change the practices of those who teach, it is necessary to take into account their subjectively reasonable beliefs. In other words, teacher beliefs serve as a filter or an interpretive device to transform curricular intentions developed elsewhere (Kagan, 1990; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992). Researchers in this field tried to establish teacher beliefs as an explanatory and predictive precursor for explaining their practices (Fives & Buehl, 2012). However, a few researchers, though acknowledging the significance associated with the implementation of educational reform, primarily viewed beliefs as an obstacle to educational change (Skott, 2009). The situation was often evident in the explicit statement of many national curricula which nominally called for teachers to abandon their ‘old’ beliefs based on traditional teaching and establish ‘new’ beliefs in line with the principle of educational reforms. As a result, the research interest in this field was largely driven by the rhetorical questions of how teachers’ existing beliefs match with new curriculum reforms; if those are not shared by the reform initiatives, then educational reformers are responsible for implanting consistent ones in teachers’ minds. To discern from the early research paradigm influenced by the information-­ processing theory and the process-product approach to teaching research, Borg (2003) terms the domain as teacher cognition research which broadly refers to what teachers know, believe and think about their teaching. He emphasizes the central position of teacher cognition in teachers’ work and lives and includes a variety of psychological constructs under the overall term of teacher cognition. He proposes an overarching framework connecting teacher cognition research to the mainstream educational research such as teacher education, teacher effectiveness, curriculum development, action research, and educational ethnography.

1.2  Studies on Language Teacher Beliefs and Practices The range of teacher cognition research is arguably infinite as teachers’ cognition may involve any aspect of their professional lives (Borg, 2006). However, the relationship between beliefs and practices remains one of the recurring themes among the work of many researchers. At the time of literature review, my research of articles from three databases such as ScienceDirect, Taylor & Francis, and Wiley-­ Blackwell, generated 29 qualitative studies. Among them, five studies indicate a consistent relationship between beliefs and practices while the remaining studies suggest that beliefs and practices are inconsistent with each other in particular aspects, which are often attributed to some situational constraints. Among the studies reporting a consistent relationship, Min (2013) found that an EFL teacher’s beliefs and practices about written feedback were generally kept consistent over the semester. This attributes congruence to the role of the teacher’s

1.2  Studies on Language Teacher Beliefs and Practices

5

awareness-public articulation and demonstration of her beliefs in classes as well as increasing procedural knowledge on how to provide feedback. Another year-long study (Sato & Kleinsasser, 2004) revealed that teacher beliefs and practices regarding professional development remained consistent within a technical school culture. However, results of the study suggest that participants lacked communication on instructional issues which kept them from discussing substantive teaching issues in depth and collaborating on various curriculum issues. The study highlights the importance of teachers’ collaboration, as it serves to reinforce their existing practices but erodes their motivation to learn to teach when they lack learning opportunities. It is worth noting that the study’s findings are primarily based on the qualitative analysis of 19 EFL teachers which greatly outnumbers a typical case study. Nonetheless, authors of these studies do not interpret the congruity in the absolute sense but the relative one, emphasizing the general or overall congruence in spite of some minor discrepancies between beliefs and practices, or some similarities or differences among their beliefs or practices. For instance, Farrell and Kun (2007) found that most of three EFL teachers’ practices were in alignment with their stated beliefs, but the study indicates that many complex beliefs could sometimes be in conflict with each other and exert a profound influence on their practices. It means that most of the practices are consistent with some key beliefs but not all the beliefs. Similarly, Niu and Andrews (2012) suggest that teacher beliefs and practices on vocabulary instruction were generally consistent and demonstrated characteristics of a communicative approach. They attributed such consistencies to the instructional culture which encouraged them to follow a CLT approach and utilized the theme-based and activity-centered course books. In contrast, a large number of studies report incongruence between them. Among them, a few researchers suggest the sociocultural dimension of teachers’ situations such as teaching and learning culture, instructional practices, the examination-­ oriented education or the traditional approach of teaching (Farrell & Lim, 2005; Lee, 2008; Zhang & Liu, 2011). It is worth noting the cultural dimension includes many specific factors. But these studies just examine context factors in an immediate context of classroom teaching without taking a further look at the broad context of the teachers’ work and lives. In several studies, the tension between beliefs and practices is created by the curricular dimension including the principles or policies brought by the implementation of the new curriculum, language policies, insufficient equipment or materials, inadequate time; students’ low proficiency; lack of teachers’ training, the prescribed or mandated curriculum or means of assessment (Orafi & Borg, 2009; Tayjasanant & Barnard, 2010; Zheng, 2013). Nonetheless, how these contextual factors interact with each other and exert a profound influence on the teacher beliefs and practices is seldom discussed in these studies. Authors of several studies attribute the incongruence to internal factors such as the teachers’ experience, collaboration, learning opportunities, freedom to teach and teacher evaluation (Erkmen, 2014; Hongboontri & Keawkhong, 2014; Yang & Gao, 2013; Zheng & Borg, 2014). Among these factors, teaching experience is seen as one of the most influential. In a study, experienced teachers were found to demonstrate more divergence when confronted with challenges from curriculum reform.

6

1 Introduction

However, they retained the traditional approach (focusing on forms and grammar elements) while the other three young teachers displayed more commitment to keep their beliefs and practices in line with the principles advocated by the curriculum (Zhang & Liu, 2014). In another study by Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, and Thwaite (2001), experienced teachers developed a more consistent set of personalized practices and principles associated with their teaching, but the internal factors are seldom examined together with the external ones, which suggests a fragmented view on the incongruence. Another source responsible for the incongruence is the complexity of beliefs. A few researchers suggest that the construct of teacher beliefs can be best understood as a complex system and the relationship between them is not a one-to-one correspondence. For example, Breen et al. (2001) found a complicated relationship existing between beliefs and practices because a single belief was associated with a range of practices while a single practice may be the expression of more than one principle. Li (2013) found that there was not a strict one-to-one correspondence between beliefs and practices; Farrell and Lim (2005) indicated that the teachers had a complex beliefs system, which was not fully enacted in their instructional practices. Similarly, Zheng (2013) suggested that different types of beliefs, though sometimes possibly in conflict, coexisted within a system; the interactions of these beliefs largely determined the relationship between beliefs and practices. The last source for incongruity involves the methodological perspective. For example, Basturkmen, Loewen, and Ellis (2004) found that teacher participants seldom addressed constraints or factors that hindered them from enacting their beliefs during the stimulated recall interview. Authors of the study attributed this to two possible reasons. Firstly, the interview questions did not directly ask them to evaluate what factors influence the instructional decisions; secondly, the interview was conducted with the audio-recorded rather than video-recorded lessons, which were thought to do a better job in helping them recall the classroom episodes. In other words, the inconsistent relationship may be caused by methodological issues such as the teachers’ unfamiliarity of terms used in the interview or questionnaire. However, such issues are seldom discussed in the study of the relationship between beliefs and practices. Although the above studies contribute to a better understanding of the relationship between beliefs and practices, they are criticized due to the following problems: 1. The term teacher beliefs has been used in an ambiguous way. One of the most serious problems of these studies is the absence of a coordinated effort to provide a consistent definition which can be accepted by most researchers within one particular field and other relevant fields. Perhaps giving a definition is not so difficult because many researchers have proposed several definitions (Kagan, 1992; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992; Richardson, 1996; Rokeach, 1968). But it seems to be much more difficult to get authors of these studies to define and use the term of teacher beliefs consistently (Fives & Buehl, 2012). In language teacher cognition research, Borg (2006) points out that this messy situation is characterized by a variety of similar constructs that have been posited to describe,

1.2  Studies on Language Teacher Beliefs and Practices

7

partly or wholly, the psychological context of language teaching. Such a situation can be detrimental to the development of this field, and thus Borg suggests a more inclusive term of language teacher cognition which, as he maintains, can be more productive in research activities. But it seems that we need to move a little forward and engage with the effort to define aspects of teacher beliefs that are significant and worthwhile for teachers’ teaching, professional development and teacher education (Richardson, 1990). 2. The construct of teacher beliefs has seldom been studied as a system. Although teacher beliefs can be simply referred to as a mental construct, the complexity of teacher beliefs goes beyond the expectations of many researchers. First of all, teachers may not develop a single belief but a set of interrelated beliefs in different areas. A few theorists (Fives & Buehl, 2012; Pajares, 1992; Skott, 2009) also support the notion of teacher beliefs as a complex system. Findings of several studies suggest that beliefs exist as a complex system (Breen et al., 2001; Li, 2013; Phillips & Borg, 2009; Zheng, 2013, 2015). If different beliefs coexist within a system, there may be some consistencies or inconsistencies between them. But very few researchers adopt the holistic approach to examine different aspects of beliefs in their situations simultaneously. 3. The contextual influence on teacher beliefs has been studied in a fragmented way. A large number of studies across situations has demonstrated the role of contextual factors in mediating the relationship between teacher beliefs and practices (Basturkmen, 2012). Findings of these studies also show that teachers, in the real teaching world, work under various pressures or challenges. Both external and internal factors may hinder or support the enactment of teacher beliefs to some extent, and therefore the relationship between them is not always a harmonious one. Findings of these studies suggest many contextual factors may influence teacher beliefs and practices. However, current studies seem to fall into a trap by producing “a laundry list of observations, factors, or categories, illustrated by quotes from participants, that misses the links between the categories, essentializes particular descriptions, and fails to describe the larger picture where they may fit” (Pavlenko, 2007, p. 167). In other words, the authors of these studies place too much emphasis on the influence of individual contextual factors while neglecting how these factors interact with each other and have a profound impact on teacher beliefs. 4. Many studies lack methodological rigor. Current studies are characterized by the use of the quantitative and qualitative approach. With the former, researchers develop standardized instruments by requiring teachers to respond to a number of prescribed items with an appropriate number indicating their degree of agreement. These items are developed on the assumption that the teachers and researchers interpret the connotations of the items in a similar way; it is also expected that the way that teachers respond to any item is sufficiently transparent for the researcher to interpret it meaningfully. Skott (2015) criticizes that the inference of teacher beliefs would be unwarranted if either of the two assumptions fails to apply. Speer (2005) suggests that researchers and teachers may not have shared perceptions and understandings of the concept of belief. Given the

8

1 Introduction

potential risks of using the standardized instruments, many researchers turn to the latter approach. Other researchers argue that teacher beliefs are rather elusive and neither the standardized instrument nor qualitative interview is able to capture the true meaning of teacher beliefs. As Kagan (1992) points out, teachers may not be aware of the existence of their beliefs and lack a necessary vocabulary or language to accurately describe what they believe. Since beliefs may be interrelated with other constructs such as identity, value, attitude or motivation, it seems a stranuous task to clarify these concepts and set clear boundaries for teacher beliefs in these studies. These methodological problems, however, are seldom discussed by authors of current studies. 5. Current studies have investigated a limited range of geographical and institutional contexts. According to Borg’s (2003, p.83) survey on 64 published studies between 1976 and 2002, 17 studies have been conducted in the USA, 11 studies in Hong Kong, nine in the UK, seven in Canada and five in Australia. It seems that these studies are dominated by educational contexts in Western countries but unfortunately very few studies examine EFL teacher beliefs, particularly for those working in mainland China. At the time of this study, the situation has changed slightly with a small number of studies on internationally published journals (Li, 2013; Yang & Gao, 2013; Zheng, 2013, 2015; Zheng & Borg, 2014) but a thorough understanding of Chinese EFL teacher beliefs is still a long way away. In sum, the empirical research on EFL/ESL teacher beliefs is flawed with these problems, which are more or less discussed by belief researchers in other subject areas. Without recognition of these problems, it seems that a significant advancement in EFSL/ESL teacher beliefs research would not occur. Pajares (1992) points out that the construct of teacher beliefs becomes the most important inquiry in educational research only when four key conditions are fully met: when teacher beliefs are clearly conceptualized, when key assumptions of teacher beliefs are carefully examine; when precise meanings of teacher beliefs are consistently understood and adhered to; and when specific beliefs are properly investigated and assessed.

1.3  Rationale and Aims of the Book As shown above, the study of language teacher beliefs suffers from a series of problems such as the fragmented view, terminology diffusion, a limited range of institutional and geographic contexts, and methodology shortcomings (Borg, 2006). Fortunately, these problems are now receiving more attention, and more adequate approaches are being formulated. Fives and Buehl (2012) argue that teacher beliefs are multi-functional, as some filter information and experiences, others frame pedagogical problems, and others guide actions. Skott (2015) reminds us to adopt a more dynamic perspective on the role of teacher beliefs on practices. In this case, my attempt to respond to these problems begins with designing a small study addressing the following aspect:

1.3  Rationale and Aims of the Book

9

1. Defining the construct of teacher beliefs more consistently. Defining the construct of teacher beliefs means not only giving a consistent definition but also identifying the significant and worthwhile contents of teacher beliefs. From more than 300 reviewed studies, Fives and Buehl (2012) identify five domains of teacher beliefs such as beliefs about self, context or environment, content or knowledge, specific teaching practices, teaching approach, and students. These domains probably indicate the significant and worthwhile contents of beliefs held by teachers across different subject areas. However, the significance or worthiness of these categories needs further confirmation, debates on the key content of teacher beliefs will inevitably continue as long as the field remains a key inquiry in educational research. But what is required at the minimum level is to consistently define a term for any study that aims at investigating teacher beliefs in any subject. 2. Being aware of the complexity of teacher beliefs. For the past two decades, the study of language teacher cognition has been charged by the position that “we tend to focus on measuring isolated constructs in an isolated manner without setting into a bigger picture of who the teachers are, what they are striving to accomplish in their interactions with their students, colleagues, and parents and why” (Kubanyiova, 2012, p. 23). Such a charge can be applied to the research on teacher beliefs. As a key inquiry, the study of teacher beliefs is mostly driven by the immediate need to improve teacher effectiveness without addressing broader aspects such as teachers’ professional development, teacher evaluation, teacher education programs, or the school teaching cultures. It is true that teachers’ mental world and mental activities are far more complicated than findings of present studies can describe. As an integral part of teacher cognition, teacher beliefs have extricable links with their identities, emotions, motivation and other mental constructs. Kubanyiova (2012, p. 64) further argues “we do not know how what teachers think, believe and know relates to what they are passionate about, who they yearn to become and how they negotiate and, even more importantly, transcend images and expectations in the social, cultural and historical macro-structures of their teaching world.” In this regard, the interdisciplinary topics such as teacher beliefs about their roles, self-efficacy, expectations, school contexts, and professional development are worth investigating as they are helpful for unveiling the complex links to other mental constructs. Unfortunately, current studies of teacher beliefs, particularly those related to ESL/EFL teachers, have done little to expand our understanding of these aspects. 3. Developing conceptual frameworks on teacher beliefs. The field of language teacher cognition has been criticized for the lack of programmatic research agenda within which a unifying framework can be used to guide overall research activities (Borg, 2006). Despite a lack of theoretical framework in this field, valuable attempts in recent years have been made to change this situation. For example, Borg (2006) proposes an integrative model which puts language teacher cognition at the center of teachers’ mental lives. Drawing on the complexity theory (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008), Zheng (2013, 2015) offers

10

1 Introduction

an analytic framework which portrays teacher beliefs as complex systems with a variety of elements and agents interacting with each other in different ways. Skott (2009, 2013) puts forward the PoP (Patterns-of-participation) model that aims to understand teachers’ classroom practices from a new perspective. These models, influenced by the sociocultural and critical approaches in different disciplines, are valuable theoretical footings for exploring EFL/ESL teacher beliefs. Here I would like to argue that it is necessary to develop alternative frameworks from other disciplines, as these new perspectives can enrich our understanding of existing theories. What is more important, we also need continuous “debate and cross-fertilization among researchers pursuing truly divergent approaches” (Pekrun & Schutz, 2009, p.  315) which is crucial for the advancement in this field. But developing frameworks is never the final step but the first step which should be followed by another essential step involving “systematic empirically driven theory-­ building effort which integrate, and if necessary, challenge theorizing from across the disciplinary and epistemological spectrum” (Kubanyiova, 2012, p.  26). In a word, theory-building and systematic empirical investigation are two key steps for developing conceptual frameworks which can further strengthen the position of teacher beliefs in educational research. 4. Examining contextual factors in a more holistic way. To better understand the role of contextual factors in shaping beliefs and practices, researchers need to pause and reflect on the construct of context used in their studies. Inspired by the ecological theory Buehl and Beck (2015) develop a comprehensive model to examine internal and external factors that may influence teacher beliefs and practices. In this model, these factors are classified as the support or hindrance to the enactment of beliefs. External factors involve many contextual factors such as student ability, testing and accountability, curriculum standards, educational policies, and others, which spread at the level of classroom, school, district, nation and state. These external factors indeed represent numerous context variables organizing within a structural system but existing studies neither examine contextual factors in a holistic way nor address the structure of contextual factors in specific situations. 5. Increasing methodological and interpretive rigor. One important component of methodological rigor is concerned with transparency in data collection and analysis, or the extent to which the process of data collection and analysis is fully described and an adequate description of how the researcher utilizes these techniques in the analytic process (Fossey et al., 2002). One good practice in methodological rigor is to present a clear research design. Although it does not follow a set of fixed procedures, qualitative research does have a design; otherwise, it would be misleading (Bogdan & Biklen, 2002). My brief review of the above studies, however, indicates that about half of them did not explicitly address a specific approach and the majority of the studies fail to present a clear research design. Typically, teachers’ stated beliefs are compared with their observed practices, discrepancies or tensions between two sets of data attribute to specific

1.3  Rationale and Aims of the Book

11

contextual factors. Many belief researchers tend to adopt this approach in their studies but they fail to address the structure of contextual factors. Interpretive rigor, as described by Fossey, Harvey, McDermott, and Davidson (2002), refers to the extent to which research findings can be viewed as trustworthy. It is related to the soundness of the research and many qualitative researchers utilize the notion to guide their data analysis. However, about half of the reviewed studies in this chapter fail to address the issue of trustworthiness. Strategies such as member checking, rich and thick description, peer review or debriefing, prolong engagement and persistent observation can be used to increase trustworthiness and credibility of results (Creswell, 2013), but most belief researchers seldom examine the issue or adopt these strategies. 6. Covering a wider range of geographic and institutional contexts. Expanding the geographic and institutional research contexts can increase the relevance of the study’s findings to other educational settings. Although there are a growing number of studies in Asian and Arabic countries, we have to admit that what we currently know about teacher beliefs is a result of research and findings mostly derived from the USA and some European countries. With a few noticeable exceptions, many studies are conducted in desired language learning settings, characterized by several well-educated white females teaching a small group of motivated students in universities or private institutions. These teachers, in global terms, are not working in typical settings. Borg (2003) concludes that we know little about teacher cognition for those working in the public education system with a prescribed curriculum, having a heavy teaching workload and having no access to dominant discourses in language education. In this regard, China has the largest number of EFL teachers than any other country, but the investigation of Chinese EFL teacher beliefs has received scant attention and very few studies report Chinese EFL teacher beliefs in international journals. Under the rationale discussed above, I aim at investigating teacher beliefs in the context of EFL reading instruction in Chinese universities. The reason I chose to focus on beliefs about reading instruction (rather than other language skills) was partly because of challenges that Chinese EFL teachers face in the new round ELT reform in China and partly because of the dominated role, issues and problems of EFL reading instruction in these universities (see Chap. 2). However, it does not mean that I will confine myself to a limited scope of reading teaching but suggests that I will adopt a holistic perspective to examine key beliefs in relation to reading teaching. In the context of teacher cognition research, the study is based on the intent of “capturing the fullness of context in the social sense of place and social activity and of time in both and immediate and an historical sense”. In other words, I will examine beliefs in the context of teachers’ social activities both inside and outside classrooms and significant social events in teachers’ professional lives. To be specific, the study addresses two research questions: (1) What beliefs do Chinese EFL teachers hold about their EFL reading instruction? (2) How do these

12

1 Introduction

beliefs correlate to one another? By borrowing theories from different fields, I develop a theoretical model and conceptualize teacher beliefs into four key components (see Chap. 4). Therefore, the two research questions are transformed into five sub-questions: 1. How do Chinese EFL teachers use theoretical beliefs in the teaching of reading? 2. How do Chinese EFL teachers use action beliefs in the teaching of reading? 3. How do Chinese EFL teachers use context beliefs in the teaching of reading? 4. How do Chinese EFL teachers use beliefs about teachers’ roles in the teaching of reading? 5. How do these beliefs correlate to one another in the teaching of reading? Instead of using a random selection, I examine these beliefs on the basis of a general assumption that teacher beliefs exist as a complex system. In the study, four sub-­ questions are concerned with a topic (what beliefs are held by the teachers) while the last sub-question involves another topic (how these beliefs are interrelated to each other). Methodologically, the four sub-questions will be answered by different data collection strategies while the last one will be answered through the whole process of data analysis, which will be discussed in the next section.

1.4  The Methodological Approach The conception of teacher beliefs emphasizes the process by which a range of beliefs are held and the way in which they are used to guide their practices. Therefore, the way in which the study was carried out is inevitably concerned with the conception of the belief system. The characteristic of research questions (how-­ questions) makes the study more explanatory and leads to the use of case study as the preferred research method. This methodology is chosen to meet a number of practical needs, particularly the need to interpret teachers’ everyday experiences and teaching, the need to elaborate a conception that would address the complexity of teacher beliefs, and the need to speak to current English curriculum reform, as well as those concerned with English language teaching in Chinese universities. When developing the methodological approach, I drew from recent belief research that argues for the unification of the cognitive and affective aspects of teacher beliefs (Borg, 2006; Pajares, 1992; Skott, 2015; Zembylas & Chubbuck, 2015) and social science research that emphasizes the rapprochement of the narrative, grounded theory and phenomenological method in data analysis (Charmaz, 2006; Creswell, 2013; Flick, 2007). I chose the case study approach because a vivid and in-depth description of teacher beliefs not only has its educational value but also responds to an urgent need to further our understanding of teacher beliefs. The case study approach adopted in the study was not merely a description of a case (or cases) within a real-life and contemporary context or setting (Yin, 2014) but means a comprehensive approach to attain an in-depth understanding of teacher beliefs from teachers’ perspectives (Skott,

1.4  The Methodological Approach

13

2015). One way of capturing the complexity of teacher beliefs was to choose a small number of teachers who worked in similar contexts, were committed to their teaching, and were able to articulate their knowledge and understanding about their teaching and professional lives. Furthermore, the case study spanned over 1 year which provided the researcher (me) with an adequate amount of time to build rapport with teachers through a series of qualitative interviews and classroom observations. There are two types of research design in this approach, i.e., single case and multiple case design. I chose the latter as it enabled me to analyzes a broad range of beliefs through replication, which is helpful for raising the level of trustworthiness in terms of its robustness as a method. I also adopted the approach on the basis of on a number of methodological considerations. For example, the research questions explore teachers’ beliefs mainly through how-questions; this is linked to a theoretical framework (see Chap. 3) which provides ‘a chain of evidence’ by using multiple sources to collect data, while it also offers a thick description of the cases and exerts little control on the research setting. Moreover, the methodological approach began with the assumption that teachers working in similar contexts may develop a set of shared beliefs to guide their work- beliefs of subject matter; of classroom management; of instructional approaches and techniques; of students’ needs, abilities and interests and of the social framework of their school communities. Participant selection is crucial for case study researchers as it largely determines what data is collected and how study results are interpreted. In the context of the study, three participants (Lynch, Edith and Linda) were selected through purposeful sampling because they met the following criteria: having 5 years’ teaching experiences, being prize-winners of provincial teaching contests; and having good scores in the student evaluation of teaching (SET). Another three participants were chosen through convenient sampling due to my limited access and social resources for other teachers. Although they did not fully meet these criteria, their teaching and learning experiences (such as overseas working and learning) were expected to make a unique contribution to the study. Apart from the external criteria, the teachers’ awareness and ability to articulate their knowledge and understanding about teaching were seen crucial for conducting study. Furthermore, the teachers’ willingness to share the comfort and discomfort arisen from their teaching was seen essential for conducting the study. If the process of data collection arouses so much adverse feeling among participants, the researcher may have the risk of terminating the study or supplementing participants. In this case, a number of ethical considerations and strategies were adopted to guarantee the teachers’ willingness and cooperation with the researcher. To sum up, six participants were recruited from six universities in my province. They worked in the Department of English of either key provincial or ordinary universities and had obtained their MA degrees in relevant fields. All the participants except Leon worked as lecturers (the intermediate rank). Besides, four participants worked as the panel director responsible for supervising, organizing, and coordinating teaching among teachers. Three participants gave reading courses to SEC (Specialist English Course) students while the other three offered reading courses to GEC (General English Course) students. Their teaching experiences ranged from

14

1 Introduction

Table 1.1  A summary of participants’ demographic information Educational Pseudonym background Edith MA in applied linguistics

Position Lecturer, panel director

Lynch

MA in applied linguistics

Lecturer, panel director

Lychee

MA in translation studies

Lecturer

Linda

MA in English language education MA in English language education

Lecturer, panel director Teaching assistant

Leon

Reading course taught Intensive reading for senior SEC students Intensive reading for senior SEC students Extensive reading for SEC freshmen Intensive reading for GEC students Extensive reading for GEC freshmen

Oversea study/work experience Half a year study in the US

Years of teaching 9

Ranks of university Key provincial university

10

Ordinary university

Half a year study in the US

3

Ordinary university

None

11

Key provincial university Ordinary university

None

1

Two-year MA program in the US

Note: A lecturer in Chinese universities is the intermediate rank between a teaching assistant and an associate professor. GEC students were non-English undergraduates while SEC students were English majors

one to 11 years with Leon having just 1 year of teaching experience. Four participants had oversea study or work experience ranging from half a year to 2 years of stay in other countries. A summary of participants’ demographic information is shown in the below table (Table 1.1). The study also began with a general assumption that teachers’ beliefs exist as a complex system and the belief system is composed of four components. This assumption does not indicate an empirical claim about the actual constitution of teacher beliefs across different educational contexts, nor is it a judgment about the effectiveness of teacher beliefs in terms of student learning outcomes. Rather, it suggests an alternative perspective in which we began to look at the work of teaching as the self-negotiation process among different types of beliefs when teachers confront all sorts of tasks and problems in their teaching, and draw on a variety of sources that help them deal with these problems. The conception of the belief system suggests it has four key components, which in turn were elicited through different methods and strategies, namely, theoretical beliefs were collected through a semi-structure interview and concept mapping; action beliefs were elicited by four classroom observations plus a stimulated recall interview; context beliefs were assessed by a rating task and an in-depth interview while there were specific methods corresponding to beliefs about teachers’ role and the data came from relevant interviews and classroom observations in the study. For

1.4  The Methodological Approach

15

Table 1.2  A summary of data collection strategies Components A. Theoretical beliefs B. Action beliefs C. Context beliefs D. Beliefs about teachers’ roles

Data collection strategies Semi-structured interview (Appendix 5) Concept mapping (Appendix 6) Four classroom observations (Appendix 8) Stimulated recall interview A rating task (Appendix 7) In-depth interview No specific techniques adopted Related all the above techniques (including the biographic interview, Appendix 4)

example, I conducted the biographic interview for personal information but at the later stage of data analysis I found parts of the data were relevant to beliefs about teachers’ roles. A summary of data collection strategies is given as follows. The sample questions or the interview protocol were provided in the Appendixes (4, 5, 6, 7 and 8). Case study research is characterized by the use of multiple sources of information and an in-depth data analysis with thick descriptions of cases and concrete contexts. Likewise, the study was dominated by the use of five rounds of interviews and four classroom observations. Interviews were seen as essential parts of the study as they offered a large amount of verbal data documenting how participants thought about their practices or past teaching experiences. However, I did not repeatedly use a particular type of interview but rather diversified it into a biographic, semi-structure, stimulated recall, in-depth interview and the one accompanying concept mapping. For the convenience of data analysis at the later stage, the interviews were numbered in chronological order. A brief description of the interviews is shown in the below table (Table 1.3). In particular, the third, fourth and fifth interview were conducted in an unstructured manner but were used in tandem with other methods. For example, the third interview was conducted with the semi-structured format. Drawing on the initial analysis of the second interview, I presented a list of key themes to participants individually who were invited to add, revise, rename or delete, but had to explicitly articulate reasons for doing so. Next I showed the concept maps to them and justified these maps with my analyses. Again, participants felt free to revise these maps but needed to offer their explanations. In this way, the third interview was conducted like a conversation but centered around the key themes in their teaching. For example, the following figure (Fig.  1.1) illustrates Linda’s conception about reading instruction with two key ideas (paragraph structure and CET-4) added to it. Likewise, the fourth interview was conducted with four unstructured non-­ participant observations. Working with a digital camcorder, I sat at the back of the classroom and video-recorded the instructional activities and interactions between the teacher and students during the lesson. Later I played these lessons on my laptop and analyzed salient practices, activities and approaches on paper. For example, I

1 Introduction

16 Table 1.3  A description of five interviews in the study Name First interview (biographic)a Second interview (semi-structured) Third interview (concept mapping) Fourth interview (stimulated recall) Fifth interview (in-depth)

Functions It examines participants’ professional learning and past teaching experiences and focuses on critical incidents that may influence their current beliefs and practices It investigates how a teacher understood his/her classroom practices about the teaching of vocabulary, sentences, text structure, background knowledge, reading strategies and so on Coupled with the second interview, the researcher generates a concept map for the participant's confirmation. It identifies categories of beliefs based on the most salient practices, activities and approaches demonstrated in the four classroom observations Combined with a rating task,it identifies how a participant mediates contextual factors in relation to his/her teaching

All the interviews were recorded with a digital voice pen and transcribed into texts for analysis

a

Fig. 1.1   Linda’s concept map about reading instruction

identified about 20 practices from Edith’s lessons. These practices involved news browsing, focusing on key vocabulary, analyzing difficult sentences, introducing the learning objectives of units, introducing prior knowledge or background knowledge related to the text learning, group discussion, explaining key words through context, use of translation, use of mother tongue, focusing on writing strategies, dictation, reading aloud, group presentation, assigning homework, and so on1 (Appendix 8). Before using the fourth interview, I sent a list of observed practices and the recorded lessons (CD-ROM) to each participant for a brief review. When using the  The classroom observational task was rather time-consuming. To identify the practices used by participant teachers, I observed four sessions for each participant. As each of them worked in different institutions and had different class schedules, I divided them into two groups. The first group (three participants) was observed in the first semester while the second group (another three participants) in the second semester. 1

1.4  The Methodological Approach

17

interview, we watched the lessons on the laptop and analyzed these practices one by one. I often raised the questions like “how often do you use the practice?”, “How do you diversify the practice in other lessons?”, “What are the reasons for using the practice?” In the stimulated recall interview, participants were encouraged to pause at any moment, move forward, backward, or skip some parts of the lesson when they felt it necessary to offer some explanations. In fact, discussions of these practices often turn into a broad exploration of participants’ pedagogical thoughts. With respect to the fifth interview, it was used with a rating task which required participants to rate the significance of a list of contextual factors in relation to their teaching. In fact, the identification of the possible contextual factors was concerned with another method-document analysis (Bowen, 2009) in which I searched for directives, policies, rules, regulations or curriculum plans from departments of subject matter, teaching affairs and human resources by browsing their university websites and reading pamphlets and brochures obtained from participants. When working with the fifth interview, participants first singled out the most influential contextual factors in their situations and then I initiated a discussion about how and why these factors influenced their teaching. It was noted that the first interview involved participants’ biographic information and did not target any group of beliefs at the start of the study. But later I found that it turned out to be a life story interview that examined the social-historical perspective of their teaching. During the interview, participants were encouraged to describe significant social experiences in their professional learning and past teaching. At a later stage of data analysis, it contributed to the study by providing a vivid description of critical incidents which may be relevant to four components. For example, Leon, in the first interview, described his teaching philosophy known the four-stage theory (Appendix 9). When analyzing his action beliefs, I found that the theory reflected his view to language learning and were relevant to his action beliefs concerning developing language skills for high-stakes tests (Sect. 5.5). In the similar vein, I learned about Edith’s and Lynch’s study experience in the USA, Angel’s teaching experience in Thailand, and so on. These critical incidents were singled out from the interview and were further explored in the following interviews. …according to the theory, it divides classroom teaching into four parts. The first step is called input, students look like an empty tape, students need to download your teaching and install them in their hard disks. As for the second step, it is called practice. Students begin to operate what they download, they install the program and then operate it step by step. The third step, let me think, it is…about checking. You need to check whether they run the program smoothly or with any problems. If you find any problem, then you ask them to go back to the previous step, they need to reinstall, re-practice, until each step is okay. The last step is called output; they run the program and produce something that belongs to them. For example, the students download and run a program like Photoshop; they need to show you how they draw a picture with the program. I think it is really practical, so far, I still use it in my teaching… (Leon, first interview).

Data analysis in qualitative research is a continuous and spiral process and the researcher engages in the process of moving in the analytic circle rather than following a fixed linear approach. In the case of the study, data analysis procedures

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1 Introduction

Fig. 1.2  An example of a thematic analysis on context beliefs

involved four key steps: memoing, coding, thematic analysis and interpretation. For example, in memoing, I transcribed interview data, wrote analytic memos and conducted initial analysis. The coding process involved initial coding and selective coding (Charmaz, 2006). However, the two steps were mostly concerned with within-case analysis. When moving to cross-case analysis, I combined thematic analysis and interpretation to produce categories of beliefs by making comparisons among different cases. In particular, thematic analysis across six cases was the most important step which involved “identifying, analyzing and reporting patterns (themes) within data” (Braun & Clarke, 2006, p. 79). For instance, the following figure illustrates how to conduct a thematic analysis on “context beliefs”. In fact, the four steps were not clear-cut, as the assignment of meaning to the data and interpretation take place throughout the analytic journey (Creswell & Poth, 2017) (Fig. 1.2). Reliability and validity remain the core position for evaluating the quality of any qualitative research. This is because they are concerned with the “credibility” of original evidence and by implication how widely the findings can be transferred (Lewis & Nicholls, 2014). Qualitative researchers (e.g., Creswell, 2013; Flick, 2007; Yin, 2014) propose a number of principles for validating case study research. Drawing insights from these researchers, I developed four validation strategies: prolonged engagement and persistent observation, triangulation of data through different sources, member checking and thick descriptions of the cases. In addition, the study aims to achieve analytic generalization rather than statistic generalization. As Yin (2009) suggests, the goal of case study is to “expand and generalize theories and not to enumerate frequencies” (p.  19). Silverman (2013) further argues that case study research does not sample individuals but social situations. The study therefore focuses on theory building and exploring the complexity of teachers’ beliefs through an in-depth analysis on a small number of cases. Although the discussion of ethical issues is arranged at the end of the section, it does not mean they should be taken into account at the end of the study. On the contrary, the ethical strategies used in the study are the key to maintain a high level of commitment and persistent cooperation throughout the yearlong study. For example, I discussed with participants the potential risks, benefits and purposes of the study at the start of the study and obtained their signed consent (Appendix 2). To minimize unnecessary disturbance with their teaching, I took the following

References

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measures. First, each participant had and individualized time plan for data collection and I tried to tailor the pace of my research work to their work and family life. Second, I made a careful arrangement of each interview and classroom observation so that they could save their commuting time, demonstrate their natural teaching behaviors and feel free to talk about their pedagogical ideas. To gain access to participants’ classroom teaching, I also obtained informed consent from the department deans (Appendix 3) and their students (Appendix 1).

1.5  Structure of the Book The book is divided into nine chapters. The introductory chapter gives an overview of teacher belief research, discusses studies on language teacher beliefs and practices, then presents the rationale, aims and methodological approach of the study. Following this introduction, Chap. 2 focuses on the context of the study which involves EFL reading instruction and challenges to EFL teachers in Chinese universities. Chapter 3 gives a detailed description of the conceptual backdrop and assumptions of the conception of the theoretical model. The following Chaps. 6, 7, 8 and 9 report significant findings concerning four components of the belief system, and the last chapter concludes the project with seven key features of the belief system and addresses some implications and limitations of the study.

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Nespor, J. (1987). The role of beliefs in the practice of teaching. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 19, 317–328. Niu, R., & Andrews, S. (2012). Commonalities and discrepancies in L2 teachers’ beliefs and practices about vocabulary pedagogy: A small culture perspective. TESOL Journal, 6, 134–154. Orafi, S., & Borg, S. (2009). In tensions and realities in implementing communicative curriculum reform. System, 37, 243–253. Pajares, M. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3), 307–332. Pavlenko, A. (2007). Autobiographic narratives as data in applied linguistics. Applied Linguistics, 28(2), 163–188. Pekrun, R., & Schutz, P. (2009). Where do we go from here? Implications and future directions for inquiry on emotion in education. In P. A. Schutz & R. Pekrun (Eds.), Emotion in Education: a volume in educational psychology (pp. 313–332). Cambridge, MA: Academic/Elsevier. Phillips, S., & Borg, S. (2009). Exploring tensions between teachers’ grammar teaching beliefs and practices. System, 37, 380–390. Richardson, V. (1990). Significant and worthwhile change in teaching practice. Educational Researcher, 19, 10–18. Richardson, V. (1996). The role of attitudes and beliefs in learning to teach. In J.  Sikula, T.  J. Buttery, & E.  Guyton (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education (2nd ed., pp. 102–119). New York: Macmillan. Rokeach, M. (1968). Beliefs, attitudes, and values: A theory of organization and change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Sato, K., & Kleinsasser, R. (2004). Beliefs, practices, and interactions of teachers in a Japanese high school English department. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20, 797–816. Shavelson, R., & Stern, P. (1981). Research on teachers’ pedagogical thoughts, judgments and behaviors. Review of Educational Research, 51, 455–498. Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 1–22. Silverman, D. (2013). Doing qualitative research: A practical handbook (4th ed.). London: Sage. Skott, J. (2009). Contextualising the notion of belief enactment. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 12(1), 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-008-9093-9 Skott, J. (2013). Understanding the role of the teacher in emerging classroom practices: Searching for patterns of participation. ZDM: The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 45(4), 547–559. Skott, J. (2015). The promises, problems, and prospects of research on teachers’ beliefs. In H. Fives & M.  G. Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teachers’ beliefs (pp.  13–30). New York: Routledge. Smith, N. (1965). American reading instruction. Newark, DE: International Reading Association. Speer, N. (2005). Issues of methods and theory in the study of mathematics teachers’ professed and attributed beliefs. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 58(3), 361–391. Tayjasanant, C., & Barnard, R. (2010). Language teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding the appropriateness of communicative methodology: A case study from Thailand. Journal of Asia TEFL, 7(2), 279–311. Wilson, M., & Cooney, T. (2002). Mathematics teacher change and development. In G. C. Leder, E.  Pehkonen, & G.  Torner (Eds.), Beliefs: A hidden variable in mathematics education (pp. 127–147). Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Yang, L., & Gao, S. (2013). Beliefs and practices of Chinese university teachers in EFL writing instruction. Language, Culture and Curriculum, 26(2), 128–145. Yin, R. (2009). Case study research design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Yin, R. (2014). Case study research design and methods (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zembylas, M., & Chubbuck, S. (2015). The interaction of identity, beliefs and politics in conceptualizing “teacher identity”. In H. Fives & M. G. Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teachers’ beliefs (pp. 173–190). New York: Routledge.

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Zhang, F., & Liu, Y. (2011). Yingxiang Zhongxue Yingyu Jiaoshi Xinnian De Duoyinsu Fenxi [A multifactor analysis on the secondary English teachers’ beliefs]. Waiyu Jiaoxue Yu Yanjiu [Journal of Foreign Language Teaching and Research], 3, 400–408. Zhang, F., & Liu, Y. (2014). A study of secondary school English teachers’ beliefs and practices in the context of curriculum reform in China. Language Teaching Research, 18(2), 187–204. Zheng, H. (2013). Teachers’ beliefs and practices: A dynamic and complex relationship. Asia-Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 41(3), 331–343. https://doi.org/10.1080/1359866X.2013.809051 Zheng, H. (2015). Teachers’ beliefs as a complicated system: English language teachers in China. Cham, Switzerland: Springer. Zheng, X., & Borg, S. (2014). Task-based learning and teaching in China: Secondary school teachers’ beliefs and practices. Language Teaching Research, 18(2), 205–221.

Chapter 2

ELT and EFL Teachers in Chinese Universities

2.1  Introduction What is the role of context in belief research? Many researchers, especially authors of studies in Sect. 1.2, would answer the question by investigating the relationship between beliefs and practices and focusing on the issue of (in)consistency between them. The tensions between beliefs and practices are often attributable to some contextual factors such as curriculum, learners’ language proficiency, motivation, local teaching cultures, time constraints, and so on (Borg, 2006). As Buehl and Beck (2015) suggest, contextual factors can either hinder or facilitate the enactment of teachers’ beliefs. The ecological perspective broadens the notion of context and encourages researchers to examine teacher beliefs in a hierarchical structure of context in terms of specific factors in the classroom, community, society, and national level. Apart from the sociohistorical perspective, there is still a lot to explore about the sociocultural perspective of context. For example, Van der Meulen (2002) draws a distinction between context and the meaning of context. In his eyes, context is a physical variable, while the meaning of context is a psychological variable. Beliefs can be understood as the latter indicating how a teacher interprets, understands, evaluates, or mediates the influence of contextual factors. However, it brings about another issue – not all the beliefs are activated in response to context demands, as a teacher often holds a wide range of beliefs. Fives and Buehl (2012) distinguish two views of teacher beliefs. The context-dependent view indicates that teacher beliefs change on a basis of the specific satiation, while the context-independent view argues that teachers fairly hold coherent beliefs across different situations. They also suggest that beliefs may vary in their level of specificity. In other words, teachers may hold both general and specific beliefs about the same topic and the beliefs

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that either are context-free or context-bounded depend on their internal evaluation criteria, norms, or values, as well as whether these contextual factors are significant to their teaching and professional work. The following sections outline several key aspects of EFL teaching in Chinese universities that I see emerging from sociocultural spaces for the new round of curricular reform. Some are optimistic and positive while other less so. However, I do not perceive them as static, unidimensional, or absolute but offer them as “mediational tools” that might help readers approach the participants in analyses of their beliefs and practices within specific settings. In the past two decades, especially when China entered the WTO, English has played a dominated role in China’s society. To meet the increasing demands on economic development, international communication, and technological innovation, China’s government increased the number of enrolled undergraduates aiming at fostering talented young people with advanced specialized knowledge and international perspectives. In this case, good English proficiency is considered as one of the top priorities for universities, employers, parents, and undergraduates. According to a recent survey released by the MOE1, almost 1.7 million full-time undergraduates studied in over 1200 universities and colleges. For such an enormous number of EFL learners, MOE, since the millennium, has launched a series of educational reform in Chinese universities including redefining curriculum objectives, updating learning content, enriching teaching resources, improving English testing systems, and so on. Consequently, a significant amount of theoretical and empirical studies have been conducted to explore the effectiveness in the new round of ELT reform (e.g., Shu, 2016, 2017; Wang, 2009, 2018; Wen, 2016, 2018). However, this new round of educational reform has been largely criticized as “new ideas, old models” (Chen & Day, 2015 p. 33), implying that there are still many challenges and issues impeding the implementation of reform initiatives such as an exam-oriented education, a central-­ peripheral education system, inadequate teacher training, rigid curriculum management, and so on. Against such complex contexts, this chapter not only illuminates the relationship between ELT reform and EFL teachers in Chinese universities but also provides backdrops for understanding context beliefs (an essential component of their belief systems) of participant teachers in this study. This chapter presents a general context of ELT reform in Chinese universities and more importantly, the challenges that Chinese university English instructors have faced. It first reviews studies about what beliefs that Chinese EFL teachers held and how they used their beliefs in their teaching situations. The following sections offer an overview of ELT reform and addresses some issues of EFL reading instruction in Chinese universities. In particular, I argue for the need to examine how four major contextual challenges shape EFL teachers’ beliefs in the context of ELT reform, which may serve as a starting point to understand participants’ belief systems.

1  For more information about national-level survey in 2018, please refer the official release by China’s central government. (http://www.gov.cn/xinwen/2019-02/26/content_5368916.htm).

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2.2  The Study of Chinese EFL Teacher Beliefs Typically, two fundamental types of English language courses are provided in most Chinese universities: the general English Course (GEC) and specialist English course (SEC). The former is essentially offered to non-English undergraduates, while the latter is for English undergraduates who specialize in language majors (e.g., literature, linguistics, translation). Accordingly, Chinese EFL teachers in Chinese universities are often organized into two groups: GCE and SCE teachers. It is quite common that some teachers have the dual status, teaching both GEC and SEC courses, as they both work in the English department and their teaching duties are assigned according to the availability of classes of students and their instructional hours. Nonetheless, most EFL teachers work as either GEC or SEC teachers on a relatively stable basis. Since the millennium, there has been increasing attention on the study of Chinese EFL teacher beliefs from researchers and language educators. To date, the first influential study on Chinese EFL teacher beliefs was reported by Xia (2002) who investigated the state-of-the-art teachers’ teaching and research in terms of their beliefs, knowledge, competencies, research, and professional development among more than 600 teachers from various universities across China. It was revealed that at the transitional stage between the old and new round of ELT reform in China, the majority of surveyed teachers had a confusing understanding of their teaching characterized by a lack of theoretical guidance or divorce of pedagogical theory from practice. Most teachers held contradictory sets of beliefs. For example, about 90% of teachers perceived their roles as a language explainer and demonstrator, indicating a traditional mode of teaching that focused on the delivery of language knowledge. On the other hand, 77% of teachers believed their overall goals were to teach students how to learn and develop their language proficiencies, and 73% of teachers believed they should maximize meaningful communication and social interaction with students in their teaching, reflecting their willingness to support communicative language teaching (CLT) and student-centered teaching. However, they admitted a lack of pedagogical training to implement or contextualize the two notions in their teaching. Xia’s study inspired more interest in the study of Chinese EFL teacher beliefs, and a proliferation of studies have been published in different Chinese journals. At the time of study, my search of teacher beliefs on the CNKI2 generated 84 studies and a further search among the core ones (a list of high-quality influential Chinese academic journals recognized by the CNKI) yielded 13 articles including eight empirical studies, which indicates that qualified studies in this field are urgently needed. Coupled with four qualitative studies available on international journals, the following part reports findings from 13 studies. 2  CNKI is the term for China Network of Knowledge Infrastructure. It is the largest and comprehensive database for most Chinese academic journals. For more information please refer to the search engine on its official website: www. cnki.net.

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A recurring theme of these studies is about the (in)congruence between beliefs and practices. For instance, Gao and Qin (2010) surveyed 396 GEC teacher beliefs about grammar teaching. The study revealed that the majority of teacher beliefs demonstrated an orientation to CLT, but their stated practices followed a traditional approach and such inconsistencies associated with a range of internal and external factors such as students’ low language proficiency, weak foundations on grammatical knowledge, pressure of high-stakes tests, and insufficient amount of instructional hours. In another study, Gao and Liu (2013) investigated 324 GCE teacher beliefs about listening teaching and drew similar conclusions. Other researchers focused on beliefs in specific areas. For example, Chen and Chen (2008) surveyed 33 GCE teacher beliefs about the use of technology in their teaching. Findings of the study indicate that subject teachers expressed a strong adherence to the student-­ centered and CLT-based teaching, while they reported more use of traditional practices such as direct explanation and demonstration, derailing from their goals of enhancing social interactions with students and developing their learning autonomy. Sampling 84 GCE teachers, Dou (2015) found that a range of contextual factors contributed to the discrepancy between beliefs and practices including limited instructional freedom, heavy workload, insufficient numbers of instructional hours, public exams, and larger size of classes in the top-down educational system. Liu and Shang (2017) investigated 175 GEC teacher beliefs about intercultural teaching. Although they recognized the importance of intercultural teaching, sample teachers favored the traditional mode of teaching and focused on the delivery of knowledge in intercultural communication. Apart from the quantitative survey, three studies used the qualitative approach to explore GEC teacher beliefs and practices. For example, Zhan (2010) employed the narrative inquiry to investigate nine GEC teacher beliefs. Critical incidents in their narratives identified their beliefs on classroom teaching, student-teacher relationships, and their professional roles. Subject teachers felt dissatisfaction with problems with the education system, but they maintained their jobs due to their sense of responsibility and their love for teaching and students. By using semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, Lou and Liao (2005) found the divergences between beliefs and practices among eight GEC teachers. Participants’ accounts showed many situational constraints in their teaching such as insufficient instructional hours, students’ unwillingness to participate in some interactive activities, mandated exam preparation practices, teachers’ emotional states, problems with classroom facilities or equipment, and certain institutional policies and regulations. In another qualitative study, Sun (2012) reported the gap between beliefs and practices among five GEC teachers. It revealed that participants held shared beliefs that emphasized the teaching of language skills and student-centeredness, but in practices they demonstrated the traditional approach in terms of direct explanation and textbook-based teaching. However, two case studies reported SEC teacher beliefs were consistent with their practices in EFL writing instruction. In a yearlong study on three experienced SEC teachers, Yang (2010) found that their beliefs were generally consistent with their practices, as they integrated elements of a process-based and product-based

2.3  ELT Reform in Chinese Universities

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approach in writing instruction. Similarly, Yang and Gao (2013) found that three out of four participants displayed consistency between their beliefs and practices, while one teacher’s beliefs and practices were consistent in some cases and contradictory in other cases. The teacher seemed to be contradictory between his role and his view on learning, as he adhered to the idea of student-centeredness, while his practices demonstrated a traditional view on his role. However, such variabilities were related to the teacher’s personal experience, understanding of students’ capabilities, self-­ reflection, and influences from colleagues. In a word, the study of Chinese EFL teacher beliefs largely focuses on the (in) congruence between them, and very few studies investigate their beliefs in EFL reading instruction. Findings of these studies indicate a range of contextual factors that mediate the relationship between beliefs and practices. Although these studies broaden our understanding of Chinese EFL teacher beliefs, the research design of the studies is highly questionable due to a number of conceptual and methodological issues. For example, teacher beliefs are still used as a messy construct, a fragmented view is still adopted to examine contextual factors, and the complexity of teacher beliefs is still neglected. Without solving these practical problems, the study of Chinese EFL teacher beliefs will not make a substantial contribution to mainstream teacher belief research.

