‘Seeing is believing’: looking at EFL teachers’ beliefs through classroom interaction

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‘Seeing is believing’: looking at EFLteachers’ beliefs through classroominteractionLi Li a & Steve Walsh ba Graduate School of Education , University of Exeter , Exeter, UKb School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences ,Newcastle University , Newcastle, UKPublished online: 13 Apr 2011.

To cite this article: Li Li & Steve Walsh (2011) ‘Seeing is believing’: looking at EFLteachers’ beliefs through classroom interaction, Classroom Discourse, 2:1, 39-57, DOI:10.1080/19463014.2011.562657

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Classroom DiscourseVol. 2, No. 1, May 2011, 39–57

ISSN 1946-3014 print/ISSN 1946-3022 online© 2011 Taylor & FrancisDOI: 10.1080/19463014.2011.562657http://www.informaworld.com

‘Seeing is believing’: looking at EFL teachers’ beliefs through classroom interaction

Li Lia* and Steve Walshb

aGraduate School of Education, University of Exeter, Exeter, UK; bSchool of Education, Communication and Language Sciences, Newcastle University, Newcastle, UKTaylor and FrancisRCDI_A_562657.sgm(Final version received 31 January 2011)10.1080/19463014.2011.562657Classroom Discourse1946-3014 (print)/1946-3022 (online)Original Article2011Taylor & Francis21000000May [email protected]

This article explores the pedagogical beliefs and classroom interactions of twosecondary school English-as-a-foreign-language teachers – one novice and oneexperienced – in the People’s Republic of China. Using interview and classroomobservation data, our study depicts the teachers’ pedagogical beliefs about teachingand learning by comparing what they say about their professional practice withtheir classroom interaction. We argue that, by analysing teachers’ stated beliefs andtheir interactions while teaching, it is possible to gain a fuller understanding of thecomplex inter-relationship between what teachers say they do and believe and howthey interact with students. Our study has relevance to the growing body ofliterature on teacher cognition, and to research on classroom interaction andteacher development.

Keywords: teacher belief; interaction; Chinese; teaching; learning; culture

Introduction

Over the past 30 years, research has suggested that teachers’ beliefs heavily influencetheir pedagogical practice (for example, Borg 2003; Ng and Farrell 2003; Mangubhaiet al. 2004), their instructional decisions in the classroom (Tillema 2000), and accep-tance and uptake of new approaches, techniques and activities (Donaghue 2003). AsWilliams and Burden (1997, 57) note, ‘teachers’ deep-rooted beliefs about howlanguages are learned will pervade their classroom actions more than a particularmethodology they are told to adopt or course book they follow’. In the substantialbody of literature on teachers’ beliefs, these beliefs are often described as either statedor enacted (cf. ‘professed’ and ‘attributed’; Speer 2005), and there is considerabledisagreement as to the precise relationship between stated/professed and enacted/attributed beliefs, partly because this is a highly complex relationship and partlybecause it is dependent on other factors, such as local context.

In review of the literature of language teachers’ beliefs, around 20 studies thatcompared teachers’ beliefs with their classroom practices were identified. The majorityof these studies were conducted in contexts where English is taught as a secondlanguage; few focused on non-native speaking (NNS) teachers, the focus of the presentstudy. The lack of attention to this group may not only result in a failure to understandcurrent practices in Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL), but

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

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40 L. Li and S. Walsh

also in a failure to understand and develop English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL)teachers from those countries. In light of this research gap, our study focuses on Chineseteachers of English. Our aim is to explore NNS EFL teachers’ pedagogical beliefs byinvestigating not only what teachers believe about teaching and learning English in aninstructed language environment (their stated beliefs articulated in interviews), but alsohow they act and organise teaching and learning in classrooms (their interactions withstudents). In particular, the paper focuses on the complex interrelationships betweenteachers’ reported beliefs and their classroom interactions in Chinese secondary schools.

Teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices

It is widely accepted that beliefs generally refer to ‘suppositions, commitments, andideologies’ (Calderhead 1996, 715). While beliefs may be viewed as one of the mostvaluable psychological constructs for looking at teacher education (Mansour 2009),they are also one of the most difficult to define and investigate precisely because oftheir psychological nature. According to Pajares (1992), beliefs are a ‘messyconstruct’ for two reasons. Firstly, it is difficult to distinguish between knowledge andbeliefs. According to some researchers (see, for example, Pajares 1992; Calderhead1996), beliefs are associated with opinions and perceptions while knowledge isclosely linked to facts. In a teaching context, it is not difficult to see how this distinc-tion might break down. Secondly, understandings of teachers’ beliefs are closelylinked to the method of investigation; as with much educational research, findings areclosely linked to the research methods and instruments used.

There is a growing body of research literature which suggests that teachers’beliefs directly affect both their perceptions and judgements of teaching and learninginteractions in the classroom, resulting in a range of classroom practices (Clark andPeterson 1986; Clark and Yinger 1987). So far, a great deal of empirical evidence hasestablished the significance of beliefs for understanding teacher behaviour (seereviews by Kane, Sandretto, and Heath 2002; Borg 2006). For example, Ng andFarrell (2003) found evidence that what teachers say and do in their classrooms isgoverned by their beliefs. Similarly, Lamb (1995), looking at an in-service teachereducation programme, concluded that how teachers had interpreted ideas during andafter the course heavily affected their practices. Other studies have described incon-sistencies between teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices (for example,Farrell and Kun 2008; Phipps and Borg 2009). These discrepancies may be largelycaused by contextual factors (Borg 2006) such as an ‘inability to apply the new ideaswithin the existing parameters of syllabus, examinations, and other practicalconstraints’ (Lamb 1995, 75).

Despite the existence of a large body of research literature on teachers’ beliefs,(Borg 1998, 1999a, 1999b; Breen et al. 2001; Richards 1996; Woods 1996), therehave been only a limited number of studies on NNS EFL in-service teachers’ beliefs.For example, Yang (2000) surveyed 68 primary English teachers in Taiwan on theirbeliefs about language teaching and learning, and further compared his findings withHorwitz (1985) and Kern (1995). All three studies concluded that teachers believed itis easier for children than adults to learn a foreign language; that it is important tolisten and repeat a lot; and that practice in the language laboratory is essential.However, Yang also found that Taiwanese primary school teachers hold strong beliefsabout teaching culture while college teachers in Kern’s study were flexible and toler-ant of learners’ errors. Davis (2003) drew on the work of Lightbown and Spada (1993)

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Classroom Discourse 41

to compare teachers’ and students’ beliefs regarding aspects of language learning inMacao, China. The study found that teachers and students shared the same beliefsabout language learning resting upon ‘a common theoretical base comprised of anadmixture of behaviourism, innatism and interactionism’ (Davis 2003, 217). Thestudy reported that teachers believed that:

languages are learned mainly through imitation; students with high IQs are goodlanguage learners; when students are allowed to interact freely (for example, in pair orgroup work), they learn each other’s mistakes. (Davis 2003, 216)

Davis also demonstrated how teachers’ beliefs performed a dual function: on theone hand, teachers saw themselves as performing ‘an extension of a parental role ineducation’, while on the other they regarded themselves as powerful educators, whocan ‘make a significant difference in their students’ language competence at any age’(2003, 218). In a different context, Sato and Kleinsasser (2004) investigated thebeliefs, practices and interactions of 19 teachers in a Japanese high school Englishdepartment using interviews, observations and teachers’ documents. The studyrevealed that the teachers’ beliefs were closely tied to context, or to the school’s (tech-nical) culture – its norms and values. Norms, which teachers described as ‘managingstudents and various task assignments’ and ‘keeping pace with other teachers’, guidednot only what they taught, but how they taught (Sato and Kleinsasser 2004, 811).These understandings helped develop teachers’ beliefs about teaching ‘the same wayfor the common test and to maintain classroom management’ (Sato and Kleinsasser2004). Due to the emphasis on grammar-oriented tests, the English language teachersin this department held tightly to their beliefs about grammar, translation and the yaku-doku (grammar translation) method. This study, together with other research, suggeststhat language teachers’ behaviour is certainly linked very closely to their social,cultural and institutional context (Burns and Knox 2005; Li 2008).

