К.п.н. Нищимова Е.А.

Северо-Кавказский Федеральный Университет (СКФУ)

A framework for examining teachers’ knowledge and beliefs.

(from research experience of foreign scientists)

All the constructs mentioned in the literature in teacher cognition, as internal cognitive processes, are by nature unobservable and subject to being differently defined by different researchers. As yet there is little consensus on the various uses of the terms [1], and there is little to suggest that answers have been sought from philosophical studies of epistemology, or that this would necessarily be helpful. Perhaps we simply need commonly-agreed terms to enable discussion to take place aimed at understanding “what goes on in teacher’s heads” Possibly one which is sufficiently broad is “knowledge, beliefs and perceptions that shape what teachers know, and therefore what they do, in their teaching” [2]. Freeman bases this choice on his intention to “encompass the epistemological categories generally used in researching teacher education. Several authors claim that one important source of teachers’ knowledge is classroom experience – i.e. that which differentiates a novice teacher from an experienced teacher. This, many suggest, is an important source of material upon which to reflect and to shape or modify the teachers’ knowledge-beliefs-perceptions. Teacher learns from their students, and from what works and what doesn’t in particular contexts. They use this learning to adapt and modify their teaching approach.

For this study, however, focused as it is on teachers’ life experience, and less so on their ESL classroom teaching experience, these three words do not seem to allow sufficient room for discussion of teachers’ language biographical experience and how it might contribute to their “professional knowledge”.

I therefore propose that the following terms include most if not all notions encountered so far in the literature: knowledge, beliefs, and insight(s). Knowledge, as I understand, is things we “know” – conventionally accepted “facts” which we hold to have been demonstrated, or at least to be demonstrable. Beliefs, are the “acceptance of a proposition for which there is accepted disagreement”. An example of knowledge about language and language learning might be that English has articles whereas Russian does not. An example of a belief about which are differing views in the profession is that ESL students need explicit focus on grammar as well as communicative practice. The third component is insights. An insight is an understanding gained from personal experience which allows us to see how previously realities could be different, unseen before, incomprehensible. An example could be a person who has knowledge of the criminal justice system, and holds certain beliefs about crime and punishment, who visits a prison for the first time. The visit may result in insights which interact with their existing knowledge, beliefs and change, modify or reinforce them. Whether the result is alteration or reinforcement, the experience and the insights will often have some sort of effect. Knowledge may be seen in a new light, and beliefs may be strengthened or questioned. In a sociolinguistic context, a person who grows up in Russia or another country, i.e. speaking a first language other than English and encountering English for the first time at school will have different insights about language family, schooling than a person who grew up speaking English from birth. If both of those people then enroll in a TESOL course and study second language acquisition and bilingualism, we might expect the insights derived from the experiences to interact differently with the theoretical “knowledge” they gain from lectures and reading, and hence the formation of their professional “beliefs”.

There is no assumption in this argument about the “truth value” of such insights, not about whether some insights are better or worth than others, but that different experiences, in this case language experiences, will result in different insights, some richer then others. And those insights will interact with teachers’ knowledge and beliefs.

The question we need to ask then, is the following. What kind of insights about language learning, arising from what kind of experiences, might be useful to ESL teachers in the development of their professional knowledge and beliefs? We can see from language learning experiences that there is some recognition that language learning experience contributes something to the knowledge base of ESL teachers, but there is as yet no systematic investigation of what that something may be.

Knowledge and beliefs, it can be argued, often (but not always) arise directly out of formal teacher education: teachers are expected to acquire “knowledge” about phonology, syntax, bilingualism, research into motivation etc. They are also expected to develop stances, or beliefs, on propositions within language learning, for example, whether systemic functional grammar is more useful in teaching writing than traditional grammar. The development of insights may form part of a formal program, usually in the form of a structured approach to reflection on practice or reflection on prior knowledge and beliefs. The study, however, contents that insights gained from personal experience, particularly language learning experience, are of different nature from the knowledge and beliefs gained in formal teacher education, but that they interact with them. This proposition is consistent with, but expands, upon, Wallace’s [4] notion of experimental knowledge. It is also consistent with Freeman’s [3] critic of the early work in teacher cognition which emphasized teacher decision-making, wherein he asks whether the relation of teachers’ past experience to their present practices , particularly their “…storied or narrative nature…” can be adequately represented by current research focuses. In doing so he argues for the recognition of contexts of place and time as powerful influence on teachers’ thinking. Social context of time and place are crucial in shaping teacher understanding and he says that these include teachers’ life histories and professional life spans.

The field of language teacher education, then, is beginning to recognize the complex, interwoven, multi-sourced and changing nature of what teachers “know”. Researchers are agreed that classroom teaching experience is at least as influential a source of knowledge as academic training, and there is increasing attention paid to past classroom learning experience. There are calls for more investigation of teachers’ life histories, of the personal biographical and historical aspects of teaching, of practical knowledge based on teachers’ unique experiences, teachers’ rich personal and educational histories, teachers’ personal, practical knowledge, teachers’ storied, narrative histories and professional life spans, and for ethnographies of TESOL teachers to explore their “culture”. Despite all these calls for a focus on teachers’ personal experience, there is yet very little enquiry into the role of prior language learning experience.

In this article the question was discussed – if experiential knowledge is accepted as a powerful contributor to teachers’ beliefs, and if experiential knowledge includes not only that derived from classroom teaching and learning experience but also life experience, than learning experience, formal or informal, must be worthy of investigation in terms of how it influences teachers’ store of knowledge and beliefs.

It would be good to recognize that language learning experience is a powerful shaper of insights which interact with knowledge and beliefs gained by teachers from formal and informal sources.

Literature

1. Borg, S. “Review article: teacher cognition in language teaching: a review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, do.” Language Teaching 36: 81 – 109, 2003.

2. Freeman, D. “Educational linguistics and the knowledge base of language teaching”. Georgetown University Round Table on languages and Linguistics, Georgetown, Washington D.C., Georgetown University Press: 182, 1994.

3. Freeman, D. The “unstudied problem”: research on teacher learning in language teaching. In D. Freeman and J.C. Richards (eds.) Teacher learning in language teaching. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press: 363, 1996b.

4. Wallace, M. J. “Training foreign language teachers: a reflective approach. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1991.