2.3  ELT Reform in Chinese Universities Among the Asian countries, China has the largest number of English learners in terms of its diverse population in the school system, and English plays a role of paramount importance in Chinese society because proficiency in English is a crucial asset for both national and individual development. Over the past few decades, although the enterprise of ELT was significantly shaped by the language policies and reform initiatives over a different period, the expansion and strengthening in English language education in the school system have never been called into questions (Hu & McKay, 2012). Since the adoption of the open policy in 1978, President Deng Xiaoping launched a national program of modernization, aiming at reviving the country’s industries after the Cultural Revolution between 1966 and 1976. Deng was firmly convinced that scientific and technological advances were crucial for catching up with the development of Western countries. English language education, therefore, played a substantial role in national modernization. At the beginning of the 1980s, English language education was introduced to a few key Chinese universities due to a shortage of teaching staff and resources. During the mid-1980s, English language education was available to science students and then covered all the undergraduate majors in Chinese universities, and the first national syllabus (College English Teaching Syllabus, 1986) came into being, and the term of “College English teaching” became a key concern among the public and educators. From the mid-1980s, China’s modernization was accelerated, and Deng Xiaoping was ambitious to transform China into an industrialized socialist nation. The 1990s

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witnessed the rapid economic development and substantial improvement in ordinary people’s life. In response to economic growth and the urgent need of a well-­ trained workforce, the MOE promoted English language education to language majors and aimed at cultivating excellent students with advanced English proficiency and being capable of international communication and exchange with other countries. Thus two national syllabi for English majors were introduced in the early of the 1990s. Meanwhile, the testing system for GEC and SEC students (CET-4/6, TEM-4/8) was established to assess students’ proficiency in English. Entering the twenty-first century, China enjoyed persistent economic development and social stability but faced the challenge of globalization. Given the deficiencies in English language education in Chinese universities, the MOE initiated a new round of educational reform (Quality Education Campaign) which concentrated on providing well-trained teaching staff and improving teaching quality. In such a context, the GEC and SEC syllabus were revised, respectively, in 1994 and 2004. In the sector of basic education, the millennium ELT reform emphasized updating teaching content, providing better facilities, and absorbing innovative ideas in pedagogy to improve the quality of education (Hu, 2005). Meanwhile, the revised ELT syllabi launched a pedagogical innovation campaign and focused on promoting task-based language teaching (TBLT). However, some researchers argue that such Western educational practices achieved limited success due to conflicts with the traditional educational philosophy in Chinese contexts (Hu & McKay, 2012). At the end of President Hu Jintao’s second term in 2010, the Chinese leadership emphasized the national soft power by increasing cultivating talented people with international competitiveness and increasing the attractiveness of Chinese culture in international communities. In response to the new strategic need of modernization and globalization, the MOE released the National Plan for Medium and Long-Term Educational Reform and Development Guideline (2010–2020). It was a comprehensive strategy which identified China’s challenge in education and proposed top priorities for reform. In the sector of higher education, it projected the central role of improving the quality of higher education. It articulated an urgent need to improve the pedagogical skills of university teachers, increase investment, improve educational infrastructure, and strengthen classroom instruction. Another quality-improving initiative was to develop national curriculum standards for undergraduate education (Zhang & Hu, 2010). To implement the strategic plan, the MOE issued the directive known as Suggestions on the project of teaching quality and innovation of undergraduate education tertiary institutions (MOE, 2011). It concentrated on the key fields, weaknesses, and major challenges in undergraduate education and proposed a framework of national curriculum standards to assess the quality of undergraduate education in Chinese universities systematically. In the following year, the MOE released an operational directive called Proposals on a Comprehensive Improvement of the Quality of Higher Education. It emphasized that an objective of current educational reform was to improve the teaching quality in undergraduate education. The Proposals articulated the need to establish a national assessment system for cultivating personnel and supervising the teaching quality of undergraduate education.

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In such a context, current curriculum reform gave priority to improving the quality of English language education. One of the educational practices was to develop new ELT syllabi. They are the key for understanding ELT reforms in China because they reflect the general assumptions of the nature of the language, teaching, and learning, specify the teaching and learning objectives, delimit teaching contents and teaching approaches, and set up national criteria for evaluating students’ proficiency (Hu, 2005). At the time of the study, two ELT syllabi knew as Guidelines (for GEC students) and Standards (for SEC students) would be released in 2019. The following discussion of the two syllabi is based on Wang’s (2016) and Feng’s (2016) introduction in their articles. Guidelines aim at enhancing students’ international understanding, raising their awareness on issues and problems of contemporary societies, and learn about cultures of English speaking countries. It indicates a pragmatic and humanistic orientation for both the national and individual development. One of the features is the stratification of teaching objectives and teaching content. It sets three levels of teaching objectives. The basic level is concerned with developing language knowledge and skills and enabling to handle basic communication in daily life. The improving level involves enhancing language skills and communication ability. Objectives at the developing level cater to the small number of students with a high level of proficiency and higher demands for English learning. Standards, on the other hand, sounds much complicated because it lays down three sub-versions corresponding to three specializations: English language and literature, translation, and business. Thus, it can be viewed as general guidelines or standards for developing schemes for specific ones. Its core objectives are to develop students’ language use abilities, cross-cultural communication competence, critical thinking, and creativity. In addition to the core objectives, each specialization develops its own specific objectives. For the language and literature specialization, it also shows a humanistic orientation by developing students’ literature appreciation abilities and integrating the key elements of language, literature, and culture in different courses. The translation specialization aims at training students’ translation skills, and the business specialization places particular emphasis on developing practical skills in the business world. Although Guidelines and Standards do not recommend any particular approach, they stress that classroom teaching should reflect the student-centered philosophy and that the teacher should cater for students’ needs and interests, be devoted to creating a positive learning environment, increasing classroom dynamics by encouraging students’ participation, and integrating computer and Internet technologies in teaching. It proposes a paradigm shift to the student-centered approach, emphasizing the active role of learners and their contribution to language learning. The two syllabi suggest that students, in the process of learning, should be equipped with a sense of responsibility, teamwork spirit, humanistic literacy, and international perspectives. Moreover, the two syllabi recommend several core pedagogical principles, i.e., the ultimate goal of evaluation is to provide feedback for curriculum innovation and students’ development, the summative evaluation should be combined with the formative version to offer a comprehensive picture of students’

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language use abilities, the teaching process should reflect the principle of holistic education, the selection of teaching methods and teaching content should concentrate on developing students’ overall abilities, and a variety of learning opportunities or activities should be provided to students and cater for individual learning needs. The current curriculum reform and ELT syllabi not only reflected the strategic need for modernization and globalization but also highlighted the importance of providing a well-rounded education for learners. Nonetheless, the developers and initiators of current ELT reform seemed to indulge themselves into the illusion of a bright future while remaining blind to serious problems in the education system. According to Chen and Day (2015), current educational reform in mainland China was described as the situation of “new ideas, old models” in which policymakers urgently borrowed fashionable ideas from educational practices in Western countries but failed to integrate them with the sociocultural context of Chinese education. It created widespread tensions and dilemmas for Chinese teachers, as ordinary teachers in the top-down education system were placed in a disadvantageous position where they “have little input into, and control over, the reform initiative implementation” (Chen & Day, 2015, p.  49). Under such circumstances, how can educators and policymakers count on teachers to improve the quality of their teaching?

2.4  EFL Reading Instruction in Chinese Universities Reading instruction has been considered the most crucial aspect of ELT in China (Huang, 2006, 2011). The importance of reading instruction was not only reflected in the objectives in the revised ELT syllabi3 but also manifested in English national tests. For example, Guidelines define reading objectives for GEC students at three levels: basic, improving, and developing levels. The first level requires students to read and understand the main idea and critical details of intermediate-level materials and the use of reading skills, while the third level requires students to understand academic articles in specialized areas with a good command of reading skills. Similarly, Standards also set stratified objectives and placed a higher requirement for reading abilities. As for national exams, students are generally required to take the CET-4 (college English test) and TEM-4 (test for English majors) to meet the language requirement and obtain their undergraduate degrees. In these exams, reading accounts for 30% and 20% of the total scores, respectively. Although a number of approaches are proposed in EFL/ESL reading instruction (Johnson, 1992; Kuzborska, 2011), several Chinese researchers (Hu & Baumann, 2014; Yang, 2012) argue that EFL reading instruction in Chinese universities is generally divided into three approaches: grammar-translation method, the CLT, and

3  The two revised ELT syllabi, namely, Guidelines (for GCE courses) and Standards (for SCE courses), will be discussed in the next section.

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the blended one that involved the two approaches. When using the grammar-­ translation method, teachers emphasize the importance of obtaining language knowledge through reading. Much class time is devoted to the coding of new words, complex sentences, or other linguistic forms. Translation, reading aloud, syntactic structure analysis, memorizing new words, and formulating comprehension questions are frequently used techniques, and the instructional process is highly structured, teacher-dominated, and form-focused. In contrast, the CLT approach in reading instruction is essentially meaning-based. Students are given time to read, understand, and explore meanings from the text. Classroom activities (e.g., oral presentation, pair work, group discussion) are organized to facilitate meaningful exchange which enables them to process input or produce output in a meaningful way. But most teachers tend to adopt an elective approach that blends elements from the two approaches in their teaching. The CLT approach was first introduced to Chinese universities in the mid-1980s, and early ELT syllabi had recommended teachers use it in the GEC and SEC strand. However, it has not gained widespread popularity among Chinese EFL teachers due to its incompatibility with the teaching cultures and contexts in many Chinese universities. For example, Wang (2007) suggests that traditional Chinese classrooms pose great challenges to implementing the CLT approach. Specifically, most Chinese EFL teachers do not have the competence to fluently use the English language, the traditional role of teachers’ conflicts with the student-centered paradigm, and student textbooks do not contain many communicative activities. Similarly, Zhang (2006) pinpoints that a successful implementation of the CLT approach depends upon teachers’ efforts in providing ample opportunities for learners to interact with the language. Most Chinese EFL teachers fail to do a good job due to numerous situational constraints imposed on them. Hu (2010) surveyed 83 GEC students and found that they did not favor the CLT approach due to the negative influences from the traditional learning methods, an exam-oriented educational model, the size of their classes, and problems with their English courses. For most university English teachers, it seems a difficult task to shift from the traditional intensive reading model to communicative language teaching and from a teacher-dominated to a student-centered approach. In a large-scale survey of 351 teachers and 3224 students from 20 institutions, about two-thirds of teachers reported spending more than 60% class time explaining vocabulary, sentence, and grammar, while nearly 75% students believed their English classes were dominated by “teacher talk” (Zheng, Wei & Chen, 1998). In another qualitative study on eight English teachers, Zhao (1998) recorded and analyzed some interactions between teachers and students in reading classes. She found that the reading classes were completely teacher-dominated and followed the traditional model of knowledge transmission, as the interactions in these reading classes were predominately close-­ ended questions raised by the teachers about the text content, while open-ended questions were significantly absent from the recorded lessons. Perhaps it is not the teachers’ willingness but some contextual factors that prevent a shift to the CLT approach. A more recent study on college students’ perceptions on English teaching found that the students preferred non-communicative activities and teachers’

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grammatical explanations, as they reported difficulties and lacked confidence in participating in the communicative activities (Jin, Singh & Li, 2005). Empirical findings and observations seem to suggest that the reading classes in most Chinese universities were dominated by the grammar-translation approach and knowledge-transmission model. In fact, authentic CLT is rarely adopted in Chinese reading classes, and there are a number of challenges associated with its implementation. Feng (2003) emphasizes that the communicative approach is not appropriate for Chinese students due to some contextual factors. For example, linguistic and grammatical competence were given more priority in reading courses, teachers used the textbook as the hidden syllabus to guide their teaching, and teachers lacked professional training to use the communicative approach in their teaching. Among these factors, Feng highlights the “Chinese characteristics” (learning styles, student behaviors, educational goals, and roles the teachers) pose great challenges to effectively implement the communicative approach in the context of ELT in Chinese universities. A few researchers have more discussion on the contextual factors that challenge its implementation such as large classes, limited teaching resources, grammar-focused learning assessment, regional differences, unequal access to educational resources, a wide range of teacher competencies, and so on (Barkhuizen & Wette, 2008). In recent years, EFL reading instruction has received more and more criticism due to its low effectiveness, the dissatisfaction about students’ reading proficiency, and the failure to meet the need for individual and social development. A few EFL teachers reported some problems with their teaching (e.g., Shao, 2014; Yang, 2012; Zhang, 2016) such as scant attention on the training of reading skills. The English syllabi emphasize the importance of reading skills but fail to suggest a progressive approach to train students’ reading skills in their classrooms. Moreover, many EFL teachers reported an overemphasis on analyzing the text content. They adopt the traditional approach characterized by a lengthy teacher-dominated analysis of the text content while failing to arouse students’ interest in English learning and expanding their scopes of knowledge. There is also an overlooking of extensive reading. Many EFL teachers give little attention to extensive reading. Although new reading textbooks offer supplementary reading materials, many teachers confine their teaching to main reading passages and written exercises while neglecting to engage students in doing extensive reading activities outside the classroom. Finally, there is a reliance on high-stakes tests. Although the revised ELT syllabi advocate the combined use of summative and formative assessment measures on students’ learning, many teachers insist on using the test results as the criteria to evaluate students’ academic success. Meanwhile, some department heads and teaching affairs use students’ CET-4/6 scores as the key indicator to evaluate the quality of teachers’ performance, which inevitably lead to another thorny issue, that is, many teachers transform their regular teaching into exam preparation.

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2.5  Challenges for Chinese EFL Teachers4 The above section gives a glimpse of ELT reform in Chinese universities and discusses features of the newly developed ELT syllabi. However, implementing the core ideas or principles of the two syllabi in Chinese universities is another side of the story, which creates great challenges and tensions for front-line teachers. These challenges involve an examination-oriented education, the traditional role of teachers, unfavorable working conditions, and barriers to teachers’ professional development.

2.5.1  An Examination-Oriented Education Since the civil service examination system (CSES) was introduced in the seventh century, an examination-oriented education has become deeply rooted in Chinese culture and society. It lasted almost 700 years from the Sui Dynasty to the Qing Dynasty and played a key role in Chinese social and intellectual life. The CSES aimed at choosing elites to serve the state with official positions awarded to them. The classic philosophy with the classical interpretations was set as the standard guidelines, reflecting parts of the political needs in education. Although the system fell apart during Chinese revolutionaries since the founding of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, the examination-oriented education, originated from the CSES, still exerted considerable influence on contemporary Chinese education. It is evident that the CSES still shaped the formal education system at various levels. For example, the scope of teaching is determined by the requirement of testing; rote memorization and recitation are popular in traditional classrooms; students learn the prescribed texts consisting of the irrefutable dogma; the teacher is the center responsible for explaining the content to students. The dominance of the examination-oriented education in Chinese universities may be related to three key factors: the operation of a centralized education system; a focus on elite education; and education inequality (Dello-lacovo, 2009; Pepper, 1996; Tan, 2016). Even though Chinese universities enjoy a higher level of autonomy in recent years, the system has many features inherited from the CSES, namely, the education model is characterized by a fusion between the utilitarian learning model and modern Western schooling; uniform national curricular and examination system is established under the guidelines or documents issued by the MOE; universities are standardized, categorized, and assessed by the MOE; and resources concentrate in a few top universities (e.g., 985 project universities) which have been promoted as leaders of academic research and models of educational quality. Such an education model has received severe criticism because of its intensive focus on 4  In this study, EFL (English as  a  foreign language) teachers mainly refer to  those working in Chinese universities.

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examination, disconnection between academic study and students’ practical life and the teacher-dominated style, which fails to cultivate students’ initiative and responsibility (Dello-lacovo, 2009; Pepper, 1996). The examination-oriented education exerts a profound and lasting influence on ELT in Chinese universities. As mentioned earlier, the national high-stakes testing system (e.g., CET and TEM) has been established since the 1990s, and these tests serve as “gatekeeper to success more than assessors of success” (Simpson, 2008, p. 385). A common practice adopted by many university authorities is to set the minimum scores for both GCE and SCE students as the key requirement to obtain their undergraduate degrees. For graduates, excellent test reports become an advantage when applying for a desirable job in large state-owned and international corporations. For faculty deans, the percentages of students passing the English tests is considered as an important indicator in evaluating the quality of English teaching. The English tests open up an enormous market in short-term training courses which are often run in universities or private language schools. They hire experienced training teachers to deliver the so-called shortcuts or testing skills. The enterprise of testing services is so profitable and prosperous that it brings out the black market where the cheating technologies can be bought. When the test date is approaching, one can see a large number of advertisements of language courses posted on walls of teaching buildings, street corners, dining halls, dormitories, and so on. Immersed in such an environment, both students and teachers highly emphasize the importance of exam preparation. For students, effortful learning is the key to passing the English test. Besides attending regular English classes, students are told to develop a personal study plan including doing test papers, practicing testing skills, memorizing a large vocabulary, or even attending short courses. For teachers, a significant amount of classroom time and energy would be assigned to helping students familiarize test formats. They have to provide appropriate guidance for students; attend conferences to be informed of the latest development of these tests; design additional materials for the test purpose and assign extra homework. English departments also hold various seminars or workshops, encouraging teachers to exchange information on exam preparation; the teaching panel sets up the ratio of regular teaching hours and exam preparation time for the teachers; and students’ textbooks contain some types of written exercises, similar to the test formats, for the use of exam preparation. Like the examination-oriented education, current curriculum reform has been characterized by the top-down and center-periphery model with little reference to the teacher beliefs and missions (Goodson, 2003). As shown in the previous section, the MOE formulates the reform policies that represent the interest of the central government; the MOE’s affiliated bodies determine the objectives, content, standards, and manner of delivery so that they can monitor its progress; the university and faculty leaders localize the curriculum content and evaluation criteria. Although this kind of reform has the advantage of authority and speed of implementation, it is by nature initiated and pushed by the government, which takes little consideration of the input and contribution of front-line teachers. Consequently, the challenge for

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teachers is created by the gap between teachers’ existing beliefs and the new ideologies advocated by the reform (Lee & Yin, 2010). Current ELT syllabi call for the need to establish student-centered ideologies in the hope of releasing students from academic pressure and promoting their overall development. But the teachers’ existing beliefs, established on the basis of educational practices in the context of the examination-oriented education, conflict with those beliefs advocated by current ELT reforms. Many teachers, especially experienced ones, do not see the need to change their existing beliefs and even feel resistant to current reform initiatives. Such a situation has been caused by the insufficient communication between the policymakers and front-line teachers before the implementation of educational reform initiatives (Li & Ni, 2012). Therefore, many teachers would find it difficult and reluctant to move out of their comfort zones of practices and embrace the uncertainties of new reforms (Chen & Day, 2015; Lee & Yin, 2010).

2.5.2  The Traditional Roles of the Teacher The core of Confucian learning implies that the focus of teaching is to develop the student as an individual with virtue rather than knowledge. For Confucius, knowledge itself is not enough for achieving the goal of self-perfection. Knowledge becomes a way of life when a person realizes that the ideal moral state is achieved by practicing knowledge they have acquired or by living in harmony with it. The concept of ren shows the way of realizing the ideal. Confucius stresses that ren is achieved by helping and nurturing others nearby by means of self-reflection of knowledge one has grasped or one’s conducts in relation to others. Thus, the role of teachers in the Confucian learning model can be summarized as a moral guide and sympathizer (Shim, 2008). As a moral guide, the teacher should help students practice good conducts in relation with others. As a sympathizer, the teacher should sympathize with students so as to show them how to learn how to sympathize with other people. From the concept of ren, knowledge has nothing to do with academic learning but is related to one’s moral development; knowledge is not directly taught by the teacher but acquired through the process of achieving the ideal moral state by means of self-reflection and practicing one’s conducts in relation to others. Unfortunately, the role of teachers and knowledge defined by Confucius gradually shifted to a utilitarian orientation when Confucian thoughts were embedded into the CSES. Within the system, Confucianism and other classical philosophies were appointed as the essential parts of the testing content. As the classical works were mostly written in the abstruse and obscure language and there were no additional materials to aid students’ comprehension, the interpretation relied on the teacher’s analysis. In such a context, learning knowledge was equal to grasping the essence of classical works, and the teacher served as an authoritative figure to deliver such knowledge. The classroom learning activities mainly involved teachers’ talk and sometimes combined from the teacher. For students who did not

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understand some parts of the teacher’s explanation, they could either ask questions after class or simply memorize them to take part in the examination. Even though the CSES collapsed in the Hundred Days Reform at the end of the Qing Dynasty, there was no significant change in the traditional role of teachers. On the contrary, it had a firmer position in the examination-oriented education in China today. In the system, the primary concern of teaching is to get students to grasp a large amount of subject matter knowledge. The traditional teaching model is characterized by the transmission of knowledge mainly through an imitative and repetitive process (Tang & Absalom, 1998). Teaching methods are principally expository, and the teaching process is teacher-dominated (Biggs, 1996; Hu, 2009). To help students grasp essential knowledge, the teacher tends to select key knowledge points from textbooks and spend a large amount of classroom time interpreting, analyzing, and elaborating them. The delivery process is carefully sequenced and highly structured to help students build the links between new knowledge points and previous ones. The process does not emphasize the application or synthesis but internalization of basic knowledge for further understanding; thus the focus of the teaching model is not on how teachers and learners can create, construct, and apply knowledge in an experiential approach but on how extent authoritative knowledge can be memorized or understood in the most effective way (Hu, 2009; Jin & Cortazzi, 1995; Paine & DeLany, 2000). The traditional roles of the teacher are also shaped by the traditional conception in the form of proverb, famous saying and metaphor relevant to the image of teachers. For example, Han Yu (768–824), one of the important scholars in the Tang Dynasty, put forward the influential doctrine that teachers were those who transit the way (principle or ideals) of life, impart professional knowledge, and resolve doubt of students. The doctrine deeply affected the role of teachers in ancient China as well as those in contemporary China. Under this tradition, the role of teachers has been described as the one “teaching knowledge and cultivating people” (jiaoshu yuren), which is widely accepted by modern Chinese teachers as their teaching mottoes (Hu, 2005). Another old Chinese saying, which echoes the importance of teachers, says that “a teacher for one day is a father for a lifetime.” Johnson (2010) explains that the traditional Chinese culture requires a student to pay similar respect to the teacher just like he would give to his father. In this analogy, that a student owes his intellectual capacity to the teacher is just like a child owes his body to his parents. In other words, the child is the physical offspring of his parents, while the student is the moral offspring of his teacher. In the government’s propaganda, teachers are portrayed as diligent gardeners, unknown silkworms, burning-the-life candles, or engineers of human souls. These metaphors indicate the traditional perception of teachers and depict the teaching profession as altruistic and self-­ sacrificing (Chen & Day, 2015). Although the ELT classrooms are located in such times of rapid change in China, a description of stereotypes of EFL teachers may not be so predictive. Some empirical studies also support the notion that the teachers and learners would reconstruct their roles consistent with the target culture of learning when they are transferred to teach or learn English in the Western countries for a particular period. For example,

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an interview study showed that a group of CFL (Chinese as a foreign language) teachers, after experiencing a process of transitional change, redefined their roles and conducted pedagogical practices that aligned with the characteristics of Western-style classrooms (Moloney & Xu, 2015). By challenging the traditional role of Chinese learners who were described as passive, silent, and obedient learners, findings of another study in the UK showed that a group of Chinese teachers successfully adapted to the UK teaching cultures and demonstrated flexible approaches to learning (Gieve & Clark, 2005). However, the two studies implied that the successful transformation of teachers’ traditional role occurred in other educational systems rather than the Chinese educational system. In current educational reforms, the tension related to teachers is often created by the need to construct a new role aligning with the paradigm of student-centered teaching. The traditional conceptions create such high cultural expectations that make their professional role highly demanding, making individual teachers work under great pressure to conform to the social norms and placing them under the position of closer scrutiny from the public (Schoenhals, 1993). Such a situation would make the teacher vulnerable to being shamed or feeling shame when he/she fails to appropriately assume the two fundamental responsibilities of being the expected “good teachers.” On the other hand, current ELT reforms place a special emphasis on teachers’ initiatives to reconstruct their roles to meet the demands of new teaching conditions including the development of higher education, new objectives in ELT reforms, and advanced information technologies (Wang, 2016). The new role should be built on a student-centered awareness, subject matter knowledge, flexible pedagogical skills, and competence in using advanced information technologies. To rebuild their roles, some teachers may feel that they have to replace their prior knowledge and skills with the new educational philosophies and skills.

2.5.3  Unfavorable Working Conditions Under the latest ELT syllabi in Chinese universities, teachers are advised to promote a shift from teacher-centered to student-centered teaching. But their working conditions challenge their competence and opportunities to implement more student-­ centered pedagogies (Chen & Day, 2015). The working conditions for most EFL teachers are characterized by large class sizes, an increasing workload, low salaries, and unstable employment, which greatly undermines their commitment to the enterprise of ELT in China. Class size is generally considered the critical characteristic of their working conditions. In China, most universities are funded by the government which has the right to determine the number of newly admitted students. Since the adoption of the expansion policy in higher education in 1999, the number of full-time students has increased rapidly, while the number of qualified teachers with advanced research degrees is always less. The imbalance of the student-teacher ratio is evident in the problem of class sizes. Currently, many GCE teachers have to manage three or four

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larger classes usually ranging 45–70 students, while the SEC teachers have a relatively smaller class size, but they have to undertake more teaching duties by delivering more specialist courses. However, it seems difficult to implement the desirable teaching methods in a large class with a smaller number of instructional hours. For example, Zhang (2002) conducted a survey of English teaching on two ordinary Chinese colleges, and findings of the study revealed three problems with instruction in large classes such as discipline, ineffective learning, and teachers’ weariness. Yu (2004) identifies similar problems of large classes such as the ignorance of individualized teaching, the limited chance to practice oral English, less attention and care from the teachers, an increase of teachers’ workload, and so on. A study by Yang and Yuen (2014) showed that the implementation of the student-centered teaching method was hindered by the large class size of the college English class. Despite computer facilities being available to students, the teachers were observed focusing on the required content in the textbook and assigning little time to do student-­ centered activities such as pair work, group discussion, and presentation. Along with the class size, most GEC teachers have to face mixed ability students. As the GEC course is a required one for all non-English undergraduates, students with the same major are often assigned within one class. The same major is not equated with the same level of proficiency, motivation, or interest in English learning. It seems impossible for the GCE teachers to cater for diverse learning needs of students within larger classes. The increasing workload is considered as another barrier to the implementation of the new syllabi. University EFL teachers’ workload generally comes from three areas: teaching duties, research work, and non-teaching activities. The teaching duties refer to a certain number of instruction hours specified by their departments. The instruction hours are easily identified, but it was difficult to calculate the amount of time spent on the associated work such as writing lesson planning, giving feedback on students’ assignments, scoring students’ test papers, and participating in the teaching panels’ activities. Many teachers complain that their instructional hours are just “a tip of the iceberg” of their heavy workload. As most Chinese universities are operated under the direct guidance of the government, the teachers have to undertake many non-teaching tasks. All the year round, there are various inspections from the government departments such as employment, enrollment, student counseling, dorm management, internship, and campus security. These activities are more or less relevant to teachers who have to take part in faculty meetings, fill in forms, write short essays, or make business trips for the school. As for the research work, most teachers already have limited time and energy to publish academic articles, apply for research projects, or attend lectures or conferences. However, under the context of educational reforms, the workload for lesson preparation has been increased dramatically. In addition to finishing their routine work, most teachers have to allot an extra amount of time to lesson planning, especially for the SEC teachers with more specialist courses. According to a study by Qin (2014), out of 255 teachers in the study, almost half of the teachers (49.62%) felt pressure at the increasing workload; the work stress mainly came from the research work (49.8%) and teaching duties (21.1%); and 46.3% of teachers reported

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working 8-10 hours during the workdays. Liu and Onwuegbuzie (2012), in their study, also reported that 38.2% teachers out of 510 teachers felt very and highly stressed at their work. Low salaries are another obstacle to teachers’ commitments to the reforms. Since 2010, a performance-based salary system has been introduced in all public schools, including universities. According to the new system, a teacher’s salary is divided into three parts: basic wages, seniority pay and performance-based bonus pay, and allowance for administrative responsibilities (Guo, 2012). Basic wage and seniority pay come from government funding on the basis of the post-secondary education, qualification, professional position, and the number of years of teaching experience. The budget of the performance-based salary is determined by the subject department which takes into consideration of teachers’ instructional hours, administrative responsibilities, and the annual assessment of their work. The average salary for teachers is made up by basic pay and merit pay. For most EFL teachers, the basic pay remains relatively fixed, while the merit pay varies greatly based on their instructional hours. The more instructional hours one undertakes, the more merit pay one receives. Although teachers’ salaries were increased significantly during the past two decades, many teachers felt that their salary levels were not compatible with the years of education they received, far behind with other professions and could not catch up with the rising of the living cost in local regions (Chen & Day, 2015; Guo & Yong, 2013; Liu & Onwuegbuzie, 2012). To compensate for their low salaries, many EFL teachers seek part-time jobs in other universities or private training schools. Teachers’ low salaries pose a significant challenge to the success of the current ELT reform. If teachers are expected to undertake the major responsibilities of transforming reform initiatives into classroom practices, it is crucial to recognize the negative influence brought by their low salaries. Another challenge comes from the issue of unstable employment. As the centralization policy gradually took place through the marketization policy in 2005, teachers lost their tenured positions and had to sign short-term contracts with universities. Before the policy, teachers were traditionally hired by the government with a permanent position equivalent to civil servants and other professions in terms of pay, pension, and other welfares. But after the policy, higher education is viewed as a huge market; students and parents become buyers of higher education; universities and teachers become the provider of educational services. Although the policy increased universities’ autonomy and flexibility in the employment practice and created a competitive system for teacher employment, it introduced the contract-based employment system which placed all teachers in a vulnerable position (Chen & Day, 2015). According to the employment system, most teachers work under short-term contracts ranging from 2 to 4 years. The system empowers a university to hire teachers on temporary contracts. As a normal practice, many universities recruit postgraduate students to teach the GCE and SCE courses temporarily. When their teaching tasks are finished, chances are high for them to be fired without giving notice to the local educational authorities. Furthermore, teachers’ unions (TU) also fail to protect the teachers’ employment rights. In China, every university has the TU branch. It is

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a representative body for the teachers and other staffs working in the university but seldom collectively negotiates teachers’ salaries and employment conditions. Moreover, the unstable working conditions lead to a lower level of job satisfaction. According to two studies (Liu & Onwuegbuzie, 2012; Zhu, 2010), the interviewed teachers, due to their intensive work pressures, low salaries, unstable employment, and other factors felt less satisfied with their current jobs and expressed the desire to leave if an appropriate alternative was available. Under such circumstances, many teachers show more concern about personal welfare than the implementation of educational reforms. They may follow the principle of “no-errors teaching” by covering the required teaching content and keeping the teaching quality at a minimum level so long as no serious complaints are made by students. Being streetwise and playing safe may be a key survival strategy for them.

2.5.4  Barriers to Teachers’ Professional Development (PD) Teachers’ professional development (PD) and educational reform are mutually influenced. As Zhu (2010) points out, teachers’ PD cannot succeed without policy and organizational support because change needs context and conditions. Meanwhile, educational reform cannot succeed without teachers’ involvement and their PD. However, the EFL teachers, during the current reform, are generally considered as a passive receiver rather than active participants. Front-line teachers’ voices and opinions are often ignored in the process of planning reforms; many teachers may feel rather confused, disappointed and even angry. Due to the lack of necessary communication between teachers and policymakers, teachers may be resistant to the reform initiatives. Thus, it becomes evident that teachers’ PD plays a vital role in the success of educational reform. Many studies have surveyed teachers’ attitudes towards PD during educational reforms, and most of them indicate constructive feedback because they tend to embrace positive learning opportunities to reshape professional identity, polish pedagogical skills and update professional knowledge (Guo, Guo, Beckett, Li, & Guo et al., 2012). However, teacher participants in some studies expressed less interest in or enthusiasm about their PD because they were more concerned about academic achievement rather than the quality of classroom teaching largely due to the tension between teachers’ workload and their time and energy investment in research work and between insufficient support from their universities and higher social expectations on teachers (Zhang, 2013). It is true that continuous professional development may help teachers improve their teaching effectiveness, but it appears that research work has a greater weighting than their teaching. Similarly, Zhu (2010) found that one serious barrier to teachers’ PD was the pressure from the teacher evaluation system. Although the quality of teaching was repeatedly emphasized, participant teachers’ promotion was largely determined by their academic achievement rather than classroom teaching. When teachers’ instructional hours reached the minimum level, the only factor determining teachers’

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promotion was the index of a number of their publications, particularly those articles published in the core journals. Borg’s (2010) study echoed this instrumental view of doing research. Many teachers reported engaging in research activity only when they had to (e.g., for promotion). The teachers’ performance evaluation and promotion system become the major barrier to teachers’ PD because teachers, when confronted with increasing workload and low salaries, would rather devote themselves to research rather than teaching. Another hindrance to teachers’ PD is related to the quality of PD programs offered to teachers. A commonly heard complaint from teachers is that many programs are theory-oriented with large audience teachers listening to an expert or professor’s lecture. While the training model can convey the latest reform messages, it is divorced from reality and does not address the needs during the transition from the teacher-centered to student-centered education (Tao, 2006). Tsui (2003) further argues that most EFL teachers are confronted with the dilemma between the shortage of teachers’ training programs and dissatisfaction with the conventional theory-­ based training model. Liu (2005) criticizes that traditional training models based on lectures lack interaction between the trainer and teachers. Most in-service teachers, with the accumulation of their teaching experience, are quite aware of practical problems they encounter and hopefully want to be informed of research that has an immediate and direct positive impact on their practices. What they need most is a practical and sustainable program or model that is based on their real needs in their teaching contexts (Meng & Tajaroensuk, 2013). It seems that the issue is more associated with the lack of good and practical training programs rather than teachers’ willingness to attend them. The conflict between teachers’ increasing workload and their desire to have in-­ service training is also seen as another factor affecting their PD. For teachers working in the formal education system, heavy workload serves as a critical impediment that discourages them in a stressful environment from attending PD training in their busy work lives (Day & Gu, 2010). Some PD programs were provided during out-­ of-­school hours, such as in the evenings, breaks, and even weekends, but teachers were reported to feel constant pressure on finding extra time to participate in these programs that were normally not paid (Li, 2012). Some teachers even complained that they had to sacrifice their family time to their professional lives. For example, a teacher reported a situation in which she sent her 2-year-old daughter back to her parents’ home as she and her husband had little time to look after her while she attended a PD program out of the school district (Guo et al., 2012). It implies that the teacher was overburdened with heavy teaching duties, and allocation of time and energy to attend PD activities was scarce and limited. For university teachers, academic promotion has been seen as a key detrimental factor to teachers’ PD. However, such challenges do not exist in isolation but are interwoven with other factors to exert great influence on their teaching. For example, a large-scale investigation based on 1409 university young teachers (below 35 years of age at the time of study) in Beijing showed that their work pressure mainly came from five areas including an institutional assessment system (24%), students’ recognition (20%), non-instructional work (15%), and

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instructional work (16%) (Gao et al., 2015). Among the five major sources, the institutional assessment practices and policies on teachers’ performance were given a top priority, much higher than their work and research pressure. It indicates that they tended to distract their attention from teaching work and focus on research work to meet official demands. In another survey on 336 sample teachers in Sichuan Province, it was found that four clusters of factors exerted considerable impact on their work, i.e., teachers’ workload, academic atmosphere, professional development, and institutional support (Liu & Zhou, 2016). Among them, a majority of sample teachers reported greater pressure from research work than their teaching, as the quantified assessment practices required them to publish some papers on academic journals according to their professional ranks. Similarly, Zeng and Qi (2013) investigated 683 university teachers in Hubei Province and identified 5 key factors contributing to teachers’ work pressure: research work, teaching, academic promotion, quantified assessment, and employment. The respondents were found to show greater concern for academic promotion, followed by concerns for institutional policies and requirements for research work. In other words, academic promotion plus research work posed challenges on sample teachers’ PD.

2.6  Conclusion The study of language teacher beliefs can never be conducted in isolation from specific contexts in which teachers are situated. Dimensions of context such as social, institutional, cultural, historical, and economic settings in which teachers work have a great impact on teacher beliefs and practices. This chapter offers a glimpse of the macro context where most Chinse EFL teachers work. Although current ELT reform is implemented with the guidance of newly developed ELT syllabi, Chinese teachers have to face four major challenges including an examination-oriented education, the traditional roles of the teacher, unfavorable working conditions, and barriers to teachers’ professional development. These challenges are the long-standing problems in China's education system, which have not yet been fully addressed by policymakers in the new round of ELT reform in Chinese universities. Chinese EFL teachers would find great difficulties in shifting to a student-centered teaching philosophy or effectively implementing the current pedagogical principles in their teaching. Overall, the continuing use of the centralperipheral change model is likely to produce counteractive effects on implementing the reform initiatives, which would lead to tensions and challenges in teachers’ lives, pose threats to their professional practices, undermine their professional identities, and risk the loss of their commitment to the enterprise of China’s education (Chen & Day, 2015).

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Chapter 3

A Framework for Analyzing Teacher Beliefs

3.1  Introduction In the mid-1970s, the advancement of constructivism, cognitive psychology and ethnographic methodology led to a paradigm shift in educational research from studying teachers’ observable behaviors to exploring teachers’ thought processes such as evaluating, planning, deciding, and reacting, which largely remained invisible to the outsider and beyond the reach of researchers. The new paradigm, known as teacher cognition research, aimed at enhancing our understanding about teachers’ cognitive processes and activities based on the social context of their classroom. In the 1990s, Borg (1999) first introduced the term “language teacher cognition” to ESL researchers referring to the cognitive dimension of teaching: what teachers know, think and their beliefs. It created a new inquiry of studying and conceptualizing “the language-teaching mind” (Burns, Freeman, & Edwards, 2015). However, in the past three decades, very few researchers put forwards theoretical models that could contribute to the development of this inquiry. This chapter may serve as my tentative efforts to theorize the language-teaching mind. I propose a framework for analyzing language teacher beliefs for several reasons. First, I believe that there are important perspectives to be gained by identifying the key components of the belief system. These perspectives can help other researchers to develop “deeper epistemological structures and assumptions that support the cognitive view of teaching” (Burns et al., 2015, p. 586). Second, in identifying the key sets of beliefs, I want to introduce some conceptions that help language teacher cognition researchers look beyond the narrow field of language education and enhance communications with belief researchers in other subject areas. Meanwhile, defining the key sets of beliefs may contribute to solving the problem of conceptual ambiguity where identical terms have been defined in different ways

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and different terms have been used to describe similar constructs (Borg, 2003). Third, by naming and describing the key components of the belief system, I argue that the framework provides a set of vocabulary as a mediational tool to facilitate reflective teaching in individual teachers and communicate with other peer teachers. Such practices may help teachers become aware of the powerful influence of their beliefs and purposefully employ these to initiate the curriculum reform in their classrooms. This chapter first presents a sociocultural perspective based on Vygotsky’s theory (1978, 1986) and discusses a working definition borrowed from Skott’s (2015) research on science teacher beliefs. By bringing together various threads of theory from other fields, I develop a theoretical model. The following sections discuss the theoretical foundations, define and describe the key components, and explore the underlying the assumptions of the model. It aims to analyze essential beliefs rather than enumerate all the beliefs held by teachers in different situations. It treats teacher beliefs as an independent construct, though different sets of beliefs are directly linked to different types of practices.

3.2  A Sociocultural Perspective A central idea of Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory is that that all human development is sociocultural, historically, and institutionally situated; human development occurs in sociocultural contexts, are mediated by language and other mediational tools, and are best understood with reference to individual historical development (Vygotsky, 1978, 1986). He emphasizes the development of high-order mental abilities and although he does not deny the indispensable role of biological factors in elementary mental processes, Vygotsky maintains that sociocultural factors and social settings play a central role in the development of higher order mental functioning. Learning is viewed as a social event and emerges from interaction between the learner and the environment. A concept of sociocultural theory is the notion of internalization. It refers to the process by which an individual transforms intermental functioning into intramental functioning as a result of social interaction and in the form of socially-constructed artifacts (Vygotsky, 1987). Another important aspect of sociocultural theory is the concept of mediation. For Vygotsky, mediation is the key to the construction of knowledge. The mediational tools (including other psychological tools) regulates social and individual functioning and connects the social and individual, the external and the internal (Wertsch & Stone, 1985). Knowledge is not internalized directly but through the use of various mediational tools (language, inner speech and other artifacts). They function to solve problems but they are not invented by individuals in isolation. They are products under specific sociocultural conditions in which individuals have access by being actively engaged in the practices of their communities (John-Steiner & Mahn, 1996). Activity theory, as the key component of sociocultural theory, was developed by Vygotsky’s student, Leontev. It stresses that the

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development of mental functioning is not the result of the biological activity in the brain but the functional activity in the integration of social and cultural mediations. In sum, the development processes occur as the outcome of an individual’s participation, interaction, internalization and mediation in cultural, historical and linguistic settings. Vygotsky’s sociocultural theory has a great impact on the study of teacher beliefs. Despite subtle differences in the interpretation of sociocultural theory among teacher cognition researchers (Borg, 2003; Johnson, 2009; Johnson & Golombek, 2011; Kubanyiova, 2012), they support a notion that “teachers might be engaged in meaning-based cognitive activity that was shaped by the social context of their classroom” (Burns et al., 2015, p. 586). From this theory, teacher beliefs originate in and are fundamentally shaped by participation in specific social activities and sociocultural practices (Johnson, 2009, 2015). This theory views teacher beliefs a mediational tool in which a teacher transforms external activities of social interactions into internal activities for teacher thinking. However, the process of internalization does happen independently or automatically. It depends upon a teacher’s use of their beliefs and other internal tools to make sense of the environment, regulate their behaviors, and deal with social relations with others. Meanwhile, the establishment of particular beliefs is the result of a teacher’s prolonged and sustained engagement with the social activities in the school community. Based on above discussion, I argue for a sociocultural perspective to analyze teacher beliefs. The epistemological perspective enables me to look beyond classroom teaching and investigate how teachers make sense of their environments, how they regulate the relations with students, colleagues and administers, how they interpret their professional training and past teaching, how they implement their beliefs in the face of different situational demands, and how they view themselves as teachers. In other words, it is a holistic perspective that helps me explore the meaning of teachers’ work and lives.

3.3  Defining Teacher Beliefs Beliefs, as a critical subject of inquiry, have been widely used in various disciplines such as sociology, anthropology, business, education, political science, philosophy as well as psychology. Researchers in different disciplines tend to define it in different ways. Therefore, it seems difficult to offer a consistent definition across different disciplines. Many researchers believe that it does not lend itself in empirical investigation, as it is a formidable concept that can never be clearly defined or made a useful subject of research (Pajares, 1992). Moreover, it has been used as a messy construct in which identical terms are defined in different ways and different terms are used to describe similar concepts (Borg, 2003). However, the aim of this chapter is not to give an overview of the conceptual issues but propose a working definition that can be used to guide data collection and analysis in the study.

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The working definition in this study is adopted from Skott’s (2015) work in which teacher beliefs refer to “individual, subjectively true and value-laden mental constructs that are of relatively stable results of substantial social experience and that have significant impact on one’s interpretations of and contributions to classroom practices” (p. 19). It indicates four key features of teacher beliefs. First, it is a mental construct that is subjectively true which means not only that “beliefs are characterized by a considerable degree of conviction” but also that “the individual may accept a different position as reasonable and intelligent” (p. 19). Second, it is referred to as a mental construct involving both cognitive and affective aspects and recognizes the inextricable link between beliefs and other components. It is valueladen, as it requires “a certain degree of commitment, either positive or negative” (p. 19). Moreover, it is considered as contextually situated and remains relatively stable, which is likely to change “as a result of substantial engagement in relevant social practice” (p. 19). Finally, it has a significant influence on the way in which teachers interpret and deal with problems in practice. Skott’s definition is particularly relevant to the study, as the four key features of teacher beliefs provide a more comprehensive view than previous research perspectives. In addition to teacher beliefs, two key terms, knowledge and cognition, will be widely used in the study. As there are different ways of defining the two concepts in the literature of language teacher cognition, I need to clarify the three terms to focus on the construct of teacher beliefs in empirical research. Perhaps the biggest issue that causes much confusion is still the distinction between belief and knowledge. From the philosophical perspective, Fenstermacher (1994) argues that belief is epistemologically different from knowledge, as knowledge is based on factual propositions while belief relates to personal values, which may not have epistemic merit. Nespor (1987) distinguishes between belief and knowledge by suggesting four key features of beliefs such as existential presumption, alternativity, affective and evaluative laden and episodic structure. Similarly, Fives and Buehl (2012) argue that beliefs have been defined as subjective claims that individuals accept as true, whereas knowledge encompasses the element of objective truth, which can be verified or confirmed through external sources or procedures. Other researchers, from the psychological perspective, argue that beliefs and knowledge are inseparable and interchangeable, both of them becoming parts of individuals’ mental constructs. For them, knowledge is understood as “all that a person knows or believes to be true, whether or not it is verified as true in some sort of objective or external way” (Alexander, Schallert, & Hare, 1991, p. 317), while belief is often taken as personal understandings, premises, propositions (Richardson, 1996) or one’s convictions, philosophy, tenets or opinions (Haney, Lumpe, & Czerniak, 2003). Other researchers consider belief as a form or category of knowledge. For example, Nisbett and Ross (1980) argue that knowledge has a generic structure composed of a cognitive component (schematically organized) and a belief component (having elements of evaluation and judgment). Although individuals’ perception is influenced by the generic structure, their knowledge can never exist with the absence of their judgment or evaluation. Earnest (1989) also implies that knowledge is the cognitive outcome of thought and belief is the affective outcome, but he acknowledged that beliefs might play a less significant role than the cognitive component.