Teachers, as Borg (2003, 81) notes, are ‘active, thinking decision-makers whomake instructional choices by drawing on complex, practically-oriented, personalized,and context-sensitive networks of knowledge, thoughts, and beliefs’. Understandinglanguage teachers’ beliefs cannot be achieved by simple recourse to what they say ordo at face value. Rather, a deep understanding is needed of the complex interplaybetween personal beliefs and context-specific actions as depicted through classroominteraction. In our review of the literature, we found few studies that considered class-room interactional processes, something we regard as being crucial in order to estab-lish teachers’ understanding about pedagogy, learners, themselves and the subjectmatter. This is the precise gap we intend to fill in the present study: in order tocompare what teachers say they believe with what they actually do while teaching,there is a need, we suggest, to focus on their classroom interactions. By focusing oninteraction, our research has the potential, at least, to link self-report data with actualclassroom behaviour. Since interaction lies at the very heart of that behaviour, there isa very strong case for studying it.

Teachers’ beliefs and classroom interaction

According to Ellis (1998, 145), an ‘internal’ perspective of the second-languageclassroom views teaching as a ‘series of interactional events’. Any understanding ofthese ‘events’ should focus on the turn-taking and exchange structures in operation

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and pay attention to the collaborative nature of the discourse. Understanding the waysin which classroom talk is ‘accomplished’ (Mehan 1979) is crucial to an understand-ing of the role of interaction in second-language acquisition. Put simply, an under-standing of classroom interaction lies at the very heart of an understanding oflearning and teaching.

What, then, can we learn about teachers’ beliefs by looking at their interactions inclass? Why use interaction as a lens to study beliefs? Several reasons can be advo-cated. First, and according to van Lier (1996, 5), ‘interaction is the most importantelement in the curriculum’; a position that is echoed by Ellis (2000, 209; originalemphasis), who claims ‘learning arises not through interaction, but in interaction’. Atfirst sight, this position only adds to the argument for studying interaction, not forusing interaction to study beliefs. Yet as we have already seen (see above), most ofthe key constructs which make up teachers’ beliefs centre on interaction: teaching,learning and learners, subject matter, professional development, the teacher – allrequire interaction if they are to be understood fully. Understandings about teachers’beliefs must acknowledge the importance of interaction given that interaction lies atthe very heart of teaching, learning, and professional development.

A second reason for using interaction to study beliefs rests on the notion that goodpractice lies at the heart of most teachers’ beliefs. Teachers are concerned in anydialogue about their beliefs to relate their own practices to what is acclaimed as goodpractice in the field (Li 2008). The decisions taken by teachers are important as gooddecisions are those that facilitate learning opportunities. The ability to make the ‘rightdecision’ entails an understanding of teaching and learning, teacher and learners’ rolesand the subject matter, which in turn is directly influenced by their beliefs.

A third, and related, reason for choosing interaction as a means of understandingbeliefs is that the obvious starting-point for discussing beliefs is the local context inwhich teachers work. One way in which teachers can articulate their beliefs is byunderstanding the practices in their classroom context. By looking at how teachersinteract with their students, we can possibly understand how teachers’ beliefs directtheir interactions, and vice versa.

There are, then, at least three reasons for studying teachers’ beliefs through a class-room interaction lens. First, classroom interaction provides evidence of the learningthat takes place; second, it casts light on teachers’ practices, which are, arguably,influenced by their beliefs; and third, a focus on interaction gives teachers insights intotheir own local contexts, which both shape and are shaped by their belief system.

The study

Context

The study was conducted in two Chinese secondary state schools in Beijing. The twoparticipating teachers were volunteers in a larger project, and data used in this studywere collected between 2005 and 2006. In the larger study, the research focus was onteachers’ pedagogical beliefs about teaching and learning, the teacher and the learner,and the subject matter. Here, we focus only on two teachers’ beliefs about teachingand learning. These two teachers have been assigned pseudonyms, Li Fang and DaXin.