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In language teacher cognition research, cognition has been referred to “what teachers know, believe and think” (Borg, 2003, p. 81). It is a multidimensional construct that includes teacher beliefs, knowledge, theories, attitudes, assumptions, conceptions, perspectives and so on. Nonetheless, Borg acknowledges the difficulty of disentangling belief from knowledge, as they are inextricably linked to each other in the mind of the teacher. In empirical studies, a clear distinction between belief and knowledge proves to be impossible, as the boundaries between them tend to be blurred and researchers may have great difficulties in determining where beliefs end and knowledge begins. For example, they may find it impossible to distinguish whether the teachers refer to their beliefs or knowledge when they are asked to report underlying thoughts about their instructional decisions and practices. In line with such understandings, Woods (1996) proposed the concept of BAK (i.e., Beliefs, Assumptions and Knowledge) in his research. For Woods, knowledge refers to things that we conventionally accept as facts: assumption involves the temporary acceptance of a “fact” (state, process or relationship) which may not be known or has not been demonstrated but is taken as true for the time being, and belief refers to an acceptance of a proposition for which there is no conventional knowledge, is not demonstrable, or there is accepted disagreement. But Woods regarded BAK as a composite notion and explained that “BAK networks are structured in the sense that knowledge, assumptions, and beliefs can be posited as interrelated propositions, in which certain propositions presuppose others” (p. 196). Woods highlights the interwoven nature and interrelated relationships among BAK. Due to the difficulty to distinguish beliefs from knowledge in empirical research, Borg (2006) pinpoints that separating beliefs, knowledge and other related concepts in empirical research prove to be too inefficient, as these constructs are not held separately or distinctively in the mind of the teacher. In the study, I claim neither to resolve nor overlook the distinction between belief and knowledge completely. But I emphasize a sociocultural perspective to understand the debate of belief and knowledge. From this perspective, although there are subtle differences between belief and knowledge, they constitute essential parts of teacher cognition which are closely related to and influence each other. Meanwhile, I highlight the evaluative, affective and episodic nature of beliefs, which serve as the key criteria to discern qualitative data concerning teacher beliefs. However, I have to admit that in some cases it is hard to dissect knowledge from beliefs because they are indispensable components and embedded in teachers’ work and lives.

3.4  Theoretical Foundations By pulling together various threads from different fields, I would like to propose a theoretical model that aims at capturing the complexity of beliefs. To better understand this model, I think it is necessary to examine its theoretical foundations beforehand.

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3.4.1  The General System Theory Drawing insight from the notion of cybernetics taken from computer science, engineering, biology, philosophy, psychology and many branches of social science, von Bertalanffy (1953, 1972) established and developed the general system theory. According to von Bertalanffy, a system has four key features. First, a system consists of parts, elements, and variables. These objects of a system can be either physical or abstract, depending on the nature of the system. Second, a system has its attributes, the qualities or properties of the system and its components. Furthermore, a system has an internal relationship among its objects. Finally, a system exists in the environment. A system is a set of things that affects one another within the environment and forms a component of a larger system. From the perspective of the general system theory, we can understand that teacher beliefs exist as a system which consist of different components and has dynamic interactions among them. As teacher beliefs are embedded in teachers’ mental world, the belief system may coexist with other mental constructs such as attitudes, values, motivation and so on.

3.4.2  The Nature of Context Van der Meulen (2002) argues that the nature of context can be understood in three ways. First, context is a global construct which needs further specification. Second, context can be viewed as relatively stable variables or changeable variables during the course of development. Moreover, for a clear understanding of the role of context in self-concept research, he suggests a distinction between context and the meaning of context. In his eyes, context refers to objectively observable variables in the physical world while the meaning of context is the psychological variables perceived by individuals. His notion of context has important implications for teacher beliefs research. First of all, teacher beliefs can be understood as a type of the meaning of context (psychological variables). Belief researchers should focus on the meaning of context rather than context itself. Second, he suggests a holistic examination of contextual factors to obtain a broad range of meanings of context perceived by individuals.

3.4.3  Theories of Action To develop an alternative perspective for envisioning an action science, Argyris (1972, 1993) and his collaborators propose theories of action. This begins with a conception that human being designs their behaviors in difficult situations. He distinguishes two types of theories of action: espoused theory and theory-in-use. The former refers to those that individuals claim to follow while the latter are those that

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can be inferred from their actions. He also emphasizes that the distinction is not between theory and action but between two distinctive types of theories about action. In other words, human actions are simultaneously governed by two sets of theories. Argyris’ theories develop a new perspective to understand the relationship between beliefs and practices. First, the incongruence between belief and practice can be understood as the distinction between two sets of beliefs. In other words, teachers’ classroom practices are simultaneously governed by at least two sets of beliefs. Second, many belief researchers argue that the incongruence between beliefs and practices are often attributed to specific contextual factors which prevent teachers from enacting their beliefs, but Argyris emphasizes the role of individuals’ awareness, to what degree individuals are aware of the incongruence.

3.4.4  Patterns-of-Participation (PoP) Due to conceptual and methodological challenges, some belief researchers such as Skott (2009, 2013, 2015) call for attention on teachers’ practices rather than beliefs. Skott proposes the participatory approach of learning which views learning as a process of becoming a part of a greater community and views the learner as an emerging practitioner trying to get access to historically established forms of human doing. In this model, Skott, Larsen, and Østergaard, (2011) treat practices as the outcome of both individual and communal meaning-making and agency that emerges from the local environment. It suggests that “teachers’ practice in classrooms is a result of their classroom interaction by re-engaging other past and present experiences and reinterpreting and transforming these experiences in the process. A teacher’s practice is impacted by and bound together by their re-­ engagement in other essential discourses and practices through the meaning they place on the social interaction itself” (Alsalim 2014, p. 5). The PoP model focuses on analyzing a wide range of practices that teachers engage with the school community, and it emphasizes that teachers’ specific practices in classrooms are closely related to other social practices such as interactions with colleagues, parents and school administrators. Instead of being subordinated to or passively influenced by teacher beliefs, the model puts teachers’ practices at the center of their professional lives and suggests a more sociocultural approach to analyze their classroom practices. Unlike the traditional view of practice in teacher beliefs research, it adopts a participatory view on the role of teachers’ practices. In other words, teachers’ classroom practices should be examined in tandem with their social practices in the school community. Such a view of practice certainly differs from the fragmented view adopted by many belief researchers who simply examine what happens or what teachers do in classrooms.

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3.4.5  Functions of Teacher Beliefs From a theoretical and empirical perspective, Fives and Buehl (2012) propose a functional model that examines how teacher beliefs relate to practices. In this model, three basic functions are identified: beliefs as filters for interpretation, frames for defining problems, and guides or standards for action. As a filter, beliefs are related to practice by the way that they influence teachers’ perception and interpretations of information and experience. The framing role of beliefs is associated with the way in which beliefs are used to define the frame for pedagogical problems. The guiding function of beliefs emerges from teachers’ motivational abilities (self-efficacy beliefs) that move them to action. Given the three basic functions of beliefs, Fives and Buehl further argue that different types of beliefs have different functions in different situations. For example, some beliefs serve as filters used in the interpretations of events and content as relevant; some beliefs help teachers define problems or tasks at hand while other beliefs are used to guide teachers to transform them into immediate actions. Fives and Buehl (2012, p.478) also propose a diagram to explain mechanisms and processes that explain how teachers transform their beliefs into actions. It helps us understand the complexity of teacher beliefs by identifying different functions. In sum, despite these theories coming from different disciplines and possibly not being related to each other, they have their merits and contribute to an integrative model for analyzing the complexity of teacher beliefs. Specifically, the General System Theory suggests that beliefs are best understood as a system consisting of different components while Van der Meulen’s notion of context indicates the present study should focus on the meaning of context rather than context itself. Theories of action imply that a belief system has at least two sets of beliefs corresponding to espoused theories and theory-in-use while the PoP model shifts our attention from teachers’ classroom practices to social practices in the school context. As for Fives and Buehl’s model, it suggests that teacher beliefs are related to practices in terms of different functions in the specific contexts.

3.5  A Theoretical Model Drawing on above theoretical discussions, I propose an analytic model to examine teacher beliefs as a complex system. In this model, I identify four key components: theoretical beliefs, action beliefs, context beliefs, and beliefs about teachers’ roles. The first three components adopt the perspective from Five and Buhl’s model but conceptualize beliefs in different ways, and the last component is related to teachers’ conceptions about their roles as teachers.

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3.5.1  Theoretical Beliefs There is a common understanding that goals and beliefs are related but very few studies examine its connection empirically. In an attempt to relate goals to beliefs, Saxe (1991) offers an alternative view on goals. Rather than viewing goals as long-­ term general ones for student learning and curriculum development, Saxe defines goals as mental structures emerging from teachers’ use of knowledge and skills and in interactions with others within their teaching situations. In line with Saxe’s position, I define theoretical beliefs as the mental construct concerning the interpretations of goals in the teaching of reading. Although theoretical beliefs are assumed to be unarticulated, teachers do hold a range of beliefs concerning the teaching of vocabulary, sentence, text structure, background knowledge, reading skills and so on. Theoretical beliefs are a type of espoused theories and are concerned with the way by which teachers interpret ELT syllabi, curriculum reform policies and past experiences. From the sociocultural perspective, theoretical beliefs are the mediational tool that reflect teachers’ understanding of their professional learning and teaching experiences, which I term as stated practices.

3.5.2  Action Beliefs Inspired by Argyris’ theory of actions, I refer action beliefs as a type of theory-in-­ use that are demonstrated in teachers’ classroom practices. They are unarticulated and can be inferred through their classroom practices, especially “the way they worked with students and the tasks that they required of the students” (Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, & Thwaite, 2001, p. 478). They can be seen as a set of action principles that guide teachers’ immediate actions and deal with pedagogical tasks and problems. Classroom practices can be seen as a type of compromised behaviors or actions emerging from the self-negotiation process of different sets of beliefs and the desire to ease the instructional tensions in specific situations. From the perspective of the theory of actions, there may be inconsistencies between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs, which can be attributed to both external factors (situational constraints) and internal factors (teachers’ awareness).

3.5.3  Context Beliefs Context beliefs are concerned with teachers’ evaluative understandings of their social practices in relation to the significance of their teaching, Significance for teaching is best conceptualized as teachers’ concerns on how specific factors support or hinder the enactment of their beliefs. These concerns invovle teachers’ needs, current goals, values or anything that they care about. From Van der Meulen’s

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perspective, context beliefs reflect teachers’ understanding of contextual influences on their teaching. In analogy of the hierarchical structure of context, teachers may develop individualized mental structures to holistically evaluate the positive and negative influences of contextual factors. Context beliefs may serve as a set of psychological variables that help teachers make sense of the instructional tensions they face. From Skott’s PoP model, context beliefs conceptualize teachers as the agent that actively participates in and makes sense of their social activities emerging from dynamic interactions with colleagues, administrative staff and students. Context beliefs provide an alternative perspective that allow researchers to “think” beyond classroom teaching and situate teachers’ classroom practices in the school environment. In this sense, teachers’ classroom practices and social practices are closely related and constitute the key parts of their professional lives.

3.5.4  Beliefs About Teachers’ Roles In line with context beliefs, I define this component as the evaluative understandings of a set of characteristics associated with teachers’ professional roles. They may be seen as the core beliefs, which reflect their fundamental understandings on the key elements in teaching, the idea of what constitutes a good teacher and education, a view of knowledge, as well as their positions about others in the school community (Wang and Du, 2006). As the core one, this component is expected to have the characteristics such as being stable and resistant to change, being functionally connected to other beliefs, having an adaptive function and exerting greater influence actions (Green, 1971; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992; Rokeach, 1968). Among them, the adaptive function is seen the most substantial one, which regulates relationships among different groups of beliefs and keeps the belief system as a whole without falling apart. To draw a distinction between teachers’ roles and teacher identity, O’Connor (O’Connor, 2008) argues that teachers’ roles reflect the commonly held expectations which are socially defined and culturally determined in nature while teacher identity emphasizes the subjectivity brought by individuals’ reflexivity and their emotional negotiation about their professions. Some researchers suggest that teachers’ roles are the visible outcomes of teachers’ mediations that go beyond specific situations and link to the wider educational context (Kelly, Dorf, Pratzt, & Hohmann, 2014). These arguments indicate that the two terms are often defined without much discrimination and it does not seem easy to clarify them. In this model, I would like to propose that teacher identity refers to “a dynamic, career-long process of negotiating the teacher-self in relation to personal and emotional experiences, the professional and social context, and the micro and macro political environment” (Zembylas & Chubbuck, 2015, p. 174) while teachers’ roles can be understood as “the phase outcome” of such self-negotiations about their professions. It suggests that teachers’ roles are more dynamic and span over a certain stage rather than their entire professional lives. In this case, teacher beliefs

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about their roles, coupled with other beliefs, represent “the interconnected, affective, conceptual and evaluative perspective that teachers develop about themselves, their students, students learning, a method of instruction, curriculum, and schools as social institutions” (Zembylas & Chubbuck, 2015, p. 174).

3.5.5  The Belief System Overall, the theoretical model suggests that teachers hold a range of beliefs to guide their classroom teaching and engage in a variety of practices in the sociocultural contexts. From the perspective of the general system theory, teacher beliefs exist as a complex system embedded in a larger system in teacher cognition. Although components of the belief system may overlap with each other, they have different functions and correspond to different types of practices, which serve as the identifiable sources to develop their beliefs. These components can be classified as core beliefs and peripheral ones (Phillips & Borg, 2009) in terms of their function, importance and role played in the belief system. As teachers’ teaching take place in specific sociocultural contexts, context beliefs which are concerned with teachers’ evaluative understanding of contextual influences on their teaching constitute an indispensable part of the belief system. Likewise, beliefs about teachers’ roles, as core beliefs, reflect teachers’ conceptions of their professional roles and play a key role in regulating the relationship among different components of the belief system. The two components not only broaden our understanding about teachers’ pedagogical thoughts and behaviors but also give a glimpse of teachers’ work and lives. The following figure (Fig. 3.1) illustrates that the key components of the belief system though the actual belief system in teachers’ minds are far more complicated, entangling with other mental constructs and not having clear-cut boundaries among them.

3.6  The Underlying Assumptions of the Theoretical Model The conception of the belief system begins with a general assumption that teachers’ beliefs are largely unarticulated and theoretical beliefs, action beliefs and context beliefs are inferred through stated practices, classroom practices and social practices respectively. According to Fives and Buehl (2012), the conception of teacher beliefs involves either the implicit and explicit view. The former view suggests that beliefs guide a teacher’s behavior and filter information or teaching experiences without the teacher’s awareness. Nespor (1987) argues that implicit beliefs are beyond the control of the teacher and cannot be articulated through personal reflections. The latter view indicates that some beliefs may be explicit to the teacher, especially for those with rich teaching experiences in different situations. In line with Dewey’s position, Fives and Buehl (2012) argue that the explicit nature of

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Fig. 3.1  A theoretical model of teacher beliefs in EFL reading instruction

beliefs require both intelligent and practical commitment so that teachers can justify themselves and employ their beliefs to guide their teaching. The opposite conceptions create the methodological tension to assess teacher beliefs. If beliefs are explicit, then researchers can directly ask teachers what beliefs they hold and elicit the data through verbal and written communication in the form of structured interview and questionnaire. However, such an approach has been criticized due to the following reasons. For example, teachers may not possess a language or share a language with researchers to describe their beliefs (Speer, 2005; Windschitl, 2002; Skott, 2015). Teachers may not be aware of what beliefs they have or develop clear ideas to differentiate their beliefs and other mental constructs (Borg, 2006; Richardson, 1996). On the contrary, the explicit approach has been used to examine teachers’ enacted beliefs by analyzing teachers’ actual behaviors, planned actions or classroom activities (Fives & Buehl, 2012; Pajares, 1992). But the implicit approach is inadequate to investigate a broad range of beliefs because teachers may hold a range of beliefs about students, subject matters, instructional techniques and approaches, themselves and so on, which may not be easily demonstrated in their observable behaviors. In other words, the approach only examines the enacted beliefs but fails to capture other beliefs. The issue of the explicit and implicit nature of teacher beliefs is an ongoing debate and seems unsolved at current situations. Nonetheless, I would argue for a dichotomous position in which beliefs are largely unarticulated and can be inferred through teachers’ practices. In the analogy of the jigsaw pictures, the researcher can formulate a “bigger picture” of the belief system by an in-depth analysis of different

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types of practices. Moreover, my position suggests that these practices do not neatly but roughly correspond to three components because they are not independent constructs with clear boundaries but somewhat overlap with each other. It is true that the researchers’ bias and perspectives may influence how teachers define or categorize their beliefs or how teachers assign meanings to their beliefs. However, qualitative researchers need to “position” themselves in their studies. They do not have to disguise themselves as God narrating “universal and atemporal knowledge” (Richardson & St. Pierre, 2005, p. 961). Instead, different researchers would describe the same phenomena in different ways as they bring their values, opinions, beliefs, and personal experience to qualitative study (known as reflexivity). In this respect, the analytic model serves as my perspective to examine the belief system, and components of the belief system indicate the general direction or the boundaries of specific beliefs to be investigated. The model is neither an empirical claim nor a conclusive remark because it has not yet explained how the teachers hold and use these beliefs and how these beliefs interrelate to one another.

3.7  Conclusion This chapter introduces a framework for analyzing teacher beliefs. Based on Vygotsky’s view of learning and development, I propose a sociocultural perspective to examine participants’ key beliefs in the context of EFL reading instruction in Chinese universities. It offers a unique lens to penetrate into the “hidden side of teaching” and explore the meaning of teachers’ work and lives. In line with the sociocultural perspective, I borrow a working definition from Skott’s work. By putting together theories from different disciplines, I develop a theoretical model and focus on four key components, that is, theoretical beliefs, action beliefs, context beliefs, and beliefs about teachers’ roles. Following the implicit view of beliefs, I contend that these beliefs are mostly inferred through their stated practices, classroom practices, and social practices in the school context. However, the primary concern of theorizing teacher beliefs does not reside on the need to enumerate key beliefs held by teachers but responds to the need to examine the dynamic interaction among these beliefs and reveals the complexity of teacher beliefs. Within the context of teacher cognition research, the model is based on “an ontological focus on connections and relationships in the third and fourth generations, attention shifts from the objects themselves – what the teacher thinks – to how that cognition is interwoven in place, time and relationship” (Burns et  al., 2015, p. 597).

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Pajares, M. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62, 307–332. Phillips, S., & Borg, S. (2009). Exploring tensions between teachers’ grammar teaching beliefs and practices. System, 37, 380–390. Richardson, V. (1996). The role of attitudes and beliefs in learning to teach. In J.  Sikula, T.  J. Buttery, & E.  Guyton (Eds.), Handbook of research on teacher education (2nd ed., pp. 102–119). New York: Macmillan. Richardson, L., & St. Pierre, E. (2005). Writing: A method of inquiry. In N. K. Denzi & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.), The Sage handbook of qualitative research (3rd ed., pp.  959–978). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Rokeach, M. (1968). Beliefs, attitudes, and values: A theory of organization and change. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass. Saxe, G. (1991). Culture and cognitive development: Studies in mathematical understanding. Hillsdale, MI: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Skott, J. (2009). Contextualising the notion of belief enactment. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 12(1), 27–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857–008–9093–9 Skott, J. (2013). Understanding the role of the teacher in emerging classroom practices: Searching for patterns of participation. ZDM-The International Journal on Mathematics Education, 45(4), 547–559. Skott, J. (2015). The promises, problems, and prospects of research on teachers’ beliefs. In H. Fives & M.  G. Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teachers’ beliefs (pp.  13–30). New York: Routledge. Skott, J., Larsen, D., & Østergaard, C. (2011). From beliefs to patterns of participation: Shifting the research perspective on teachers. Nordic Studies in Mathematics Education, 16(1–2), 29–55. Speer, N. (2005). Issues of methods and theory in the study of mathematics teachers’ professed and attributed beliefs. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 58(3), 361–391. Van der Meulen, M. (2002). Development in self-concept theory and research: Affect, context and variability. In H. A. Bosma & E. Saskia Kunnen (Eds.), Identity and emotion: Development through self-organization (pp. 10–32). Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. von Bertalanffy, L. (1953). Philosophy of science in scientific education. Scientific Monthly, 77, 233–239. von Bertalanffy, L. (1972). The history and status of general system theory. In G. Klir (Ed.), Trends in general systems theory (pp. 21–41). New York: Wiley. Vygotsky, L. (1978). In M.  Cole, V.  John-Steiner, S.  Scribner, & E.  Souberman (Eds.), Mind in society: the development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. (1987). The collected works of L.S.  Vygotsky. In R.  W. Reiber & A.  S. Carton (Eds.), The problems of speech and thinking in Piaget’s theory (Vol. 1, pp. 53–92). New York: Plenum Press. Wang, L., & Du, X. (2006). Chinese language teacher beliefs about their roles in the Danish context. System, 61, 1–11. Wertsch, J., & Stone, C. (1985). The concept of internalization in Vygotsky’s account of the gensis of higher mental functions. In J.  V. Wertsch (Ed.), Culture, communication and cognition: Vygotskian perspectives (pp. 162–179). New York: Cambridge University Press. Windschitl, M. (2002). Framing constructivism in practice as the negation of dilemmas: An analysis of the conceptual, pedagogical, cultural, and political challenges facing teachers. Review of Educational Research, 72, 131–175. Woods, D. (1996). Teacher cognition in language teaching: Beliefs, decision-making and classroom practice. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Zembylas, M., & Chubbuck, S. (2015). The interaction of identity, beliefs and politics in conceptualizing “teacher identity”. In H. Fives & M. G. Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teachers’ beliefs (pp. 173–190). New York: Routledge.

Chapter 4

Theoretical Beliefs

4.1  Introduction Theoretical beliefs can be understood as a type of espoused beliefs, stated beliefs, or professed beliefs, reflecting how the teachers interpret their routinized instructional practices. For example, Liang and Dixon (2009), in a qualitative study, revealed four key themes of espoused beliefs held by Singapore teachers: teachers’ relationships with individual students, purposes of teachers’ work, nature of students, and cognitive and affective dimensions of teaching and learning. By using a questionnaire and interview, Borg and Al-Busaidi (2011) found a majority of teachers out of 61 participants held firm beliefs about the positive role of learner autonomy. Nishino (2011), in a survey of 139 Japanese EFL teachers in high schools, found that most teachers held positive beliefs about CLT, but there was a gap between their beliefs and practices. They suggest that positive classroom conditions (contextual factors and teacher training) are a prerequisite to implement CLT. Other studies (e.g., Graham, Santos, & Francis-Brophy, 2014; Latif, 2012; Lee, 2009; Uysal & Bardakci, 2014; Young & Sachdev, 2011) investigated stated beliefs in the teaching of listening, writing, grammar and intercultural communicative competence, and so on. Although authors of these studies claim to investigate teachers’ beliefs and practices in particular areas, a problem with them is that they do not include an observational component to confirm what the teachers do in classrooms. However, it does not mean findings of these studies are unreliable but suggests that they reflect the key features of teachers’ stated beliefs, namely, that these beliefs are related to the teachers’ interpretations of instructional goals, student characteristics, the importance, and conditions of a particular teaching approach or particular aspect of teaching. Following the implicit view of teacher beliefs, I did not directly ask participants what goals of teaching they held. With the combined use of semi-structured interview and concept mapping, I extracted codes and themes from the second interview

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and visualized them in concept maps. They are labeled as “theoretical” since these beliefs reveal participants’ personal theories about reading teaching and the socio-­ emotional dimension of learning based on many years’ teaching. The data analysis suggests that participants interpreted theoretical beliefs as five goals in their teaching, i.e., reading for expanding vocabulary knowledge, gaining structural knowledge, building background knowledge, promoting students’ comprehension, and enhancing students’ social-emotional learning. The five key themes also indicate a shared goal structure with three knowledge goals as the basic ones, comprehension as the core one, and the social-emotional learning (SEL) as the extended one, with participants giving more priority to the basic goals and the core one. To some extent, theoretical beliefs imply participants’ educational ideals or some goals that they want to achieve in perfect teaching situations.

4.2  Reading for Expanding Vocabulary Knowledge Very few teachers would deny the role of vocabulary knowledge in reading instruction. Findings of several studies revealed that vocabulary knowledge of L2 learners was highly correlated with their reading abilities (Droop & Verhoeven, 2003; Verhoeven, 2000) and the ELT syllabi also set graded goals specifying the size and level of vocabulary knowledge. The participants were found to attach importance to expanding to students’ vocabulary knowledge, but devoted less class time to vocabulary teaching, as they believed that vocabulary was the key goal for self-study but not their teaching. Nonetheless, they reported four practices in vocabulary teaching such as intentional vocabulary teaching, explaining keywords in context, dictation, and checking vocabulary exercises. Moreover, student textbooks and the final exam (see Chap. 8) played a key role in their vocabulary teaching. Participants were found to focus on keywords from reading passages in student textbooks. Students were encouraged to grasp a large vocabulary from text learning and gain more advantages on the final exam and the high-stakes test. Intentional vocabulary teaching is a typical practice of a reading class during which a teacher introduces key words before reading or making the relevant association between a key idea and the main ideas of the text. But participants’ beliefs about the practice varied considerably. Three teachers (Linda, Angel, and Lychee) used the practice on classes, as they believed that vocabulary study was one of the major obstacles for students’ comprehension but limited class time forced them to focus on a small number of keywords. Such a dilemma was illustrated in Linda’s narrative. She suggests that a large vocabulary was crucial for improving students’ reading abilities but admitted to reduce her class time on intentional vocabulary teaching since last year, as she wanted to reassign her class time and devoted more to text comprehension.

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Several years ago, I spent quite a lot of class time on vocabulary teaching. Normally, I would allocate a 40-min class to deal with new words for each passage. But now, er, I think, I need to change the situation. You see, I cannot turn my classes into a session of boring vocabulary study. I mean, what is more important for students, is their reading abilities, and, I need more time to help them understand what the writer tells them. By the way, students, have got a lot of free time after class, I can use a dictation to check their vocabulary learning. (Linda, second interview)

Similarly, Angel focused on a small number of keywords from reading passages rather than going through the wordlist, as she believed that “new words are the key task for students to do when they preview the text but not the key goal of my teaching” (Angel, 2nd interview). But Lychee kept a section of vocabulary learning when she finished her teaching, which was used to reinforce students’ vocabulary knowledge. My vocabulary teaching lasts about 10 minutes, which does not take up too much time. Normally, I will pick up a few keywords to teach after we finish reading the text. Knowing a word does not mean knowing a single meaning in a certain context. Students need to learn about its collocation, synonym, antonym, meanings in other contexts, or anything related to the word. (Lychee, 2nd interview)

On the other hand, the other three participants seldom allocated class time for intentional vocabulary learning because they were firmly convinced that their class time should be devoted to more important goals, students were asked to preview new words before their teaching or reviewed them after that. In fact, their beliefs about the practice were associated with the understanding of student collective characteristics and course requirements. For example, Edith taught a group of senior SEC students, and she worked with authentic reading passages which were lengthy and difficult to understand. Edith believed that her students should develop individualized ways of learning new words rather than relying on her teaching on classes (Edith, second interview). However, she raised students’ awareness of vocabulary study by setting previewing tasks before her classes, quickening steps of her teaching and assigning dictation tasks after class. Similarly, Lynch seldom adopted the practice because he believed that his reading course should aim at expanding students’ business knowledge rather than vocabulary from reading. Now my students have reached their senior years. Their learning should have more advanced goals rather than simply keeping a close watch on vocabulary. We have used a new textbook in business English, it has nothing to do with English literature. I think we should aim at expanding students’ business knowledge through reading rather than vocabulary. I think it is meaningless to teach from the wordlist as students can look up the new words from dictionaries or the Internet. (Lynch, second interview)

As for Leon, he had the conviction that “vocabulary is the personal goal for language learning and should be solved personally at the preparatory stage before his reading class” (Leon, second interview). He emphasized that students should expand their vocabulary through self-study activities such as previewing and looking up new words from the dictionary. In addition, Leon divided his reading course into two parts: textbook reading and novel reading. He attached more importance to the latter while giving little attention to vocabulary from reading passages.

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Contrary to the practice of intentional vocabulary teaching, all participants reported a frequent use of the practice of explaining keywords from reading passages in classes. It was combined with another practice of parsing sentences, which was seen as a necessary means to aid students’ understanding of key details of passage reading. Participants often used it intentionally as they tended to carefully choose the keywords from the passage at the stage of lesson planning and demonstrated the meanings of these words in the instructional PPTs (PowerPoints). For example, Linda and Lychee reported using it to expand the depth of vocabulary knowledge and solve comprehension problems in text reading. “The purpose of using it is to help make sense of particular sentences and remove the impediments in their reading” Linda explained (Linda, second interview). Angel also used the practice with the idea of providing “immediate opportunities” to use these words in context: The reason to pick up these words to teach, is mostly that they create some problems for students to understand the whole sentence... I also emphasize the ability that students can put them into practice. After my explanation, I often design some exercises on the PPTs such as blank filling, translation and making new sentences, which offers immediate chances for students to use them. (Angel, 2nd interview)

With an interest in sociolinguistics during his postgraduate study, Lynch emphasized the construction of an appropriate context to help students make sense of the meaning of keywords. With a proper context, students would accurately grasp the meanings of these words, which would improve their guessing abilities from context. Similarly, Edith believed the practice facilitated students to clarify meanings of new words in context and helped them remove ambiguities in their comprehension. I particularly recommend students to acquire new words through context and expand their vocabulary through extensive reading rather than memorizing them from the wordlist...The reason to explain the keywords in context is that students may have some ambiguities in understanding specific details. Perhaps students have acquired these words elsewhere, but they have different meanings in the passage, and students don’t know. In this case, these words have to be picked up to explain. (Edith, second interview)

Dictation was the third practice concerning vocabulary knowledge. They agreed to use it as a crucial means to supervise students’ vocabulary learning after class. They believed that expanding vocabulary knowledge was a long-term task for students and their learning outcomes should be assessed frequently. In this case, dictation served as a way of reminding students to keep focused on their vocabulary learning. For example, the following account showed that Angel used it to remind students to accumulate vocabulary from text learning, making preparation for taught passages and raising their awareness on vocabulary learning. The words appearing in reading passages can surely help students pass the CET-4 as well as other English exams. It is one of the reasons that I use dictation with my students...I often conduct it before students begin to learn a new passage, as I feel that most GEC students, due to concentrating on their majors, may be reluctant to spend spare time on English learning. If they do not memorize the new words beforehand, it is very difficult for me to deploy my teaching... Another thing I tell my students is that their scores in each dictation would be added to their overall scores at the end of the semester. In this way, they are willing to spend some time learning new words from the passage. (Angel, second interview)

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But the frequency of using it varied considerably among participants. For Linda, she adopted it almost with each taught passage and an additional one before the test date of the CET-4. Only in this way did she instill in the students’ minds the idea of “without learning new words, I can neither understand the text nor pass the CET-4” (Linda, second interview). On the other hand, Lychee organized her dictations as group study activities after class. She divided students into several study groups with a head student responsible for conducting the task with students. She used the practice to solve the dilemma between the insufficient amount of class time and the need to constantly check students’ vocabulary learning. She explained that head students periodically reported the progresses of group members to her and their scores were also added to their overall scores. As for Lynch and Edith, they occasionally adopted this approach, as they insisted that their students, in their senior years, were expected to show more initiatives in language learning rather than being forced to do dictations like sophomores. For example, Edith did not rely on it to check their learning but used the TEM-8 requirement to push them for vocabulary learning. I just encourage, not force them to expand their vocabulary. I do not like to use the dictation, as I think, students, in their senior years, should expand their vocabulary by themselves. You see, the TEM-8 is set ahead for them. If they want to pass the TEM-8, they should have the awareness to increase the vocabulary, so I do not have to press them so hard. (Edith, second interview)

The last practice was concerned with the use of vocabulary exercises at the back of reading passages. All participants agreed that checking vocabulary exercises was an effective way to expand students’ vocabulary knowledge, for these exercises may include the words that were not taught in classes. What made vocabulary exercises important to students was the final exam at the end of each semester which assessed students’ language knowledge including vocabulary from the textbook. For example, the following account shows that Angel’s students were motivated to reinforce their vocabulary from the textbook under the influence the final exam: In fact, the passages that students learned in classes have a close link to the final exam. About 40-50% of the test items are based on the taught passages. The test items are more related to vocabulary and translation exercises from the textbook. (Angel, 2nd interview)

Such a practice was also adopted by other participants, but the SEC participants suggested a weak link between vocabulary exercises and the final exam. For example, while checking written exercises was an essential part of her teaching, Edith emphasized that she did so because of the “course requirements” (Edith, second interview) which aimed at expanding and increasing students’ word power. She made use of the practice to extend her teaching to related synonyms, anatomies, collocations, and other literal meanings. Thus she turned the vocabulary exercise into a post-reading activity to reinforce students’ vocabulary knowledge. In short, while participants adopted the practices for different reasons, they aimed at increasing students’ vocabulary knowledge through taught passages. These practices were adopted with other practices or reasons. For example, explaining

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keywords in context was often used with an aim of improving students’ understanding of key details in text reading. Previewing passages and familiarizing new vocabulary prepared students for reading activities in class. Checking vocabulary exercises and dictation served as a kind of post-reading activity, to reinforce students’ vocabulary knowledge. Participants’ narratives revealed the instructional tension in their vocabulary teaching. They understood the importance of vocabulary in reading comprehension as well as language learning, but they did not have enough time to monitor student learning after classes. They learned to disperse the tension by setting pre-reading and post-reading activities and made use of the extrinsic motivation (the influence of the final exam and high-stakes tests) to raise students’ awareness on vocabulary learning. However, participants’ concerns on vocabulary revealed their reliance on the taught passages of student textbooks, which were seen as the major source for expanding vocabulary knowledge. For this reason, it was not surprising to see that participants addressed other practices that encouraged students to expand vocabulary knowledge through extensive reading.

4.3  Reading for Gaining Structural Knowledge Structural knowledge is one of the most conventional and fundamental aspects of reading instruction, and almost every reading teacher has to deal with the structural aspect of reading in their teaching. In context of the study, structural knowledge involved three practices: analyzing sentence structure, text structure, and text genres. Participants tend to believe that having a good command of structural knowledge was beneficial for a better understanding of the taught passages. Analyzing sentence structure was one of the common practices described in participants’ accounts. Theoretically, it includes syntactic knowledge, syntactic awareness, and syntactic parsing in L2 reading research. But in practices, participants referred it as analyses of complicated sentences, text genre, and text structure, which served the purpose of providing structural information that supports students’ comprehension (Grabe, 2009). Among them, sentence analysis was the frequently addressed one, as participants believed that one of the problems in students’ reading was that they did not know how to make sense of complex sentences. They tended to single out the long, difficult, and complicated sentences from the text and offer explicit instructions on how to parse these sentences into small grammatical units and how to make sense of them as a whole. It was addressed by four participants (Linda, Angel, Lychee, and Leon). For example, Lychee often used it with her freshmen students, as she believed that these sentences were an obstacle to their text learning. Understanding long and complex sentences may be the biggest challenge for my students. When I go around the classroom to check students’ reading progress, some students always look for my help, as they feel confused at the logic of these sentences. They often tell me they can understand all the words in such sentences but just cannot grasp what they mean. In this case, I have to pick them up and teach my students how to parse such sentences. (Lychee, second interview)

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Since Lychee’ students just started college life and the taught passages seemed a little difficult to them, she used the practice in tandem with explaining keywords in context to solve students’ comprehension problems and expand their vocabulary. In Angel’s situation, although her students grasped most grammatical knowledge in high schools, she believed that her GEC students lacked necessary training on how to analyze complex sentences. When using the practice, she tended to focus on the logic relations among different units by drawing the syntactic tree. Similarly, Edith reported using it because the authentic passages were full of long and difficult sentences, but she combined it with some interactive activities (ask-and-answer questions, pair work and group discussion). Instead of relying on direct instructions, she encouraged students to “tackle them” with pair work. Moreover, she shifted to the syntactic awareness by encouraging them to translate into Chinese or make comparisons between the two languages: Parsing sentences is one of the most difficult problems that my students face. When using the practice, I would give them several minutes to discuss and then choose some students to analyze it, which is followed by my explanations...By the way, I like to ask students to translate it into Chinese, as I want my students to understand the differences between the two types of syntactic structures in two languages. (Edith, second interview)

Edith used the practice for two reasons: solving students’ comprehension problems and raising their syntactic awareness. Angel also addressed similar reasons, but she used it with an emphasis on translation skills. For me, the most important goal of analyzing sentence structure is to promote students’ understanding of the text. After my explanation, I like to ask them to translate these sentences into Chinese. I do so for two purposes. First, it checks students' understanding of syntactic features in two different languages. Second, it helps them grasp some translation skills. (Angel, second interview)

Lynch also adopted the practice in his teaching, but he highlighted the semantic aspect of a sentence, which was assumed to play a bigger role in promoting students’ reading abilities: I seldom spend class time on analyzing sentence structures. Instead, I focus on the meaning of a sentence...No matter how you analyze the sentences, your explanations finally serve the purpose of comprehension. As long as students can understand its meaning and semantic relations to the paragraph or the whole text, sentence structure does not matter too much. (Lynch, second interview)

Another practice adopted by participants was to analyze text structure and text genre. This practice was used to help students achieve a global understanding of the text. Participants attached importance to it for a collective belief that grasping text structure and genre were beneficial for maintaining a high level of comprehension, especially for those texts with long and complex structures, but they reported using it in highly individualized ways. For example, Leon divided his reading classes into two parts. In novel reading classes, he introduced the novel structure in the initial weeks, while in text reading classes, he made use of comprehension questions to help students grasp text structure. Leon’s account suggests that the purpose of using it was to help students grasp the main idea of what they read: I develop two ways to help my students grasp the text structure and genre. In novel reading classes, I give an introduction to the novel including its structure. But when it comes to the

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4  Theoretical Beliefs chapter, I ask students to write a report to summarize it. In text reading classes, I have my students finished the written exercises, which include some comprehension questions that can direct students to find out the text structure. But I think text structure is not the key point: I use it because I want my students to grasp the main idea of what they read. (Leon, second interview)

However, Lynch used the practice according to text genre and text structure. With his theoretical knowledge in discourse analysis, he liked to apply theories of discourse structure to analyze text structure. For example, he preferred Labov’s six narrative elements, as he believed that such structures were easy to identify and followed a fixed model, which helped students quickly grasp the main idea. But Linda’s use of the practice combined with heuristic questioning skills: If it is the narrative, my questions are concerned with the basic elements (who, what, when, where, why, how, why). If it is argumentative, I ask students to identify the introduction, body, and conclusion, or how the evidence supports the author’s viewpoints. If it is expository, I ask questions about characteristics, features; differences and similarities; steps and processes; problems and solutions and so on. (Linda, second interview)

Linda developed different sets of form-questions to raise students’ awareness of stylistic features of different text genres. But Lychee used it when the text structure or genre was easy to identify and did not take much class time. She was convinced that class time should be devoted to text comprehension or other goals in her teaching: What I emphasize is that I teach the course of extensive reading, not intensive reading. It is expected to achieve more important goals such as vocabulary, background knowledge, and reading skills. After all, I think there are many things that are more interesting, meaningful and worth of teaching than text structure. (Lychee, second interview)

Above discussions show that the goal of grasping structural knowledge was associated with three practices, namely, analyses of sentences, text genre, and text structure. Participants emphasized the key role of structural knowledge because it was beneficial for a general understanding and an awareness of the formal features of reading passages. However, these practices were not adopted for the sake of structural knowledge but rather text comprehension at the micro and macro level. Among these practices, sentence analysis was frequently used because participants felt that students lacked cognitive skills to analyze them and these sentences were considered as one of crucial learning difficulties in their reading. But two participants did not allocate much time to text structure because they stressed other worthwhile goals to achieve. In short, they tailored these practices to students’ learning needs, the goal of text comprehension and the availability of class time.

4.4  Reading for Building Background Knowledge Background knowledge is widely recognized as a key factor affecting the comprehension process. It is also another way to describe our existing knowledge stored in our long-term memory, and reading comprehension is largely a cognitive process of

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integrating text information with a reader’s prior knowledge (Grabe, 2009; Koda, 2007). Participants generally acknowledged the importance of background knowledge to students’ understanding. To link students’ prior knowledge with text learning, they selected relevant topics or themes at the stage of lesson planning and combined it with other practices such as group discussion, visual support, presentation, and direct instructions. The teaching of background knowledge was often conducted in the form of instructional PPTs, which was helpful for arousing students’ interest on text learning. For example, Lychee stressed the importance of background knowledge for three reasons. First of all, the lack of background knowledge may hinder students’ comprehension process and reading speed in text learning. Moreover, introducing background knowledge made her teaching interesting and lively. Finally, it activated students’ schemata and increased students’ confidence in social interactions: First of all, background knowledge is a key part in my teaching. Without an understanding of the sociocultural context, historical events described in the text, the author's life experience, your students may feel bewildered, confused while reading. Secondly, when I find some interesting background knowledge and share with my students, I can arouse their interests and make my lessons interesting by organizing some interactive activities... Thirdly, for my students, expanding their knowledge is crucial for shaping their personal charisma in workplaces and social interactions. If you can talk about Columbus discovery of the new world, the Mayflower ship, the Declaration of Independence in English, you can surely expand your circle of friends, making more foreign friends. (Lychee, third interview)

Lychee adopted a broad view on the teaching background knowledge. In her eyes, it did not merely serve the purpose of text comprehension. Instead, it was as a kind of “culture sharing activity” stretching beyond reading passages and enriching students’ world knowledge. The taught passages contain very limited information in just two or three pages. But the teaching of background knowledge is different, it is a kind of cultural sharing activities that go beyond the text content. We have group discussion, presentation, explanation activities in the classroom and we continue to share such information through WeChat [a popular social media app in China] after class. It is a kind of free talk, some sort of leisure activity, we enjoy it very much. (Lychee, second interview)

However, Edith held different views on the teaching of background knowledge. She emphasized the role of background knowledge from the perspective of language learning. She justified her teaching for three reasons. First, she viewed it as a kind of sharing activities with students on classes. She liked to do some reading about the histories and cultures of English-speaking countries, and she used it to share with students what she read in her free time. Second, she insisted her teaching was helpful for raising students’ awareness of background knowledge in their language learning. Finally, in her teaching she made comparisons between Chinese culture and cultures of English-speaking countries, which can push students to do more reflection on their native culture. As long as it is something related to cultural knowledge, I would address it in my teaching. For example, the antiwar movement, conservatism, hippie culture, American civil war, President Lincoln, such things have been addressed in my lessons... These cultural matters,

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4  Theoretical Beliefs firstly, can improve students’ comprehension, and then become a part of their language learning. Language is the carrier of cultural knowledge. One can never learn it well without knowing its culture. Besides, doing some reading about Western countries’ histories and cultures is one of my hobbies, I can share with my students about what I learn through my reading. Moreover, I hope my students, from my teaching, learn about a country’s history and culture that they are not familiar with. Such things will inspire them to do more reflection about their own culture, even their futures. (Edith, second interview)

Likewise, Angel believed that “language is the carrier of cultural information, one grasps the language through knowing about its culture” (Angel, second interview). As a volunteer teacher working in Thailand, she often introduced aspects of Chinese culture to Thai students. When she returned to her university, she became more sensitive to cultural information in taught passages and frequently addressed aspects of Western culture in her lessons. Rather than relying on a verbal description, she preferred to use it with pictures or video clips in her instructional PPTs. “Without any visual stimulation, your students may not take an interest in what you say” Angel said (Angel, second interview). In this way, she spent a great deal of time collecting visual materials in her lesson preparation. To make her teaching accessible to more students, Linda distinguished among three types of background knowledge, topical, cultural, and specialized knowledge, with each being treated differently. She would also adjust her teaching to students’ feedback, interests, majors, and the familiarity of text topics. To diversify her teaching, she combined it with group discussion, presentation, or communicative activities. The below narrative revealed the key factors she took into consideration in her teaching: If a student has topical knowledge, gets familiar with the topic of the text, he understands the passage more quickly. But if a student lacks specialized knowledge due to their majors, he may not be interested in the passage. If the text involves some sort of cultural knowledge, especially those matters related to historical events or famous people, they may take some interest to read it. Thus, the teaching of background knowledge depends upon students’ interest, majors or familiarity with the text topic... If students are not familiar or interested in the reading topic, the teaching of background knowledge will serve as an important means to engage them in text learning. (Linda, second interview)

As for Lynch, he believed his teaching served two general purposes: expanding students’ knowledge and improving their comprehension, which can both contribute to students’ language learning. He adopted a different approach to the teaching of background knowledge. Instead of giving an introduction or organizing interactive activities at the stage of pre-reading, Lynch integrated it into a detailed understanding of taught passages. He tended to focus on those details containing rich cultural connotations. He adopted two practices: making analogies and heuristic questioning. He gave the following example to show how he made use of background knowledge to promote students’ comprehension: I remember I once taught a text called how America lives. It described the state of some American families’ values just like putting the brakes on suddenly after a carnival...To help students understand the cultural meanings of “carnival” and “putting the brakes on”, I gave a short introduction of Americans’ social life during the 1960-70s, then I used heuristic questions and encouraged them to guess the meanings step by step. To truly understand

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what the author wants to tell us, I make analogies between them and asked students to recall their experiences of attending parties. In this way, they had a better understanding of the two terms. (Lynch, second interview)

Being immersed in American culture during his postgraduate study, Leon was quite sensitive to cultural information in novel reading. At the beginning of the second semester, he reported using two sessions to introduce the historical, social, political, economic, and cultural background of the novel. He did so because he believed that his teaching helped students develop a general frame of the historical, political, economic, social, and cultural context of the novel. But his instruction heavily relied on verbal explanations without any visual aids. “As long as students can understand the background of the novel, that is enough” he said (Leon, 2nd interview). While participants developed individualized ways in the teaching of background or cultural knowledge, they acknowledged its role in expanding students’ knowledge and promoting their language learning. Moreover, the above analyses indicate that participants took a broad view on their teaching and tried to build and expand students’ existing schemata, which was crucial for improving their reading abilities as a whole.

4.5  Reading for Promoting Students’ Comprehension The goal of comprehension, as the key goal, cannot be overemphasized in any reading course. However, reading comprehension seems difficult to teach because it is a cognitive process that requires a reader to extract information from the text and activate their prior knowledge. Moreover, the level of comprehension is often influenced by the reader’s motivation, knowledge scope, cognitive strategies, and so on. Although it is not possible to directly teach reading comprehension, Grabe (2009) argues that teachers still can shape students’ comprehension in two aspects. First, teachers can adjust their teaching on the basis of students’ comprehension outcomes in tasks, activities, exercises, practices, and other measurement tools. Second, teachers can influence students’ comprehension by building a supportive environment in which they adopt a range of learning activities, conduct training on key cognitive skills, and directly engage students with the text. In the study, participants recognized reading comprehension as a key ability in language learning either explicitly or implicitly. When working with concept mapping, participants were asked to select key ideas from the list I generated and then confirmed the concept map from their perspectives. By making a comparison among six concept maps (Appendix 6), one can see that three participants explicitly referred to it as the core goal of their teaching. For example, Lynch proposed two levels of comprehension: literal and appreciative. The former involved comprehending the factual information or the actual meaning of some details without much inference, while the latter was concerned with “savoring the language” (Lynch. third interview). The figurative and metaphorical meanings should be understood with

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relevant background knowledge. The idea of “savoring the language” meant an indepth understanding of specific details or clarifying authors’ viewpoints which were implicitly held. Moreover, he believed that savoring the language was the key goal that helped students maintain a high level of comprehension. He admitted it was not easy to achieve it, but stressed his responsibility to promote students’ comprehension abilities as much as possible: Just now I said comprehension was multi-level... For the students who are unresponsive, or lack of necessary background or cultural knowledge, or who may find it difficult to make sense of the author's implicit viewpoints, then literal comprehension would be a reasonable choice for them...But as a teacher, I have the responsibility to help other students break through the literal level and progress to the appreciative level, which reflects the genuine requirement of a reading course. Although it is difficult to achieve, I think it is worth doing. (Lynch. third interview)

Likewise, Edith distinguished between low-level and high-level comprehension. The low-level goal required students to identify the text structure or grasp the main idea by the active use of vocabulary knowledge, background knowledge, and reading strategies. In contrast, the high-level goal involved a deep understanding of the figurative and metaphorical language in taught passages such as the writer’s intention, the way of organizing information, the sociocultural context of the text, and so on. Edith believed that high-level comprehension, essential for senior students, reflected the core requirement of an advanced reading course: For our senior students, an understanding of the text structure and main idea is far more enough. Our course requires students to understand more important things. For example, why and how the writer uses these metaphors in the text? What is the writer's intention? How does the writer organize his/her viewpoints and supporting evidence? What are the sociocultural contexts related to the text? All these aspects require an advanced and deep-­ level understanding... They are the core requirements for senior students taking the advanced reading course. (Edith, second interview)

Linda believed comprehension involved two aspects: language form and meaning. The former concerned an understanding of the formal aspect of reading passages, while the latter involved a deep understanding of various kinds of implicit meanings discussed in the text. The below narrative suggests that Linda put more emphasis on the latter, as it was related to the other goal of developing humanistic literacy: In my opinion, comprehension involves two aspects: language form and meaning. The former deals with vocabulary, sentence structure or text structure, and so on. It involves an understanding of stylistic features of the text but it is far more enough. The latter is concerned with inferential meanings, important details, background knowledge, and thematic meaning and educational implications of the text. It involves a deep understanding of different kinds of meanings discussed in the text. For me, I give more weight to the latter, as it is more meaningful in my teaching, and it is also related to another goal of humanistic literacy. (Linda, third interview)

On the other hand, the concept maps show that the other three participants developed different goals, such as familiarizing the text content (Angel), obtaining language knowledge and skills (Lychee), and developing students’ perspectives (Leon).