Li Fang was teaching junior high school students in an Ordinary School.1 Accord-ing to her, she was an inexperienced teacher because she had only started teaching twoyears previously when she graduated from a teacher education college in a southern

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city and obtained a teaching position in Beijing. She had two classes with over 90students in total. She was very keen to develop herself as a respected teacher andattended professional development activities every week organised by the DistrictEducation Bureau.2 The school encouraged teaching reform and recently invested ina large number of computers for teaching. All classrooms were equipped with acomputer and a white board. The school also has CCTV in each classroom so that theprincipal can monitor each class at any time.

In the classroom observation data presented in this article, Li Fang is teaching aclass of junior high school students, aged 13–14 and of intermediate language ability.The lesson presented for analysis is typical for this class, follows the course-bookclosely and makes use of a mixture of oral and written exercises. Most of the teachingis in ‘lockstep’, with the class working together as one group and limited use of pairand group work. The topic of the lesson is Martin Luther King and her pedagogicfocus is listening and writing skills development.

Compared with Li Fang, Da Xin is a very experienced EFL teacher, with 22 years’teaching experience. He was teaching Senior 1 in a District Key School.3 He was thedirector of the EFL section of his school and also the lead teacher4 in the district. Hehad a lot of experience in designing test papers and in training and mentoring newteachers. It would be fair to say that he had experienced a considerable amount ofreform and innovation since becoming an EFL teacher.

In the lesson presented in this paper, Da Xin is teaching a group of senior highschool students, aged 15–16 and of intermediate language ability. The topic of thelesson is the play The necklace by Guy de Maupassant, which the class have read insummary. The main pedagogic focus is oral fluency practice around the topic of theplay.

Research questions

To recap, the focus of this study is teachers’ pedagogical beliefs about teaching andlearning. We are particularly interested in the complex inter-relationship between theirstated beliefs and their interactions with students. The study addresses the followingresearch questions:

● What are these Chinese EFL teachers’ pedagogical beliefs about teaching andlearning?

● In what ways are the teachers’ stated beliefs related, if at all, to their classroompractices?

Data collection

A qualitative case study was chosen as the best approach to investigate teachers’beliefs and the interrelationships between pedagogical beliefs, classroom interactionand professional practices, which allows different methods to seek in-depth under-standing of some social phenomenon, especially when such understanding encom-passed important contextual conditions (Yin and Davis 2007). The data used in thestudy are taken from a video-recording of one lesson followed by a semi-structuredinterview with each teacher (see Appendix 1 for interview guidelines). In order toprovide a clear focus for reflection and discussion, classroom observations took placebefore individual interviews. Classroom observations were video-recorded, with the

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main focus on the teacher and the classroom activity, rather than on individualstudents. Each lesson lasted between 40 and 45 minutes. These recordings were thentranscribed (see Appendix 2 for transcription conventions).

Semi-structured interviews were employed, each lasting around 60 minutes,beginning with general questions about the observed session, and then moving tomore structured questions following the interview template (see Appendix 1). Teach-ers were encouraged to reflect upon their own practice and relate it to underlyingtheory. Individual interviews were fully transcribed and checked by the intervieweesto make sure their views were not misunderstood or misinterpreted (Lincoln andGuba 1985).

Data analysis

Our data are drawn from two sources. Firstly, transcribed interview data were analy-sed using content analysis, and four main themes were identified: beliefs about teach-ing, about learning, about teachers and learners, and about the language itself; themesthat, incidentally, appear very frequently in the literature reviewed (see, for example,Calderhead 1995). In this article, our focus is on teachers’ beliefs about teaching andlearning.

Secondly, video-recordings of the two teachers were transcribed, using a discourseanalytic approach. Discourse analysis is the study of spoken or written texts. Its focusis on words and utterances above the level of sentence and its main aim is to look atthe ways in which words and phrases function in context. Perhaps the earliest andmost well-known proponents of discourse analysis are Sinclair and Coulthard (1975),whose observation that most classroom discourse follows an initiation–response–feedback/evaluation (IR(F/E)) structure is still highly relevant to the study of class-room discourse today. For every move made by a student, teachers typically maketwo; for example:

I (Initiation) T: what’s the past tense of go?R (Response) S: wentF/E (Feedback/Evaluation) T: went, excellent.