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However, the realization of these goals more or less depended upon the goal of comprehension. For instance, Angel believed that comprehension for its own sake did not make any sense to her, as it was concerned with the cognitive processes and did not produce any measurable outcomes. Instead, she developed a mediational goal which viewed the taught passage as the carrier of knowledge and information. The students were expected to use the “carrier” to expand their language knowledge and cultural knowledge. I generally agree with the goal of reading for gaining knowledge; here knowledge is in the broad sense, it could be language knowledge including vocabulary, sentence, text structure and so on, it could be specialized knowledge that reflects the latest development in science and technology, or it could be cultural knowledge... It is the kind of knowledge beneficial for students' language learning and future development. As for the goal of comprehension, I do not think it makes any sense for its own sake... But I admit that all sorts of knowledge should be understood by students. Without an appropriate level of understanding, they would never become parts of students’ knowledge. (Angel, third interview)

The above account indicates that Angel highlighted the goal of knowledge while downplaying the goal of comprehension. She admitted that the goal was achieved when students understood it. Without understanding what they learned from text reading, students would not incorporate it into their existing schemata. In this sense, comprehension played a mediational role in making knowledge accessible to students through text reading. Similarly, Lychee addressed the goals of extensive reading by which the students expanded their knowledge, increased their confidence, acquired language skills, and fostered humanistic literacy. I would like to emphasize I am teaching an extensive reading course but not the intensive one. I do not like to spend too much time on negotiating with students about specific details as it seems rather boring and it does not make sense to me. Instead, you can do a lot of things with the passage. A student may take more interest in learning something beyond the text... By the way, my students are freshmen, I need to think about how to keep their interest in reading or attract their attention to my classes. (Lychee, second interview)

The above account indicates that her primary concerns were to engage students in reading and maintaining their interest in reading. Her conceptions of these goals were related to her teaching style characterized by a flexible, interactive, and lively approach rather than a dull, highly structured, and well-organized version. She would not sacrifice the classroom climate to the goal of comprehension. However, she also showed some concern for comprehending key details and the main idea of reading passages. She believed that the realization of these goals depended upon what her students understood from the text, but she emphasized the level of comprehension to achieve, the balance between comprehension and other goals. “Without understanding what the writer tells you, you can do nothing. What I emphasize is the issue of degree, that’s, to what degree you need your students to understand the taught passages, it depends on your requirements” (Lychee, third interview). Like Angel, she did not require a high-level comprehension of reading passages but emphasized using students’ comprehension to achieve other meaningful goals.

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In Leon’s situation, he proposed the notion of perspective in his concept map. Despite receiving an MA Degree in English education, Leon had a keen interest in children’s literature. During his postgraduate study, he did a lot of reading on children’s literature and took several courses in English literature. Influenced by his keen interest in children’s literature, he explained the core goal in this way: From the perspective of traditional English teaching, reading serves the purpose of improving our language skills or expanding our language knowledge. But I think we should put aside the educational goals and go back to the true nature of reading. For me, reading provides a different window through which we can see the world from other people’s eyes. Through the windows offered by others, we can see different aspects of the world. Among these windows, perhaps you can find the one that may be of your interest or suitable for you...Based on these perspectives, you can refute, accept, modify, and develop your own perspective...In a pure sense, reading broadens your horizons and helps you build your own perspective. (Leon, third interview)

The above narrative suggests that Leon’s goal was to develop students’ critical thinking (different perspectives) through reading and reflection. He believed that he should reorient his course according to the nature of reading rather than language learning. However, he did not completely reject the goal of comprehension, as he emphasized that “reading has a basic task, that is, you should first understand other perspectives or what the writer tells you, from which you build your own perspective” (Leon, third interview). In this regard, comprehension plays a part in the reading process, but he also attached importance to students’ critical thinking. In sum, the above narratives demonstrate that participants regard comprehension as their core goal either explicitly or implicitly. Three participants downplayed its importance, but the realization of their individualized goals more or less depended upon the goal of comprehension. Participants’ core goals in their teaching reflected different interpretations on the nature of reading, i.e., reading for obtaining knowledge, reading for general comprehension, and reading for students’ development. Meanwhile, their conceptions of the core goal were influenced by their understandings of students’ characteristics (senior or junior students), course orientation (extensive or intensive reading course), and relations with other goals (e.g., expanding knowledge, fostering the humanistic literacy). Not all the participants viewed it as the core goal, but they generally acknowledged the mediational role of comprehension in their teaching. In other words, to achieve their individualized goals, participants should first help students understand key information that a writer tries to tell them.

4.6  R  eading for Enhancing Students’ Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) Social-emotional learning has been referred to as the “process of acquiring knowledge, skills, attitudes, and beliefs to identify and manage emotions; to care about others; to make good decisions, and to behave ethically and responsibly; to develop

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positive relationships and to avoid negative behaviors” (Elias & Moceri, 2012, p. 424). Drawing on the definition, some researchers define social-emotional learning competencies as the broad skills of self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship management skills, and responsible decision-making (Durlak, Weissberg, Dymnicki, Taylor, & Schellinger, 2011). A growing body of literature supports the proposition that school plays a key role in preparing all students for academic and life success by helping students “be more self-aware, make better decisions, set goals and solve problems, and have sustaining positive relationships with others” (Stillman et al., 2018, p. 71). From the perspective of social-emotional learning, teaching and learning in school are strongly shaped by the emotional, social, and academic dimensions (Zins, Weissberg, Wang, & Walberg, 2004). Students do not always learn alone but in collaboration, interaction, and communication with their teachers and peers. In this regard, social relationships and emotional processes may shape classroom teaching; teachers need to show more concern about students’ social-emotional learning (SEL) for the benefit of their overall development. Quality education requires teachers to focus on students’ social-emotional development by teaching them how to apply social and emotional skills in appropriate ways (Izard, 2002; Lemerise & Arsenio, 2000) and how to establish a positive, supportive, and caring learning environment in the school community (Hawkins, Smith, & Catalano, 2004; Schaps, Battistich, & Solomon, 2004). In the context of study, participants regarded students’ SEL as their key goals, and they wanted to enhance students’ SEL through their instructional activities, but they tended to develop individualized goals such as facilitating humanistic literacy, promoting autonomous and collaborative learning, increasing confidence in learning, and making students responsible for their learning. Just now I talked about comprehension of language meanings, I think it is related to my goal of humanistic literacy. Language, by nature, is the carrier of culture and emotion... The teaching of reading, in my opinion, should be more based on meaningful discussions or exchanging thoughts or ideas rather language knowledge...I hope that my students would increase their awareness on our cultural heritage and strengthen their senses of responsibility for their families and our society, I hope my teaching can help them build a positive outlook towards the world, their life and themselves. (Linda, third interview)

The above account indicates that Linda interpreted humanistic literacy as cultural awareness and a sense of responsibility for family and society and a positive outlook towards the world, their life, and themselves. Similarly, Angel associated humanistic literacy with fostering students’ study habits and attitudes. She realized that her SEL goal could not be directly taught but rather through her role as a moral guide and her rigorous attitude towards her work. The below account shows that she wanted to foster students’ character by developing positive qualities such as punctuality, conscientiousness, and diligence. She wanted to influence her students through her sense of professionalism in her work. I hope my students can develop proper study habits and attitudes from my requirements on their learning. For example, I want my students to attend my classes punctually. Every time, I go to the classroom ten minutes ahead of the start time, so do my student, very few stu-

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4  Theoretical Beliefs dents are late for my classes. The other example is related to the practice of checking their written exercises. Whenever I give the assignment to them, I will check it up regularly. If the student fails to meet my requirement, I will give him one more chance. But if he fails again, he will receive some penalties such as reducing his score on classroom performance. Now, most students finish their homework conscientiously. From the two examples, I understand things like study habits and attitudes cannot be directly taught but can be learned from my clear requirements, which will certainly influence their futures. (Angel, third interview)

For Lychee, she aimed at increasing students’ learning confidence, building good relationships with them, and making reading more enjoyable. She realized her goal of students’ SEL by four strategies: sharing her learning experience, organizing study groups, using WeChat classes, and adopting a flexible teaching style. During her undergraduate study, she worked so hard that she won a scholarship that financially supported her to pursue an MA degree in translation in another university. By sharing her “stories of success,” she encouraged the students to change their lives by pursuing academic excellence. As Lychee also taught two courses to other classes of students, she was not available to the students in her reading classes. She organized them into several study groups and assigned more reading tasks to them. With the help of head students in each group, she could learn about most students’ progress and problems they faced. Meanwhile, she introduced WeChat classes and used it as a platform to check students’ assignments, supervise them, and provide some counseling to individual students. As a new teacher, she preferred a flexible teaching style which gave priority to building a supportive learning environment and highlighted dynamic interactions with students. The other three participants also developed their individualized SEL goals. For example, Edith, as a veteran teacher who had taught reading courses for many years, was aware of the important role of students’ SEL, and she aimed to foster autonomous learning, a key ability for lifelong learning and sustainable development. In her eyes, autonomous learning was divided into three abilities: team spirit, critical thinking, and information collection and analysis: Autonomous learning is something that can be used in your future life and work. I think it can be understood from three aspects: team spirit, critical thinking, and information collection, and analysis. The first is about how to cooperate with others in learning activities; I often organize group discussion, you need to exchange ideas with group members...The second deals with how to develop your ideas, opinions, attitudes or viewpoints rather than blindly following others...As for the third, I think the teaching of background knowledge, group presentation, and group work require you to collect relevant information and present it in your PPT... It is very difficult to measure autonomous learning, but I can observe my students’ progress through these aspects, that they learn to show more initiative, be ­responsible for their study and I do not have to put too much pressure on them. (Edith, third interview)

The above account illustrates how Edith cultivated the students’ learning autonomy through her instructional activities and learning requirements for them. It seemed that Edith’s goal derived from a good understanding of her students’ characteristics and their learning. She was aware of the role of autonomous learning, as

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her students had moved to their senior years, and she wanted them to show more initiatives on their learning, not relying on her classes or teaching. She expected her students to persistently pursue new knowledge and skills after they left the university campus. However, Leon linked autonomous learning to students’ character development through his novel reading classes. He believed that learning to read an original novel would be a great challenge for his GEC students, as they had to overcome many learning difficulties such as a small vocabulary, a lack of background knowledge, and low reading proficiency. But it was the challenge that provided them with the opportunity to learn how to overcome learning difficulties, cope with learning pressure and hold on straight to the end. He wished that his students could develop positive qualities such as perseverance, patience, and power of concentration through the hard journey of reading an original English novel: I want my students to experience how difficult it is read through an original novel; I like to see how my students overcome reading difficulties and sticking at it to the end. Perhaps they never have such a chance to learn something from reading a difficult novel beforehand. Now I offer it to them. To read through the novel, they are expected to learn how to deal with study pressure, solve learning problems and stick at it to the end. Such a difficult process will test their patience, perseverance or power of concentration. Without developing these good qualities, they can never finish reading it. But I do not expect all the student to make it. I think it is OK as long as they experience such a difficult reading process. (Leon, third interview)

Leon’s narrative shows that he viewed his reading course as a touchstone to students’ characters. It was only through students’ own experience of overcoming learning difficulties that they learned to be responsible for learning and developed such positive qualities. In fact, Leon’s SEL goal was associated with his learning experience during his stay in the USA.  Leon still kept a fresh memory of “the sleepless days in the first semester” during which he had many reading assignments and needed to cope with huge study pressure. But being immersed in an independent learning environment, he gradually learned to develop strategies to adjust himself. “Thanks to those days, I learned how to be responsible for my own study” (Leon, third interview). It seems that Leon’s learning experience justified his SEL goal. In contrast, Lynch did not develop very ambitious goals about students’ SEL. Influenced by the affective filter hypothesis proposed by Stephen Krashen, he believed that his teaching aimed at building a positive learning climate by enhancing social interactions with students and minimizing his role as an authoritative figure. Just like the affective filter hypothesis tells us, the effect of language learning would not be desirable if students have a high level of anxiety or worries. What I can do is to create a friendly classroom climate, students should not feel too much pressure or anxiety in my classes... I think there are two things I can do. First, heuristic questioning. I do not think it is just a way of getting the right answers from students, I like to treat it as some sort of social interactions in the classroom, I use it to strengthen emotional connection with my students... By the way, I do not like to stress my role as a figure of authority. In fact, the lower

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4  Theoretical Beliefs level of awe in students, the better conditions are for your teaching. I think these two reasons can explain why my students are not afraid of me in my classes. (Lynch, third interview)

The above account indicates that Lynch focused on the emotional aspect of his teaching and emphasized its contribution to students’ learning. But the two strategies adopted by Lynch seemed insufficient to building a supportive learning environment. Lynch’s SEL goal reflected his guilty for his students. As suggested in Chap. 9, Lynch worked as a panel director with a heavy workload, which left him fewer opportunities to interact with his students after class. For this reason, he tried to make use of his class time to enhance social interactions with students and show more care and love to them. Moreover, his students had moved into their senior years. Besides academic study, they faced many learning tasks such as the social internship, passing the TEM-8 and preparing for their undergraduate thesis. As a panel director, he knew that his students needed more care, guidance, and help in these areas. In his situation, he tried to make use of every opportunity to build a strong emotional tie with his students. All in all, although participants developed highly individualized goals on students’ SEL, they generally acknowledged the emotional aspect of their teaching and wanted to make use of it to foster or develop particular aspects of students’ SEL. To some extent, the SEL goals represent their educational ideals or long-term professional goals they are striving for. Moreover, the SEL goals are built on their reflections, understandings, and interpretations on a range of external and internal factors such as their teaching and learning experience, students’ characteristics, and their learning, their educational roles, the sense of professionalism, academic reading, and so on. It is the SEL goals that remind participants of their moral roles, missions, and commitments to the great enterprise of education.

4.7  Conclusion To conclude, theoretical beliefs reflect participants’ interpretations of their goals of teaching. Three goals regarding vocabulary, structural, and background knowledge indicate a traditional belief shared among many EFL reading teachers, that is, reading is a learning process (Grabe, 2009). This view places more cognitive demands as the reader is expected to remember the main ideas and supporting details, be able to recall this information as needed and connect the text content with information stored in the reader’s long-term memory (prior knowledge) (Carver, 1992; Grabe, 2009). Influenced by this view, participants emphasized a firm grasp of the text content and a reliance on taught passages as the major source to expand students’ knowledge.

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A more common purpose is reading for general comprehension. It is the fundamental and default purpose held by many EFL reading teachers. Aside from a general understanding of the text, participants put more emphasis on a higher level of comprehension including the rhetorical control, the logic relationship between the main idea and supporting details, the interpretation of writers’ attitudes, intentions, emotional responses, preferences, and so on. However, Grabe (2009) suggests it is not an easy purpose and inappropriate for ESL students with low reading proficiency as general comprehension involves a series of complex processes, a good command of relevant background knowledge, and the ability to evaluate, integrate, and apply information. Aside from learning to read and general comprehension, participants attached importance to the social and emotional dimension of learning. As Britzman (1991) argues, teachers’ educational theories are deeply rooted in their educational practice; their values, beliefs, and convictions; and the social environment. In the study, participants’ SEL goals, especially their interpretations of humanistic literacy goals, seem to be an internalization of overall objectives of ELT syllabi and an acceptance of their traditional role of teaching knowledge and nurturing students. SEL goals may reflect participants’ educational ideals in relation to their moral responsibility for students and their development. Participants’ accounts also suggest a shared goal structure (Fig. 4.1) with three types of knowledge as the basic ones, comprehension as the core one, and students’ SEL learning as the extended ones. Participants tended to give priority to the basic ones, as they emphasized a grasp of the text content and language knowledge. In line with the knowledge goals, they showed concern for general comprehension and aimed to achieve a high level of comprehension. However, the comprehension goal seemed not to be the ultimate one but a mediational one that paved the way for students to achieve socio-emotional development. However, SEL goals received less attention, had a weak link to participants’ stated practices, but suggested an conception of their educational roles, personal senses of accountability, mission, and commitment to education. Findings in this chapter suggest that theoretical beliefs had a close link to Meijer, Verloop, and Beijaard’s (1999, 2001) conceptions of teachers’ practical knowledge. For example, three knowledge goals are related to subject-matter knowledge, knowledge of purposes, and the comprehension goal, and SEL goals reveal a link to student knowledge and knowledge of student learning and understanding. Moreover, findings in this chapter confirm those results from many studies that most ESL reading teachers showed concern for specific knowledge such as vocabulary, text structure, and background which were helpful for improving the quality of ESL reading instruction in American secondary schools (Fitzgerald, 1995).

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Fig. 4.1  A goal structure of reading instruction shared by participants

References Borg, S., & Al-Busaidi, S. (2011). Teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding learner autonomy. ELT Journal, 66(3), 283–292. Britzman, D. (1991). Practice makes practice: A critical study of learning to teach. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press. Carver, R. (1992). Effect of prediction activities, prior knowledge, and text type on the amount of comprehension: Using rauding theory to critique schema theory research. Reading Research Quarterly, 27, 164–174. Droop, M., & Verhoeven, L. (2003). Language proficiency and reading ability in first- and second-­ language learners. Reading Research Quarterly, 38, 78–103. Durlak, J., Weissberg, R., Dymnicki, A., Taylor, R., & Schellinger, K. (2011). The impact of enhancing students’ social and emotional learning: A meta-analysis of school-based universal interventions. Child Development, 82, 405–432. Elias, M., & Moceri, D. (2012). Developing social and emotional aspects of learning: The American experience. Research Papers in Education, 27(4), 423–434.

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Fitzgerald, J. (1995). English-as-a-second-language reading instruction in the United States: A research review. Journal of Reading Behaviors, 27(2), 115–152. Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second language: Moving from theory to practice. Cambridge: Cambridge University press. Graham, S., Santos, D., & Francis-Brophy, E. (2014). Teacher beliefs about listening in a foreign language. Teaching and Teacher Education, 40, 44–50. Hawkins, J., Smith, B., & Catalano, R. (2004). Social development and social and emotional learning. In J. E. Zins, R. P. Weissberg, M. C. Wang, & H. J. Walberg (Eds.), Building academic success on social and emotional learning: What does the research say? (pp. 135–150). New York: Teachers College Press. Izard, C. (2002). Translating emotion theory and research into preventive interventions. Psychological Bulletin, 128, 796–824. Koda, K. (2007). Reading and language learning: Crosslingistic constraints on second language reading development. Language Learning, 57(1), 1–44. Latif, M. (2012). Teaching a standard-based communicative English textbook series to secondary school students in Egypt: Investigating teachers’ practices and beliefs. English Teaching: Practice and Critique, 11(3), 78–97. Lee, I. (2009). Ten mismatches between teachers’ beliefs and written feedback practice. ELT Journal, 63(1), 13–22. Lemerise, E., & Arsenio, W. (2000). An integrated model of emotion processes and cognition in social information processing. Child Development, 71, 107–118. Liang, R., & Dixon, M. (2009). Singapore teachers’ espoused beliefs (TEB): Links to practice. Singapore: National Institute of Education. Meijer, P., Verloop, N., & Beijaard, D. (1999). Exploring language teachers’ practical knowledge about teaching reading comprehension. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(1), 59–84. Meijer, P., Verloop, N., & Beijaard, D. (2001). Similarities and differences in teachers’ practical knowledge about teaching reading comprehension. Journal of Educational Research, 94, 171–184. Nishino, T. (2011). Japanese high school teachers’ beliefs and practices regarding communicative language teaching. JALT Journal, 33(2), 131–155. Schaps, E., Battistich, V., & Solomon, D. (2004). Community in school as key to student growth: Findings from the child development project. In J. E. Zins, R. P. Weissberg, M. C. Wang, & H. J. Walberg (Eds.), Building academic success on social and emotional learning: What does the research say? (pp. 189–205). New York: Teachers College Press. Stillman, S., Stillman, P., Martinez, L., Freedman, J., Jensen, A., & Leet, C. (2018). Strengthening social emotional learning with students, teachers, and schoolwide assessments. Journal of Applied Developmental Psychology, 55, 71–92. Uysal, H., & Bardakci, M. (2014). Teacher beliefs and practices of grammar teaching: Focusing on meaning, form or forms. South African Journal of Education, 34(1), 1–16. Verhoeven, L. (2000). Components of early second language reading and spelling. Scientific Studies of Reading, 4, 313–330. Young, T., & Sachdev, I. (2011). Intercultural communicative competence, exploring English teachers’ beliefs and practices. Language Awareness, 20(2), 81–98. Zins, J., Weissberg, R., Wang, M., & Walberg, H. (Eds.). (2004). Building academic success on social and emotional learning: What does the research say? New York: Teachers College Press.

Chapter 5

Action Beliefs

5.1  Introduction Action beliefs can be referred as a type of theory-in-use demonstrated in teachers’ classroom practices. Inspired by Argyris’ theories of action, I argue that teachers’ classroom practices may be simultaneously guided by their theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. Theoretical beliefs and action beliefs may have different orientations, as the former is often based on teachers’ conceptions of goals of teaching in some ideal situations while the latter may reflect an understanding of classroom reality and teachers’ regular, routine, and habitual practices. The dilemma existing between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs seems understandable as teachers often take more consideration of classroom realities instead of their educational ideals. In the study of language teacher cognition, very few researchers focus on the beliefs which are firmly grounded on classroom practices. Methodologically, they should adopt the techniques of classroom observation and stimulated recall interview and explore teachers’ justifications of the use of some practices. Through a detailed analysis of the observational and verbal data, belief researchers can infer teachers’ action beliefs. However, the inclusion of the observational element does not equate with an exploration of action beliefs. Based on the implicit view, I posit that action beliefs are elicited and categorized on the basis of observable practices rather than some predefined teaching approaches. For example, Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, and Thwaite (2001) found a collective disposition (belief) of taking account of individual differences and specific characteristics of individual students based on a variety of practices. They concluded that an abstract principle may correspond to several concrete practices, but they stressed the methodological procedure of identifying teachers’ practices as closely as possible was rare. In alignment with Breen et al.’s position, I regard action beliefs as the collective principles grounded on a list of concrete practices implemented in different situations. The gradual elicitation involved the use of four classroom observations and a lengthy stimulated recall interview. The data analysis suggests that participants © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 X. Mo, Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs, English Language Education 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47170-5_5

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developed five general principles in the teaching of reading, i.e., teaching background knowledge for comprehension, building main-idea comprehension, promoting comprehension by focusing on key details, building rapport with students, and developing language skills for English exams. Findings of this study revealed that action beliefs were consistent with theoretical beliefs in the goal of comprehension but were at odds in two aspects: teaching for comprehension versus students’ SEL and developing testing skills versus essential skills for language learning.

5.2  Teaching Background Knowledge for Comprehension The observational data demonstrated that participants adopted three approaches in the teaching of background knowledge: teacher-led, student-centered, and interactive. The first was realized by the teacher’s direct instruction of background knowledge; the second involved the use of presentation in which students worked in groups to collect, design, and present background knowledge in front of the class, while the third concerned the use of communicative activities that engaged students in obtaining background knowledge in a constructive way. Although participants offered different justifications for their approaches, a shared purpose of teaching background knowledge is to pave the way for text comprehension. I will give three episodes to illustrate how participants adopted these approaches in their teaching and the reasons for doing so. The first episode (Box 5.1) came from Lynch’s first observed lesson in which he taught an authentic passage about anti-terrorism and the Internet. Before reading the text, he taught background knowledge by directly explaining the Big Bang Theory, Parris and San Bernardino terrorist attacks, the Guy Fawkes mask, Darth Vader (a character in the Star Wars movies), the American Second Amendment, Arab Spring, George Wallace, and Robert Kennedy. Lynch seldom used PPT with his reading classes, but this time he adopted PPTs in his teaching, as he collected relevant information from the Internet and he wanted to “share with students and extend their understanding on these topics” (Lynch, fourth interview). The following episode exemplifies how he introduced the Guy Fawkes mask. Lynch’s teaching was dominated by direct instruction plus sporadic interactions with students. Lynch addressed two reasons for adopting this approach. First, the authentic passage contained too much cultural information that students needed to supplement before they read the text. However, his teaching did not serve the purpose of knowledge itself but made students prepare for text learning. “Without relevant background knowledge, my students would find it difficult to make sense of the text topic, as it was concerned with issues in American society which look unfamiliar to my students” (Lynch, fourth interview). Second, he implied his teaching was beneficial for expanding students’ world knowledge or arousing their interest in text learning. “They [students] look more attentive when you present something out of the textbook…by the way, my teaching can enrich students understanding different aspects of our social life, which seems very interesting to them” (Lynch, fourth interview). Such an approach was also observed in Angel’s, Edith’s, Lychee’s, and

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Box 5.1: The Use of the Teacher-Led Approach in the Teaching of Background Knowledge An extract from Lynch’s PPT The Guy Fawkes mask is a stylistic depiction of Guy Fawkes, the best-known member of the Gunpowder Plot. The plot was an attempt to blow up the House of Lords in London on 5 November 1605, to restore a Catholic head of state. After it was used as a major plot in the movie of V for Vendetta, the mask become a well-known symbol for the online hacktivist group Anonymous and other anti-government protests around the world. (bold, italic, underlined words in his PPT) Excerpt from Lynch’s lesson T: Now we come to the Guy Fawkes mask. Do you know what a mask is? and do you who is Guy Fawkes? [pointing to the picture on the reading material] T: Yes, it is a little bit familiar with us, it is from a movie, can you still remember the name of the movie? S1: hao xiao shi da fu chou [It seems V for Vendetta]. T: Yes, you can remember it, so the name of the movie is V for Vendetta. So actually, Guy Fawkes is a famous historical figure. [pointing to the PPT] T: Here is a brief introduction to the mask of Guy Fawkes. Actually, he was very famous during the seventeenth century, because he was one of the members of the Gunpowder Plot. Here ‘‘Plot’’ refers to an organization; it was an assassin organization. So the purpose of this group is to overthrow or withdraw the Catholic head of the state. Do you know Catholic? S2: tian zhu jiao [Catholic]. T: They want to overthrow the king, right? So Guy Fawkes is one of the assassins of James the first, the king of Britain, OK? T: And the movie, V for Vendetta, uses the event, as, er, one of the elements in creating a new story. Now, it is a symbol for the hacktivist group of Anonymous, OK? In our text, the writer also mentions this group. So the purpose of this group is to protest the government and asks for fairness across the country, even around the world; that is Guy Fawkes mask.

Linda’s lessons. Two reasons they frequently addressed were to prepare students for text comprehension and expand students’ knowledge. However, Edith had more practical considerations on this approach; she believed that it saved class time, quickly drew students’ attention to what she wanted to teach, and delivered a large amount of information intensively. Although the approach was the common practice in participants’ situations, it was not the only one adopted by them. The second episode (Box 5.2), selected from Angel’s lesson, involved the interactive approach. In this lesson, she taught a passage about stereotypes of British culture. When using the approach, she organized a retelling task. Students were asked read an introduction to American and British people stereotypes; then they worked in pairs to retell the story with keywords offered by Angel. After the pair work, she selected two students to retell it in front of other students and offered her feedback. The following episode shows how she conducted the task.

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Box 5.2: The Use of the Interactive Approach in the Teaching of Background Knowledge An excerpt from Angel’s lesson T: Now let’s try to use the information we get from the textbook to retell the stereotypes of American people and British people. You have to close your textbook, please close your textbook, let’s check how much information you can remember, then two students form a group, try to tell the main idea of the short introduction with the keywords for you. One student thinks about the British’s view of the American stereotype, the other one has to talk about the American’s view of British people. Now form a group with another student and begin your talk. [she went around the classroom to check students’ grouping, students began to talk with a partner, the classroom was noisy] T: [five minutes later] Now it is time for your presentation of your retelling. Any volunteer? Come on, volunteer, please. [With a smile] It is very easy, as you have read the short introduction, and you can use your own words to retell the story. Come on, volunteer, [raise her right hand], anyone. T: [a girl student raises her hand], OK, you please, come on. Which one do you want to talk about, the American or British? S1: I want to talk about the British view of American people. T: OK, yes. S1: Er, first, I would like to talk about the location, British people lives in London, Scotland, and, er, the British…[in a low voice, cannot be identified], so British people have to take umbrellas or wear hats. They are good speakers; they want to share their opinions in public. [she nodded shook her head slightly] That is all. T: That’s all, thank you, let’s give her some applause [she clapped her hands with a smile]. [the rest of the students clapped their hands] T: Thank you, that is a very good beginning. I think when she talks about the topic, she explains it. For example, when she says, the British people are good speakers, they can show and give their opinions in public, that’s an explanation. Er, well, now let’s talk about the American people. Come on, American people [she raises her right hand with a smile].

Angel admitted that the interactive approach was not frequently used in her teaching. She adopted the approach because the textbook materials were ready to use and she extended the pair work to a retelling task. She said that such activities can “engage students using the language in a meaningful way and pave the way for understanding the main text” (Angel, fourth interview). It was also found in Linda’s lessons in which she adopted it at the warming-up activities in the form of proverb discussion, lead-in discussion, a short listening task, and picture matching. It seemed that the participants adopted the approach based on two considerations. First, it was used as a warming-up activity at the pre-reading stage, aiming at raising students’ interest in text learning. Second, the use of the approach was often determined by some practical factors such as appropriateness of textbook material and availability of class time. For example, Linda admitted that she chose these activities because “they are well-designed in our textbook and accompanied by visual materials in our

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prefabricated PPT, they are easy to apply in the classroom without much preparatory work” (Linda, fourth interview). The third episode (Box 5.3), related to the student-centered approach, involved the use of group work and oral presentation. In Linda’s lesson, she taught an autobiography about Audrey Hepburn (a British movie star). Before the lesson, she assigned a group task for students: each group collected information about their favorite movie star; then they designed the PPT slides with pictures, words, and video clips; and finally they chose a member to do an oral presentation on behalf of them. During the lesson, Linda invited a student to do an oral presentation about Spielberg (an American director). The episode demonstrates how she used the presentation in the teaching of background knowledge. Despite the interactive approach being adopted in her teaching, the observed lesson showed that students benefited little from it. First, the presentation did not have much relevance to the autobiography of Audrey Hepburn; thus, it made little contribution to text learning or comprehension. Second, it did little to help expand students’ knowledge. Although the student offered rich information on Spielberg’s career, life, and movies, the student’s presentation seemed rather problematic; it was flawed with many words which were either pronounced inaccurately or used inappropriately, which made it difficult to understand. Moreover, Linda paid little attention to the problem of the presentation. Confronted the low-quality presentation, Linda admitted that the class of students, majoring in chemistry, generally had a low language proficiency. She did not have high expectations for her students. “As long as they take part in my classroom teaching, that is enough…My comments on students’ performance are praise-based” she explained (Linda, fourth interview). It indicates that Linda made use of the presentation to foster learning initiatives instead of paving the way for text comprehension. Apart from occasional use of presentations in Linda’s lessons, no participants were observed to use it in their lessons. The fact that the student-centered approach was not favored by the participants was probably associated with two reasons. First, it required technical support, guidance, and initial training from the teacher’s part. To conduct the presentation, Linda just divided students into several groups and offered a general topic for them without any preparation. As it was a group task, this required the students to develop team spirit, computer skills, and skills of information collection and analysis. Linda did not address all the essential skills. She took it for granted that students were able to execute these. Second, the effectiveness of the presentation was largely determined by the skills acquired by the presenter. In addition to fluent oral English, the presenter needed to possess communication and presentation skills, develop confidence, and so on. The student’s body language such as putting his hand on his chest, leaning on the platform, and lowering his head indicated that he was ill-prepared for the task. In fact, a presentation depended upon sufficient training and preparation, cooperation between the teacher and students, and a large amount of time and energy investment after class, which seemed impossible for the participants due to a heavy workload imposed on them (see Chap. 6). Classroom observations show that participants adopted three approaches in the teaching of background knowledge and the teacher-led approach seemed to

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Box 5.3: The Use of the Student-Centered Approach in the Teaching of Background Knowledge An excerpt from Linda’s lesson T: Just now we discussed some of the directors or movie stars that we are not familiar with. Now I’d like a student to give us a short introduction about the movie director. Now lets us welcome Wu Zhong. [a male student stood up and walked to the teaching platform and other students clapped their hands] S1: [he leans on the platform to show his PPT] Er, there is an introduction of Spielberg for you. He is a talent and a famous director. Now our teacher says he is a director, but he is also a great movie productor [producer]. S1: [showing his picture] Yes, this is his photo, he is a kind people [person], maybe, er, has anyone saw [seen] his movie? SS: No. S1: Maybe you do not know, but some movies you mustn’t [must] know. OK, let us see information about him. S1: [he moved the PPT with his personal information] His full name is Steven Allan Spielberg, he was born on December 18, 1946. His nation is Jews[? Jewish], he graduated from California State University, his occupation is director, productor [producer], and, er, screen writer-editor. Zhe ge jiao bian ju ren yuan [explaining screen writer-editor in Chinese] S1:[moving to a new PPT page] Let’s us introduce his early life, he was born in Cincinnati [wrong pronunciation], Orthodox [wrong pronunciation] Jewish family. His father is an engineer, his mother is …[unidentified word], but when he was little, when he was a child, he liked, er, he liked, he showed the talent of direct [directing] a movie. His first movie, was, er, was about his toy train, he used his father’s camera, er, direct the eigh.[unidentified], [he put his right hand on his chest, spoke in an anxious voice, he was murmuring to himself], and also, when he was a teenager, he made several short movies, when he was… [for the rest of the presentation, he introduced Spielberg’s movies including E.T., Jurassic Park, Jaws, Schindler’s list] T: So just now he gave an introduction about Spielberg, now I want to check your understanding by asking you some questions, they are very easy questions, now the first question is: when was Spielberg born? SS: 1946 T: Very good. The second question-what is his nationality? SS: American. T: Good, what is his job? SS: Movie director, screen writer-editor. T: What was his first movie about? SS: About a toy train. [Linda asked another three questions about the names of movies addressed by him] T: Just now the student did a good job, he tried to talk about something, not read something from the PPT, that is very good. And now we come to the second introduction. [the other students clapped their hands]. Note: the underlined words are either pronounced inaccurately or used inappropriately by the student

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5.3  Building Main-Idea Comprehension

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dominate their teaching because of its obvious advantages such as saving class time, delivering information intensively, and so on. The other two approaches were used in low frequencies because they required a high level of commitment from the instructor and students and depended upon many practical factors. The dominance of the teacher-led approach indicates that participants’ teaching of background knowledge followed the traditional model of knowledge transmission and prepared students for text learning.

5.3  Building Main-Idea Comprehension According to Grabe (2009), main-idea comprehension refers to the ability to “identify main ideas of the text, integrate them into a text model of reading, and develop an appropriate situation model of reader interpretation” (p. 204). However, participants did not develop such a sophisticated understanding of the nature of comprehension. In their teaching, they generally divided reading instruction into two stages: global reading and detailed reading. The former involved a global understanding, while the latter concerned a detailed understanding of the text. In this way, main-idea comprehension roughly corresponded to the former in participants’ perspectives. In general, participants used two approaches in global reading: deductive and inductive. The teacher who used the deductive approach tended to directly show the text structure and the main idea of the text plus some explanations and interactions with students, while the teacher using the inductive approach formulated a set of comprehension questions, accompanied by the use of complicated questioning skills. The difference between them was that the former built main-idea comprehension by making use of structural knowledge while the latter constructed the main idea of text by some interactive activities (group discussion) and the teacher’s direct instruction. The following two episodes explicate how participants used the two approaches in global reading. The first episode (Box 5.4) was taken from Lynch’s lesson where he continued to teach the passage about cyberspace anti-terrorism. When using the inductive approach, he combined the use of comprehension questions with heuristic questions skills which directed students to discover the main idea step by step. The below excerpt shows how he taught main-idea comprehension by focusing on the first question. The above excerpt shows how Lynch skillfully used heuristic questioning skills to improve students’ comprehension of the text. In the process, he strengthened other students’ understanding by repeating answers given by two students. He elaborated answers as clues to make further analysis. When students got confused with his questions, he used alternative ones and offered an additional explanation. He asked them to evaluate the author’s attitude, and finally, he reviewed all the relevant hints and offered his answers. However, this approach was conducted in the form of analyzing, elaborating, clarifying, evaluating questions, and offering answers from the teacher’s perspective. He highlighted that his questions and questioning skills

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Box 5.4: The Use of the Inductive Approach in Global Reading An extract from Lynch’s PPT Questions for Global Reading 1. What is the overall attitude of the writer towards the idea of fighting ISIS with the code? 2. Why does the writer think keystroke is mightier than an automatic weapon? 3. According to the writer, how does coding influence the political world of America? An excerpt from Lynch’s lesson T: Now please take your time to read the text. When you read the text, find the answers to the three questions on the screen. These questions are just for your global reading. Please take your time, I will give you ten minutes, ten minutes, OK? Please make use of your time. T: [he points to the PPT] Er, do you know ISIS? SS: A terrorist organization. T: Do you know its Chinese meaning?, Er, yi si lan guo [Islamic State], now you read the text and find out what attitude was held by the author?[he explains in Chinese] [The students read the text in silence for about ten minutes] T: [he looked at his watch], Huang qiuming, please tell me the writer’s overall attitude towards the idea of fighting ISIS with code. S1:[she stood up, holding the passage], Let me see, er …[she was murmuring a short phrase, but unidentified] T: OK, just tell me what you think. Can you explain what, er, what code it is. S1: A kind of technology. T: er, what technology? S1: Some sort of social media. T: Social media, yes, what social media? S1: YouTube, Twitter, Instagram, including website. T: Yes, YouTube, Twitter, things like that, so you just mentioned code is a kind of technology. OK, according to the writer, maybe code or coding is, what we say the internet technology, programming technology. OK, so fighting ISIS with internet technology, that is what the writer suggests. So do you think he holds a positive or negative attitude towards the idea? Or doubtful, skeptical? S1: shi zan cheng ba [Maybe he supports it] T: Ah, yes, he is supporting the positive one. How about you? Do you agree? [He spoke to other students], Sit down please, Liao qian [he asks another student to answer it] T: [He moves to the student’s desk] Er, how do you know that he is supporting the idea of fighting ISIS with code? How do you know that? [he was approaching the student’s seat] S2: For example, he.. [unidentified words] T: Yes, for example, S2: In paragraph 4, a better way to fight ISIS is …[she reads a sentence from the passage], the last sentence T: The last sentence, OK, sit down please. Er, so do you think, from this paragraph, we can find some hints about the writer’s attitude? T: [No answer from students, he pauses for a few seconds] In the second paragraph, the writer said, we ought to pass a new constitutional amendment to guarantee the right to bear technology [read a sentence from the passage], the Internet technology, OK, because the second amendment has guaranteed the right to bear guns, to carry weapons, however, maybe, according to the writer, the Congress may pass the third amendment. OK, so generally, he is very supporting coding the internet technology. Question two…

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had three roles. First, they served as general directions guiding the students to read with purposes. Second, they were open-ended, which allowed for more freedom to think and reflect. Finally, the process enhanced student-teacher interactions: The comprehension questions plus heuristic questioning skills help students understand the passage in a broad and deep sense. Besides, it seems consistent with the goal I addressed in previous talks, that’s, savoring the language…. I enjoy the process of asking and answering questions, I can have dynamic interactions with several students, and of course, it helps me check their understanding from their answers. (Lynch, fourth interview)

The approach was also found in Edith’s and Leon’s lessons and they reported frequent use in their teaching. Edith addressed similar reasons for using it, namely, the questions directed students to read and the questioning skills engaged students in exploring the implicit meaning such as the writer’s intention, opinion, or viewpoint. Leon explained “these questions serve as important clues that gave general directions for students’ reading. By following the directions, they may be able to develop their perspectives” (fourth interview). However, Leon’s and Edith’s use of the approach differed from Lynch’s, as they combined it with group discussion. In their teaching, group discussion functioned in three ways. First, it encouraged students to solve comprehension problems through collaborative efforts. For example, Leon believed that the discussion work helped students reduce their anxiety about reading the novel by seeking social support from group members. Second, it provided opportunities for students to learn from each other. For example, Edith encouraged students to move freely in the classroom, which enhanced students’ interactions within and across groups. Finally, it helped students understand these questions from others’ perspective. As most of the questions were open-ended, they required a deep level of thinking from different perspectives. From group discussion, students learned to find out other perspectives and chose the most suitable one through exchanging ideas with others. For instance, Leon believed that “when they find the perspective they like, they may take more interest in reading this novel” (Leon, fourth interview). However, there was a gap between the time allocated for group discussion and the teacher’s explanation. The former often lasted about 10–15  minutes, while the latter accounted for 20–30 minutes. At a general level, three participants’ lessons were dominated by the teacher’s explanation such as analyzing, elaborating, clarifying, repeating, and affirming students’ answers. They adopted the approach because they wanted to promote students’ comprehension through the interactive process of students’ self-inquiry and the teacher’s guidance. However, the use of it was also determined by their situations. For example, Edith and Lynch taught similar advanced intensive reading courses; they had similar goals in promoting students’ comprehension abilities, and they used similar reading materials. As for Leon, he worked with an original English novel which was far more complex and difficult than text reading. But considering the low proficiency of his students, Leon conducted his verbal explanations and group discussion in Chinese.

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The second episode was taken from Lychee’s lesson (Box 5.5) where she worked on a passage about the history of recycling in America. Before discussing the text in detail, she used the deductive approach to teach the text structure and the main idea of the text. In the lesson, she built main-idea comprehension by direct instruction of text structure and the main idea. She did not draw a clear distinction between them, as both of them contributed to a global understanding. She integrated three practices into her teaching: reading aloud, whole class discussion, and questioning skills. The first drew students’ attention to the keywords that she wanted to highlight; the second kept her in interactions with students dynamically; and the third guided students to analyze the key elements of the main idea. It did not mean a fixed procedure to follow, as she liked to diversify her approach in response to text genre, text structure, and text difficulty. For example, she taught the text structure and the main idea by alternating between filling blanks and oral summaries. When being asked the reason for doing so, she replied “doing the same thing again must be rather boring, that is something I don’t like” (Lychee, fourth interview). The idea of diversifying her approach was consistent with her flexible teaching style, as discussed in the previous chapter. The deductive approach was observed in Angel’s and Linda’s lessons. They believed students built main-idea comprehension through global reading which involved the teaching of text title, text genre, text structure, writer’s intention, and so on. The use of the deductive approach in their teaching was consistent with their goal of structural knowledge discussed in the previous chapter, i.e., structural knowledge served the purpose of promoting students’ comprehension. However, it was adopted with reference to their teaching situations. First, the deductive approach was used with the freshmen and sophomore with less proficient readers, and the reading passages were easy to understand. In the study, Angel and Linda taught an intensive reading course to second-year students, while Lychee delivered an extensive reading course to freshmen. The reading course did not set very high requirements on students’ reading abilities. Moreover, they adopted the approach mainly for a global understanding and by making use of structural knowledge. In sum, both approaches were adopted frequently in the teaching of main-idea comprehension. Three participants adopted the inductive approach, characterized by the use of group discussion and complicated questioning skills. The other three teachers employed the deductive approach, dominated by direct instruction of text structure and the main idea with a combined use of the practices such as whole class discussion, reading aloud, and questioning skills. The use of the two approaches may vary according to the teachers’ perceptions of student characteristics, features of reading passages, and course requirements. No matter what approaches were adopted, their teaching served the purpose of a global understanding and paving for a detailed understanding. However, the class time was mostly occupied by the teacher’s direct instruction though some student-centered activities were adopted by three teachers.

Box 5.5: The Use of the Deductive Approach in Global Reading An extract from Lychee’s PPT Main structure [the first page] The main idea of the Part one (1-2): Recycling is one of the best environmental success passage [the second page] stories of the late twentieth century. The text gives a brief Part two (3-7): It is important to recognize the many economic and introduction to the current environmental benefits recycling already achieves. situation and development Part three (8-13): Recycling is not a fad, it is as old as recorded of recycling in the USA history. from which there is so Part four (14-16): Communities such as Ann Arbor provided useful much we can learn and models for the effort to improve the cost-effectiveness of recycling. use for reference. An excerpt from Lychee’s lesson T: So next we talk about the structure, tell me how many parts there are in this passage? SS: Four T: Four, right, but I’d like to say the passage is not easy to understand, do you agree? SS: Yes, T: Because there are many long and difficult sentences, right? In this passage? So the next lesson, I will teach you how to analyze the long and difficult sentences, OK, Now, let’s see the screen [she faces the screen] From para. 1 to para. 2 is the first part, right? We can see the keyword is what? SS: Success, T: Success of what? Recycling in the late twentieth century. This part will get a general idea, right? The general idea of recycling which are success stories. Next one, no.2, [read aloud the main idea of second part], what does it mean by benefit? SS: hao chu, li yi [interests, advantages] T: Right, from the aspect of text structure, is it a general-specific structure or a specific-general one? [explained in Chinese] SS: General-specific T: General-specific, right, from the summary and then to the details. First, what it is? And then about the details. No. 3, [read aloud the main idea of third part], what does it mean by fad? Fashioned, right? Because it has a long history, it is dated back to, er, to 20 years ago. Next one, [read the main idea of fourth part], the last one draws a conclusion, right? T: [she shows the PPT page of the main idea] OK, the next one, the main idea of the passage, what do you think about the main idea of the passage? How about the main idea of the passage? [turned to the whole class]. Think about this. I remember the last term I told you, we need a needed sentence to draw a conclusion, right? A subject, such as something, or somebody does something, right? When and where, and the results. Now let’s think about the subject, the topic of the text? What is it? SS: Recycling. T: Yes, recycling, good, No.2, what? SS: In America T: Right, recycling in America, what about the results? SS: Very successful T: Great, very successful, right? And then? SS: Beneficial T: Yes, recycling is beneficial for communities, well, excellent, you can extend it in the text. T: [she showed the message on the PPT] Now, let’s come to see it, [she reads aloud the main idea from the PPT], the topic, recycling, took place in America, not in our country. Next one, [she continues to read the main idea], so that is the main idea, so the keyword is what? SS: Recycling. T: Next one? SS: USA T: Next one? SS: Benefit T: Right, great, next one? SS: For reference T: what does it mean ‘for reference’? SS: As an example T: Yes, we can set it as an example, for other, for others, OK. Let us move to the next one.