In the present study, videotaped data were transcribed (see Appendix 2 fortranscription conventions) and analysed from a discourse analytic perspective. Ouraim was to uncover the ways in which the participating teachers interacted with theirstudents and to compare these interactions with their interview comments. Unlike themore micro-analytic perspective offered by conversation analysis, our main concernhere was to offer a broad description of classroom interactions, which could then becompared with the interview data. The analysis that follows, therefore, is intended tohelp us offer insights into the complex inter-relationship between teachers’ statedbeliefs and their interactions with students, rather than to uncover every detail of thoseinteractions.

Teachers’ stated beliefs (from the interview data) and their interactions with students(from the classroom observation data) were compared as a means of gaining insightsinto the complex relationship between what teachers report as belief and theirinteractions while teaching. Put differently, this procedure allowed us to compare whatteachers say they do while teaching with what they actually do as evidenced in theirinteractions. The procedures used in this study also provided us with an opportunity

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to reflect on the extent to which classroom interaction data can enhance understandingsof teachers’ beliefs.

Findings

In the findings, we present the stated beliefs of teachers, as expressed in interview, andcompare these comments with extracts from the classroom transcripts. In the presen-tation of our findings, we first deal with each teacher in turn and then make someobservations and comparisons about both teachers. Findings are presented accordingto themes emerging from the interviews and relate to teachers’ beliefs about vocabu-lary teaching and beliefs about oral communication in the classroom.

Li Fang

The classroom excerpts presented below are taken from a listening and writing class,based on the story of Martin Luther King. In Excerpt 1, Li Fang explains her beliefsabout language teaching:

Excerpt 1

Students’ attitudes towards learning English and learning decides (sic) my belief oflanguage teaching. Students think they learn from me because I talk all the time and tellthem something all the time. I don’t have a choice but do this in order to let students seethey are learning because they think their scores reflect whether their English isimproved or not.

From the interview data, it is apparent that she makes a strong connection betweenlearning and teaching, viewing her own approach to teaching as being closely relatedto students’ beliefs about learning English (‘Students’ attitudes towards learningEnglish and learning decides my belief of language teaching’). Although we do notknow how she has found out about the beliefs of her students, she claims to beresponding to what her students believe and teaches according to this knowledge(‘Students think they learn from me because I talk all the time and tell them somethingall the time’). Interestingly, Li Fang seems to be stressing the idea that learning takesplace when she dominates the interaction (‘I talk all the time’). She goes on to explainher position, arguing that students can gauge their progress more accurately if she letsthem ‘see they are learning’. What Li Fang appears to be suggesting here is that herown talk is important to the learning which takes place, and that her learners learnfrom her when she talks a lot.

There is further evidence of this position in Excerpt 2a:

Excerpt 2a

I am more dominant in class, because the students are weak, they will keep silent if youorganize them to do group work or pair work. They don’t want to participate the activity(sic) either because it is not the content of the exams. Also students are weak, so in classI have to help them with word pronunciation and spelling, otherwise they will fallbehind.

Li Fang here suggests why it is necessary for her to take the lead and how this helpsher students who are ‘unwilling’ to take part in any whole class teaching. It is interesting

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to note that, for Li Fang, being dominant is not necessarily a ‘bad thing’. She justifiesthe need to dominate the interaction on the grounds that her students are ‘weak’ andstay silent when asked to work in pairs or groups. She goes on to explain that studentsonly focus when something is going to be examined.

Turning now to Li Fang’s interactions with students, the Excerpt (2b) is takenfrom halfway through the lesson. After reading aloud the new vocabulary and theinstructions for the listening activity (a gap-fill), Li Fang checks the answers withstudents. The importance she attaches to the teaching and learning of vocabularycomes out quite clearly here. She highlights the word ‘ring’, focusing first on itsspelling (line 5), then on its English meaning (line 6), and finally on its Chineseequivalent (line 9).