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5.4  Promoting Comprehension by Focusing on Key Details Text comprehension involves an integration of background, grammar, and vocabulary knowledge, effective use of comprehension strategies to deal with difficult texts, and strategic processing abilities to maintain a high level of comprehension (Grabe, 2009). These aspects are more likely to link to detailed reading, a stage after global reading. Participants’ classroom observations show that they adopted two approaches in detailed reading: selective and holistic. The former approach involved singling out some key details from particular paragraphs to paraphrase, while the latter examined key details from paragraph to paragraph or engaged students doing some comprehension-based activities, which were often based on some meaningful blocks (interrelated words, phrases, or sentences; semantic or functional sentences). But compared with the teaching of main-idea comprehension, participants showed more flexibility on the use of several practices such as the use of L1, questioning skills, reading aloud, discussion the text with the whole class, and so on. The following episodes illustrate how the participants use the two approaches in specific situations. The first episode (Box 5.6) described how Lynch used the selective approach in his teaching. It was taken from the last part of his teaching where he worked on the passage of anti-terrorism and the Internet. After global reading, he moved to detailed reading and focused on some key sentences to analyze. He used the practices such as the use of L1, translation, making analogies, reading aloud, paraphrasing, and answer elaboration. Similar to global reading, he had a skillful use of complicated questioning skills. He focused on the details such as the figure of speech (inject poison), cultural connotations (red, white, and blue), a phrase (rally around), and proper nouns (Republican, Democratic, and Silicon Valley). His teaching was consistent with what he called “savoring the language” in the previous chapter. The selective approach was also applied to Edith’s and Leon’s lessons. But they had different interpretations about what constituted “details” in their teaching. For example, Edith emphasized a grasp of the logical connections between paragraphs and the whole text. She focused on discourse structures, reference relationships, cohesive devices, transitional devices, and inferential meanings. She used the practices such as explaining new words in context, analyzing long sentences, answering questions, and elaborating interrogation. She stressed the need for a high-level comprehension, which was consistent with her conception of the core goal in the previous chapter: When discussing the text, I take a close look at characteristics of the structural aspect. For example, the cohesive devices or how the writer uses the devices as signals to organize his ideas in a logical way. That’s something I would pick up to focus on… In addition, my teaching also emphasizes the understanding of the keywords, key sentences, the figures of speech, and writing features… Normally, these key details were selected in my lesson planning. I focused on the details because they promoted students’ comprehension to a high level and students learned how to apply some strategies to their writing. (Edith, fourth interview)

5.4  Promoting Comprehension by Focusing on Key Details

Box 5.6: The Use of the Selective Approach in Detailed Reading An extract from Lynch’s PPT Closed-up reading 1. ISIS relies on this digital branding to inject its poison into residents of other countries… (para. 5) 2. Gun owners tended to be Republican; Silicon Valley is overwhelmingly a Democrat. (para. 14) 3. We need the gunslingers and Fox News commentators to rally around Anonymous and the hacker culture and help make it tough and cool and red, white and blue. (para. 19) An excerpt from Lynch’s lesson T: [showed the closed-up reading page on the PPT] Now we try to interpret the following sentences. Let’s look at para. 5, the first sentence. Can you tell me what figure of speech is used in the first sentence in para.5? What figure of speech? SS: yin yu [a metaphor]. T: How do you say it is a metaphor? [Chinese] S1: The terrorist ideas are metaphorized to [Chinese] T: Yes, the terrorist ideas, right, here “inject poison” is a metaphor. So “die for the cause” refers to ? [holding the passage and waiting for someone to answer]. S2: xian shen, zi sha [making a commitment, committing suicide] T: Would you like to die for the cause, er, communism? OK, Party members, when danger happens, would you like to die for the cause, Do you think we should shi ye xiang dang [make a commitment to the Party, explained in Chinese]?. OK, the second sentence [he faced the PPT], please look at para. 14, the last sentence [read aloud the sentence from the text] What does it mean? [he paused for a few seconds], and the third sentence, it is in para. 15. How do you interpret this part? [he reads aloud the third sentence from the PPT], what does it mean-red, white and blue. Do you know what “rally around” means? Let’s get unite around President Xi Jinping, and hacker culture, hei ke wen hua [Chinese], [the bell was ringing], to make it tough and cool. OK, what do the three colors mean? [ Chinese] S3: The colors of the American national flag. T: Yes, that is right, the three colors of the national flag of the United States. T: [he showed a new PPT page on the terms Democratic and Republican] first of all, we have to take a brief look at the relationship between the Republican party and gun owners, OK, do you know who says these words [he pointed to the PPT and read aloud the sentence] Actually, these are words from Donald Trump, it is a part of his speech, he is not in favor of gun control. Actually, he supports a tight control on man. Not guns, but man. T: [ he showed a new PPT page] We also have a chart about the relationship between Democratic party and Silicon Valley. From this chart, do you know that Silicon Valley is generally Democratic? For example, the top donation for the president is 83% and only 17% for the Republican party. From this, we know that the Silicon Valley actually supports the Democratic Party. T: [he showed the picture of the American national flag on the PPT page] And the last question, red, white, blue, the national flag. OK, that is all for today’s lesson. See you tomorrow.

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In Leon’s lessons, the “details” involved exploring cultural connotations and inferential meanings in novel reading. For example, he asked the students to infer the underlying meanings of a little girl, solider, cat, and dairy or to explore the connotations of life and death and old and new from different perspectives. He addressed two reasons for focusing on these details. First, they broadened students’ understanding of the physical and social settings of the characters. Second, they helped students grasp the “invisible” narrative thread running through the story (Leon, fourth interview). In fact, the allocation of class time indicates that he gave priority to analyzing these details while leaving insufficient class time for group discussion. In sum, three participants adopted this approach in their teaching because they wanted their students to maintain a high or deep level of understanding of the text, which echoed their core goals discussed in theoretical beliefs. The second episode, taken from Angel’s lesson, illustrated the use of a holistic approach (Box 5.7). Angel taught a passage about Helen Keller’s (an American writer) teacher (Sullivan). It was written in a literary language, and Angel wanted his students to appreciate the stylistic features of the text and apply them to their writing. In detail reading, she organized two activities: translation and table-filling. The first one listed a few translated expressions in Chinese, with students asked to identify specific sentences from the text. The second one required them to complete the missing information describing Keller’s feelings and actions on particular events. Students were asked to use adverbials of time to join their actions and feelings together. This episode was about the second activity.

Box 5.7: The Use of the Holistic Approach in Detailed Reading An extract from Angel’s PPT Detailed Reading: Feelings and actions Her actions She stood on the porch, waiting for the teacher to comea Miss Sullivan spelled “doll’ in her hand She finally succeeded in making the letters for doll The teacher tried to teach her the connection between words and thingsa She felt the fragments of the broken doll at her feeta She knew she was going out in the sunshine a She finally discovered the myth of the language in the well-house a She realized what she had done.

Her Feelings Dumb, expectant Interesteda Pleasant and prouda Patient Keenly delighted Pleasant/happya Excited, eager to learn Regretted, sad

represents the missing information that students need to fill in. Angel shows them after the students finish the task.

a

(continued)

An excerpt from Angel’s lesson T: Now let’s move the feelings and actions first. Page 129 [textbook], on this page, we have a table in the exercise. I will give an example from sentence 1, then you do it by yourself. It is in para.2, it is the sentence we have learned it [in Chinese]. [she read the sentence from the textbook] When you do the exercise, remember to do it in this way, you have to fill in this table and then connect the two sentences together. For example, in this sentence, you can say “when Helen stood on the porch, waiting for the teacher to come, she was dumb and expectant”, or “she felt dumb and expectant”. In this way, I connect the two sentences, this is the first way with “when” [in Chinese], you can work with your partner to create your own sentences. You can have many other ways to connect the sentences. T: [the students work in pairs to fill in the table, Angel goes ground the classroom to check their progress] Please try to think about other ways, not just use “when” [in Chinese]. T: [eight minutes later, they had a short break during which she played an English movie for them] It seems you enjoyed it very much. OK, now let’s come back to the class. Just now we focused on the feelings and actions. Some of you have finished your sentences, but some of you haven’t. If you haven’t, please work with your partner. We have many different ways to connect them, besides “when”, you have to think about other ways [in Chinese]. [she continue to walk around and checked their progress] T: [four minutes later], OK, now, I will ask you to read the sentences. I will begin with Sentence 2. What do you write about her feeling? SS: Interested T: Is there any volunteer to read the sentence [raised her right hand] Volunteer? please, come on, how to connect the two sentences, actions, and feelings together. [she called a student’s name] S1: [he stood up], When Miss spelled ‘doll’ in her hand, she felt interested. T: [she repeated the answer] Quite good, thank you very much. Let’s move to the next one. [she asks the other student] S2: [he stood up] She was pleasant and proud when she finally succeeded in making the letters for the doll. T: [she repeated the answer] He uses “when” again. Thank you very much, [read a sentence from the text], that is the original sentence from the text. OK, think about the meaning of “flush”, when you feel excited, your face turns red, then “flush”. You can also use ‘pleasant’ and “proud” to replace it. Then we move to the next one. S3: [she stood up] When Miss Sullivan tried to teach her the connection between words and things, she was quite impatient. Quite good, here let’s pay attention to that, who became impatient? Helen, so when we connect these two sentences, the first sentence has the subject-­Sullivan, and if you use “she”, we do know who is “she”, When we connect the two sentences with different subjects, in the second one, we use “she”, we may see “she” as Sullivan [in Chinese], So in the sentence here, try to focus on the pronoun. Now, let’s move on. S4: [a volunteer stood up] When she felt the fragments of the broken doll at her feet, she feels [felt] keenly delighted. T: [she repeats her answer], here we use “feel” or “felt”? Yes, felt, quite good, sit down, please. Here there is the same subject in two sentences, we use “she”. She uses “when” again. OK, next one. S5: She knew she was going out in the sunshine and she felt happy. T: He uses “and”, that is a very simple connection, thank you, sit down. Now let’s move on. S6: [a volunteer stands up] When she finally discovered the myth of language in the well-house, she felt excited and eager to learn. T: She uses “when” again. We use “when” very often. Besides it, we can use “and”, anything else? Yes, while, or after, so try to think about more ways to connect sentences. Let’s move on. S7: [a volunteer stood up] She was regretful and sad until she realized what she had done. T: OK, thank you very much. She uses “until” in her sentence, here is another way to connect feeling and actions. You may use “when”, “after”, “and”, “until”, all of them are OK. Now let’s sum up. We can use when, while, as, and, until, after. We can also use a with-phrase, or a gerund, as the adverbial [in Chinese], for example, feeling the fragments of the broken doll at her feet, Helen was keenly delighted. This is the other way to connect them. OK, that is the part about feelings and actions. From this part, we learn how to connect them.

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The above excerpt shows that the purpose of organizing the activity was to increase students’ syntactic awareness on features of the adverb clauses of time. Instead of picking up key details and offering direct instruction, Angel integrated the goal of comprehension into the table-filling activity that trained students on how to use time clauses. On the one hand, students needed to understand the time sequence in particular events described in the text. On the other hand, they learned to use different time-adverbs to join sentences together. When conducting the activity, she adopted a number of practices such as answer elaboration, reading aloud, giving examples, and explaining words in context. While she used pair work, Angel spent a large amount of class time on analyzing these sentences. When talking about reasons for using the two activities, she addressed the need of helping students “appreciate the beauty of literary language” and “comb through the time order of the story” (Angel, fourth interview). The holistic approach was also found in Linda’s and Lychee’s lessons, but they diversified the approach by adopting a variety of comprehension activities. For example, Lychee used the T/F reading practice to “identify specific information from the text by using the skimming and scanning skills” (Lychee, fourth interview). Linda focused on key details by alternating among table-filling, blank-filling, specific questions, and translation, as she wanted her students to “practice language skills” (Linda, fourth interview) in detailed reading. In short, despite the fact that they adopted the approach in highly individualized ways and that they addressed different reasons for doing so, the fundamental purpose was to help the students achieve a deep understanding about particular parts or aspects of the text. To some extent, their teaching went beyond the goal of comprehension and provided opportunities for students to use the language in a meaningful way. However, the use of the holistic approach was also determined by two features of the taught passages. First, the passages were relatively short and easy to understand without containing too many figures of speech, cultural connotations, or a wide range of background knowledge. In this case, they can shift their attention to other aspects of language learning in detailed reading. Second, some activities were adapted from students’ textbooks. For example, Linda said that the textbook offered a variety of activities/exercises to check students’ comprehension. She transformed them into class activities according to student needs and interests and the availability of class time. In a word, no matter what approaches they chose in their teaching, the general purpose was to promote students’ understanding to a high/deep level, which were consistent with their core goals. However, the choice of the approaches was largely determined by participants’ expectations of students’ reading abilities and features of reading materials. For Lynch, Edith, and Leon, they emphasized an understanding of the details with inferential and connotative meanings, as they worked with authentic reading materials. In contrast, Angel, Linda, and Lychee did not set very high requirements for their students, which enabled them to combine text comprehension with other activities in a meaningful way. Similar to global reading, participants’ teaching was consistently dominated by teacher-directed activities and direct

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instruction, though they incorporated some student-centered practices into their teaching.

5.5  Building Rapport with Students The teaching of reading is not only an instructional process but also a social one that involves social interactions between teachers and students. From the social perspective, rapport building between them is a key element in classroom teaching. In social science research, rapport is often referred as “a way of establishing a connection and negotiating relationships” (Tannen, 1991, p. 77), and the purpose of rapport building is to increase interactions between the people communicating or improving their social concord (Adel, 2011). In classrooms, social talk plays a crucial role in building rapport between a teacher and students. Many researchers argue that social talk should not be treated as parts isolating from instructional processes but as parts of transitional work helping the teacher accomplish the instructional tasks in an effective way (Nguyen, 2007; Edwards & Westgate, 1994). Many studies suggest a dichotomy between instructional and social talk (Lin, 2001; Matlock, 2003; Ulichny, 1996), but Kramsch (1985) points out that no classroom interactions are either purely instructional or entirely social. In other words, social talk is embedded in the instructional process to increase teacher-student interactions in classrooms. The below episode illustrates how participants adopted social talk in their classes. The episode (Box 5.8), taken from Lychee’s lesson, described how she taught an autobiography of Alex Haley (an American writer). In this lesson, she presented the main idea of the passage on her PPTs and then invited students to talk about what they learned from the text. Students worked in groups and exchanged opinions by editing text messages on their phones. Lychee asked several students to read aloud their sentences and then offered comments on students’ answers and performance. She had two reasons for doing so. First, it created a positive classroom climate. The practice made her “jump out of the text,” and students had the chance to contribute to text learning by exchanging opinions with others. Second, it enhanced students’ confidence and communication skills. By inviting students to express their ideas on WeChat (a social media app installed on their phones) and read them for the whole the class, they learned to overcome the timidity of speaking in front of other students: After text analysis, I would like to jump out of the text and ask my students some questions about their lives or ask them to evaluate the writer’s opinions, viewpoints or positions. I like it because it is a kind of equal sharing activity, at least we share something equally…Another reason I’d like to say is that my students, you know they are freshmen, are very shy, many students are afraid of speaking publicly…WeChat is a good thing. A student learns to share something with their group members and then with the whole class. I think it is good for them to increase their confidence. You see, they enjoy it very much. (Lychee, fourth interview)

Lychee was very proud of using WeChat in her teaching. It not only helped her build a close tie with students but also functioned as a teaching assistant that helped

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Box 5.8: The Use of Social Talks in Lychee’s Lesson An extract from Lychee’s PPT The main idea of the passage It tells us how Alex Haley got out the shadowland of dreams and became a successful writer. The author’s story shows that to achieve success one should work hard and stick to the goal even when he/she is confronted with various difficulties and hardships. An excerpt from Lychee’s lesson T: Now let’s turn to our discussion. I mean what you learn from the story-the shadowland of dreams. Please discuss with your partners, and then send your opinions to our WeChat group. OK, let’s go, come on. [she walks around the classroom to check students’ progress, students discuss it in pairs] T: [six minutes later, she checks students’ messages on her cellphone], OK, please look at our cell phones. Well, congratulations to group 3, you were the first one, read it for us, OK? Please read it for us. S1: [she stood up] From the authors succeed [success], we learn about his courage and persistence, the more things he did, the more successful he became. T: Thanks very much, now let’s come to her sentence, from the author’s success, success not succeed, we learn that courage and persistence, right, it is the key for excellence. Next group. Zhu li [a Chinese student’s name], come on. S2: [she stood up] [she spoke in a low voice; her sentence cannot be identified] T: Wow, great, thank you so much, maybe you can speak a bit louder next time, OK? Sit down please, now boys and girls, let’s come to Zhu li’s answer. She said ‘from this text, we learn we should persist with our dreams, follow our hearts, stick to ourselves’. Thank you, excellent! OK, next group S3: [she stood up], if you have a dream, you should be have [have] a firm heart, don’t be afraid of failure. T: OK, thank you so much, you say ‘if you have a dream, you should have a firm heart’, Are you sure, you use “be” and “have” together? So you need to choose one, OK? So, you should have a firm heart, don’t be afraid of failures. Thank you so much. Next group, come on. S4: [she stood up], we should stick to our dreams, and never give up. Although our life is full of setbacks, we should believe in ourselves. T: Wow, excellent, thank you. We should stick to our dreams, and never give up. Although our life is full of setbacks, we should believe in ourselves. Great, next group. S5: [she stood up], From the text, we know an author is a man full of courage or persistent [persistence], you should work hard and stick to your dreams. T: after class, my students, please correct your mistakes on WeChat, OK? Thank you, we know an author is a man full of courage and persistent. Here you should use ‘persistence’ not ‘persistent’, we need a noun but not an adjective here. My God, you should work hard and stick to your dreams. OK, next one, please! S6: Life is full of difficulties, you have to stick it out and go through them all. Life is full of attempts, just stick to what you think, and don’t be governed by the opinions of others. T: Wow, excellent, thank you so much. You have to stick to your dreams, right? Life is full of attempts, don’t be governed by the opinions of others. Thank you so much. So, let’s clap our hands, thank you for sharing your sentences. [all the students clapped their hands] Also I want to say, I mean, you are in good spirit, full of courage, and persistence but maybe, in your class, you are a bit shy, it doesn’t matter, just share something you want to say, right? Because for English majors, if you want to practice your English, please take your chances in the class. Ladies and gentlemen, yes or no? Yes, take every chance in the class to practice.

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her give assignments, check students’ learning problems, supplement additional knowledge, and even learn about their study life. “WeChat is like a bridge connecting me with my students after class, it looks like a useful assistant that helps me learn about students’ learning both inside and outside the classroom” she explained (Lychee, fourth interview). Her justifications for using social talk were consistent with her goal of enhancing students’ SEL and contributed to fostering a positive environment. However, Lychee admitted that social talk was not the only way to build rapport with students. She said that her flexible teaching style, body languages, some extra-class assignments, and instructional activities all contributed to building rapport with students. The observed lessons show that participants conducted the practice of social talk similarly except for Lychee’s use of WeChat on classes. These talks were generally organized in pair work or group discussion in which the teacher extracted a topic from the text and asked students to offer their opinions or viewpoints. For example, Lynch asked his student to discuss how they can reduce weight and keep fit after learning a passage about eating habits; Edith invited her students to talk about how to deal with math problems in future job interviews; Leon asked his students to talk about their favorite characters in the novel; Linda encouraged students to talk about benefits about traveling; and Angel engaged her students in sharing stories about their teachers. However, no matter what topics they chose, it was often related to text learning, and students were expected to evaluate the author’s attitudes, beliefs, values, or positions, and such talks were organized after detailed reading. Participants addressed similar reasons for conducting social talk. For instance, Lynch believed social talk contributed to creating a positive classroom climate. “More social talks mean more interactions with students, more interactions mean a better relationship with them, a better relationship contributes to a positive classroom climate” (Lynch, fourth interview). From Lynch’s perspective, social talk, interaction, rapport with students, and a positive classroom climate were interrelated. Edith commented that “social talk narrows the psychological distance between the students and me, which generates more interactions with them in classes” (Edith, fourth interview). Leon explained that “social talk can help students explore the perspectives that belong to themselves” (Leon, fourth interview). Linda stated that “social talk is a kind of genuine interaction that engage students exchanging their thoughts and opinions beyond the text” (Linda, fourth interview). These reasons suggested that participants used it to enhance social interactions with students, which may contribute to building rapport and creating a positive classroom climate. However, all the participants agreed with the idea that social talk was not the only way to build rapport with students. Instead, they suggested that rapport building depended upon a range of instructional and non-instructional activities which stretched from classroom teaching to after-class interactions. The observed lessons show that they developed other practices to build rapport with students. For example, Edith and Lynch held informal chats with students and talked about their study life during class breaks. Linda provided free tutoring to individual students after class; Angel played English movies during class breaks. They made use of body languages, their senses of humor, or telling jokes to adjust the classroom climate.

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The use of social talk, consistent with their concerns on the social and emotional aspect of their teaching, reflected their SEL goals. However, classroom observations show that social talk still played a weak role in rapport building. First, it was used occasionally and accounted for a small amount of class time. Each participant adopted one or two talks in observed lessons. It was used only when the teacher had finished detailed reading. Compared with the class time spent on text comprehension, the time on social talk was relatively small. In general, two or three instructional hours were spent on text comprehension, while about 10 minutes were left to social talk. Second, it did not seem very productive. As the lessons showed, social talk was sometimes conducted in Chinese, as some students found it difficult to express complicated ideas in English, or it was dominated by the teacher who replaced group discussion with direct instruction when they felt time pressure at the end of their classes. The weak role of social talk revealed participants’ primary concerns on text comprehension rather than rapport building, as it was conducted after detailed reading and occupied a small amount of class time. Although social talk, combined with other practices, contributed to a positive classroom climate, it did not significantly change the situation: First, participants still adopted a comprehension- and knowledge-­based approach to the teaching of reading. Second, participants’ SEL goals, due to a lack of support from concrete practices and inadequacy of class time, received less attention. However, the blame for insufficient attention on students’ SEL learning should not be thrust upon participants, as they were constantly confronted with the tensions and conflicts between their instructional and non-­ instructional work, teaching and research work, and work life and family life (see Chap. 6).

5.6  Developing Language Skills for English Exams Participants’ teaching can be divided into three stages: pre-reading, during-reading, and post-reading. The first involved background knowledge or warming-up activities; the second concerned global reading and detailed reading. The first two stages were called learning sessions, while the third was referred to as training sessions or exercise classes used for checking written exercises from students’ textbooks or offering exam preparation. In these classes, participants focused on language skills and language knowledge by using exercises or activities from students’ textbooks. They conducted their teaching in a simple mode of doing exercises and checking answers in Chinese, which appeared more monotonous than the first two stages. Among four observations, each participant conducted one or two sessions. For example, Lynch gave one session on error correction related to the TEM-8; Linda offered two sessions, with one on translation skills and the other on writing skills related to the CET-4; Lychee offered one on sentence translation; Angel had one on reading skills; and Edith gave one session on writing strategies. As for Leon, about half of his instructional hours were spent on text learning and another half for novel reading. The below episode (Box 5.9), taken from Leon’s lesson, illustrates the teaching of post-reading. As shown above, Leon divided his lessons into two parts. For text

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Box 5.9: The Training of Reading Skills in Leon’s Exercise Lesson An excerpt from Leon’s lesson [Most of his utterances are given in students’ L1] T: OK, time is up. Let’s come to the first question. If you choose A, please raise your hands [some students raised hands, and he took a look at the number of students]. How about B? [some students raised hands]. How about C? [several students raised hands]. how about D? [many students raised hands]. So the correct answer is D. It is a special group together. Where is the sentence? It is in the last sentence of the first paragraph. The main activity for Laba Festival is to share the special Laba porridge [he read a sentence from the textbook], the whole text is about the Laba Festival, right? T: Now, question 2. If you chose A, raise your hand [some students raised their hands], how about B? how about C? how about D? The right answer is D. I think most students get the right answer. It is about Buddhism. What is B? Christianity, C is about Confucianism, you are quite familiar with that, Taoism you also know that, right? So Laba Festival the Laba is related to Buddhism. It is the first sentence in the second paragraph, right, do you see that? [read a sentence from the textbook] Those people believe it has a close relationship with the Buddha, right? You can get the answer from the sentence. Shakyamuni, do you know him? He is the founder of Buddhism. Now, let’s move to the next question.

reading, he trained students’ use of reading skills by making use of reading materials in the textbook. However, he simplified his teaching into the process of checking comprehension questions at the back of taught passages. It was conducted like this: the first 5  minutes were used for reading of a passage, the second 5  minutes for completing comprehension questions (multiple choices) from the textbook, and the third 5  minutes for checking answers. The episode depicted how Leon checked students’ answers. The process was repeated until the teacher and students went through all the comprehension questions. Leon addressed two reasons for doing so. First, it helped students prepare for the CET-4 in the next semester. Skimming and scanning were two basic reading skills that students encountered in any reading tests. He believed the training was beneficial for students to attend any English exams in the future. Second, he used it to cover the required teaching content. According to the assessment policy in his university, a certain proportion of the final exam assessed what students learned from the textbook. When referring to the first interview, I found that Leon’s idea was linked to his “four-step learning theory.” The account of his theory reflected his view on language learning: language skills were acquired through mechanical repetition till no errors were made. He emphasized his theory was efficient, operational, and practical, and it formed the basis of his teaching philosophy when he began his part-time job in a language training school a few years ago. While the instructional process looked quite boring and dull, Leon’s students felt excited about the number of correct answers they got. “The process goes very fast, they (the students) have little time to feel sleepy, they are activated to read more, do more and achieve more, that is the key point” Leon explained. However, Leon’s direct

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instruction seldom addressed any reading skills but focused on how to locate specific details from the passage, how to identify keywords from the question statement, and how to analyze, compare, and exclude the options of a comprehension question. In the below episode (Box 5.10), Linda demonstrated how she analyzed text structures of four reading passages which aimed at raising students’ awareness on the structural aspect of their writing before they attended the CET-4  in the near future. Linda adopted this activity because she thought her students were quite weak in their writing and she wanted to increase their awareness on the problems in their English compositions. In fact, Linda did not check all the written exercises from the textbook but selected those most relevant to the CET-4. In other words, she made use of the written exercises as materials to train students’ language skills used in the English exam:

Box 5.10: Analyzing Text Structures in Linda’s Exercise Lesson An excerpt from Linda’s lesson [Most of her utterances were given in students’ L1] T: Let’s come to read the passage on page 104. It is about to learn the Chinese language. If you are offered particular topics, how do you start to write? In this text, the writer divides the text into three parts: introduction, body, and conclusion. Our writing tasks in the CET-4 should be written in this way; you can use three or four-paragraph structure. If you use the latter, the introduction would be the first paragraph; the body section takes up two paragraphs, generally speaking, one part deals with the positive side, the other involves the negative side, then you conclude in the last paragraph. The paragraphs should be clear-cut, with different functions and purposes. T: Now let’s come to see the introduction. In this part, you should offer the background information, or introduce the topic, let’s come to look at his thesis statement. What is the thesis statement? We know a topic can be expressed in different ways. The writer expressed his idea in this way. In recent years, more and more foreigners are taking interest in the Chinese language. It offers the background information. Then let’s come to the reasons. The first reason, what is the keyword? SS: Culture. T: Yes, the first reason is about cultural exchange. And the second reason is what? SS: Economic growth. T: From the first sentence in the second paragraph, we can see it. Then the third cause? SS: The language itself. T: Here the writer use “language charms”, from what he talks in the three aspects, it seems quite reasonable. So, in our writing, we need to develop three aspects that you think are most important or reasonable to persuade readers. Now let’s come to see its conclusion. [she read the sentence from the passage]. For these reasons, we know that the Chinese language will gain more popularity in the world. As we can see, it is well-organized, clear-cut and demonstrates a clear logic line. But as for our writing, many problems can be identified from the first to the last paragraph. [the talk was given in Chinese]

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The textbook offers a variety of written exercises. I generally select those that are similar to test items in the CET-4. My favorite exercises are vocabulary, translation and writing tasks… I often emphasize the connection between these exercises and the CET-4. In this way, students pay more attention to it. I think they also wish to pass the CET-4. (Linda, fourth interview)

Such a pragmatic way of treating written exercises was also supported by Angel, Lynch, Edith, and Lychee. Participants showed the shared concern on exercises of vocabulary, translation, and writing, as they believed that these exercises reflected students’ weaknesses in language learning as well as the essential skills used in high-stakes exams. Another episode (Box 5.11) came from Edith’s lesson in which she worked on an exercise that required students to put two sentences together through an appropriate conjunction. By analyzing the if-clause, she wanted her students to increase syntactic awareness. She justified her teaching with the following reasons: First, students received insufficient training in their writing. Second, these exercises reflected the course requirements. Moreover, writing skills were a key component in the TEM-8. At the end of the episode, she emphasized an understanding of the “logic relationship” in if-clauses and encouraged students to apply it to their writing as well as their TEM-8. However, she opposed the idea of transforming her teaching into exam preparation. “I don’t pay special attention to the TEM-8, on the contrary, what the textbook requires students to do is consistent with the CET-4 requirement” she explained (Edith, fourth interview). For her, textbook exercises coincided with the requirement of the TEM-8, so she felt it unnecessary to focus on exam preparation in her lessons. In sum, participants reinforced students’ language skills and language knowledge by making use of the training sessions or exercise classes. However, their teaching centered around the written exercises in students’ textbooks, and their approaches were characterized by direct instruction in students’ L1. It seemed that they adopted a pragmatic view on language skill development, namely, the skills that were selected to focus on were those required in high-stakes tests. They tried to adjust the teaching to the requirements of the high-stakes tests. They often explicitly addressed the link between the written exercises and the high-stakes tests. In this way, these classes may serve as exam preparation in disguise.

5.7  ( In)consistencies Between Theoretical Beliefs and Action Beliefs The above sections give a detailed analysis of how participants enacted five principles their teaching. The data analysis revealed that action beliefs were consistent with theoretical beliefs in the core goal of comprehension, namely, they tried to improve students’ understanding of the taught passages through global reading and detailed reading. In fact, other principles centered around the goal by creating the social, cognitive, and affective conditions. For example, the principle of building

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Box 5.11: Analyzing an If-Clause Exercise in Edith’s Lesson An excerpt from Edith’s lesson [Her utterances were given in students’ L1] T: In English, when you want to put two sentences together, you should use what? SS: A conjunction. T: There are so many conjunctions, then, you should first identify the logical relationship, then we can choose from a group of conjunctions that have the same function. Now let’s come to discuss the first set of sentences. In addition to conjunctions, what else we can use? Clauses, yes, we can also use different kinds of clauses. Now, let’s turn to the first one. It has two sentences, the first is “our country has economic and military strength”, the second one is “it is less threatened by possible invasion”, what do the two sentences mean? SS: [translated them into Chinese] T: When we read and understand the two sentence, the logic relationship will emerge in our minds. What kind of relationship? SS: Cause and effect. T: [she lowered her head] SS: Condition T: Yes, it should be the conditional relationship. It does not mean our country has economic and military strength so it is not invaded. But it does mean economic and military strength is one of the conditions. So we can use a conditional conjunction. What is it? SS: If. T: But you should note that it is placed in different clauses, it has different emphases. So where do you put “if”, in the first sentence or the second sentence, what do we want to emphasize? SS: Economic and military strength. T: Yes, that is right. So the word “if” should be put at the beginning or the middle part? Yes, we should put it in the middle. So we can say “a country is less threatened by possible invasions if it has economic and military strength”. SS: [They read aloud together]. T: Another question-whether we need a comma between them? SS: No, unnecessary. T: So please remember, when “if” is placed in the middle, we emphasize the importance of the condition and we do not need a comma. On the contrary, if we want to emphasize the other, the word “if” should be put at the beginning, such as when saying “if a country has economic and military strength, it is less threatened by possible invasions”. In fact, doing this kind of exercises is similar to your process of writing. As we can see, writing is the process of joining sentences together and demonstrate a certain “logical relationship”, but when we come to a larger unit, we also need to identify the relationship between paragraphs. So we first need to find a suitable conjunction, or a particular kind of clause, then we can identify the relationship between two sentences. In this way, your composition can be developed into a coherent part. So this exercise aims to examine your ability to identify the logic relationship, which certainly can be applied to your writing.

rapport actually contributed to text comprehension, as they lacked concrete practices to support their SEL goals and a small amount of class time was spent on it. The primary concern of teaching background knowledge was not to expand students’ knowledge but pave the way for text comprehension or arouse student

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interests in text learning. As for the last principle, though having a weak link with text comprehension, it was significantly influenced by the high-stakes tests. In a word, the four principles were consistent with the basic goals and core goal in theoretical beliefs. It revealed two orientations in their teaching, language knowledge and reading comprehension, which were realized through the teaching of reading passages and written exercises in students’ textbooks. To some extent, it represents a textbook-­based approach to the teaching of reading with “Chinese characteristics” dominated by the teacher’s direct instruction with a combined use of traditional practices and an occasional use of interactive and student-centered practices. Although the participants emphasized the grasp of language knowledge and the development of reading comprehension through their teaching, we really question the effectiveness of such an approach in facilitating students’ reading abilities and their language development. With a heavy reliance on the reading materials and written exercises offered in the textbook, we really question to what degree they can expand students’ background knowledge and train their language skills. Obviously, there is a gap between what they claimed to follow and what they did in the classroom. In the context of the study, there exists a gap between their theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. The data analysis revealed that the two groups of beliefs were inconsistent in the following two aspects: 1. Improving students’ comprehension versus enhancing their social-emotional development. The centrality of reading comprehension in participants’ teaching was demonstrated in the core goals; the stages of global reading and detailed reading; the reading materials they used; the practices, activities, and approaches adopted in their teaching; and the conditions created for classroom learning. The consistency between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs also confirmed the central role of reading comprehension, though the effectiveness of these beliefs was highly questionable. Compared with the amount of time and energy investment on reading comprehension, students’ social-emotional development received less attention, less class time, and less support from the teacher’s perspective. The primary concern of social talks was to check students’ understanding of the text by inviting them to evaluate the writer’s viewpoints; thus, it played a weak role in building rapport with students. Confronted with limited class time, participants would rather cater for students’ practical needs of passing the high-stakes test instead of adopting more meaningful learning activities to facilitate their social-emotional learning. 2. Developing testing skills versus essential skills for language development. In the stimulated recall interview, participants claimed that the training sessions or exercise classes played a key role in reinforcing students’ language knowledge and developing their language skills. However, classroom observations showed that they neither introduced systemic reading strategies training nor developed a sophisticated understanding about the role of reading strategies in language development. In their eyes, reading skills were those used in the high-stakes tests rather than daily reading activities. The distorted conception of reading skills was exemplified in the collective practice of checking written exercises from the

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textbook. Two or three participants even transformed their regular teaching into exam preparation. For this reason, the development of reading skills was actually replaced by the training of testing skills at the post-reading stage. Moreover, due to a lack of theoretical reading, they had little knowledge about theories of second language reading or learning. What they called “reading strategies” were actually a few testing skills that they acquired from their experience of attending the high-stakes tests as language learners. To conclude, in theoretical beliefs, participants claimed to focus on students’ and the development of reading abilities. But in action beliefs, participants’ classroom practices indicated that they prioritized the teaching of reading comprehension and the training of testing skills. The textbook-based approach with Chinese characteristics was considered as the evolving outcome of mediating the tensions or conflicts between the groups of beliefs.

5.8  Conclusion The above analysis revealed that theoretical beliefs and action beliefs were consistent with each other in the core goal of comprehension but they were at odds because participants gave priority to text comprehension rather than students’ social-­emotional learning and testing skills rather than essential skills for language development. The dilemma between them highlighted participants’ needs to meet institutional and students’ practical demands rather than realizing their educational ideals. For them, they foremost fulfilled their instructional duties (covering the required teaching content) and helped students pass the CET-4 (a prerequisite to graduate and an important means of securing a good job). In addition, participants took a serious look at their “classroom realities” such as a larger class size, mixed-­ability students, limited instructional hours, course assessment practices, and so on, which may serve as another justification that made them put aside their educational ideals. Despite the use of many practices, especially some learner-centered and interactive ones, participants’ teaching was still considered as the traditional approach featured as being highly structured, teacher-fronted, comprehension-­based, and full of direct explanations. The inconsistency between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs coincides with findings from a few studies reporting the “instructional tension” that EFL/ESL teachers faced. For instance, Barkhuizen and Wette (2008), in an interview study, found that a majority of Chinese EFL teachers (out of 83 respondents) reported the conflict between needs to achieve socially oriented goals and subject-centered goals (e.g., passing high-stakes tests, developing communicative competence, bringing about enduring personal changes in students’ awareness of themselves as language learners or their approaches to language learning). Such conflicts reflected the dilemma between “teaching the book” and “educating the person” perceived by many Chinese EFL teachers. Similarly, Elbaz (1983) found the instructional tension was linked to the conflict between different goals developed by the teacher. Elbaz

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suggested that the teacher’s intended goals gradually gave way to her simultaneous goals developed within the educational system due to the practical consideration of “classroom realities” such as school regulations, the assessment practice, curriculum requirements, and so on. By making a comparison between participants’ theoretical beliefs and action beliefs, we may consider the observable practices as the behavioral strategies to reconcile the tensions between two groups of beliefs or behavioral adjustments in response to situational constraints. In this regard, participants’ beliefs and practices are not a one-to-one correspondence. In the analogy of the tip of an iceberg, their teaching practices may be seen as the small tip above the sea level, while the complex belief systems individual teachers held may be seen as the huge iceberg under sea water. Their teaching practices may serve as the outcome of complex internal processes of self-adjustments to meet competing demands in their teaching situations. In this case, participants’ concerns on contextual factors served as radical social critiques that they prefer not to openly discuss because doing so would disturb their peaceful mindset and destroy the delicate balance in their teaching (Elbaz, 1983). However, it does not mean that participants are not aware of the instructional tension but suggests that they grin and bear it silently, as they still face the ongoing challenge of harmonizing students’ needs, curriculum requirements, and their educational ideals of nurturing students.

References Adel, A. (2011). Rapport building in student group work. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(12), 2932–2947. Barkhuizen, G., & Wette, R. (2008). Narrative frames for investigating the experiences of language teachers. System, 36(3), 372–387. Breen, M., Hird, B., Milton, M., Oliver, R., & Thwaite, A. (2001). Making sense of language teaching: Teachers’ principles and classroom practices. Applied Linguistics, 22, 470–501. Edwards, A., & Westgate, D. (1994). Investigating classroom talk. In London and (2nd ed.). Washington, DC: The Falmer Press. Elbaz, F. (1983). Research on teacher’s knowledge: The evolution of a discourse. Journal of Curriculum Studies, 23, 1), 1–1),19. Grabe, W. (2009). Reading in a second language: Moving from theory to practice. Cambridge, NY: Cambridge University press. Kramsch, C. (1985). Classroom interaction and discourse options. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 7(2), 169–183. Lin, A. (2001). Doing English-lessons in the reproduction or transformation of social worlds? In C. N. Candlin & N. Mercer (Eds.), English language teaching in its social context: A reader (pp. 270–286). London: Routledge. Matlock, D. (2003). The interpersonal rapport dimension of pedagogy in the adult ESL Classroom and its influence on student satisfaction and performance. Unpublished Dissertation, University of Kansas. Nguyen, H. (2007). Rapport building in language instruction: A microanalysis of the multiple sources in teacher talk. Language and Education, 21(4), 284–303. Tannen, D. (1991). You just don’t understand: Women and men in conversation. London: Virgo. Ulichny, P. (1996). Performed conversation in an ESL classroom. TESOL Quarterly, 30(4), 739–764.

Chapter 6

Context Beliefs

6.1  Introduction The previous chapter highlights the tensions between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. However, in doing so we just “look at the leopard through a bamboo tube” (a Chinese proverb); we still have a limited view of what participants knew, believed, and did about their teaching, and we take into account what they thought and did outside classrooms or within the school context. It is therefore necessary to look beyond participants’ classroom teaching and investigate their social practices in relation to students, colleagues, administrators, and other teaching staff. As shown in Sect. 1.2, many studies suggest that contextual factors played a negative role in preventing the teachers from enacting their beliefs in the classroom. However, the authors of these studies still confused context with the meaning of context, mistakenly assuming that all the teachers perceived the contextual influence in the same way. Here I introduce the notion of context beliefs to study how participants evaluated the influence of contextual factors on their teaching. A general underlying assumption of teacher cognition research is that the teacher is seen as “a critical, reflective, decision-making agent with her own assumptions, attitudes, thinking, and beliefs about the classroom” (Burns, Freeman, & Edwards, 2015, p. 589). Based on this assumption, I argue for a position that teachers actively shape their context beliefs through their social practices rather than being passively influenced by contextual factors. In line with Skott’s PoP model, I emphasize the need to redefine teachers’ social practices in the belief system. They are best understood as the outcome of both individual and communal meaning-making in the school community and the result emerging from the interaction with their classroom practices. They are internalized through a teacher’s continuous interpretations of past and present teaching and transformations of his/her experiences into actual teaching. In this respect, context beliefs are inferred through their social practices. Theoretically, social practices are elicited through lengthy field observations, but the limited time and funding did not allow me to do so. A practical way was to © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 X. Mo, Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs, English Language Education 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47170-5_6

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conduct a document analysis, a rating task, and an in-depth interview. With a combined use of these strategies, participants were invited to think, reflect, and talk about how the significant factors influence their teaching. Findings of this chapter suggested that participants developed three categories of context beliefs: concerns on teachers’ workload, instructional freedom, and teacher evaluation. I incorporated the term “concern” into context beliefs to indicate teachers’ expectations when confronted with these situational constraints. It was also found that context beliefs provided justifications for but failed to reconcile the tensions between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. As a negative psychological force, context beliefs were also associated with participants’ sense of vulnerability.

6.2  Concerns on Teachers’ Workload The workload is one of the most important aspects of teachers’ work and lives. Despite participants being selected from different universities, it seemed that they shared similar teaching cultures. A key aspect of such teaching cultures was a heavy workload imposed on them. In the context of the study, participants’ workloads came from two areas: instructional and non-instructional. Instructional work included a required number of instructional hours, lesson preparation, marking students’ homework, scoring students’ final exam papers, and so on. Non-instructional work involved attending regular faculty meetings, completing paperwork, or fulfilling tasks or duties that were temporarily assigned to them. Administrative work was included if the participant was appointed as the director of their teaching panels. Four participants worked as the panel director which required them to collaborate with other teachers to order textbooks, set teaching plans, review exam papers, organize exam scoring work, write annual reports, and so on. Findings of this chapter revealed that participants generally felt they had a heavy workload which made them difficult to maintain the quality of classroom teaching.

6.2.1  Instructional Work The data analysis suggests that participants consistently considered their instructional work as relatively heavy. Their workload was evident in the “hard realities” of over-numbered instructional hours, an enormous amount time and energy investment in lesson preparation, and an intensive work schedule. For example, in Lynch’s narrative, he reported 24 instructional hours (each lasting 40  minutes) per week, teaching three SEC at the time of the study. The transfer to teaching a business reading course imposed additional pressure on lesson preparation, as he lacked relevant business knowledge. With an educational background of applied linguistics, he admitted that he had to “learn new knowledge like a pupil” before delivering the course. To go through the transitional period, he insisted that his observation task be

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arranged in the second semester. In Lynch’s situation, lesson preparation involved expanding his business knowledge, familiarizing the taught passages, and designing instructional activities. After the initial weeks of teaching, he found the new reading course only focused on business knowledge while paying less attention to the development of reading abilities, which was seen as a core goal in his teaching. In this case, he added a new element to his reading course, supplementing authentic reading materials in his classes. When recalling his experience in lesson preparation, he first recalled the word “tiredness”: In fact, using the new textbook means only one thing – tiredness. Lesson planning takes up too much time and energy. It requires you to familiarize yourself with a new textbook. When the textbook content cannot meet students’ needs, you have to supplement new reading materials. It takes a lot of time to search for suitable materials online and complete preparatory work. It is really a huge project. …. When planning the lesson, I feel huge time pressure; sometimes, I have to stay up late till midnight or 1 o’clock in the morning. (Lynch. fifth interview)

Another piece of work he felt stressful was marking students’ homework. As the TEM-8 was about to adopt new test formats, he showed great concerns for students’ exam preparation. He gave assignments to the students such as English news dictation or compositions on a weekly basis. Due to his administrative work, he could hardly have sufficient time for reviewing students’ homework. “When I am busy with my administrative work, I could hardly have the time to comment on students’ homework. I take a glimpse and offer an overall score” (Lynch, fifth interview). Apart from 16 instructional hours per week, Angel faced similar pressure with lesson planning. As she taught classes of more proficient students, she had relatively more instructional freedom without covering too much content from the textbook. In such a context, she had an idea of providing additional reading materials in her classes. But the more materials she offered to students, the more pressure she felt with lesson preparation. When realizing her idea in the first 2 weeks, she spent an entire weekend to search for suitable reading materials and designing her PPTs. In the following weeks, she made continuous improvement on her instructional materials according to students’ feedback. Despite great time pressure on lesson preparation, she was delighted to challenge herself, as she learned more and enjoyed more instructional freedom: In the first round of teaching, I needed to develop a general framework for my teaching, it took me a lot of time during the weekend. To prepare for each session, I worked out the instructional materials and design my PPTs, which took me at least eight hours each time, usually from afternoon till midnight on Saturday and Sunday…Although lesson preparation creates great time pressure on me, I believe it is good for my teaching, as I can learn something new… I do not like to follow the textbook, I can choose what I want to teach or anything that I feel useful for my students. (Angel, 5th interview)

Another piece of work Angel felt stressed was to score students’ final exam papers at the end of each semester. As a GEC teacher, she was assigned to teach 12 classes, with each having about 50 GEC students, which meant she had almost 600 test papers to score. The overall score for each student was comprised of classroom performance, oral tasks, and the final exam, meaning that she had about 1800 scores

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to calculate. Moreover, she had to finish the scoring work within a week after the final exam; otherwise she would receive complaints from students. For her, the last week of the semester became a “nightmare.” Aside from time for sleeping and eating, she devoted almost all her free time to scoring their test papers, giving overall scores and inputting them on the online system. The only thing she felt relieved was that she could enjoy her vacation after the scoring work. Leon, as a novice teacher, undertook about 20 instructional hours per week at the time of the study. To manage three courses together, he had to sacrifice a considerable amount of free time on lesson preparation. His instructional pressure came from two aspects. First, he had to maintain a delicate balance between his time and energy spent on the three courses. Apart from the intensive reading course, he delivered two specialist courses to SEC students. Because of higher requirements for SEC students, he needed more time to prepare his lessons on the specialist courses. Second, he had to cope with the issue that his GEC students complained his novel reading course was too difficult to understand. Although he repeatedly emphasized the benefits of reading an original novel, his students did not appreciate it. He racked his brains to search for appropriate ways to make his teaching accessible to more students: I taught a writing course for six classes of SEC students. Whenever assigning homework to them, I’ve got more than 200 pieces of writing to mark. Besides, the department asked me to offer exam preparation for eight weeks out of 17 weeks. During the sessions, I had the students practiced their writing three times a week. I almost got 600 pieces of writing to mark in a week. Most of my free time has been spent on the marking work, that is, the main reason why I paid less attention to my novel reading classes… Another reason is that my [GEC] students complained the novel was difficult to read. In my lesson preparation, I had to rack my brains to think about ways to make my teaching accessible to them. (Leon, fifth interview)

Linda and Lychee felt less stressed about lesson preparation due to colleagues’ collaborative efforts to develop instructional PPTs. However, their pressure came from an intensive class schedule. To reduce commute time between their homes and new campuses in the suburb, the Department of English squeezed their classes in 2 days. In that case, they had eight classes each day, with four in the morning and the rest in the afternoon. Such an intensive work schedule imposed great physical and psychological pressure on them because they had to stand and speak for the whole day except for a short break at noon time. But it seemed that they had been accustomed to their work patterns which had been implemented for several years. Linda described her evening life after teaching for the whole day. After dragging myself from the school bus and walking home, I often finish supper in a hurry. For the rest of the time, I often do nothing but just curl up on the sofa, watching TV and waiting for bedtime to come. Luckily, I’ve got the next free day to restore myself. (Linda, fifth interview)

Edith had a relatively small workload with 12 instructional hours per week, but her pressure came from lesson preparation. As the taught passages were authentic materials written by famous essayists or columnists in the English world, she had to spend a significant amount of time on lesson preparation which included collecting relevant background knowledge, identifying key details from the taught passages, and designing her instructional PPTs, with the latter as the core task. During the

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four classroom observations, Edith always printed out the PowerPoint slides with notes on different pages. She said that the handouts served as the “informal” lesson plan that reminded her the key language points to explains, the activities to carry out, and the questions she wanted to ask. In fact, the textbook publisher offered the ready-to-use PPTs, but she felt dissatisfied with these “prefabricated materials” and wanted to make her own PowerPoint slides. Despite being rather time-consuming, she enjoyed it and believed it was worthwhile. Revising my PPTs is really time-consuming, I am fully aware of the issue. But it is something interesting for me. Other people, such as my husband, think it is a waste of time but I think it is something worthy doing, especially when you find out something that can attract students to text learning. Another important task for my lesson preparation is to pick up the difficult language points from texts. Some details, such as Fermi Guess and Protestant, I have no idea about them. I have to understand them before teaching my students. (Edith, fifth interview)

It seemed that participants were reluctant to talk about reasons why they took so many instructional hours. When Angel complained the increasing living cost in her city, she indirectly offered her reason – the economic incentive. As a teacher with lower financial status, the only means to increase her salary was to take more instructional duties. She described her financial situation in the below account. I still remember, when I began to teach, our salaries were very low, but life pressure was huge for us, I needed to rent an apartment, pay the electricity, water, phone bills, but I just got about 2000 yuan each month. I almost had nothing left after paying the bills or other fares… Now the situation changes a little, and I’ve got my savings. Even though I got married, we still face economic pressure due to the sky-rocketing house prices. As an ordinary teacher, what else can we do to increase our salary? (Angel, fourth interview)

When browsing the faculty websites and tracking the number of enrolled students and new teachers in recent years, I found another reason associated with the situation: participants’ departments were short of full-time teachers. Since 2000, the number of enrolled students in these universities had been increasing, while the recruitment of new teachers was on a decline. With a surplus of postgraduates in the job market, these universities turned to those with PhDs. As a result, very few teachers were recruited, and these universities solved the issue by hiring more part-time teachers and paying them with relatively lower salaries. For example, Lynch got involved in the recruitment of new teachers in his department. He said that very few new teachers entered his department since 2015. On the other hand, his department hired some postgraduates to teach, but he was worried that these teachers would be dismissed before the new round of QAUE (Quality Assessment of Undergraduate Education) administered by the MOE (see the next section).

6.2.2  Non-Instructional Work Another source for their work pressure came from non-instructional work. They felt the non-instructional work posed a threat to their instructional work, as it eroded their time on lesson preparation and even infringed on their family life. For

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example, when comparing his instructional work with non-instructional work, Lynch felt more stressed about the latter. In his eyes, non-instructional work, especially administrative work, often threw him into unprepared situations but required immediate actions. At the time of the study, Lynch felt that the preparation work for the QAUE imposed huge pressure on him. His university and department attached great importance to it, as assessment results can influence the scale of enrolled students and the development of new undergraduate programs. Despite the fact that his university passed the QAUE 5 years ago and most teachers were familiar with the “routinized” practices, the school administration wanted to mobilize the teachers with enormous administrative activities, which greatly disturbed his regular teaching. The QAUE is approaching us; I guess it comes to us at the end of this year. Now we have engaged in the preparation work. Our school has set up a set of rules or regulations to standardize our instructional practices. You will receive unexpected visits to your classrooms, you will attend numerous meetings, finish your paperwork, or get some temporary tasks, and so on… But as a director, I have got a lot of administrative work, I need to supervise my colleagues’ work. How to tell that I’ve got enough time for my lesson preparation, that is something that worries me most. (Lynch, fifth interview)

According to the QAUE, the number of part-time teachers (recruited from postgraduates) should be kept at the minimum level. Lynch’s department would dismiss some part-time teachers, which would lead to the increasing workload for full-time teachers. In that case, Lynch said that each teacher in his department must take more instructional hours. The idea of giving up the administrative work worried him, as he thought his workload would become unbearable: “I can hardly imagine the situation and I am thinking about quitting my administrative work” he explained (Lynch, fifth interview). Similarly, Angel and Edith, as the panel director in their departments, complained that the miscellaneous and toilsome administrative work frequently disturbed their teaching and research, which made it difficult to stay focused on their work. For Angel, the administrative work at the first and last week of the semester posed great pressure on her. A few days before the new semester, she was busy with archiving teaching documents, receiving and sending announcements, scheduling teachers’ classes, and preparing textbooks for teachers. At the end of the semester, she was busy with auditing the final exam paper, organizing the scoring work, and drafting her annual report. Coupled with her own instructional work, she could hardly survive the highly intensive work life. She once thought about quitting her administrative work, as she was planning to have a baby or pursue a doctoral degree shortly. “I am ready to give it up and I can hardly cope with it” she explained (Angel, fourth interview). As for Edith, her pressure mainly came from various unexpected administrative meetings. A sudden phone call from the faculty could immediately destroy her calm mind, and she had to waste the whole afternoon on some dull meetings. “Such boring things have occupied so much of my free time that I haven’t got enough time on my teaching and research work” she explained (Edith, fourth interview).

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Lychee and Leon did not take the administrative work, but other aspects of the non-instructional work also bothered them. For Leon, his pressure derived from his excessive responsibility of organizing various extra-class activities and collecting data for a research project. He was recommended to organize English-learning activities such as the English speaking contest, English corner, and English drama festival, as other senior teachers were reluctant to do so. Meanwhile, he participated in a research project which involved the data collection work in other cities. For a certain period, the highly intensive work threatened his health. For example, he suffered from ankle pains due to a long walk to collect data, and he got a sore throat after the English drama festival, which forced him to cancel his instructional work for a whole week. In spite of this, he believed he benefited a lot from the odd jobs because they helped him “build rapport with many SEC students and deepen my understanding about our society” (Leon, fourth interview). As for Lychee, non-­ instructional duties or tasks did not bother her so much except for the first and last weeks of the semester, meaning that she felt quite free for the rest of the time. She thus sought a part-time job to make use of her time and energy. By taking advantage of her prestige as a university teacher, she managed to offer English classes in a private training school, but sometimes she faced the pressure of balancing time for her university job and part-time job. When asked about her motives for doing a part-­ time job, she confessed “the material interest is not the only thing I am looking for, I have other motives. I need to broaden my horizons, make full use of my expertise and seek development in a bigger stage in my life” (Lychee, fifth interview). In her eyes, the part-time job not only improved her financial situation but also provided opportunities for development. The benefits thus outweighed the work pressure. The above analysis revealed that the non-instructional work disturbed their teaching by eroding their time and energy invested in teaching. They felt obliged to fulfill these tasks and duties due to the following reasons. First, it was a part of their administrative work. The accounts given by Edith, Angel, and Lynch indicated that their concerns on the non-instructional work overrode those on the instructional work, especially at the beginning and ending weeks of a new semester. “My work pressure mainly come from the tasks or duties that the department head give to me,” Lynch explained (fourth interview). Second, the non-instructional work was a part of the annual assessment (see Sect. 6.4). At the end of the academic year, the teachers had to submit a self-evaluation report to list the instructional and non-­instructional work they completed. Any personal malpractice would affect the department’s overall performance. For example, Angel’s university assessed the department performance at the end of an academic year, which was tied to the bonus for every teacher in the faculty. “If you fail to perform a certain task or duty on time, your bonus would be reduced and your department’s performance would be affected,” Angel said (fifth interview). Similar assessment practices were reported by other participants. In this way, few teachers would risk the danger of delaying the non-­ instructional work. In sum, participants felt stressed about their instructional and non-instructional work. It was illustrated in the over-numbered instructional hours, a large amount of time and energy on lesson preparation, their administrative work, and many trivial

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duties and tasks. Their work pressure was attributable to both personal and institutional factors. For individuals, they wanted to improve their financial situations by taking more instructional hours. For the faculty, there was insufficient number of full-time teachers, and the teacher’s performance was assessed in terms of the instructional and non-instructional work. Nonetheless, the work overload undermined their motives to improve their teaching. The non-instructional work detracted their attention from teaching and eroded their time and energy on the work of lesson preparation and scoring student’s homework. In this case, there is no wonder to see that participants demonstrated the teacher-led, comprehension-based, exam-­ oriented, and knowledge-focused approach in reading instruction. The workload also indicates the unfavorable working conditions, which forced them to struggle for survival in real world rather than dedicating to their teaching.

6.3  Concerns on Instructional Freedom Participants’ teaching tended to be constrained by institutional policies, regulations, and practices. They showed great concern about what factors supported or hindered the enactment of their beliefs. In general, the more contextual constraints imposed on their teaching, the less instructional freedom they had and the less possibility they achieved with their individualized goals or educational ideals. It was revealed that participants felt that student characteristics, assessment practices on student learning, and high-stakes tests curbed their instructional freedom.

6.3.1  Student Characteristics Participants showed great concern about the collective characteristics of their students such as class size, gender, major, motivation, proficiency, and so on. They generally perceived their students as passive, silent, and obedient learners with less initiative. For example, Lynch’s class was comprised by more motivated, obedient, and diligent female students; he believed that a majority of students lacked a willingness to talk and showed less critical thinking and learning initiatives: At present, they are the third-year students. Just like I mentioned earlier, they have a low willingness to exchange ideas or opinions with others… sometimes when I throw a question that requires a deep level of thinking, you will find the answers they offered are far away from your expectations. Even if you give some clues, they may not catch the points… I find they lack learning initiatives, always waiting for me to offer the correct answers. For ­example, when they encounter a specialized term in business reading passages, they can catch its meaning by using the dictionary or browsing the website, but they seldom do it… They lack a spirit of learning by self-exploration. (Lynch. fifth interview)

Edith felt relieved that her students were more obedient and cooperative than previous classes of students she taught and they demonstrated more interest and

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motivation than GEC students. But she was dissatisfied with the size of class. Last year, the Department of Teaching Affair combined two classes into one to solve the problem of a shortage of full-time teachers. As the number of students had doubled, she said she needed a bit more time to get used to teaching a larger class. On the other hand, she had taught intensive reading course for many years, and she was quite familiar with the weaknesses of her students. In her eyes, her students had a small scope of knowledge and lacked learning initiatives and self-discipline. “They rely on the textbook as the major source to acquire new knowledge, few students were willing to do some extensive reading after class,” she said (Edith, fifth interview). During class breaks, she had informal chats with individual students and learned about their college life. Many female students had been binge-watching some popular TV series instead of spending time on reading or self-study. Apart from completing their assignments, they took little interest on knowledge beyond the textbook. In contrast, Angel had a bigger class size (with more than 50 GEC students in each class), which greatly increased her workload. As discussed earlier, marking students’ homework and scoring the final exam papers became a regular headache, as it occupied too much of her free time. In the past, when she asked students to write English compositions, it took her at least 2 weeks to mark these. Luckily, last year her university adopted an online writing system which enabled students to submit their compositions and receive professional guidelines online. It greatly reduced her time on the marking work, but the scoring work remained a heavy task for her. Another concern she had was with the difference in students’ majors. She felt that the teaching with business students was lively and enjoyable while the teaching with science students was dull and boring, which made her difficult to adjust herself to the teaching of two different classes of students. I just want to say, the classroom climate with liberal art students is quite different from that with science students. For example, teaching business students is more enjoyable, as most of them are quite active, responsive and we have good cooperation. But when it comes to science students, my teaching is silent and boring. Very few students would like to answer my questions. If you throw a question for discussion, most of them still keep silent, waiting for you to offer the correct answer. For most of the class time, I just talk to myself. (Angel fifth interview)

Leon taught GEC and SEC students simultaneously; he noticed the two distinct groups of students. In his eyes, his SEC students were active, motivated, and easy to build rapport, while his GEC students were dull, reluctant to open their mouths, low-proficient, and less motivated. In the second semester, he had a letter from some GEC students who complained that his novel reading classes were too difficult to understand. He adjusted his teaching by using more students’ L1 as the language of instruction and replacing group discussion with direct explanations. However, the big contrast between the two classes of students made his novel reading classes a painful experience. When teaching the group of SEC students, I find it quite enjoyable, as they are motivated, talkative, easy-going and good at cooperating. I feel I like them and they like me, it is a kind of healthy circle. After the crisis with my GEC students, I feel that they become anxious,

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sensitive and less motivated and few students keep a keen interest on novel reading classes. Perhaps they do not truly understand the purpose of reading an English novel. I find it hard to build rapport with them and it turns into a vicious circle, the more reluctant to invest time on lesson preparation and teaching, the more you feel distance from these students. Teaching the two groups of students is really a kind of painful experience. (Leon, fourth interview)

Lychee viewed her SEC students as “highly-motivated and taking strong interest in English learning” (Lychee, fourth interview), and she attributed it to the status of freshmen who felt curious about college life and were eager to learn new knowledge. However, she was worried that such curiosities for learning would quickly disappear when they moved to their senior years, and she thus emphasized that her students needed sustaining guidance and support from the teacher; otherwise, they would become less-motivated learners. In Linda’s case, she viewed her students as “less-motivated, low proficient and reluctant to open their mouths” (Linda, fourth interview), and she attributed the negative characteristics to an exam-oriented education in high schools of economically disadvantaged areas. However, very few participants except Lynch linked student characteristics with China’s education system. The half-a-year stay in America enabled him to attain a deep understanding of Chinese students. The host university organized several educational visits to local secondary schools, and he was impressed with the Western-­ style classroom teaching which was dominated by workshops, seminars, group work, and presentations while the teacher took less class time to teach knowledge to students. In a local school, he saw a big contrast between the Chinese students and Western counterparts. The latter tended to sit in the front row, ready to answer the teacher’s questions, while the former huddled up in the back row, afraid of being asked by the teacher. As for our students, they have a low willingness to participate in classroom activities; I think it is quite common among all the Chinese students. They don’t like to answer questions or take part in discussion activities, which is quite different from Western students… However, I do not think the Chinese students develop such characteristics within one day. From the first day they enter the primary school, they have been immersed in China’s education system. It seems our system emphasizes gaining knowledge from the teacher; students play a weak role in classroom learning. Even though they go to college, the situation does not change too much. That is the reason I think why the Western-style classroom is not suitable for our students. (Lynch, first interview)

Impressed by the educational visit, Lynch concluded that the Western-style classroom teaching was inappropriate for Chinese students who had developed characteristics compatible with China’s education system and would find it difficult to adjust to a new one. Lynch’s conception of Chinese students justified his approach in observed lessons where he replaced the student-centered activities with his lengthy explanations that focused on text comprehension. However, he absorbed some elements from learner-centered teaching with an emphasis on teacher-student interactions and the emotional aspect of his teaching. The adoption of these elements may be seen as his efforts to creating an equal and democratic classroom climate rather than shifting to learner-centered teaching.

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6.3.2  Assessment Practices on Student Learning Another contextual factor that affected participants’ instructional freedom was the assessment practices on student learning in their institutions. In recent years, there was increasing attention on formative assessment, and many of China’s universities combine formative and summative assessment in student learning. In participants’ universities, student learning was measured in terms of overall scores consisting of classroom performance and the final exam. The former involved students’ attendance, answering questions, finishing homework, or other performance on classes, while the latter was a written test that assessed students’ grasp of language knowledge from the textbook and their reading proficiency. In fact, the ratio (between classroom performance and the final exam) and the proportion (of test items from the textbook in the final exam) were the most significant parts. Moreover, the department head established the unified standards that subject teachers applied them to assessing student learning. In Angel’s department, the overall score consisted of the final exam, oral test, and classroom performance, with the ratio of 6:2:2 and the proportion 40/100. Angel suggested that the assessment policies forced her to orient her teaching to text learning rather than students’ reading proficiency. She maintained that the proportion should give equal attention on classroom performance and the written test should totally assess reading proficiency instead of knowledge from the textbook. However, the assessment policy had been established before she worked in the faculty, she said, that she had no choice but to follow it. We mainly measure students’ learning through the final exam, that is a written test. As I discussed earlier, a certain proportion of the test content was based on what students learn from the textbook. In this way, my teaching should focus on the required teaching units. … I generally feel that the overall score should given equal attention on classroom performance. To be frank, I don’t like the ratio and proportion. However, that is something has been set up before I entered this university. I think there should be more discussion among the teachers. (Angel, fifth interview)

Similar assessment practices were administered in Linda’s university. The ratio between classroom performance and the final exam was 5:5, and the proportion was 40–50/100. That explained why Linda allocated more class time to checking written exercises from student textbooks. “The exercises such as vocabulary, translation and writing topics are closely related to the final exam; I need to take class time to check the exercises” she said (Linda, third interview). Like Angel, Linda faced the intensive work of scoring students’ test papers at the end of each semester, as the scoring work involved 250 GEC students. Leon reported similar assessment practices in his faculty. That may explain why he divided his reading classes into two parts, with the part of textbook learning to train students’ testing skills and cover the required content. However, Leon criticized the assessment practices. As a student who once studied in the USA, Leon preferred assessing student learning through a term paper and classroom performance, as such practices enabled students to explore what they read from the novel and develop their perspectives through the writing process. Leon strongly opposed the use of a written test to assess student learning, as it did little help to improve their reading abilities but forced them to some language points from the textbook.

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In Lychee’s faculty, the ratio was 5:5 and the proportion was 20–30/100. The teachers were given more instructional freedom, as the assessment practices set a low proportion of the textbook content in the final exam and the teachers could use individualized assessment practices in the first semester. Given the freshmen status and the transitional stage of college life, she assessed student learning through a book report and a presentation about an English novel they read after class. In the first semester, she organized a class show in which each study group nominated a member to do an oral presentation with PowerPoint slides and the rest of the students acted as the judges to offer their scores. In the second semester, she turned to the final exam, as she believed that the students needed to “prepare themselves for the CET-4” and “develop some reading skills” (Lychee, fourth interview). In Lynch’s situation, he implied that the assessment practices had some political considerations. Students’ overall scores were the key criteria for winning scholarships, but his students’ scores were relatively lower than those in other faculties, which made them less competitive in applying for scholarships. The head suggested him to slightly raise students’ scores on classroom performance and increase the proportion of the text content from the textbook. In this way, his students had more chances to win the university scholarships. The number of scholarships is also a kind of honor for us. I would like to say, our language majors are quite different from other majors, as other majors are instructed in students’ L1 while our students have to learn a new culture and a new language…. the overall scores of our SEC students tend to be lower than other majors. We can solve the problem by slightly raising their scores in classroom performance and increasing the proportion of the test content from the textbook. (Lynch, fifth interview)

In sum, the assessment practices were significantly shaped by institutional and departmental assessment policies which specified the ratio and proportion and relied on the use of the written test. The assessment practices seemed to measure what students learn from the textbook rather than how the students develop their reading abilities. Such practices justified the emphasis of three basic goals, the class time spent on text comprehension, and the need to check written exercises from the textbook. Obviously, such practices restrained their instructional freedom by forcing them to focus on the required teaching content and narrowing their assessment options to the final exam. In such a situation, they confined the choice of teaching approaches to the textbook-based one and restrained the assessment measures to a written test at the end of the semester. While two participants raised doubt about the effectiveness of the practices, they had no choices but to follow the collective assessment policy.

6.3.3  High-Stakes Tests The last perspective that influenced participants’ instructional freedom was the high-stakes tests. According to Hursh (2008), high-stakes tests referred to those whose results are used for assessing students’ success (e.g., grade promotion, graduation), teachers’ accountability, and the reputation or funding of the school. In the

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study, the high-stakes tests frequently addressed by participants were the CET-4/ CET-6 (for GEC students) and the TEM-4/TEM-8 (for SEC students), as they were used as key criteria for assessing students’ proficiency levels, scholarships, or employment as well as key indicators for assessing teachers’ performance. Despite the MOE and university authorities downplaying its role on classroom teaching, front-line teachers and the faculty still attached importance to it, as the test results were still used to measure both students’ and teachers’ performance. Due to the influence of high-stakes tests, participants reported allocating two to four sessions for exam preparation each semester, accounting for 15–20% of their instruction hours. It appeared that they adopted a positive outlook towards the role of these exams in their teaching. They viewed it as an attainable goal in language learning and used it as the extrinsic motivation to increase students’ awareness on exam preparation. In this regard, exam preparation became an indispensable part of their teaching. Lynch claimed that exam preparation was part of his teaching duties, though the faculty did not force every teacher to do so. As his SEC students moved to their senior years, they were busy with their social internship and attended specialized courses which distracted their attention from preparing for the TEM-8. His students had little training except for his reading course. He felt obliged to organize exam preparation before they attended the TEM-8. He integrated exam preparation into his regular teaching, as he was firmly convinced that it catered for students’ needs for better jobs and facilitated their language learning to some extent. Since I put more emphasis on the TEM-8, it certainly influences the allocation of my time and energy on lesson preparation and classroom teaching. But I think, it has been normalized and become parts of my regular teaching. I do not think exam preparation is isolated from my teaching, On the contrary, both my teaching and exam preparation serve the overall goal of language learning. (Lynch, fifth interview)

Linda’s students were selected to pursue their master’s degrees after graduation. As English was the key subject of the NPEE (National Postgraduate Entrance Examination), she believed that exam preparation can raise students’ awareness on language learning before the NPEE. Compared with the ambiguous goals specified by the ELT syllabus, Linda said that the CET-4/CET-6 test certificates or scores at least told the students the levels of proficiency and show the goal that they need to strive for. In Linda’s eyes, allocating the class time to exam preparation was worthwhile. In my teaching, I would sporadically address the importance of the CET-4/6, with an aim to increase students’ awareness of it. Although the faculty did not set any goals or requirements related to the CET-4, our teachers still emphasized it. As for me, after each exam, I would calculate how many students passed the exam and investigate what problems they encountered. In this way, I made some adjustment on my teaching. By the way, I also selected some written exercises that helped them familiarize with the new test items. (Linda, fourth interview)

Angel gave at least one session to exam preparation each semester. When the revision week came to the student, the faculty often required the teachers to offer one or two sessions that focused on particular parts of the CET-4. A common

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practice was that she printed out past exam papers, students completed them beforehand, and she checked the answers in her exercise classes. In addition, she kept a close eye on the policies about the CET-4. When some new test items were introduced, she would inform her students and adjusted her teaching accordingly. She explained that “exam preparation is what every teacher should do for their students” (fifth interview). Similarly, Lychee made use of exam preparation to instill an idea in students’ minds: more test certificates, more advantages in the job market. She thus encouraged her students to attend all the high-stakes tests during their college life. Like Angel, she kept students informed on the latest development in the test format, helped familiarize them with new test items, and taught some testing skills she had accumulated from her learning experience. However, she strongly opposed the idea of drawing a clear distinction between regular teaching and exam preparation, as they were mutually beneficial and served the overall goal of language learning: What they learn from my regular teaching such as vocabulary, reading skills, reading speed and background knowledge can serve as a kind of preparation work for these exams. Your regular teaching and exam preparation are mutually beneficial; they can be used to promote your language learning. I think it is unnecessary to exclude it from your teaching. (Lychee, fourth interview)

Edith suggested a weak link of TEM-8 to her teaching, but she agreed with the idea that exam preparation should not be excluded from regular teaching. She believed that the goals of TEM-8 were consistent with her reading course. Most written exercises adopted the test format of TEM-8; thus she did not intentionally introduce exam preparation but focused on the written exercises. As for Leon, he directly turned his text reading classes into exercise classes that trained students’ testing skills instead of organizing any instructional activities. From the above analysis, it was concluded that participants took a positive view on the influence of high-stakes tests on their teaching. They viewed exam preparation work as parts of their teaching. They believed that exam preparation and their teaching were not in conflict. On the contrary, they believed that it was an attainable goal, contributed to students’ language development, coincided with the requirements of their courses, closely linked to students’ extrinsic motivation. In a word, their teaching permeated the influence of the high-stakes test, and it seemed difficult to disentangle exam preparation from their daily teaching. Nonetheless, we can still see the negative influence of exam preparation on their classroom practices. First, the high-stakes tests forced participants to allocate more class time to exam preparation. While they complained about limited class time available to them, they felt comfortable to conduct exam preparation instead of facilitating students’ social-­ emotional development. Second, exam preparation distorted their teaching by reducing their teaching content, overemphasizing grasping language knowledge from the textbook while narrowing students’ interactive learning experiences and deviating their teaching from the educational ideals. Under the influence of the high-stakes tests, their teaching approaches were dominated by the overuse of direct instruction and a focus on knowledge transmission. Finally, exam preparation may

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be used as a temporary resolution to deal with time pressure caused by lesson preparation. When they did not have enough time on instructional design, particularly their PowerPoint slides, they can resort to exam preparation. It was a kind of boring activities including checking exercises, analyzing test items, and delivering testing skills. The teacher just focused on the test paper without taking great efforts to search for background knowledge, design instructional sequences, and identify key language points. However, I contended that the drawback of the high-stakes tests outweighed their advantages by distorting the teachers’ conception on teaching, narrowing their perspectives and extinguishing their enthusiasm for teaching. What is worse, it may make the teachers to feel comfortable at the deterioration of their teaching while paying less attention to their educational role and ideals.

6.4  Concerns on Teacher Evaluation Very few researchers examined the influence of teacher evaluation on their beliefs and practices. The data analysis suggests that how participants’ performance was assessed exerted great influence on how they conducted their teaching. In other words, the institutional policies and practices of teacher evaluation significantly shaped what they did in classrooms and believed about their teaching. In the context of the study, participants’ conceptions on the annual assessment and academic promotion policies significantly influenced their classroom teaching.

6.4.1  The Annual Assessment In China, a university teacher’s work is assessed in three aspects: instructional, non-­ instructional, and research. The first is assessed in terms of a required number of instructional hours and teaching qualities, and the second is evaluated by the completion of tasks or duties assigned by the subject department or other administrative departments, while the third is measured by the research outcomes such as research projects being hosted or attended, academic papers, or research prizes. A teacher’s performance is reviewed annually through the end-of-year assessment in which he/ she submits a self-evaluation report to the faculty who organized the “middle management” or evaluation leadership group (consisting of panel directors, teacher representatives, department dean, and some professors). The results of the annual assessment are classified into four levels: unqualified, qualified, good, and excellent. For those whose performance is judged as unqualified, they would receive some penalties such as a reduction of their salaries or instructional hours, or even being transferred to supportive positions. For those evaluated as good or excellent, they receive a bonus, such as a large sum of allowance. Often the majority of teachers are judged as qualified if they meet the fundamental criteria. However, the department dean often has the final word in determining the level of a teacher’s

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performance, and the assessment system gives priority to their instructional and non-instructional work, while research work is mostly assessed through academic promotion policies. In fact, the annual assessment was so complicated that very few participants could list the criteria clearly. Instead, they suggested following a simple norm, i.e., no serious teaching accidents, no serious complaints from students, and no failure to complete the non-instructional work. In a word, they passed the annual assessment if they did not make serious mistakes in their work. For example, Edith seldom worried about the results of the annual assessment because she kept the simple norm in mind: If you follow the rules and regulations set by our department and other administrative departments, that would be okay for your annual assessment. As for what rules or regulations, I can not remember them clearly, but I am sure it has little effect on my teaching as long as I finish the instructional work, there are no serious teaching accidents and no serious complaints from students. (Edith, fifth interview)

Lynch agreed with the simple norm, but he highlighted the annual assessment created the tension between his instructional and non-instructional work: The annual assessment does not bother me too much except the non-instructional duties and tasks, I mean the pressure of my administrative work. As a panel director, I have more duties and tasks to do. Once the head assigns the task, I must finish it in time. But as an ordinary teacher, the faculty wants us to take more instructional hours… my instructional work is often disturbed by my administrative work. Last semester, I took several business trips to other universities, my delayed classes piled up in the last two weeks. I felt rather stressful to finish them within a short period. (Lynch, fifth interview)

The above account indicates that Lynch struggled to meet competing demands from different departments and tried to balance his instructional and non-­instructional work. As a panel director, he said his primary concern was the administrative work but rather the instructional work, as the former involved the collective interest of the faculty while the latter linked to his personal interest in teaching. In his eyes, the collective interest outweighed his personal interest. However, in some cases, he finds it difficult to reconcile the tensions between the two types of work. As a responsible director, he expressed the wish of quitting his administrative work after the QAUE. Lynch’s dilemma was illustrated in Angel’s, Linda’s, and Edith’s situation in which the instructional work was frequently disturbed by their administrative duties. But their dilemmas were not so serious, as they undertook less instructional hours than Lynch, which left them more free time to ease the tensions in their work. The annual assessment gave more weight to student evaluation of teaching (SET). In recent years, the Internet and technological advances enabled student to assess a teacher’s performance through an online system. They can offer anonymous scores or comments on a teacher’s performance. If a teacher received serious complaints or low scores from many students, his/her performance may be evaluated as unqualified in the annual assessment. In the context of study, all the participants except Leon seldom encountered such incidents. However, the data analysis suggests that participants did not take a serious look at students’ comments or remarks, as they had doubts about the validity of SET practices. For example, Angel

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seldom reviewed students’ comments on her teaching. She said that most comments or remarks were quite positive while a few comments were irrational and unreasonable. For these comments, she chose to ignore them, as they were biased, misleading, and annoying and did little help to improving her teaching. If most students offer positive comments, I thought my teaching would be okay. As for a few irrational comments, I tend to overlook them. For example, some students complain that I give them too much homework, others grudge me asking them so many questions on classes… for these students, their moods or biases may shape an irrational view on my teaching. The best choice is to leave them alone. Otherwise, my teaching would be misled and my peaceful mindset would be destroyed. (Angel, fifth interview)

Similarly, Lynch and Lychee admitted they seldom reviewed students’ comments except eliciting the overall score when drafting self-evaluation reports. They held a skeptical view of students’ ability to evaluate their teaching scientifically. For example, Lynch suggested his students’ comments focused on his personal traits rather than his teaching. Lychee pointed out that some anonymous comments were “emotional, vicious and impenetrable,” which seemed meaningless to her (Lychee, fourth interview). In contrast, Leon was the only participant who received serious complaints from his students. He described such complaints as “a crisis” after he entered the university. In the second semester, he was invited to have a talk with the department head who handed over a pile of anonymous comments on his teaching. Students complained he spoke too much English, the novel he chose was difficult to read, he gave too much homework, and he set stricter requirements than other teachers. After a short talk, the head recommended him to make necessary adjustment to his teaching. In response to students’ feedback, he took some measures such as instructing with students’ L1, replacing group discussion with direct explanations, reducing the volume of homework, and canceling some interactive activities on novel reading classes. After the crisis, he became “more sensitive to and carefully manage students’ complaints” (Leon, fifth interview). While he claimed that these complaints were irrational and biased, he chose to follow the simple norm of no serious complaints from students so that he could pass the annual assessment. In sum, the above narratives reflected problems with the annual assessment. It seems that participants accepted and followed the simple norm so that they would not have any penalties. However, the simple norm shifted their attention from improving the quality of their teaching to meeting official demands from different departments, which created the conflicts between their instructional and non-­ instructional work. By internalizing the simple norm, they maintained their instructional work at the level of “qualified” rather than seeking excellence. When confronted with requirements from different departments, they gave priority to the completion of non-instructional duties. The SET practices, due to its validity, failed to provide constructive feedback that helped them improve their teaching. In such situations, they transformed the annual assessment practices into conservative practices with a focus on text comprehension and exam preparation. Their primary concerns were to make their teaching meet these criteria rather than improving their teaching and nurturing students.

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6.4.2  Academic Promotion Most Chinese university teachers attached importance to academic promotion, as it not only promoted a teacher’s academic prestige but also provided more material rewards to them. It is also the other way to improve their financial situations. In recent years, academic promotion has become increasingly difficult to achieve, as many university administrations set tighter and higher criteria. For example, being promoted to an associate professor often required applicants to publish high-quality research articles in core journals, host large-scale research projects, and be awarded with research prizes. However, the academic promotion practices in recent years received severe criticism due to the lack of transparency in its procedures and inadequate inspection from the government. It places so much emphasis on high-quality research outcomes that many teachers muddled through their instructional work while increasing time investment in their research work. To meet the challenge of research work, some teachers even sought some “shortcuts” by bribing journal editors, hiring doctoral students, or buying articles, which made many teachers develop a blundering attitude towards their teaching. In the study, all the participants except Leon were lecturers (the intermediate rank) who showed grave concern for their academic promotions. The in-depth interview suggests that the primary motive for academic promotion was to increase their salaries rather than seeking academic excellence. In fact, the annual assessment and academic promotion policies created the tension between their teaching and research work. The annual assessment practices imposed participants with a heavy workload, forcing them to spend more time on teaching and non-teaching work, while the academic promotion policies shifted their attention to research work. The dilemma between teaching and research was a recurring theme in participants’ accounts. For example, Angel felt the heavy workload almost wore her out, and she felt it difficult to allocate time for any research work: If you want to get promoted, you must write and publish papers. These tasks had to be done after you finish your teaching, so I am sure that my teaching is contradictory to my research work or administrative work. I remember last time I wanted to apply for a school-based research project, but at that time I was on a business trip, so I missed it. I really wanted to do some research, but I find it hard to do that… My teaching and administrative duties have almost wore me out, not to mention allocating time to do some research work. (Angel, fifth interview)

The above account shows that Angel felt exhausted to make both ends meet. She had to give up applying for the research project due to her business trip, but she did not give up her academic promotion, as she admitted that her motive for promotion was to increase her academic prestige and improve her financial situation. Similarly, when asked about any challenge to her promotion, Linda also addressed the conflicts between teaching and research, which forced her to reduce her time and energy on teaching while having to keep focused on research work. In the below account, Linda admitted her motive for academic promotion was to increase her salary. To achieve the goal, she was struggling to reconcile the conflicts between teaching and

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research work. For her, the biggest challenge was to get her article published in core journals, but she refused to disclose any details about her ways of doing so: An academic promotion means better prestige as a university teacher, and I think money matters a lot, especially for low-income teachers like me. But academic promotion is not an easy goal to achieve, you have to at least allocate more time to writing and publishing academic papers, which inevitably interferes with your teaching. I can sense the imbalance between my teaching and research work, I have no choices but keep writing it… I do not mind whether my current research paper is disconnected from my teaching, I think it is okay as long as I can meet the criteria. However, the biggest problem for me is to find some way to publish my articles in core journals. (Linda, fifth interview)

Edith also felt that her academic promotion plan contradicted her instructional work. Her university set an additional criteria – the applicant should have at least 1-year tutoring experience for undergraduate students: “I have buried myself in my teaching and administrative work, not to mention the time for any extra amount of work” (Edith, fourth interview). Moreover, she noticed an unequal distribution of workload between lecturers and associate professors in her department. She estimated that lecturers took about 80% of the total instructional duties while associate professors took up a small fraction. She believed that such a heavy workload made it difficult for lecturers to find more time to do their research work. In the face of the challenges in the academic promotion, she expressed complex and contradictory feelings. On one hand, she had to manage her instructional work and administrative work. On the other hand, she wanted to pursue her academic promotion. She felt anxious, depressive, and uncertain, as “it is a road full of ups and downs, I am not sure when I can achieve my goal of academic promotion” (Edith, fifth interview). Although Lynch and Lychee attached importance to academic promotion, the economic pressure forced them to give up the goal temporarily. For Lychee, her husband enrolled a PhD program last year, and she became the only bread earner in her family. She was satisfied with her current salary, but she needed more money to support a decent family life. “My kid needs better education, my husband needs money to cover his living expenses during his postgraduate study, and I need to pay for different kinds of bills and our house loan” she said (Lychee, fifth interview). Under such circumstances, she could hardly afford the time and monetary investment on her academic promotion. On the other hand, her part-time job not only improved her salary but also provided a more significant stage for development. “You can make use of your expertise to live a better life, I feel quite good as my part-time job and university job are mutually beneficial for me” (Lychee, fifth interview). For her, the benefits of her part-time job outweighed the advantages of her academic promotion. As for Lynch, he faced similar financial pressure. After his wife gave birth to a baby last year, they bought a bigger flat and moved to the city center. Though the couple worked for several years and had some savings, they still felt that the increasing living cost was a heavy burden. “Raising a kid and buying a flat in our city is still a strenuous task” Lynch explained (Lynch, fifth interview). He temporarily gave up his plan for academic promotion and increased his salary by taking more instructional duties.

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For three participants, the need for academic promotion created the conflicts between their research work and instructional work. They wanted to allocate more time for research work, while the heavy workload prevented them from doing so. In such a situation, they adopted a utilitarian view on research work and equated it with writing and publishing articles without developing research skills or interests in particular areas. In the in-depth interview, they seldom talked about their research experience, academic reading, or research training after their postgraduate study, which may be interpreted as a lack of intrinsic motivation for their research work. It seemed that their research work was just a stepping stone for academic promotion which was closely linked to the economic incentive of improving their salaries. As for the other three participants, Lynch and Lychee temporarily gave up their academic promotions due to the pressure on their personal and family circumstances. They gave weight to the issue of survival as they could not afford time and monetary investment on research work. Leon, as a novice teacher, had not yet taken a serious look at his academic promotion while paying more attention to developing his teaching skills and building rapport with students. In sum, regardless of whether participants pursued their academic promotion at the time of the study, these concerns reflect the conflicts between research, teaching, and family life, contributing to a complex and contradictory mindset which more or less distorted their beliefs and practices about reading instruction. In this regard, an emphasis on language knowledge, a focus on exam preparation, and the adoption of teacher-directed activities demonstrated in classroom observations could justify the tension between participants’ theoretical beliefs and action beliefs, though they were not clearly articulated in the interviews.

6.5  Teachers’ Sense of Vulnerability To summarize, participants’ non-instruction work disturbed their instructional work, squeezing their time on lesson preparation and shifting their attention to survival in the real world. Moreover, student characteristics, the assessment of practices of student learning, and high-stakes tests restrained their instructional freedom, while the annual assessment and academic promotion led to the conflicts between their teaching and research and distracted their attention from teaching. Participants’ context beliefs implied the negative evaluation of the influence of contextual factors on their teaching. From teachers’ perspectives, context beliefs also created negative feelings attached to their teaching such as frustration, disappointment, powerlessness, helplessness, disillusionment, and even anger and fear. These negative feelings were referred to as a sense of vulnerability (Kelchtermans, 1996). Many teachers experience the sense of vulnerability in their daily work. It is a sense related to the experience of feeling being hurt (Kelchtermans, 1996), being threatened about their professional duties or moral integrity, or losing control of professional tasks or duties as teachers (Kelchtermans & Ballet, 2002). Teachers’ sense of vulnerability can be provoked by shifting educational policies, complicated

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school relationships, teachers’ self-perceptions, and teachers’ cultural burdens (Gao, 2008). It is also a mood derived from a demanding and uncertain work environment where teachers are constantly exposed to a range of external stressors such as high-stakes tests, insufficient teaching materials, and complicated colleague relationships (Bullough, 2005). While the vulnerability is a part of teaching, Bullough reminds us that the long-term or persistent sense of vulnerability could lead to a decrease in teacher self-efficacy and diminish teachers’ performance. Although teacher vulnerability was neither a part of teacher beliefs nor included in the data collection plan, it inextricably linked to context beliefs and implied the negative impact on other beliefs. The data analysis shows that the major source of participants’ vulnerability was associated with inappropriate educational or administrative policies or practices in their institutions. It seemed that participants in the centralized education system were placed in a relatively weak position which made their voices seldom heard by school administrators and policymakers in China. In this case, they had no alternatives but hence followed institutional policies or practices unwillingly. Participants’ vulnerability was shown in their complaints about the inappropriateness or unfairness of the policies or practices in their institutions. For example, Lynch who experienced the QAUE campaign 5 years ago felt tired of the bureaucratic practices and procedures. He still kept a vivid memory of the difficult time when he took more instructional hours, burying himself in various bureaucratic practices and staying up late for lesson preparation. He criticized the QAUE for increasing his workload and doing little to help improve his teaching: As for me, I feel doubtful about the significance of the QAUE? Does it really help us improve our teaching? I think the answer is no, it only increases our workload. Let us take a look at the world-class universities such as Cambridge, Oxford, MIT, Harvard and Yale. Do they have the procedures similar to our QAUE? Do they set a rigid requirement that forces teachers to comment on students’ test papers with a standardized tick, cross or correction with your signature? How much can you improve your teaching through the QAUE? Although they have the attractive slogan “assessment facilitates development”, many problems actually cannot be solved through the QAUE. (Lynch, fifth interview)

Lynch admitted there were inappropriate policies at both levels of university and subject department levels, particularly those related to teaching management or teacher development, but he refused to give a detailed discussion on this. Nonetheless, he called for a thorough reviewing of these policies to “make them more humanized to teachers” (Lynch, fifth interview). Leon, though working in his institution for just 1 year, described the administration of his university and department as a mess, lacking collaboration among different departments and being full of bureaucratic practices. He offered two examples to support his criticisms. In one situation, he was in charge of drafting the final exam paper. According to practices set by the department of teaching affairs, he needed to submit the hard copy and the approval form with signatures of the director of the teaching panel, head of his department and students’ subject department. What made it difficult was not to submit the test paper but the complex procedures that followed. If minor problems (e.g., font sizes, line space, italic) were identified in the

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format, he had to reprint it and get the signatures again. But department heads did not always stay in their offices; he had to visit their offices several times looking for their signatures. “Such bureaucratic practices do not make any sense at all. It is a waste of my time and energy” he commented sullenly (Leon, fifth interview). In another situation, he was offered a 2-week workshop on EFL writing teaching in Beijing, but he finally gave up the chance due to the difficulty of rescheduling his classes after his business trip. When recalling his difficult experience of working intensively after his fieldwork, he stated that his missing classes were packed like sardines within a week, which put great pressure on him and his students. “Our school policies look contradictory: the faculty offers the chances for improving your teaching but the practices of administrative departments restrain you from obtaining such chances” he said in an embarrassing tone (fifth interview). At the end of the interview, he complained about inappropriate administration practices and complicated social relationships to deal with in his school, implying the sources of his sense of vulnerability: Perhaps the biggest challenge for me to is to cope with various relationships in our school, such as the teacher-student relationship, the one between teacher and heads of departments, between teacher and administrative staff. Some relationships can improve our teaching but some external ones seem a waste of time and energy. The second aspect is about problems with our administration practices, as no matter in the school or the subject department, there are many inappropriate administration practices. In my opinion, some practices seem unfriendly, they prevent me from experimenting with my educational ideas, limit my pedagogical innovation, or restrain my enthusiasm for improving my teaching. (Leon, fifth interview)

Due to little rapport built with his GEC students and problems with administration practices, Leon appealed for a modification of inappropriate policies or practices to give more instructional freedom to teachers. In contrast, Linda adopted an avoidant attitude and refused to criticize inappropriate administration and educational policies in her university. At the time of the study, she was applying for a promotion to an associate professor and was afraid that any negative comments would be overheard by administrators or department heads. While Linda did not openly criticize her school policies or practices, the terms “CET-4” and “exam preparation” became the recurring theme in the second, third, fourth, and fifth interviews and were manifested in her observed lessons. In this sense, her vulnerability was largely associated with the constant pressure derived from the CET-4 and exam preparation in her teaching. Three participants (Lychee, Angel, and Edith) addressed the unfairness of the policies of academic promotion in their universities. For example, one of the reasons that Lychee temporarily gave up her academic promotion plan was that she felt quite dissatisfied with the current criteria for academic promotion, as it required candidates to publish articles in core journals. She learned about cases of academic corruption in her school. “I know many people who gain their promotion by bribing journal editors: I really look down on these people. If you want to pursue the truth through your research work, you need to keep a calm mind and withstand social isolation; or you do not deserve it” she said (Lychee, fifth interview).

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Similarly, Angel expressed strong discontent about the academic promotion policies in her school. She felt the policies were unfair to teachers who taught basic courses1 in her university. She criticized the “one-cut” policies which diminished these teachers’ enthusiasm in their teaching. Like other colleagues, she took a large number of instructional hours, while her teaching content was confined to fundamental knowledge. She complained that her daily teaching had a weak link to her desired research areas and a heavy workload deprived of her time and energy to do any research work. Moreover, she felt doubtful about the academic promotion practices that a teacher’s academic competence was simply assessed through one or two articles in the core journal. However, she admitted that she did not pin her hopes on changes of this and hence followed the rigid criteria like other teachers: I think it is quite unfair to judge a teacher’s professional competence through one or two articles published in core journals. What is the real value of such articles? Do they represent your teaching competence or research competence? However, in such a macro context, such an educational system in China, do we have other choices? The situation in other universities is quite similar: if you do not get promoted to an associate professor, you are always seen as a teaching technician. So we have no choice but to follow the road set before you. (Angel, fifth interview)

As for Edith, she complained about the academic promotion policies in her school and felt dissatisfied with the additional requirement to apply for an academic promotion as well as an unequal distribution of workload among teachers and lecturers and associate professors in her department. Despite the fact that participants tried to hide their negative feelings and it was not easy to identify their emotional reactions when commenting on institutional policies and practices, I still had a sense of being threatened, ashamed, hurt, and frustrated caused by the unfair treatment in the practices of academic promotion policies and the annual assessment. The inappropriate practices became the major factor contributing to their sense of vulnerability, though participants did not clearly articulate such in the interviews.

6.6  Conclusion Context beliefs offer a new perspective for an understanding of the tensions between action beliefs and theoretical beliefs. This supports the idea that the study of teacher cognition in isolation of the contexts in which they occur will inevitably lead to a partial, flawed, and biased view on teachers and teaching. As Borg (2006) argues, contexts may interact with teacher’s cognitions in two ways: they may lead to changes in these cognitions or may alter practices directly without changing the cognitions underlying them. The latter approach will create the conflict between teachers’ stated beliefs and actual practices. In the context of the study, the tensions 1  In most Chinese universities, undergraduates, regardless of their majors, are required to take some basic courses such as general college English, Chinese literature, math, and Marxism philosophy.

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between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs can be justified by the latter approach, that is, participants altered their practices to fit into classroom realities, but they did not change their theoretical beliefs, especially their SEL goals. Although not all the contextual factors are automatically transformed into participants’ action beliefs, the data analysis shows participants had shared concerns on eight contextual factors. To be specific, participants felt that they had a heavy workload stemming from their instructional and non-instructional work. They believed that student characteristics, the assessment practices on student learning, and high-­ stakes tests confined themselves to an exam-oriented, textbook-based, and teacher-­ directed approach to teaching. They were firmly convinced that the annual assessment and academic promotion created the tensions between their teaching, research, and family life. However, findings of this chapter challenge the view that contextual factors play a key role in mediating the relationship between teachers’ stated beliefs and practices (Basturkmen, 2012). In contrast, it was found that context beliefs (rather than contextual factors) play a weak role in the belief system. First, they were used to justify rather than regulate the tensions between action beliefs and theoretical beliefs. Although context beliefs include an evaluative understanding of contextual influences on their teaching, they do not significantly alter participants’ classroom practices and show a strong orientation to the learner-center approach. They still used a traditional approach with an emphasis on language knowledge, text comprehension, and exam preparation. Second, context beliefs, as the negative psychological force, linked with the sense of vulnerability due to the inappropriateness and unfairness of educational and administrative policies or practices in their institutions. Instead of minimizing such negative feelings, participants chose to withstand the unfair treatments or bureaucratic practices in silence. Findings in this chapter also reshape my original interpretation of teacher beliefs which is mostly confined to the cognitive domain. Given that beliefs have an evaluative and affective component, I have come to realize teacher beliefs are a multi-­ faceted construct, involving both the cognitive and affective components. A holistic examination on participants’ belief systems requires a keen attention to both the affective and evaluative elements in their beliefs.

References Basturkmen, H. (2012). Review of research into the correspondence between language teachers’ stated beliefs and practices. System, 40(2), 282–295. Borg, S. (2006). Teaching cognition and language education: Research and practice. London: Continuum. Bullough, R. (2005). Teacher vulnerability and teachability: A case study of mentor and two interns. Teacher Education Quarterly, 32(2), 23–39. Burns, A., Freeman, D., & Edwards, E. (2015). Theorizing and studying the language-teaching mind: Mapping research on language teacher cognition. The Modern Language Journal, 99(3), 585–601.

References

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Gao, X. (2008). Teachers’ professional vulnerability and cultural tradition: A Chinese paradox. Teaching and Teacher Education, 24, 154–165. Hursh, D. (2008). High-stakes testing and the decline of teaching and learning in education. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield. Kelchtermans, G. (1996). Teacher vulnerability: Understanding its moral and political roots. Cambridge Journal of Education, 26, 307–323. Kelchtermans, G., & Ballet, K. (2002). Micropolitical literacy: Reconstructing a neglected dimension in teacher development. International Journal of Educational Research, 37, 755–767.

Chapter 7

Beliefs About Teachers’ Roles

7.1  Introduction The previous chapter suggests that the tensions between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs can be justified by context beliefs. However, participants’ negative evaluations created a sense of vulnerability, indicating that negative feelings mostly resulted from the inappropriate educational and administrative policies and practices in their institutions. The existence of such negative feelings may destroy their confidence in self, restrain their enthusiasm in teaching, and undermine their professional development by derailing them from their educational ideals. In this way, findings of the study refute the common idea that contextual factors play a key role in mediating the relationship between beliefs and practices, as context beliefs did not provide an internal tool to regulate the tension between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. The data analysis of context beliefs raised two new questions: how did participants regulate the tension between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs? and how did they neutralize the negative influence of context beliefs? In other words, there must exist another group of beliefs to solve the problem. Unfortunately, the data collection work had come to an end, and it did not allow for the possibility of eliciting new data. However, the iterative process of data analysis enabled me to develop a new perspective to conceptualize a new component: beliefs’ about teachers’ roles, a type of beliefs about the self as teachers. Gunnar Handal and Per Lauvas (1987), two Norwegian teacher educators, put forward a framework for analyzing teachers’ practical theories and identifying three elements of these theories. They consider teachers’ practical theories as a construct intermingling personal experiences, transmitted knowledge, and core values and maintain that the meaning given to an experience is highly dependent on an individual’s central values, personal experiences, and received knowledge. The third element of the framework is core values that we have about what is generally good and bad life. © Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 X. Mo, Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs, English Language Education 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47170-5_7

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From Handal and Lauvas’ perspective, beliefs about teachers’ roles can be understood as core values (beliefs) of how teachers judge their educational roles. Several researchers (e.g., Phillips & Borg, 2009) hypothesize that core beliefs should be first and foremost concerned with students’ language learning. However, findings of this chapter suggest that participants place a greater emphasis on teachers’ well-being and the interest of their educational roles. It is a personal perspective of how participants pursued a meaningful professional life and an internal tool of how participants reconciled the tension between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs and neutralized the negative influence of context beliefs. The following sections give a detailed analysis of these beliefs including the sense of responsibility, love for students, job satisfaction, and the adaptive function.

7.2  The Sense of Responsibility This refers to “a sense of internal obligation and commitment to produce or prevent designated outcomes, or that these outcomes should have been produced or prevented” (Lauermann & Karabenick, 2013, p. 13). In educational settings, a teacher’s sense of responsibility involves the obligation to fulfill their professional duties, and it has important implications on teachers’ classroom teaching as it functionally regulates teachers’ motivation, job satisfaction, dedications, and willingness to implement new curriculum reform practices as well as students’ achievement (Lee & Yin, 2010; Winter, Brenner, & Petrosko, 2006). In the study, participants generally evaluated themselves as responsible teachers, who made more commitments and were more dedicated to teaching than their colleagues. Their sense of responsibility was illustrated in the conceptions of their instructional and non-instructional work. For example, when Lynch was assigned to teach a new reading course, he found that reading passages in the new textbook aimed at expanding students’ business knowledge while paying little attention to improving students’ reading abilities, a core goal in his theoretical beliefs. Thus he allocated about one-third of his instructional hours to organizing additional activities with authentic reading materials from newspapers, magazines, and websites. To search for suitable reading passages, he spent a considerable amount of his free time visiting the school library, browsing websites, and reading magazines and newspapers available to them. “The search work is really a time-consuming task; you have to take many factors into accounts such as student interests, schemata, their current level of reading abilities” he explained (Lynch, third interview). Despite being frequently challenged by his administrative work, he learned to make use of his limited time to collect materials. For the whole semester, he insisted on doing so, and students enjoyed reading something beyond the textbook. They needed to increase their reading volume and develop their appreciative comprehension, which was “the weakness of my reading course” (Lynch, third interview). Lynch felt obliged to do so because students’ weakness in reading comprehension was still the biggest concern in his teaching.

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Lynch’s sense of responsibility was also demonstrated in his exam preparation work and extra-class activities. In view of students’ internships, he was worried that his students could hardly afford the time to prepare for the TEM-8, and thus he organized four sessions for students. He emphasized that the test certificate was an advantage for students in the job market. “How you demonstrate your language skills are better than others, just show the test certificate to your boss” he said (Lynch, fourth interview). Last semester, his department organized a business plan contest for SEC students. He was invited to provide two tutoring sessions on how to write business plans and then worked as a member of the review board. Although the extra-class activities occupied his free time, he felt obliged to offer guidance and support for students, as “these activities are helpful for developing their business skills in their future jobs” (Lynch, 4th interview). In a similar vein, a significant amount of Leon’s free time was occupied by a variety of extra-class activities for SEC students. He benefited from these activities by establishing extensive rapport with SEC students, which partly compensated for the sense of failure caused by an intense relationship with his GEC students. Due to his ankle problem, he received a small operation. When he restored himself at the last 2 weeks of the semester, the department of teaching affairs scheduled about 30 instructional hours per week. But he tried to manage until the last week despite his weak body and the hoarse voice. “They are preparing for the final exam of other subjects, I don’t like to disturb their study plans” Leon stated (Leon, fourth interview). In another case, he learned that his GEC students would attend the CET-4 for the first time, but they had no idea about it. He took it for granted that the other teacher was responsible for it, but the teacher actually did nothing for students. Realizing the embarrassing situation, he worked till midnight to develop PPTs to introduce the exam and relevant testing skills in the next day’s classes. “As long as it is beneficial for their study, I think it is worth of doing” he explained (Leon, fourth interview). Similarly, Angel provided extra reading materials for reading classes. However, choosing appropriate reading materials for students was the biggest challenge for her, as they were expected to be compatible with student interests, reading proficiency, schemata, and the availability of class time. In lesson preparation, she admitted that a significant amount of time was used for choosing materials and the rest for designing her PPTs. When asked about her reasons for doing so, she said that she wanted her students “to benefit more from my trial teaching, not just teach something from the textbook” (Angel, third interview). Through feedback from her students, she got some ideas of how to improve her teaching and collaborate with other teachers for developing suitable reading materials. As for Linda, she offered a series of free writing sessions to a group of undeveloped students one month before the CET-4 test date. She said that she did so because she wanted her students to “be aware of serious problems with their writing before they attended the CET-4” (Linda, third interview). On the other hand, Edith liked to start her classes with a warm-up activity called “news browsing” in which she selected the latest news about different aspects of Chinese social life. The activity had nothing to do with text comprehension, but she

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insisted on doing so because she believed that “it broadens students’ horizons, expands their vocabulary and contributes to their writing” (Edith, third interview). Lychee likewise supplemented grammatical knowledge to students through her WeChat classes, though grammar was not a focus of her reading course. She did so because she thought that “grammatical knowledge is still a weakness in their learning” (Lychee, third interview). Besides, she asked her students to do some extra-­ class reading and shared their reflections through WeChat. From above events and instances described by participants, we can see that they felt obliged to do more work for students such as organizing additional reading activities, guiding extra-class activities, and offering free tutoring sessions, which occupied their time and energy in lesson preparation and increased their workload. Although the extra work was never paid, they insisted on doing so because they had a collective belief that it is worth doing as long as the students can benefit from it, which can be interpreted as a strong sense of responsibility for students’ learning. Despite the fact that an exam-oriented education distorted their conceptions about exam preparation work, they catered for students’ practical needs, which meant that they would do it as long as it can guarantee students a better job. The sense of responsibility reminded participants of the educational mission: facilitating students’ overall development. It also reflects the self-sacrificing spirit in which they were willing to do anything for the students regardless of the time and monetary investment. Such a spirit was consistent with their educational ideals and an internalization of the traditional roles of the teacher as a silkworm, gardener, candle, and soul engineer discussed in Chap. 2.

7.3  Love for Students Teacher emotion is one of the most fundamental aspects of teaching. Teaching involves “human nurturance, connectedness, warmth and love” (Hargreaves, 1994, p. 75) and requires “individuals to possess a genuine emotional understanding and empathy towards others” (Hargreaves, 2001, p. 1059). Good teaching “is charged with positive emotions” (Hargreaves, 1998, p. 835) and good teachers are “emotional, passionate beings who connect with their students and fill their work and their classes with pleasure, creativity, challenge, and joy” (Hargreaves, 1998, p. 835). Apart from the sense of vulnerability, participants’ emotion was illustrated in their love for students, or a positive attitude towards students. As discussed in Chap. 6, participants were quite familiar with their students’ weaknesses in learning. But the recognition of students’ weaknesses did not mean that they rejected, looked down on or humiliated students. On the contrary, participants tended to be friendly, patient, and tolerant with students in their classroom observations. For example, Linda was impressed with her students’ work despite their low proficiency in oral English and timidity. This was demonstrated in the oral presentation where each group chose a member to introduce relevant background knowledge. In spite of their broken English and ungrammatical words in their PPTs, she

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never interrupted their presentations but stood beside them to offer any help if necessary. When students finished their presentations, she commented on their performance in a soft, friendly tone, with a sense of humor and offered positive remarks that encouraged them to do and think more. She was familiar with most students’ educational backgrounds and realized that most of them grew up in rural regions and their high school education was exam-oriented which aimed at passing the NECC (National enrollment examination for college). “You need to protect students’ self-esteem rather than destroy their confidence in language learning” she explained (Linda, fourth interview). It was for this reason that she did not set high expectations for her students and oriented her course to a basic one that taught them some language knowledge and skills. “My course cannot significantly improve their language learning but they can learn something beyond the textbook which may influence their future life” she said in a realistic tone (Linda, fifth interview). Compared with Linda, Leon’s love was exemplified in his empathy with students. His GEC students majored in English secretarial studies and took his reading course for two semesters. In the first semester, he developed a good relationship with his students and sought to introduce his novel reading classes in the second one. But the situation changed dramatically in the second semester. The campus-life tutor was replaced by a young teacher who was strict with his GEC students. All subject teachers except Leon who taught them in the first semester were substituted with new teachers. The class of GEC students found it difficult to get accustomed to the new teachers; many students thus became resistant to classroom learning. In such a context, Leon allocated one instructional hour to have an open talk with the whole class and organized two or three counseling sessions with several students after class. At first, his efforts worked, and students began to change positively. But later Leon failed to show persistent concerns on them due to the work of organizing extra-class activities and conducting his fieldwork. His GEC students become more alienated from him, causing a crisis to break out suddenly, as discussed in the previous chapter. “When I realize my fault, I am trying to make up for it, I feel like a lonely fighter in the battlefield” (Leon, fourth interview) Leon sighed with a tone of self-accusation, guilty, helplessness, and frustration. As a student once studying in the same university, Lychee quite understood her students’ mindsets. Through informal chats, she knew many students adopted an indifferent attitude towards college life and language learning, as they thought they should not have studied in such a low-rank university. It was the big contrast between the reality and their ideal visions that made them feel dissatisfied with their college life. Moreover, her university was newly built one in the suburb; many students complained about the lack of recreational facilities and inconvenience to commute to the city center. The dull campus life made them feel lonely, missing their friends and families. She felt her students were just like “immature kids” who needed her care and emotional support. In such a context, she frequently shared her learning experience with students in classes and instilled a belief in their minds-they can change their life through their hard work. She also made use of WeChat to enhance the emotional tie with students. “As newcomers, they need your care, guidance and support” she said, showing her empathy towards her students (Lychee, 5th interview).

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The commonality among Lynch, Edith, and Angel was that they had oversea work and study experience, as Lynch and Edith stayed in the USA for half a year and Angel taught Chinese in Thailand for a year. Their love for students was manifested in their willingness to share their overseas experiences with students. They encouraged students to study abroad which would broaden their horizons, enrich their understanding of English speakers, and improve their proficiency. Such activities, incorporating with descriptions of their social life and reflections about culture differences, ran through their reading classes. Later Lynch said he was delighted to see that several students gradually changed their slack attitude towards language learning study and made preparations for the IELTS or TOFEL test in the final year of college life. Lynch felt that his sense of achievement came from students’ positive changes in their study (Lynch, fourth interview). Participants’ love for students seemed implicit, trivial, and vague, as they were not easy to identify through specific instructional practices. But their experience and reflections on some “critical incidents” indicate their empathy, tolerance, care, and support for students. Their love for students was also reflected in their body language. When talking about the conflicts between their teaching, administrative, and research work, they spoke quickly in an intensive voice, indicating their dissatisfaction, annoyance, and embarrassment about their teaching situations. But when the topic moved to students, they shifted to a caring, empathetic, and tolerant tone. For example, the shifting tone was illustrated in the fifth interview with Linda. When discussing administration policies, practices, or regulations in her institution, she offered short, ambiguous and neutral answers, indicating her avoidant attitude. But when talking about students, the textbook or exams, she was willing to offer more explanations, and develop longer utterances, suggesting a cooperative attitude. Such shifting tones were evident in the fifth interview with other participants. In short, the shifting tones provided interesting clues for understanding their love for students.

7.4  Job Satisfaction The concept of job satisfaction can be understood in two ways. In a narrow sense, it refers to a positive or pleasant emotional state resulting from the appraisals of one’s job or job experiences (Locke, 1976). In a broad sense, it covers all the characteristics of the job and the working environment, which the employees find rewarding, fulfilling, worthwhile, frustrating, or unsatisfying (Demirtas et al., 2010). But the majority of the terms have a shared idea that job satisfaction is basically affective and positive job-related reactions to the job and work environment (Worrell, Skaggs, & Brown, 2006). In other words, teachers’ job satisfaction involves the subjective judgment about their jobs and their teaching situations. Despite the ongoing challenges and pressures in their work, participants demonstrated a positive outlook to their profession, which was reflected in the determination to keep their jobs for the rest of their lives. For example, Linda cherished a dream of becoming a teacher in her childhood. Influenced by her high school

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English teacher who was a friendly, kind, and patient young lady, she chose to major in English education at a local university. After her graduation, she worked as a teaching assistant, pursued her MA degrees, and got her teaching position in another university. During her initial years of teaching, she received considerable support and encouragement from her high school teacher, and they developed a close relationship. “We had been friends for more than ten years” she said (Linda, first interview). As a veteran teacher, she enjoyed better material conditions than the new comers in her university. She bought a small flat in the teacher community and her child received education in the affiliated school. She commuted to the new campus, and her university offered free trips with school buses. “Life in our community seems quite comfortable and convenient” she explained (Linda, first interview). Having grown up in a teacher community, Leon’s parents were teachers and his playmates were children of teachers. “The people I have contact with are either teachers or students, the world is so small” Leon explained (Leon, fifth interview). Impressed by his parents’ positive attitudes towards teaching, he chose to become a university teacher. “They love their jobs very much, so do I” Leon said (Leon, fifth interview). After working in the university for a year, he found many teachers complained about their low salaries, but he suggested “money does not matter a lot in my situation” (Leon, fifth interview) for three reasons. First, he remained single, free from the financial burden of supporting a family life with children. Second, he received a better salary than his colleagues, as he took more instructional duties and organized various extra-class activities. However, he emphasized materials interests were just the by-product brought by his endeavors and commitments to his job. “The more work you do, the better salaries you gain, money will come to you naturally, I never worry about it” Leon explained (Leon, fifth interview). Perhaps the most important reason for retaining his job was that it offered opportunities to experiment with his teaching ideas. Impressed by the Western-style learning mode during his stay in the United States, he wanted to “use the Western mode of learning to guide my Chinese students” (Leon, first interview), and his novel reading classes were seen as his initial attempts to realize this idea. In spite of an intense relationship with his GEC students, Leon did not give up his novel reading classes but improved his experiments in the next semester. He planned to make his teaching accessible to more students by selecting an easy novel, providing necessary training on group study, and building more rapport with students. “You need to pick yourself up after a fall” Leon added (Leon, fourth interview). Lychee oriented herself as a translator, as it was consistent with her postgraduate study. But she changed her mind to become a teacher after she attended a job interview with the head of the faculty who was impressed with her diligence and academic excellence. Looking back at her teaching experiences in the last 2 years, she did not regret at her choice and was grateful for benefits brought about by her job. First, her success in becoming a university teacher encouraged her siblings to change their lives through hard work. Her parents set her as an example to inspire her brothers and sisters to improve their lives through a college education: “Under my influences, my siblings all finish their college education” (Lychee, 5th interview). Second, she enjoyed the status, prestige and a stable salary brought by her job. She never

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thought of giving up her university job while devoting herself to her part-time job, as it was unstable and did not provide a sense of job security: “Even if I lose the parttime job, I still keep my university job as the financial source to support my family” (Lychee, fifth interview). She wanted to make good use of her university job, as it was also a springboard to better position herself in the English language training market. Lynch, in the first interview, considered giving up his job and starting a small business with others. But after experiencing a series of changes in his life (buying a new flat, having a baby, and being promoted to a panel director), he cherished his job and worked hard to pay off his bank loan. “Life is not easy; now I need to raise my kid and pay the bank loan” (Lynch, fourth interview), which meant that he would not make an irresponsible decision at the expense of his family. Another reason for retaining his job was associated with the competitiveness in educational markets. In recent years, many postgraduates became jobless after graduation, while most universities recruited just a small number of teachers with doctoral degrees. In such a situation, he confessed that “giving up my job may not be a wise choice” (Lynch, fifth interview). However, he decided to improve his financial situation by taking on more instructional duties, the administrative job, and some part-time jobs. As for Angel and Edith, one key factor that attracted them to keep their jobs was the flexible work schedule of university teachers, which enabled them to mentally balance their work and home life and compensate for their low salaries. Compared with secondary teachers, they did not have to spend a fixed number of hours at school and even brought their work back home, especially when scoring student test papers and marking their homework. “As long as we finish our teaching, or duties given by the department, we can stay at home and do our own business” Angel explained (Angel, fifth interview). As for Edith, she emphasized the true value of her job was having two vacations during which she could enjoy traveling with her child. In spite of a heavy workload and a low-salary status, participants generally held a positive judgment about their professions. The reasons for retaining their jobs involved the flexible work schedule, the sense of job security, the competitiveness in job markets, family responsibilities, influences from parents and friends, the status and prestige of university teachers, the ambition to implement new teaching ideas, and so on. With the accumulation of their teaching experiences, they seemed to be accustomed to their work. Meanwhile, all participants except also Leon formed their families and assumed familial responsibilities. Their job satisfaction played a key role in neutralizing the tension between their work life and family life, which was seen as the overall reason for the retention of their jobs.

7.5  The Adaptive Function Above analysis shows that participants tended to associate positive emotions with their roles, i.e., being responsible for students’ learning, showing love and caring to students, and retaining their jobs satisfactorily, which reflects their positive evaluation of their professions. However, these beliefs did not exist in isolation but rather

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interacted and interconnected with other beliefs. As the core ones, they had a distinctive function: keeping the belief system as a whole and regulating the tensions between different beliefs in the belief system. At the end of the fourth interview, I invited participants to summarize the contextual influences on their teaching and their professions. The following accounts taken from their summaries illustrated how beliefs about teachers’ roles were functionally connected with other beliefs. First of all, as a teacher, I think the primary task of a teacher is to improve his/her teaching. Secondly, the first goal of your instruction is to nurture students, then to teach knowledge to them. Thirdly, a teacher should keep a keen interest in learning new knowledge. I think the profession has pushed me to continually learn something new …In the existing system, academic promotion is a hard road. On this road, you may have different goals to achieve in the different stage of your career. Whether you can achieve these goals depends on your weighing. I’d like to say, I will not feel guilty as long as I try my best. (Edith, fifth interview)

Edith’s account reveals the tensions between her teaching and academic promotion in her situation. Despite the challenge of academic promotion, she stressed her responsibility for nurturing students and teaching knowledge, and she believed that her teaching offered ample opportunities that pushed her to learn new knowledge. It appeared that her sense of responsibility and learning opportunities that helped her mediate the negative influence of academic promotion. Nurturing students and teaching knowledge are the basic responsibilities for a teacher. It is the basic line for any teacher, I certainly follow the moral code… I need to harmonize the conflict between work life and family life, between teaching and research work. I think I am a responsible teacher, students need my care and support…no matter what I teach to them, I take a serious look at my students and my teaching… I will devote more efforts to my development, my academic promotion, but it does not mean I will conduct my teaching carelessly. I’d like to say, I will do my part as a teacher. (Angel, fifth interview)

Angel estimated that she would face with similar tensions shortly, but she gave more priority to her students and her teaching. Undoubtedly, she would endeavor to her development and academic promotion, but she also tried to do her part as a teacher. In other words, her sense of responsibility and love for students played a crucial part in mediating the tensions in her situation. But her summary reflected her complex and contradictory mindset. On one hand, she would maintain her responsibility and enthusiasm for teaching. On the other hand, she emphasized the need to survive in such a context and focused on academic promotion. “Criteria are criteria, what we can do is to adjust ourselves to meet them” she explained (Angel, fifth interview). Another way to solve the dilemma was to study a doctoral program. However, she was still indecisive on the issue of whether to have a baby or apply for a doctoral program next year. Drawing a lesson from the intense relationship with students, Leon attached importance to building rapport with them. He implied that his teaching and his students were still the most important aspects in his pedagogical decisions. At the end the fifth interview (see his original words in Sect. 6.5), he highlighted the need for developing social strategies to deal with complicated relationships in the school community. Among these relationships, he gave priority to the student-teacher relationship and emphasized the contribution of a good relationship to his teaching.

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In the fifth interview, Linda revealed that she had been enrolled in a joint doctoral program organized by her university and a university in South Korea. The program was operated on a flexible basis, which enabled her to spend half of a year in South Korea and the other half in China. It was the responsibility for her career and family that forced her to make such a big decision in her life. As a mother, she loved her child, and as a teacher, she loved her students, but the teaching-research conflicts remained mostly unchanged for her. In such a dilemma, studying the doctoral degree seemed to be a wise choice for her. I think we have different goals in different stages of our life. Now that my kid goes to the kindergarten, I need to go back to my teaching and my professional development, but I try to keep a balance between home life and work life. Both students and my kid need my care and support, I cannot neglect them. I think my act of studying the doctoral degree was to set an example for my kid. I am not a housewife, I’ve got my job, it is impossible for me to lose my identity as a teacher. (Linda, fourth interview)

Additionally, Lynch wanted to reshape his role as a researcher in the future. He was planning to study a PhD. program when his economic burden relieved a little, and his child went to the kindergarten. “two or three years later, the PhD. program would be a new target in my career life” Lynch explained (Lynch, fourth interview). As for Lychee, she did not have the sense of tension between teaching and research work. Instead, she showed more concern for the potential conflicts between her university job and part-time job: “I did not want my part-time job to disturb my teaching, after all, we should act on behalf of students” (Lychee, fourth interview). Her responsibility and love for students played a crucial role in determining her allocation of time and energy between her university job and second job. The principles and strategies addressed in the summaries reflected the conceptions of their roles as educators to teach knowledge, nurture students, take responsibility to guide student learning, and care for their overall development, which offered positive hints about how they mediated situational constraints in their contexts. In fact, the conflicts between teaching, research, and family life reflected the complex and contradictory conceptions of their roles. As an ordinary teacher, they needed to fulfill their teaching duties and show concern on students’ learning and development. As a researcher, they needed to engage in research activities and produce highquality research outcomes. As a family member, they wanted to spend more time on family life and look after their kids. However, they cannot give equal attention to or have the equal time and energy investment for the three roles due to competing demands in their situations. The Chinese teaching culture emphasizes their roles to teach knowledge and nurture students, alongside the institutional and professional development which urged them to allocate more time and energy to research work while their families called for more time on social life and children education. The complex and contradictory conceptions of their roles created the persistent tension in their teaching, research, and family life. Which role became the top priorities was determined and adjusted by the beliefs about their roles. It seemed that participants tended to make use of the sense of responsibility, love for students, and job satisfaction to reinforce the conception of the fundamental role as an ordinary teacher, while the administrative and academic work became the secondary concern

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after they fulfilled their teaching duties. However, this was not always the case. For example, in the face of difficult financial situations, they chose to take more instructional and non-instructional work or concentrate on research work while the teaching work was maintained at the “qualified” level. When seeing the material rewards or benefits of being promoted to an associate professor, they shifted their attention to research work and were keen on publishing research articles. It was the institutional, personal, or students’ practical needs that constantly distracted their attention from teaching to other matters. But participants, after experiencing a series of inner struggles, agreed to return to their basic roles of teaching knowledge and nurturing students. In this way, the fundamental belief about their roles helped participants mediate the tensions caused by the three roles. The conceptions of their professional roles not only generate positive feelings such as love, care, and satisfaction but also cultivate a positive attitude of tolerance, patience, and cherishing towards their students and jobs. The above accounts offer a vivid description of how participants generated positive feelings and attitudes from beliefs about teachers’ roles, which were used to counterbalance the negative influence from context beliefs. Parallel to the adjustment of the conceptions of their roles, participants’ inner struggles were expected to bring about a series of emotional changes. Although the study did not provide more evidence about such subtle changes, we may conclude that beliefs about teachers’ roles and associated feelings served as the key psychological force to minimize the emotional dissonance related to the negative influence of context beliefs and the tensions between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. In sum, the adaptive function of beliefs about teachers’ roles was demonstrated in the self-adjustment process of participants’ conceptions of their roles accompanied by their emotional changes. Although the study did not provide a full picture of such subtle changes among participants, beliefs about teachers’ roles may serve as the important outcome of such self-adjustments. It is the adaptive function that makes beliefs about teachers’ roles stand out from other beliefs and become core beliefs in participants’ belief systems. By comparing the key characteristics of core beliefs proposed by many beliefs researchers in Sect. 3.5, we may see that this component becomes core beliefs due to the following reasons. First, the adaptive function makes beliefs about teachers’ roles functionally connect to other beliefs by mediating the tension in the belief system. Second, beliefs about teachers’ roles exert greater influence on participants’ practices. As the summaries suggest, beliefs about teachers’ roles influence participants’ time and energy investment on instructional, non-instructional, and research work and contribute to an exam-oriented, textbook-based, and teacher-fronted approach. However, such influences are not straightforward but through context beliefs, theoretical beliefs, and action beliefs. Finally, beliefs about teachers’ roles seem more stable than other beliefs. The sense of responsibility, love for students, and job satisfaction reflect an internalization of the traditional role of the teacher through an accumulative understanding of participants’ years of teaching. Unlike other beliefs tied to specific contexts, beliefs about teachers’ roles are more concerned with the macro sociocultural and sociohistorical settings where participants work.

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7.6  Conclusion The chapter provides a sociocultural perspective to examine participants’ conceptions about their roles. The critical incidents and narratives vividly show how they positively defined their roles and how they harnessed these beliefs to neutralize the negative influence of context beliefs and reconcile the tensions between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. It was the sense of responsibility, love for students, and job satisfaction that helped participants adjust the conceptions of their roles and accompanying emotional changes. The data analysis reveals the centrality of these beliefs because of being functionally connected to other beliefs, exerting greater influence on participants’ classroom practices, being relatively stable and independent from specific situations. Another key feature of these beliefs is the adaptive function illustrated in participants’ summaries. It sheds lights on “the nature of the complex realignments of cognition that occurred in the process of (re)adoption and (re)adaption” (Burns, Freeman, & Edwards, 2015, p. 596). In other words, the use of these beliefs should be interpreted as a dynamic rather than stabilized process. However, the presence of these beliefs in the belief system will lead to emotional dissonance, that is, participants maintain their enthusiasm for their work with students and suppress negative emotions about personal and professional problems or setbacks while in the relative privacy of their classrooms, they reduce their emotional investment on students due to great pressure resulted from the tension between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs and the negative influence of context beliefs. This phenomenon may be associated with emotional labor in which the higher degree of emotional dissonance they feel, the higher degree of felt depersonalization, stress, and burnout (Day, 2017, p. 66). If participants need to retain and sustain their senses of well-being, professionalism, commitment, and capacity for resilience, they need to develop other strategies managing their emotional dissonance. At the time of revising the book, I learned about the professional development of three participants. For example, Linda has attended a joint research program and studied in a South Korean university, she started to develop some theoretical perspectives on language teaching through her academic study. Angel has been enrolled as a PhD student in another Chinese university; she became interested in the cultural influence on language learning, especially for the exchange students who studied in a Chinese university and an overseas university. Lynch chose to study a doctoral program in a Canadian university, it was the dream that he had cherished for eight years after he attended a teacher development program in 2012. By making use of the opportunity, they temporarily left the university campus and reduced the work pressure, which provided enormous amount of time to combine personal reflection about teaching with their academic study. For these teachers, emotional dissonance has been used as a starting point to facilitate their professional growth (Johnson & Worden, 2014).

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References Burns, A., Freeman, D., & Edwards, E. (2015). Theorizing and studying the language-teaching mind: Mapping research on language teacher cognition. The Modern Language Journal, 99(3), 585–601. Day, C. (2017). Teachers’ worlds and work: Understanding complexity, building quality. London/ New York: Routledge. Demirtas, T., Freitas, C., Cromer, J., Safar, L., Ongur, D., Stone, W., et  al. (2010). Safety and proof of principle study of cerebellar vermal theta burst stimulation in refractory schizophrenia. Schizophr Research, 124(1), 91–100. Johnson, K., & Worden, D. (2014). Cognitive/emotional dissonance as growth points in learning to teach. EQUINOX Journal, 1(2), 125–150. https://doi.org/10.1558/1st.vli2.125 Handal, G., & Lauvas, P. (1987). Promoting reflective teaching. Milton Keynes, UK: Open University Press. Hargreaves, A. (1994). Changing teachers, changing times: Teachers’ work and culture in the postmodern age. New York: Teachers College Press. Hargreaves, A. (1998). The emotional practice of teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(8), 835–854. Hargreaves, A. (2001). Emotional geographies of teaching. Teachers College Record, 103(6), 1056–1080. Lauermann, F., & Karabenick, S. (2013). The meaning and measure of teachers’ sense of responsibility for educational outcomes. Teaching and Teacher Education, 30(1), 13–26. Lee, J., & Yin, H. (2010). Curriculum policy implementation in China: Interactions between policy designs, place and people. Curriculum and Teaching, 25(2), 31–53. Locke, E. (1976). The nature and causes of job satisfaction. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of industrial and organizational psychology (Vol. 1, pp. 1297–1343). Chicago: Rand McNally. Phillips, S., & Borg, S. (2009). Exploring tensions between teachers’ grammar teaching beliefs and practices. System, 37, 380–390. Winter, P., Brenner, D., & Petrosko, J. (2006). Teacher job satisfaction in a reform state: The influence of teacher characteristics, job dimensions, and psychological states. Journal of School Leadership, 16(4), 416–437. Worrell, T., Skaggs, G., & Brown, M. (2006). School psychologists’ job satisfaction: A 22-year perspective in the USA. School Psychology International, 27(2), 131–145.

Chapter 8

Conclusion

8.1  Introduction According to some researchers, teacher beliefs can be treated as either an individual construct or a social construct (Francis, Rapacki, & Eker, 2015). From the former perspective, teacher beliefs can be viewed as mental representations derived from a teacher’s life experience and interactions with others and the world. Such a perspective provides insights into the mental lives of teachers but narrows the lens through which we can have a deep understanding of the belief-practice relationship for teachers working in similar contexts (Skott, 2001). The latter perspective indicates that beliefs are contextualized and products of activity, context, and culture (Hoyle, 1992). From the perspective, the contradictions between different beliefs are difficult to reconcile not only because these beliefs are complex and context-sensitive relative to teaching situations but primarily because they are tied to different contexts of teacher cognition related to the research context (Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015). Drawing on the two perspective, I first provide a description of six teachers’ beliefs in their teaching situations by viewing beliefs as an internal tool to understand the mental lives of participants. Then I move beyond this predominantly individualized perspective by viewing beliefs as cognition in action (Kubanyiova & Feryok, 2015) through participating in authentic activities – the ordinary practices of a culture (Brown, Collins, & Duguid, 1989). I argue that participants developed similar beliefs by adopting similar practices of a shared teaching culture. In this way, there must exist a shared belief system with similar content, structure, and features. By making a comparison among participants’ beliefs, I attempted to summarize the belief system, which served as major findings of the study. In the last two sections, I deal with significant implications for frontline teachers, belief researchers, school administrators, and teacher educators and the limitations of the study.

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8.2  A Summary of Participants’ Beliefs and Practices In this section, I will give a holistic description of six participants’ beliefs, which can help readers understand how teacher beliefs shaped each participant’s mental lives and how these beliefs interacted with each other in specific contexts.

8.2.1  Angel’s Beliefs and Practices Angel emphasized the role of vocabulary knowledge through intentional vocabulary teaching, dictation, and checking vocabulary exercises from student textbooks. She highlighted structural knowledge by adopting the practices of parsing complex sentences and analyzing text structure and text genre. She made use of the teaching of background knowledge to arouse students’ interest in text topics and pave the way for text comprehension. However, Angel downplayed the role of comprehension but emphasized the goal of gaining knowledge through text reading. She also aimed at building students’ characters through the sense of professionalism in her work. In classroom teaching, she adopted the interactive approach to teach background knowledge, but she admitted that she did not use it frequently. She improved students’ text comprehension through the deductive approach and the holistic approach. Her approach was characterized with direct instruction by a combined use of a number of traditional practices such as discussing the text with the whole class, translation, students’ L1, questioning skills, and so on. At the stage of post-reading, she offered several sessions to train students’ reading skills relative to the high-­ stakes tests. She felt a heavy workload in terms of a large number of instructional hours, students’ homework, lesson preparation, and miscellaneous administrative duties as a panel director. The assessment practices on student learning, student characteristics, and high-stakes English tests limited her teaching to the required content, but she managed to improve students’ reading abilities and broaden their perspectives by using supplementary reading materials in classes. The conflicts between the annual assessment and academic promotion, the economic incentive and the need to pursue professional development, made her allocate more time and energy to research work and publishing papers. In the face of the situational constraints, she experienced a series of inner struggles but held a firm belief that teaching knowledge and nurturing students were the fundamental roles for any teacher. She loved her students and believed that her students needed more care, support, and guidance, and she loved her job because she enjoyed a flexible work schedule and stable salary.

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8.2.2  Linda’s Beliefs and Practices Like Angel, she relied on three stated practices to stress the role of vocabulary in her teaching. She believed vocabulary was one of the major obstacles for text comprehension, but she just focused on a few keywords from texts due to limited class time. She put more emphasis on the meaning rather than the structure of reading passages, and she believed the goal of comprehension helped students achieve a deep understanding of taught passages. Linda also focused on different types of meanings in the text reading including inferential meaning, thematic meaning, and educational implications from text reading. Additionally, Linda emphasized the goal of humanistic literacy to cultivate students’ cultural awareness and the sense of responsibility for family and society. In classroom practices, she adopted the student-centered and interactive approach to teaching relevant background knowledge. Although these activities aroused students’ interest in text topics, they were organized ineffectively as her students lacked training, guidance, and support from her. She used the deductive approach in global reading and the holistic approach in detailed reading, but both approaches were dominated by her lengthy explanation in students’ L1 and discussion the text with the whole class. In exercise classes or training sessions, she attached great importance to checking written exercises from student textbooks and offering several exam preparations. Linda suggested that most of her work pressure came from non-instructional work. As a panel director, she felt great time pressure to fulfill trivial non-­ instructional duties and tasks. She viewed her students as low proficient, less-­ motivated, timid learners from economically disadvantaged areas; thus she did not have a high expectation for students and oriented her course as a basic one. Under the influence of the institutional assessment practices of student learning and high-­ stakes tests, she incorporated exam preparation into her daily teaching and used textbook written exercises to train students’ language skills needed in the high-­ stakes test. Influenced by the annual assessment, she adopted the norm of non-error teaching, trying to avoid serious teaching accidents and complaints from students. Her concern on academic promotion forced her to give more attention to research work. Despite the negative influence from these contextual factors, she carried out her teaching duties faithfully. Linda showed a sense of responsibility through her free tutoring offered to underdeveloped students and exam preparation sessions. She had sympathy for her GEC students, as most of them came from high schools in less economically developed areas. As a veteran teacher, she felt satisfied with the material conditions offered by her university, and she enjoyed a flexible work schedule. Becoming a teacher was her childhood dream, and she received social support and encouragement from her friends and families.

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8.2.3  Edith’s Beliefs and Practices She seldom focused on students’ vocabulary knowledge due to limited class time and more important goals in her teaching, but she preferred explaining keywords in a context which helped students grasp the precise meanings of given words. She paid close attention to structural knowledge as it raised students’ syntactic awareness and made them sensitive to stylistic features of reading passages. Like Angel and Linda, she believed that the teaching of background knowledge broadened students’ horizons and aroused their cultural awareness. She distinguished between two levels of reading comprehension and emphasized to achieve a high level of comprehension with her instructional activities. She showed concern on students’ social-emotional development and wanted to develop students’ team spirit, critical thinking, abilities to collect and analyze information, and learn to be responsible for their learning. Edith taught background knowledge with the teacher-led approach which involved a rich delivery of cultural information through her instructional PPTs. In text learning, she focused on main-idea comprehension by the inductive approach with comprehension questions, heuristic questioning, and group discussion. When moving to detailed comprehension, she used the selective approach to discuss key details with the whole class. At the post-reading stage, she put a special focus on writing and translation skills and used written exercises as materials to train their language skills and prepare them for high-stakes tests. Although she took a small number of instructional hours, Edith admitted that her work pressure came from her lesson preparation and administrative work. She viewed her students as immature learners with a small knowledge base and a lack of learning initiatives. Edith followed the institutional assessment practices of student learning and believed that her course requirements and high-stakes tests were not mutually exclusive. The annuals assessment did not bother her too much as she followed the norm of non-error teaching. To pursue professional development and increase academic prestige, she prioritized her academic promotion which shifted her attention to research work rather than teaching. In the face the situational challenges, she defined herself as a responsible teacher who faithfully fulfilled her instructional duties and provided appropriate guidance and support to student learning. She loved her students as she was willing to share her overseas study experience and had informal talks with individual students during class breaks. She felt fortunate to keep her occupation as she could make use of her expertise and knowledge. Besides, staying with her students constantly pushed her to learn something new.

8.2.4  Lynch’s Beliefs and Practices His reading course had two parts, textbook reading and authentic reading, with most of his beliefs being related to the latter. When using authentic reading materials with his classes, he expressed a meaning-based approach which emphasized building an

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appropriate context to make sense of keywords and understanding cultural connotations of these words, meaning that he showed less attention to the structural aspect of text. Like other participants, he attached importance to the teaching of background knowledge which helped students broaden their knowledge and prepare them for text comprehension. He distinguished between two levels of comprehension goal: literal and appreciative. He tried to achieve the latter goal by emphasizing “savoring the language” through detailed reading. He also aimed at building a favorable learning climate by enhancing social interactions with students and minimizing his role as an authoritative figure. In his classroom teaching, Lynch combined the teaching of background knowledge with understanding the cultural connotations of keywords from reading passages. In global reading, he used the inductive approach by designing comprehension questions and using heuristic questioning skills. When moving to detailed reading, he chose the selective approach and focused on the meanings of keywords and sentences. He used social talk with students but not frequently. In post-reading, he allocated a great deal of time to exam preparation which aimed at developing students’ skills in high-stakes tests. In his teaching situation, he managed to keep a balance between his instructional and administrative work. He wanted to provide more authentic materials to classes but needed more time to concentrate on lesson preparation. But his administrative work plus additional work derived from the QAUE distracted his attention from teaching. Moreover, his negative elevation of student characteristics, the assessment practices on student learning, and the distorted conception on the high-stakes tests and exam preparation forced him to adopt a comprehension-oriented, comprehension-­ based, and teacher-directed approach with an overuse of questioning skills. He temporarily gave up his plan for academic promotion and wanted to improve his financial situation by taking more instructional duties and seeking a part-time job. In spite of the situational constraints, he viewed himself as a responsible teacher by voluntarily offering exam preparation, organizing extra class activities, and providing authentic materials on his classes. He loved his students, evident by showing a willingness to share his overseas study experience and emphasize an equal relationship with them. He cherished his job as he understood the tightness in the job market and needed a stable salary to support his family life.

8.2.5  Leon’s Beliefs and Practices He divided his reading classes into two parts, textbook reading and novel reading, with most of his beliefs associated with the latter. Leon emphasized that expanding vocabulary was a key task for personal learning but not his teaching, and thus he seldom taught new words in his classes, but rather sporadically explained keywords in context. He attached importance to structural knowledge and background knowledge which helped students maintain a high level of comprehension. He believed that the core goal of teaching was to broaden students’ horizons and develop their

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perspectives through reading thus reading comprehension played a mediational role that helped him achieve other goals. He stressed the cultivation of students’ positive qualities such as perseverance, patience, the power of concentration, and courage to overcome learning difficulties through his novel reading classes. In classroom practices, he taught background knowledge through direct instruction and relied on questioning skills with occasional use of group discussion and pair work to promote students’ understanding of the novel. He adopted social talk, but he built little rapport with students because he had more time and energy investment in other courses and imposed too much study pressure on his GEC students. Meanwhile, he focused on developing students’ testing skills by turning half of his instructional hours into training sessions. As a novice teacher, he felt great work pressure because he took too many instructional hours, taught several courses, lacked experience on lesson planning and allocated much time and energy to non-instructional duties. He criticized the institutional assessment practices of learning and viewed his GEC students as passive learners lacking initiatives and team spirit, which restrained him from achieving the goal of developing students’ perspectives through his novel reading classes. He expressed a strong interest in attending various professional development programs, but inappropriate administration practices forced him to give up such ideas. He considered himself as a responsible teacher in his efforts to redesign his reading course, build rapport with his GEC students, and organize extra class activities for his SEC students. He loved his students, seen with his offering of exam preparation sessions and free counseling to groups of students due to dramatic changes they experienced in the second semester. Growing up in a teacher community and influenced by his parents as teachers, he was satisfied with his stable salary and the prestige of being a university teacher.

8.2.6  Lychee’s Beliefs and Practices She kept a section of vocabulary learning after students finished reading the text and her teaching aimed at expanding students’ depth of vocabulary knowledge. She took a close look at sentence structures for cultivating students’ translation skills but gave less attention to text structure as she wanted to spend class time on meaningful goals. She considered background knowledge was an integral part of her teaching as it was a kind of cultural sharing activity expanding students’ knowledge and broadening their horizons. She downplayed the goal of comprehension but emphasized the goals of enriching students’ knowledge and maintaining their interest in reading. As for students’ SEL, she aimed at developing students’ confidence, building rapport with students, and making reading more enjoyable. In her reading classes, she adopted the teacher-led approach to teaching background knowledge which combined the use of instructional PPTs with discussions of the text in front of the entire class. She did not make a distinction between text structure and the main idea but adopted a variety of comprehension-based activities

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to check students’ general understanding as well as their knowledge of key details of the text. She stretched social talk to WeChat classes so that students interacted with each other beyond the classroom. When moving to post-reading activities, she focused on training students’ translation skills and reading skills which may be used in high-stakes tests. Compared with other participants, Lychee had a relatively small workload, but she had a tight schedule on particular workdays. She got a part-time job not just for money but for a bigger stage for her development. Lychee had a positive evaluation of her students as they were freshmen who still cherished their college life, but she suggested that they needed more care, support, and guidance from teachers. Lychee enjoyed more instructional freedom as her department allowed teachers to use non-­ test measures to assess student learning. However, she believed that her regular teaching and exam preparation were not mutually exclusive, meaning that she frequently integrated exam preparation into her regular teaching. Like Lynch, she temporarily gave up her academic promotion plan as she needed to improve her economic situation and support her family life. Lychee showed her sense of responsibility by establishing study groups, creating WeChat classes, and organizing extra-class reading activities. She had sympathy for her students and encouraged them to change their lives by sharing her life stories with them. She felt satisfied with her job as she got a sense of financial security and made use of her prestige as university teacher to seek a part-time job.

8.3  A Shared Belief System When examining early perspectives in belief research, Hoyle (1992) distinguished between decontextualized beliefs and beliefs-in-practice. The former refers to those beliefs separating from context, while the latter suggests beliefs are social constructions and products of activity, context, and culture. Following Hoyle’s argument, Putnam and Borko (2000) focused on the latter and refer it as the situative perspective by contending that “the physical and social contexts in which an activity takes place is an integral part of the learning that take place within it” (p. 4). From this perspective, I argue that participants’ beliefs are constructed through activities or practices they take part in their settings. In this regard, theoretical beliefs, action beliefs, and context beliefs are constructed through their stated practices, classroom practices, and social practices. As the above analysis shows, participants have many shared practices: the instructional practices in the teaching of reading, exam preparation, the assessment practices on student learning, the annual assessment practices, the academic promotion practices, and the instructional and non-instructional duties. From these practices, we can infer the shared teaching goals, principles, conceptions, interpretations, understandings, and evaluations about the teaching content, procedures, techniques, learners, context, and their roles. It is through the analysis of the shared practices that we can conclude that there exists a shared belief system in their mental lives,

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which is comprised by theoretical beliefs, action beliefs, context belief, and beliefs about teachers’ roles. Further, through an analysis of the eclectic approach adopted in their teaching, we can infer the interaction pattern of these beliefs: theoretical beliefs and action beliefs were consistent in the goal of comprehension, but were in conflicts due to a focus on reading comprehension and exam preparation in actual practices, the contradictory beliefs were justified by context beliefs but mediated by beliefs about teachers’ roles. From the relationship among these beliefs, we may conclude the structure of the shared belief system: theoretical beliefs, action beliefs, and context beliefs being the peripheral beliefs and beliefs about teachers’ roles being the core beliefs. Through an analysis of the interactions between these beliefs, we may confirm the adaptive function of beliefs about teachers’ roles and the centrality of beliefs about teachers’ roles in participants’ mental lives. In this way, a shared belief system emerges from an analysis of participants’ shared practices related to their past teaching, concurrent classroom teaching, and social interactions in the school community. From the content, structure, and the interaction pattern, we can further conclude seven key features of the shared belief system.

8.3.1  Being Sensitive to Situational Demands In this study, participants were sensitive to situational constraints concerning their instructional work, non-instructional work, student characteristics, the assessment practices on student learning, the high-stakes tests, the annual assessment practices, and their academic promotions. Participants tended to interpret these practices as the hindrance to the enactment of their theoretical beliefs. For example, Lynch experienced severe mental weariness when he was confronted with numerous non-­ instructional duties during the QAUE period. Thus he expressed the wish of giving up his executive work and focusing on his teaching work. Angel complained that a bigger class size imposed great time pressure on the scoring work at the end of each semester. Leon criticized the assessment practice of student learning through the end-of-term written exam rather than thesis writing. Linda and Lychee worked intensively due to the commuting time to the new campuses. Moreover, these contextual factors created competing demands on their work which made them experience conflicts between different beliefs. For example, Edith was familiar with student weaknesses in learning and wanted to develop autonomous and collaborative learning through her instructional activities. But the high-­ stakes tests and the final exam limited the use of more communicative and group learning activities in her classes. Leon was eager to attend a professional development programs, but the bureaucratic procedures made feel exhausted to reschedule his classes after that. Angel wanted to allocate more time and energy to her research work, but she had to manage a heavy workload. In most cases, participants were aware of the dilemmas created by competing demands from different departments. They chose to carefully respond to them and keep a delicate balance of time and energy investment on instructional, non-instructional, and research work.

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8.3.2  Having an Affective and Evaluative Component When referring to those analyses in Chaps. 6 and 7, we can see that both context beliefs and beliefs about teachers’ roles encompass the affective and evaluative component. For example, context beliefs are associated with participants’ sense of vulnerability, a type of negative feelings derived from inappropriate educational and administrative practices. Chapter 6 provided ample evidence to show the affective and evaluative understanding related to different contextual factors. For instance, Lynch complained that the QAUE brought about numerous non-instructional duties and imposed too many instructional hours on him, which made him difficult to manage his daily teaching. He felt doubtful at the significance of keeping his job, but he finally retained it because he needed more money to support his family life. Similarly, Angel felt rather dissatisfied with the academic promotion policies in her school. She thought it was unfair for teachers like her to undertake too many teaching duties while she needed to allocate more time and energy to research work, which was crucial for her academic promotion. In another case, most participants expressed their discontent with the institutional assessment practices on student learning. The regular use of the final exam and the proportion and ratio in the assessment policies made them feel that they mostly assessed language knowledge from the textbook instead of students’ reading abilities. In contrast, beliefs about teachers’ roles illustrate participants’ positive evaluations and feelings concerning their teaching, students, and careers. Chapter 7 offers a vivid description of how participants defined their roles positively. For instance, participants attached the sense of responsibility to exam preparation and viewed the high-stakes tests as a key factor to facilitate students’ extrinsic motivation in language learning. For example, Lynch believed that high-stakes tests at least provided realistic learning goals for students to achieve and his training sessions at least pushed his students to improve their proficiency. Similarly, Lychee established study groups and WeChat classes, which not only enhanced the emotional tie to her students but also created a key channel to offer them grammatical knowledge. Linda felt satisfied with her stable job, she attached more importance to the spirituality of benefits (a flexible work schedule, free time on family life, and social support from her friends) than material rewards brought by her job. In short, due to the affective and evaluative components, beliefs about teachers’ roles and context beliefs were transformed into the positive and negative psychological force, with the former playing a key role in reconciling the conflicts between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. As participants’ feelings were fluid and dynamic, the inner struggles experienced by participants reflected a reciprocal relationship between context beliefs and beliefs’ about teachers’ roles. For example, in the face of students’ weaknesses in learning, inappropriate assessment practices on student learning and the high-stakes tests, participants felt obliged to engage students doing and learning more due to the sense of responsibility and love for students. In this case, beliefs about teachers’ roles gained the upper hand. But when confronted with the pressure on academic promotion, they tended to allocate more

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time on research work. In such a situation, context beliefs overrode beliefs about teachers’ roles. It is through the continuous inner struggles that participants finally (at the time of the study) acknowledge their traditional role of teaching knowledge and nurturing students which had been established for centuries in traditional Chinese culture.

8.3.3  Having an Adaptive Function In this study, the adaptive function is the critical feature of beliefs about teachers’ role and the belief system. As shown in Chap. 7, it was illustrated in the self-­ adjustment process of participants’ conceptions of their roles accompanied by their emotional changes. Although the study did not provide more evidence documenting the subtle process, the sense of responsibility, love for students, and job satisfaction served as the important outcome of the self-adjustments. For instance, while Angel had a heavy workload, limited instructional freedom, and the pressure of academic promotion, she viewed the roles of teaching knowledge and nurturing students as the universal moral code for all the teachers. Likewise, Edith felt similar work pressure, but she managed to maintain a positive outlook to her job and find ways to push her professional development. Lynch and Lychee, in the face of the financial pressure arising from their family changes, had the determination to retain their jobs. Leon, though he failed to build rapport with his GEC students, wanted to continue his experiment of novel reading classes. At the macro level, beliefs about teachers’ roles helped participants neutralize the negative of context beliefs and mediate the tension between theoretical beliefs and action beliefs. It was the adaptive function that made this component stood out from other beliefs and become one of the core ones in the belief system, namely, they functionally connected to other beliefs, exerted greater influence on participants’ classroom practices, and became more stable. To some extent, beliefs about teachers’ roles functioned as the mechanism to regulate participants’ relationships with the outer world and solve problems caused by the inner struggles.

8.3.4  Being Interwoven with Teacher Knowledge From the perspective of Shulman’s model (1987), participants’ subject-matter knowledge linked to different goals in theoretical beliefs. For example, Lychee addressed the depth of vocabulary knowledge, Leon talked about cultural knowledge, and Angel mentioned skills in parsing complex sentences. Participants’ also showed their understanding of the notion of comprehension and humanistic literacy in their teaching. These goals reflected the inextricable link between theoretical beliefs and subject-matter knowledge. Moreover, participants’ pedagogical knowledge connected with action beliefs. In the teaching of background knowledge, they

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adopted the teacher-led, student-centered, and interactive approach. In building main-idea comprehension, they employed the deductive and inductive approach. When moving to detailed comprehension, they used the holistic or selective approach. These approaches suggest how they presented and formulated the learning content to make it comprehensible to their students. Finally, curricular knowledge interrelated with context beliefs. The recurring themes such as students’ characteristics, assessment practices of student learning, and high-stakes tests indicate their understanding of how to implement the reading course in their situations. Similarly, when examining teachers’ practical knowledge in Meijer et al.’s model (1999), we can see that student knowledge connected with context beliefs and knowledge of purposes related to theoretical beliefs. In short, different domains of teacher knowledge correlated with different groups of beliefs.

8.3.5  Having a Hierarchical Structure Drawing on the analysis in previous chapters, the study indicates that the belief system was composed of one group of core beliefs and three groups of peripheral beliefs. As shown in Sect. 7.4, it was the adaptive function that made beliefs about teachers’ roles stand out from other beliefs and become the core ones with three key characteristics, while context beliefs, theoretical beliefs, and action beliefs were the peripheral ones. Theoretical beliefs filtered participants’ teaching and professional training experience, linking to their stated practices. Action beliefs guided their immediate actions in classrooms and helped them deal with pedagogical problems and tasks, connecting with their classroom practices. Context beliefs helped participants make sense of their pedagogical decisions and actions, relating to their social practices in the school community. The hierarchical levels indicate that not all the beliefs are equally important in the belief system. The tensions or inconsistencies of these beliefs may be linked to their positions in the belief system. It indicates that the contradictory beliefs are tied to different levels of cognition which meant that “thinking at one level interacted, became interdependent with and was influenced by beliefs operating at another level” (Burns, 1996, p. 158). Moreover, the hierarchical structure implies that core beliefs did not directly influence participants’ classroom practices but had some influence through dynamic interactions with three groups of peripheral ones. For example, without a detailed analysis of Angel’s and Leon’s sense of responsibility, we may not understand why they went to such lengths to supplement reading materials for their classes. Linda’s and Edith’s love for students explained why they developed a caring and tolerant attitude to students’ weaknesses in learning. Participants’ classroom practices, though guided by action beliefs, were simultaneously influenced by theoretical beliefs, justified by context beliefs, and mediated by beliefs about teachers’ roles. Such classroom practices may be seen as an eclectic approach that “draws upon different approaches to meet different to meet different teaching objectives and expectations in different teaching context” (Zheng, 2013, p. 340).

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8.3.6  H  aving Dynamic Interactions Within and Across Groups of Beliefs Understanding the belief system in the study is not so much about generating different groups of beliefs but unveiling the important relationships among them. As shown in the previous section, the interaction pattern among four components can be described like this: theoretical beliefs and action beliefs were both consistent and inconsistent with each other, and the conflicts between them were justified by context beliefs but mediated by beliefs about teachers’ roles. Besides, we can also see dynamic interactions within these components. For example, the analysis of action beliefs shows that these principles are linked to participants’ teaching at the pre-, during-, and post-reading stage. Among these principles, all three served the purpose of improving students’ comprehension abilities and two principles aimed at creating conditions for their teaching. When examining context beliefs, we can see that the practice of exam preparation not only limited participants’ instructional freedom but also increased their workload by interfering with their regular teaching. Similarly, non-instructional duties not only reduced their time for lesson preparation but also aggravated the tension between their teaching and research work. Besides, the emphasis on academic promotion distracted participants’ attention from teaching, leading to a focus on research work. For theoretical beliefs, the goal structure implies that these beliefs served the basic, core, and extended goals in their teaching. They were not isolated goals but the interconnected ones that reflected the teachers’ understanding of the nature of their reading courses and expectations for students. When referring to action beliefs, we can see that two principles focused on text comprehension, while the rest principles served as the social, emotional, and cognitive conditions for the teaching of reading. From the above analysis, we can these that subcategories of these beliefs were not isolated but interacted and interconnected ones that served specific foci in their teaching.

8.3.7  Being Related to Teacher Identity While teacher beliefs are singled out as a macro, holistic, and unitary unit for analysis, they may weave with teacher identity as “individuals negotiate new and old experiences in an on-going effort to maintain a congruent identity” (Zembylas & Chubbuck, 2015, p. 174). In the context of the study, beliefs about teachers’ roles, particularly the adaptive function, suggest participants’ conscious efforts to sustain self-congruence in the face of contradictory beliefs in their belief systems. Instead of viewing themselves as victims of educational reforms or passive implementers of the assessment practices of student learning, participants described themselves as responsible teachers with affection for their students and jobs. In this study, if teacher identity is understood as the inner negotiation process of the teacher self, beliefs about teachers’ roles may overlap within teacher identity

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two aspects. First, both teachers’ beliefs about their roles and teacher identity have the same sociocultural orientation and bear similar linguistic expressions about the self as the teacher. As shown in Sect. 7.4, the recognition of two basic responsibilities indicates that sociocultural expectations played a key part in shaping participants’ beliefs about their roles. For example, in the face of her academic promotion, Edith put more emphasis on educating students rather than imparting knowledge. Angel considered the two responsibilities as the moral codes to follow. Similarly, Lychee had a part-time job, but she never allowed her second job to interfere with her university job as she believed she should act on behalf of her students. To some extent, participants’ summaries were a manifestation of how they negotiated their professional identity in relation to students and their learning. Second, both teachers’ beliefs about their roles and teacher identity are sparkled by the reflections of participants’ significant social experience (teaching and professional learning) and enriched by further reflections on the conflict and integration of different beliefs. As shown in the previous chapter, participants’ sense of responsibility, love for students, and job satisfaction were largely built on the reflection of the critical incidents and events in their professional lives such as overseas training, postgraduate study, interactions with students, and so on. Moreover, participants’ conceptions of their roles were developed on a continuous process of self-­negotiation of their roles as a teacher, panel director, researcher, and family member. It was through the reflection that they shaped themselves as a caretaker, educator, and moral example to influence students’ learning and overall development. In sum, the seven key features emerge from the interaction pattern of these beliefs. All these features indicate that the beliefs system is a dynamic, complex, and multifaceted one. However, the theoretical discussion here is not equal to the fact that participants had developed very clear ideas about what constituted their beliefs and how these beliefs worked in their situations. Although participants were quite aware of some of the beliefs they held and understood how the beliefs influenced their practices, they neither distinguished the beliefs from their attitudes, motivation, or emotions about teaching nor develop sophisticated ideas about the interactions of their beliefs. The belief system and the seven key features simply represent a researcher’s (outsider) perspective to examine participants’ beliefs. However, if we want to understand teacher beliefs in the context of teacher cognition, we need to shift towards a new ontological perspective which defines teacher beliefs as a function of emerging relationships rather than an element in those relationships and consider beliefs as emergent, relational, and interwoven in specific time, places, and relationships.

8.4  Methodological Implications As shown above, the study concludes that the beliefs system is a dynamic, multifaceted, and complex system with seven key features. To implicate belief research in other contexts, I, in this section, would like to discuss some general guidelines for conducting empirical research about teacher beliefs.

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8.4.1  C  onsidering the Spatial and Temporal Dimensions of Teacher Beliefs The spatial dimension enables researchers to design their investigations and target certain aspects of teacher beliefs by situating their research within a large belief system and paying attention to the functional connections with other beliefs. As Fives and Buehl (2012) suggest, there are a wide range of external and internal factors responsible for teachers’ enactment of their beliefs. The complex and interconnected nature of teachers’ ecologies highlights the need for researchers to consider a range of factors when they examine teacher beliefs in particular contexts. On the other hand, the temporal dimension provides an alternative perspective to explore the nature of beliefs by focusing on the types or aspects of beliefs, the relationship between beliefs and internal or external factors over time. While recognizing the connected spatial and temporal dimensions is crucial for understanding the nature of the belief system, I do not suggest the exhausted approach to examine all the aspects of teacher beliefs in the ecological systems and explore every event in their social experiences. But I do mean that “foregrounding those that are salient in our specific investigations while being aware of the dynamic systems that remain in the background” (Kubanyiova, 2012, p. 192). In other words, we should carefully identify and include crucial aspects of beliefs, levels of the nested structure, and the timescales within a particular design to seek theoretical explanations against particular backgrounds and make assumptions about the belief system by examining interactions among different groups of beliefs.

8.4.2  Studying the Initial Conditions of Participant Teachers The complexity theory attaches great importance to the initial conditions since they constitute “the system’s landscape and influence the trajectory of the system as it changes” (Larsen-Freeman & Cameron, 2008, p. 230). From the sociohistorical aspect, the initial conditions play a crucial role in shaping individual teachers’ cognition through the reflection process on their prior learning and teaching experiences. From the sociocultural aspect, the initial conditions are concerned with a shared teaching situation where teachers as members of the school community are embedded in a larger context. Thus, studying the initial conditions of language teacher beliefs involves collecting data about their learning and teaching experience as well as their working environment (e.g., the rules, practices, and regulations of their schools). In short, without analyzing the participants’ initial conditions, one might lose a good chance to unveil the complex nature of the belief system.

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8.4.3  U  nveiling the Complex Relationships of the Belief System Studying teacher beliefs as a system does not merely mean identifying the key components of the system, but rather providing a description of the complex relationships within the system. It is evident that the examination of the complex relationships of the belief system enables us to go beyond the simplistic view of the belief-­practice relationship and gain more insights about the complexity of the belief system by analyzing the non-linearity and interconnectivity of beliefs in different levels. As Borg (2006) suggests, future language teacher cognition research does not mean an understanding of what cognitions are held by language teachers but an appreciation of how the different elements in teachers’ cognition interact with each other.

8.4.4  R  ecognizing the Affective and Evaluative Nature of Teacher Beliefs Since the 1990s, many researchers have called attention to the affective or emotional dimension of teacher beliefs. For example, Pajares (1992) argues that beliefs distinguish from knowledge by its affective, evaluative, and episodic nature that make them act as a filter that helps individuals interpret new phenomena. Snow, Corno, and Jackson (1996) maintain that teachers’ resistance to change may have the affective roots, and they call for studying the role of emotion and motivation in teacher beliefs. Fives and Buehl (2012) point out that early conceptions have recognized that beliefs incorporate the cognitive as well as the affective and emotional components, but such recognition is seldom discussed by current research. Borg (2006) asserts that one of the directions for future research is to seek an understanding of “how cognitive and affective factors interact in shaping what teachers do” (p. 272). Unfortunately, Borg’s appeal to the affective dimension in belief research has not yet been recognized by other researchers. As Chap. 2 suggests, empirical studies in two relevant areas (teacher beliefs and practice, beliefs on reading instruction) put an overemphasis on contextual factors while paying little attention to the role of the affective dimension of the belief system. It seems that current belief research has stagnated at the “cold period” characterized by a cognition-oriented, rational, and scientific survey of teachers’ teaching.

8.5  Practical Implications So far I have discussed implications for conducting teacher beliefs research, but my primary concern of conducting the study is to increase teachers’ understanding of the complexity of their beliefs and contributes to a better understanding of the nature

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of their teaching. Teacher beliefs, as suggested in Chap. 4, are mostly implicit, and they can be inferred through their practices or social experiences, which means that teacher beliefs may reflect their “implicit theories” in teaching. Meanwhile, it seems naïve to forcibly instill teachers’ minds with some “standardized” beliefs derived from particular popular approaches, methods, or educational reform ideas, as they tend to be resistant to such “imported products” due to a lack of attention to the contextual factors in their situations. In such a context, practical implications aim at helping teachers explore their own beliefs and make use of beliefs as self-resources to promote their professional development. Another benefit of belief research is to contribute to teachers’ professional development, an essential goal in their career life. By integrating the elements of teacher beliefs into teacher education programs, teacher educators may help pre-service teachers better understand the complex relationship among classroom teaching, curriculum, students, and their situations. Such benefits have been confined to pre-­ service teacher education for many years. However, in-service teachers with their increasing workload and non-instructional duties could hardly afford the time to attend professional development programs outside their schools. Nonetheless, I would like to propose some strategies for self-directed professional development by making use of the informal learning opportunities in their workplace.

8.5.1  Critical Incident Analysis Critical incidents refer to the “commonplace events that occur in routine professional practice which are critical in a rather different sense that they are indicative of underlying trends, motives and structures” (Tripp, 1993, p. 24). Critical incidents as qualitative techniques have been widely used in language learning and teaching and related studies. In language teacher education, critical incidents are “unplanned and unexpected events that occur during a lesson” (Richards & Farrell, 2005, p. 113). One of the benefits of a critical incident is to uncover a new understanding of the teaching and learning process. Another benefit is to place teachers in a better position to realize that there are no simple cause-effect solutions to various dilemmas they encounter in their situations (Farrell, 2008). In the context of the study, critical incidents played a crucial role in analyzing participants’ beliefs about teachers’ roles. The critical incidents addressed by them involved Leon’s crisis with students and his postgraduate study in the USA, Linda’s decision to attend a joint doctoral program, Lychee’s WeChat classes and a part-­ time job, Lynch’s educational visits in the USA, and Angel’s teaching experience in Thailand. From the description and follow-up explanation of these events, we can infer their sense of responsibility for teaching and love for students. These incidents became critical because they reflected the participants’ meanings and interpretations attributed to them. To explore beliefs about teachers’ roles, I recommend teachers to go beyond the teaching and learning process in the classroom and adopt a broad view to choose incidents from their social experiences. In addition to the

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description and meaning of these incidents, I propose them to document their feelings (either positive or negative) associated with them. It can be done either individually or in collaboration with other trusted teacher friends. The best choice is to combine it with reflective journal writing and share with others. We can see that such analysis processes will trigger a new understanding of their teaching, their roles, and their identities.

8.5.2  Administrative Documents Analysis Document analysis as a widely used technique in qualitative research refers to the collection and interpretation of document to give voice or meaning around the topic being studied (Bowen, 2009). A systematic search of the reliable document from an abundant amount of information was the initial step for qualitative researchers, while analyzing and coding document content into different themes are two key processes in document analysis. The technique provides important background information and broad coverage of data that help to contextualize one’s research within its subject (Bowen, 2009). It serves as an invaluable source to triangulate data from other sources or a form of pattern recognition from analyzing other data (Yin, 2009). In the context of the study, I spent a considerable amount of time searching for administrative documents from websites of participants’ universities. By making comparisons among regulations, rules, and directives issued by different departments of their universities, I identified the key themes that participants might find relevant to their teaching such as instructional hours, non-instructional duties, the annual assessment, academic promotion, and so on. With these concerns in mind, I developed a rating task and an in-depth interview that invited them to discuss how they evaluated the contextual influence on their teaching. From my research experience, I can see that administrative documents played a key role in investigating their context beliefs. Thus, I propose teachers adopt a research-based view to study the administrative documents as a kind of “education policy analysis.” Such analysis processes will certainly raise their awareness on the tensions or pressure that they face, thus making them more sensitive to the problems, issues, and dilemmas they face in educational reforms in their universities.

8.5.3  Academic Reading Academic reading is an essential part for self-directed professional development, but many teachers fail to realize its importance, as they may feel overwhelmed by the amount of reading of the complex concepts and unfamiliar terms in academic books and face constant pressure to give a sufficient amount of time for reading in their free time. Nonetheless, teachers may benefit from academic reading by

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updating their pedagogical skills, expanding their subject matter knowledge, developing a theoretical perspective to their educational ideas, and gaining insights for pedagogical innovation. Teaching in a knowledge-rich and the Internet-based society requires a lifelong learning perspective and mastering a multiple expert knowledge from across different knowledge domains. Compared with other professional development tools, academic reading is a flexible, convenient, and effective way to absorb new knowledge and skills. Moreover, it can be done either individually or collectively, either in the workplace or home. By combining it with the technique of reflective journal writing, teachers can help themselves develop a critical understanding of particular theories. As shown in the study, most participants expressed a firm conviction to keep their jobs as a lifelong profession, had a keen interest in students’ learning, and showed great concern for academic promotion. Ironically, they showed little interest in research activities, lacked training in research methodology, and seldom spent time on academic reading. They graduated with MA degrees in applied linguistics, but they lacked pedagogical knowledge or theoretical knowledge in reading instruction. Although they developed a goal structure in theoretical beliefs, they had not elaborated their reflections with theoretical perspectives in EFL reading instruction. For example, Lychee and Angel simply equated testing skills used in high-stakes tests with essential reading strategies used in second language reading, which may illustrate their insufficient amount of academic reading in this area. To develop their theoretical beliefs, I recommend teachers devote themselves to reading on a range of topics such as teaching methodology, curriculum development, second language acquisition, reading instruction, language testing, and so on. They can register with online courses, organize reading groups, and adopt reflective journal writing to make this accessible.

8.5.4  Self-Observation A systematic approach is required to observe, evaluate, and manage one’s teaching behaviors to achieve a new understanding of one’s teaching or solve some pedagogical problem (Richards & Farrell, 2005). It is a self-initiated practice that requires the teacher to collects information about one’s teaching to evaluate their knowledge, skills, theories, beliefs, or values. One of the benefits of self-­observation is to enable the individual to view their teaching from an alternative perspective and help them see the difference between their perceptions and the objective realities. In addition to students’ feedback from interviews or surveys, Richards and Farrell (2005) propose three ways to collect data on one’s teaching: lesson report, audio-­ recording the lesson, and video-recording the lesson. Regardless of what way is chosen, they emphasize an accurate way to provide as much as possible information as possible about what happens in the classroom. In this regard, self-observation can be and strenuous and time-consuming, but it can facilitate their learning initiatives by shifting the right of performance evaluation from the outsider to themselves.

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In the stimulated recall interview, I invited the participants to view their teaching and discuss the rationales for their specific practices. Since it was the first time to view their teaching on the screen, all the participants were at times surprised and even shocked at the gap between “teaching in their eyes” and “teaching in others’ eyes.” From their feedback, I felt that they were motivated to learn about their teaching through self-observation. In this case, audio-recording lessons can be used to explore one’s action beliefs which provide concrete evidence to infer the underlying reasons for their practices. In short, I suggest four strategies helping individual teachers explore their belief systems. No matter what strategies they choose, this aims at promoting their understanding about their beliefs by adopting some self-directed reflective practices. I emphasize the exploration of teacher beliefs is the task for teachers themselves, for professional development is something “for teachers, by teachers” (Johnson, 2006, p. 250), and they assume the primary responsibility for their professional development throughout their careers. In this sense, reflection is something that cannot be substituted by outsiders and should be achieved by teachers themselves. When they make their belief systems clear, they could benefit more from the collaborative efforts through team teaching, peer observation, workshops, lectures, and seminars, and so on.

8.6  The Limitations of the Study So far I have analyzed the belief system from both the micro and macro lens and unveiled the complexity of teacher beliefs and their belief systems, but the conclusions, drawn from the small-scale case study, need to be interpreted in tandem with its limitations. I want to analyze its shortcomings from the following three aspects. From the conceptual aspect, early research in language teacher cognition was characterized by the situation in which identical terms have been defined in different ways and different terms have been defined in a similar way (Borg, 2003). While the proliferation of terms seems necessary for the development in any field, the key terms (e.g., belief, knowledge, conceptions, theories or principles) have not yet been defined and used consistently. Under such circumstances, one of the difficulties I encountered was to conceptualize teacher beliefs and the belief system. Thus, to what extent the analytic model and supporting evidence are accepted by researchers of language teacher beliefs remains a crucial question. Moreover, whether the four components in the belief system represent the most important aspects of beliefs held by teachers or whether other components are excluded from the model needs further discussion. As an empirical researcher, I am fully aware of the potential risk of simplifying the belief system and highlighting certain features of it. In that case, the accountability of the analytic framework needs to be confirmed by more empirical evidence. While the concept of reflexivity makes me conscious of how my bias, values, and experience shape the interpretation of the teacher beliefs, I strive to “avoid obvious, conscious or systematic bias and to be neutral as possible in the collection,

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interpretation and presentation of data” (Ormston, Spencer, Barnard, & Snape, 2014, p. 47). However, I recognize that there never exists a completely “neutral” or “objective” lens in the study and the conclusive remarks are still influenced by my perspective. In this sense, my perspective serves as one possible way that helps readers interpret teacher beliefs rather than the universal or standardized one accepted by all the readers. Another key feature of my approach is the belief that most of the participants’ beliefs are implicitly held by them and I never ask questions, such as what are your beliefs about this or that. Thus, the four components and the analytic model are inferred from my understanding, interpretation, reflections, and my past teaching experience. Almost any empirical researcher faces the issue of what extent the observational data represent populations or settings beyond the particular context or sample of the study. While I advocate the analytic generalization which aims at developing theories applicable to other settings, I think it is important to “make the basis and boundaries of the inferential statement explicit” (Ormston et al., 2014, p. 48). For these reasons, I would propose that findings of the study might be relevant to those working in other universities in my province, but a wider application needs more empirical evidence. To conclude with an emphasis on the value of social science research, Manen (1990) suggests, “a rigorous human science is prepared to be soft, soulful, subtle, and sensitive in its effort to bring the range of meanings of life’s phenomena to our reflective awareness” (p. 18). In Manen’s eyes, it seems an impossible task to provide a full description and a whole range of interpretations on some aspects of the life world, but we may come to realize that lived life is far more complex than any explication of meaning can reveal.

References Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language Teaching, 36(2), 81–109. Borg, S. (2006). Teaching cognition and language education: Research and practice. London: Continuum. Bowen, G. (2009). Document analysis as a qualitative research method. Qualitative Research Journal, 9(2), 27–40. Brown, J., Collins, A., & Duguid, P. (1989). Situated cognition and the culture of learning. Educational Researcher, 18(1), 32–42. Burns, A. (1996). Starting all over again: From teaching adults to teaching beginners. In D. Freeman & J.  C. Richards (Eds.), Teacher learning in language teaching (pp.  154–177). New  York: Cambridge University Press. Farrell, T. (2008). Reflective language teaching: From research to practice. New York: Bloomsbury Academic. Fives, H., & Buehl, M. (2012). Spring cleaning for the “messy” construct of teacher beliefs: What are they? Which have been examined? What can they tell us? In K.  R. Harris, S.  Graham, T. Urdan, S. Graham, J. M. Royer, & M. Zeidner (Eds.), APA educational psychology handbook: Individual differences and cultural and contextual factors (Vol. 2, pp.  471–499). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

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Francis, D., Rapacki, L., & Eker, A. (2015). The individual, the context and the practice: a review of the research of teachers’ belief related to mathematics. In H.  Fives & M.  G. Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teacher beliefs (pp. 336–352). New York: Routledge. Hoyle, C. (1992). Mathematics teaching and mathematics teachers: A meta-case study. For the Learning of Mathematics, 12(3), 32–44. Johnson, K. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for second language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 235–257. Kubanyiova, M. (2012). Teacher development in action: Understanding language teachers’ conceptual change. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Kubanyiova, M., & Feryok, A. (2015). Language teacher cognition in applied linguistics research: Revisiting the territory, redrawing the boundaries and reclaiming the relevance. The Modern Language Journal, 99(3), 435–449. Larsen-Freeman, D., & Cameron, L. (2008). Complex systems and applied linguistics. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Manen, M. (1990). Researching lived experience: Human science for an action sensitive pedagogy. London: Suny Press. Meijer, P., Verloop, N., & Beijaard, D. (1999). Exploring language teachers’ practical knowledge about teaching reading comprehension. Teaching and Teacher Education, 15(1), 59–84. Ormston, R., Spencer, L., Barnard, M., & Snape, D. (2014). The foundation of qualitative research. In J. Ritchie, J. Lewis, C. M. Nicholls, & R. Ormston (Eds.), Qualitative research practice: A guide for social and science students and researchers (pp. 24–50). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Pajares, M. (1992). Teacher beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62, 307–332. Putnam, R., & Borko, L. (2000). What do new views of knowledge and thinking have to say about research on teacher learning? Educational Researcher, 29(1), 4–15. Richards, J., & Farrell, T. (2005). Professional development for language teachers: Strategies for teacher learning. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. Shulman, L. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foundations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Review, 57, 11–22. Skott, J. (2001). The emerging practices of a novice teacher: The roles of his school mathematics images. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 4(1), 3–28. Snow, R., Corno, L., & Jackson, D. (1996). Individual differences in affective and connotative functions. In D.  C. Berliner & R.  C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp. 243–310). New York: Macmillan. Tripp, D. (1993). Critical incidents in teaching: developing professional judgment. London: Routledge. Yin, R. (2009). Case study research design and methods (4th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage. Zembylas, M., & Chubbuck, S. M. (2015). The interaction of identity, beliefs and politics in conceptualizing “teacher identity”. In H.  Fives & M.  G. Gill (Eds.), International handbook of research on teacher beliefs (pp. 173–190). New York: Routledge. Zheng, H. (2013). Teachers’ beliefs and practices: A dynamic and complex relationship. Asia-­ Pacific Journal of Teacher Education, 41(3), 331–343.

Appendices

Appendix 1 Informed Consent Sheet from Students Dear Student, I am a former university English teacher now studying the PhD. program at Hong Kong Institute of Education. My research aims at exploring the relationship between Chinese EFL teacher beliefs and their practices in specific context. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for your cooperation in my study. In 2 or 3 days’ time, I will conduct the classroom observation with a small digital camcorder, recording the teachers’ practices or behaviors rather than your behavior or performance. The recorded lessons will be used for the purpose of research, helping teachers improve the effectiveness of classroom teaching. Therefore, you do not have to worry about behaving in an appropriate way or whether you will be criticized by your teacher. The camcorder’s screen will focus on the teacher all the time and your figure may occasionally appear on the screen when you are interacting with the teacher. Please do not be nervous as your performance will not be used for the purpose of evaluation. To protect your right to anonymity, your personal information will not appear on the screen. The recorded lessons will be stored in my laptop with passwords so that the third party has no access to steal recorded lessons; when the study is finished, all the recorded lessons will be destroyed. If you do not want to be on the screen, please tell me and I will cooperate with the teacher to arrange your new seat till you are satisfied. If the presence of the camcorder makes you feel rather uneasy, anxious, nervous or causes other negative feelings and further influence your classroom learning, please tell me and then I will do the observation with a small notebook at the back of the classroom. For most of time, you can ignore the presence of me and the camcorder as I will just be sitting at the back the classroom and not interfere with your classroom activities. Please remember I am just a researcher who silently conducts the classroom observation with a small camcorder. The task of classroom observation won’t last long; only three to four recorded

© Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2020 X. Mo, Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs, English Language Education 20, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-47170-5

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sessions. When the task is finished, I will automatically disappear from your classroom. If you would not like to discuss the above with me, just inform the teacher. They and I will take every possible means to minimize the negative influence on your study due to the observation task. We will have a good cooperation if you just stay in your seat, enjoy your learning and forget my presence. If you sign your name at the back, you agree that I can conduct the observation task with the camcorder.

Appendix 2 Informed Consent Sheet from the Participants Dear Sir or Madam, I am a former university English teacher now studying the PhD. program at Hong Kong Institute of Education. My research aims at exploring the relationship between Chinese EFL teacher beliefs and their practices in reading instruction. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for your cooperation in my study. The study involves the use of interview and classroom observation over two semesters. During the process of data collection, I will strictly follow the ethical principles for conducting research with human being. I promise the study will be beneficial to your teaching and professional development, you will be protected from any kinds of harm during the study and your confidentiality and anonymity will be respected. All the data collected in the study will be used for scientific research and then destroyed when the study is finished. In order minimize the interference with your daily work, I would keep effective communication with you, obtain your permission to collect data each time, actively listening to your feedback and adjust the data collection plan according to your daily work. The study mainly relies on interviews and classroom observations to collect data. Before conducting each interview, I would send emails to you, obtain your permission, list the discussed topics and arrange a quiet and private place to conduct the interview. Before conducting the classroom observation each time, I would obtain your permission beforehand, and conduct the non-participant observation without any inference with your teaching. If the use of electronic equipment (e.g., camcorder or digital voice pen) makes you feel anxious and nervous about your performance, you can propose another way to collect data or negotiate another time to collect data. At the end of the study, you will receive a case report that will help you become conscious of your beliefs and practices regarding the teaching of reading. If you would be interested, I would be happy to provide practical guidelines for improving your teaching and even professional development in the long-term. If you feel pressure at my data collection plan and do not wish to tell me, you can contact the Graduate School of Hong Kong Institute of Education to voice any reservations or make any complaints. If you sign you name here, you agree to participate in the study. Thank you for your cooperation.

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 ppendix 3 Informed Consent Sheet A from the Department Dean Dear Sir or Madam, I am a former university English teacher now studying the PhD. program at Hong Kong Institute of Education. My research aims at exploring the relationship between Chinese EFL teacher beliefs and their practices in reading instruction. I would like to express my deepest gratitude for your cooperation in my study. As parts of my study, I will select an English teacher from your department for case study. The teacher should have taught the reading course to English or non-­ English undergraduates for at least 2 years, with a master’s degree at relevant fields such as literature, linguistics and education and with a professional position of lecturer or associate professor. Please give a general review of the teachers in your department and recommend four teachers that can meet the above criteria for me. I will make contact with them individually and enquire their willingness to participate in my study. In order to let the teacher benefit from the study, I, as the researcher, will provide a case report on their teaching at the end of the study, helping them analyze the strengths and weaknesses of their teaching, offering practical guidelines to improve classroom teaching, and contributing to raising their awareness on their beliefs relevant to the teaching of reading. The data collection plan at the back of the sheet shows that it involves the use of interview and classroom observation which will cover two semesters. I would explain to them the benefits, aims and data collection plan of the study. If they agree to participate in the study, they would sign their names on the Informed Consent Sheet which lists the rights and benefits they have from the study. I will briefly summarize the main points here. During the process of data collection, they would work without any kinds of pressure from me and they reserve the rights to terminate and withdraw from the study at any time and for any reason. All the data being collected and analyzed will be kept confidential, and will not be disclosed to any third parties. I will constantly review the data collection plan, actively getting feedback from teachers and adjusting my data collection according to their work. I will respect their work and their students, trying not to interfere with their teaching when collecting data. I promise to take every possible measure to protect them from any kind of potential harm. By the way, if they feel pressure from my study and do not wish to tell me, they can contact the Graduate School of the Education University of Hong Kong by email to voice any reservations or many any complaints. If you have any question about the study, feel free to contact me. Regarding the issue of confidentiality, I can not disclose to you any details about the participants’ thinking, performance or data being collected from them. If you sign your name on this sheet, you approve me to conduct the study with the teacher in your department. Thanks for your valuable time and cooperating.

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Appendix 4 The Biographic Interview Questions 1. Please tell me your age. 2. What kinds of qualifications have you received so far? (including your degrees, teacher certificate, so on). 3. How long have you been teaching English? 4. In the past few years, where did you teach? 5. Did you teach English majors or non-English majors? 6. What kinds of courses did you teach? 7. How many courses are you going to teach this and next semester? How many classes are you going to teach? And your average instruction hours in an academic year. 8. Have you attended any teaching contests? If so, what kinds of prizes or awards did you get? 9. What is your current professional position? 10. Have you participated in any professional associations or organizations? If so, what are the names of these organization, how do you benefit from these bodies? 11. Have you participate in any teacher development or teacher training programs. If so, please tell me the time, place, length and tell me your purposes and benefits from these activities. 12. Have you attended any conferences, meeting, seminar or workshops any teaching? If so, please tell me the time, place and length, and your purposes and benefits from them. 13. Have you participated in or host any research projects? If so, please give a brief introduction. And your purposes or benefits from these projects. 14. Have you had any overseas study or work experience? If so, please tell me the time, place, length and country. And briefly described your study or work life. How do you benefit from your overseas experience?

Appendix 5 The Semi-structured Interview Questions General Questions: 1. How long have you taught reading to students? 2. Why do you choose to teach the reading courses, and not other subjects? 3. What kinds of instructional activities do you often organize in your reading classes? 4. What kinds of materials do you use in your reading classes? 5. How do you examine your students’ progress in reading proficiency? 6. What kinds of difficulties do you think that students would encounter in the process of learning to read?

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7. What kind of knowledge and skills do you think that students should learn from reading classes? 8. Do you read academic articles, journals or books related to the teaching of reading in your spare time? Why or why not? 9. Does your postgraduate study influence your teaching of reading? If so, in what aspects? 10. Do you think that reading strategies are important for students? If so, how do you train students to grasp these strategies? 11. How do you think about the relationship between reading and other language use skills such as listening, speaking and writing? How do you deal with their relations in your practices? Theme one: vocabulary teaching 1. In your situation, do you think that new words in the reading passage are important for students? why? 2. How do you teach the new vocabulary in the reading passage? • • • •

How much time do you spend on average in each passage? What activities do you organize to help students grasp the new words? How do you explain the new words in the reading passage? What is the purpose of explaining and teaching and explaining the new words?

3. Do you require students to memorize new vocabulary after class? • How do you examine students’ learning effect on these new words? Theme two: sentences analysis 4. Do you often analyze some long and complicated sentences from the reading passage? • How do you analyze these sentences? • What aspects do you focus on when conducting sentence analysis? • What is the purpose of such analysis work? 5. Do you translate these sentences in Chinese? Why? Theme three: text structure and text content 6. What you do think about the text structure of the reading passage? • Do you think that it helps students better understand the passage? • What activities do you often organize to help students understand the text structure? 7. In your situation, is the text content related to students’ final test at the end of the semester? How? 8. Do you think a full mastery of the text content can improve students’ reading proficiency? Why?

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Theme four: written exercises 9. What kinds of written exercises are set at the end of the reading passage? 10. What exercises do you require students to finish after class? (all or just some kinds) 11. How do you check students’ homework? 12. How much time do you spend on checking these exercises? Theme five: integration of four skills 13. Do you think the teaching of reading should be integrated with the teaching of other language skills such as speaking, listening or writing? 14. How do you integrate the four language skills in your reading classes? Theme six: integration of culture teaching 1 5. Do you focus on the cultural information in the reading passage? 16. How do you deal with the cultural content in your teaching (just by explanation or organizing activities?) Theme seven: students’ background knowledge 1 7. What is the role of students’ background knowledge in the teaching of reading? 18. How do you make use of students’ background knowledge to increase their understanding on the text? Theme eight: teacher talk vs. student talk 19. How do you allocate the classroom time on teachers’ talk and students’ talk? • Which has the bigger share, teacher talk or student talk in your situation? Why? • What kind of activities do you organize in order to increase students’ talk? Theme nine: focusing on language meaning 20. Do you focus on analyzing writers’ experience, motives, feeling, opinion or attitudes in your teaching? Why? 21. Do you organize students to discuss the social, cultural or environmental issues discussed in the reading passage? Why? • When discussing these issues, do you encourage students to freely express their opinion? Why? 22. Do you think the teaching of reading is primarily based on language meaning or language form? Why? Theme ten: students’ learning 23. Have you ever experienced such situation that most students take little interest in the text topic you are teaching? • How do you deal with the situation?

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24. Do you emphasize the pleasure and enjoyment that students can get from reading the text? why? 25. Have you ever noticed students’ feedback through their facial expression, gesture or position in the process of reading? 26. How do you get feedback about students’ opinions on your teaching? 27. How do you use student feedback to adjust your teaching? 28. In addition to the written exercise, what kind of activities/assignments do you require students to do after class? Why? 29. Which is more important, students’ performance on classes or achievement in the final test? Why? 30. In addition to the final test to assess students’ reading abilities, what other techniques do you use? Theme eleven: reading strategies in teaching 31. Do you identify the purpose and significance of text reading before you start to teach a new passage? • Or do you organize some warming-up discussion activities before introducing the text topic? Why? 32. Do you emphasize the importance of skimming and scanning in text reading? Why? • How do you train your students to use skimming and scanning in their reading? 33. Do you encourage students to guess new words in the reading text? • How do you teach students to guess the meaning of new words? 34. Do you ask questions to check students’ understanding when you are explaining important parts in the text? • How do you ask questions to check their understanding? (Give some examples) 3 5. How do you teach students to grasp the main idea of the text? (techniques) 36. How do you use the visual aids (such as picture, diagram, table) that help students understand the text? • Or do you require students to draw some diagrams or tables to summarize the text content? 37. Do you organize students to retell or rewrite the text? why do you use the technique? 38. Do you ask students to predict or evaluate text content? Why do you use the technique? 39. What do you think the role of dictionary in the teaching of reading? Do you teach students to use the dictionary during the reading process?

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40. Do you emphasize importance of the reading speed? How do you train them to increase their reading speed? 41. Do you focus on the text type? How does the text type help students better understand the text content? 42. Do you analyze the text title or subtitles? Why? 43. How do you think about the role of teacher in the teaching of reading? (guidance, monitor, facilitator) why? 44. Do you focus on correcting students’ inappropriate reading habit in class?

Appendix 6 Concept Maps of Participants

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Appendix 7 A Rating Task Please look at the following contextual factors that might influence your classroom teaching. Mark each item with an appropriate number from 1 to 7 that indicates the degree of importance to you and your teaching (1 = the least important, 4 = intermediate important, 7 = the most important). Department of teaching affairs class schedule

student evaluation of teaching

the final exam practices

rules on teaching accidents

the scoring system

inspector’s visit to your teaching

quality assessment on undergraduate education

others______________

Department of human resources criteria on teacher academic promotion

the annual assessment

opportunities for teachers’ professional development

rules on pursuing PhD degree

learning opportunities in the workplace

employment contract

regulations on asking for leave

others______________

Administration in subject department textbook selection

developing teaching plans

peer observation

instructional hours

faculty meeting

teacher cooperation

rules on assessing students’ learning teaching contest

teacher’s research work

undergraduate thesis guidance

extra-class activities

Students size of class

gender

relationships with students

specialization

motivation and interest

classroom learning climate

Others_____________

Textbook text topic

text difficulty

written exercises

instructional PPT

other instructional materials English exams exam preparation

students test certificate

relationship with daily teaching

Others___________ ELT syllabi objectives

pedagogical methods/principle

requirements on teaching competence

learning assessment

other___________

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Miscellaneous prestige of university teachers

role of English department in your university

role of English subject in students’ majors teacher’s responsibility

teacher’s salary

job satisfaction

free time at your disposal

professional burnout

conflict between teaching and your family life others______________

Appendix 8 A List of Edith’s Observed Practices

Item of practice News browsing

Focusing on key vocabulary Introducing learning objectives of a unit Introducing prior knowledge or background knowledge related to the text Group discussion

Use of students’ mother tongue Use of translation Use of body language Focusing on key details of the text Informal chat Social talk

Focusing on writing strategies

Descriptions She selected news reports from China Daily (an official English newspaper in China) and discussed the news with the whole class on the computer screen, sometimes she focused on some key words that may reflect the characteristics of Chinese people’s social lives She focused a few key words before she began to teach a reading passage She introduced the general learning objectives before she taught a reading passage from the textbook She presented relevant background knowledge on the PPT and discussed it with the whole class

She presented some general comprehension questions from a reading passage, then students worked in groups to discuss, she went around the classroom to check students’ understanding and offered individual help to some students She switched to the Chinese language to instruct her students She explained particular details of a reading passage in both English and Chinese She used particular gestures, postures and facial expressions to emphasize what she taught in classes She focused on “meaningful blocks” (e.g., metaphors, cohesive devices) from a reading passage During the class break, she had casual talks with one or several students After she finished teaching a passage, she designed some open-ended questions related to students’ lives and study, sometimes she also shared her feelings, opinions and experiences with the students She illustrated the writing features with examples from a reading passage, and then engaged students in writing sentences or short paragraphs with such features (continued)

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Item of practice Dictation

Descriptions She read out the English words or Chinese meanings, students wrote down the counterparts individually. It involved the key words, phrases and sentences from a taught passage Reading aloud She asked students to read aloud particular paragraphs Reviewing She had students reviewed what they learned in the previous classes Use of questioning skills She elaborated, confirmed, commented on students’ answers, and asked more detailed questions Analyzing sentence She focused on a few long and complex sentences from a reading structures passage Analyzing text genres She either explicitly analyzed the text type of a reading passage or asked students to identify Checking written Students were required to finish the written exercises at the back a exercises reading passage, she checked the answers by asking students or directly offering them Group presentation She assigned particular topics of background knowledge related to text learning, students worked in groups to collect materials, design the PPTs, a group member presented it in front of the class Assigning homework She often set the written exercise, group presentation and English composition as the homework Note: The list of observed practices served as an example on how I analyzed the participants’ teaching behaviors with the video-recorded lesson. The underlying reasons of these practices were elicited through the stimulated recall interview and the participants often addressed one more reasons for conducting these practices

Appendix 9 Sample Interview Transcript The biographic interview Interviewee: Leon. Date: June 25, 2016 Time: 3:15 pm. Q: Please tell me your age. A: Between 20 and 30, I am 26 years old this year. Q: What qualifications did you get to become a teacher? A: I got a bachelor’s degree in English literature, I graduated from my university in 2012. Afterwards, between 2013 and 2015, I went to the United States, pursuing my master degree in English education. As for my teacher certificate, I attended the training course last semester, I think I will get it in 2 or 3 months. Q: How many years have you been teaching? A: From 2008 to 2013, I worked in language training school, as a part-time teacher, I mainly taught secondary students, offering exam preparation for them. When I studied in the United States, I worked as a library assistant, helping undergraduates correcting their term papers, I also taught a reading course to non-native students. Now, I have taught English in my university for 1 year.

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Q: In the past, where did you teach? A: I worked in my university for 1 year, now, I am a teaching assistant, I guess at the end of this year, I will be promoted to a lecturer. Actually..., I am preparing for the intermediate translation certificate. After I get it, I think I would be promoted. Q: Do you teach English majors or non-English majors? A: I currently teach English majors, but I think, in the next semester, I will teach non-English majors. Er..., the teaching duties are arranged by our department. As a new teacher, I am happy to challenge myself by teaching different courses. Q: What courses did you teach? A: I mainly taught English reading. There are two types of reading courses: intensive and extensive. Both of them I taught. There is another one, let me think, er.. English and American literature, it is the one I am good at it. During my postgraduate study, I attended many literature courses, so I like this one best. I think, I also like reading, so our department will allow me to teach reading, at least I think so. Q: What courses are you going to teach next semester? A: I will teach two courses, one intensive reading for English majors, the other extensive reading for non-English majors. I guess, I will teach seven classes of students. I will have about 16 instruction hours per week. I think, the class schedule has not yet been decided, there might be some change. I am not sure whether more instruction hours will be given to me, who knows? A young teacher is expected to take more teaching duties, I think. Q: Did you attend any teaching contests so far? A: So far, I have not yet taken part in any teaching contests. Maybe in the next semester, I will take part in the school teaching contest. It is a must for new teachers, something you cannot escape. Q: what is your professional position? A: Just now, I said I am a teaching assistant. I’ve got my own career plan. That is, in 3–4  years’ time, I will work hard to get promoted to an associated professor. Afterwards, I think, I will study a doctoral program. If possible, I mean, I probably go back the United State. Currently, I keep close contact with several American professors, they often recommend me to do some reading through email. In my situation, I currently have two research interests, the first one is pedagogy, the second one, I have not yet decided whether I should show some concern, is about classroom management. Things like literature, diagnostic teaching, I also take some interest. Currently, I think, my research areas, after all, focus on teaching. Q: Have you joined any professional organizations or associations? A: You know I just came back from the United States; I have not yet joined any professional organizations. In think, the most important thing for me is to focus on my teaching. Maybe someday in the future, I will think about it, but not now. Q: Did you attend any teaching professional development programs? A: Yes, I remembered I took part in a short training session in Changsha in 2008. At that time, I worked as a part-time teacher in a training school, they sent me for an initial training in the headquarter in Changsha. I think, the training session was

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very helpful, as it is down to earth, especially useful for people who start to teach. For the whole session, the theoretical learning accounted for 20–30% while the rest amount of time was spent on practical skills, that’s, they showed you how to teach. I benefited a lot from the session, as it helped me develop some general ideas about teaching. I can say without exaggeration that it contributed to my original teaching philosophy. So far, the session still exerted great influence on my teaching, as it was practical, easy to operate, easy to apply to my teaching. I really appreciate its analysis on the teaching process. According to the theory, it divides classroom teaching into four parts. The first step is called input, students look like an empty tape, students need to download your teaching and install them in their hard disks. As for the second step, it is called practice. Students begin to operate what they download, they install the program and then operate it step by step. The third step, let me think, it is...about checking. You need to check whether they run the program smoothly or with any problems. If any problem you find with them, then you ask them to go back to the previous step, they need to reinstall, repractice, until each step is okay. The last step is called output, they run the program and produce something that belong to them. For example, the students download and run a program like Photoshop, they need to show you how they draw a picture with the program. I think it is really practical, so far, I still use it in my teaching. Q: Did you attend any conferences or meeting about teaching? A: I think I attended some of them, but I cannot remember them clearly. In my university, there are many lectures all the year round, they are either given by professors in our universities or those outside our universities. If I was free, I would like to attend some. Q: Did you attend or host any research projects? A: So far, I have not yet attended any. Maybe in the next semester I will attend one, as someone has invited me to join in. But I am thinking about it, I am not sure whether the research work would interfere with my teaching. Q: Did you have any oversea study or work experience? If so, please briefly describe it. A: Just now I said I pursued my MA degree in the United States from 2013 to 2015, I majored in English education, I took about three courses each semester, I had studied about 20 courses. What I learn from my oversea study is that I find the direction in my life, it inspires me to reflect on the differences between the China’s and Western education system. My goal is to learn as much as possible, and then bring what I have learned back to China, to see what is appropriate for my teaching, for my Chinese students. I want to experiment with these new ideas, to see which way works better to improve our classroom teaching and make our students more creative. Q: Do you have anything to add up to the interview? A: I think I have nothing more to say. Q: Thank you for attending the first interview, thanks very much. A: You are welcome, see you next time.