Excerpt 2b

1 T now the second one is er=2 L1 =((xxx))=3 T =Wei Wang louder4 L1 ((xxx))5 T that freedom(.) ring ring can you spell it (.) R I N G what’s6 the meaning of it ring R I N G (.) sorry ok the whole class7 can you tell me what’s the meaning of ring RI N G (2) the8 cord (?) is ringing the cord is ringing (2) do you know the9 word (2) the cor is ringing (translation) ok

(translation)

Li Fang, in Excerpt 2b, is concerned to help students with pronunciation and spell-ing. Her elicitation request in line 1 is met with an inaudible response from Student 1in line 2 and again in line 4. In the teacher’s extended turn (lines 5–9), she introducesthe word ring, first pronouncing it, then spelling it (line 5), checking meaning (line 6),giving an example (line 8) and finally translating it into Chinese (in line 9). Through-out this extract, there is evidence of extended wait time, pauses of two seconds wherethe teacher is waiting for a response from students (in lines 7, 8 and 9). Li Fang’s‘dominance in class’ highlighted in the interview data (see Excerpt 2a) is clearlyexemplified in her interactions with students. She dominates the discourse by makingfrequent use of teacher echo: repeating the word ‘ring’, repeating the spelling of thesame word, repeating her example ‘the cord is ringing’, and repeating her translationof the word.

Her stated beliefs about vocabulary teaching and her actual practice (in Excerpt2(b)) correlate very closely. Student involvement is minimal, her domination istotal, exemplifying the idea of ‘teacher as model’. Her classroom practice isentirely congruent with her stated belief about the need to control patterns ofcommunication and dominate the discourse (see Excerpt 1). Clearly, while statedbelief and actual practice do coincide in this extract, there might be some questionabout the extent to which this is desirable: to what extent should students beexcluded from the interaction by a teacher who believes that she should dominatethe discourse?

Li Fang’s interest in vocabulary is a recurring theme in the classroom data analy-sed here. It is something that she mentions on more than one occasion in the interviewdata. Consider, for example, the following extracts, where an extract from the inter-view data (Excerpt 3a) is followed by an extract of classroom data (Excerpt 3b):

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Excerpt 3a

I think vocabulary is quite important because they are like the bricks to the building.Once they have enough vocabulary, they could express themselves.

In Excerpt 3(a), Li Fang comments on the importance of vocabulary (the bricks to thebuilding) and indicates that vocabulary learning should not only take priority, but it isthe key to successful language learning (‘Once they have enough vocabulary, theycould express themselves’). In the same way that a building is constructed brick bybrick, Li Fang seems to be suggesting here that learning a second-language is equallyincremental: once learners have learnt enough words, they can start to use the language.

Her stated beliefs are borne out strikingly in Excerpt 3(b), taken from the begin-ning of the lesson. After a brief introduction about who Martin Luther King was, LiFang begins the lesson by going over new vocabulary. She asks students to repeat afterthe tape, focusing on pronunciation and spelling.

Excerpt 3b

1 T First er we should er read the new words read the new2 words ok now the whole class er just er take out your3 books (3) turn to page 168 168 let’s read the new words4 of unit 14 unit 14 first let’s go over the new words then it5 will help you to er listen to my er to have the class to6 have the new class ok (8 plays tape) just follow7 the tape to read the new words pay attention to the (0.4)8 pronunciation and spelling of the new words °ok°

Here, the classroom data illustrate very clearly that, even in a lesson whose main focusis listening and writing, Li Fang places great importance on the learning of new words.Her metaphor of ‘building bricks’ is brought out in the transcript: ‘first let’s go overthe new words then it will help you to er listen’. Extending her metaphor a littlefurther, there also seems to be an assumption that the new words must be learnt firstto provide the foundation to the ‘building’, here a listening activity. By learning thenew words, there is an implication that listening will be easier. It is also interesting tonote that Li Fang’s ideas about ‘learning’ vocabulary centre very much on spellingand pronunciation (‘pay attention to the pronunciation and spelling of the new wordsok’), while there are many other aspects of ‘knowing’ a word: knowing how it collo-cates, knowing its form, knowing related words, and so on.

Excerpt 3(b) is typical of the kind of instructional language found in what can betermed managerial mode (Walsh 2006). In this classroom micro-context, the teacher’sgoal is to locate learning in time and space and to focus attention on a particular activ-ity. In the data, there are no less than six repetitions of the phrase ‘new words’, high-lighting this teacher’s insistence of the need to check vocabulary before doing anyskills work. Pauses are relatively infrequent and are accompanied by actions (takingout books in line 3 and playing the tape in line 6). The teacher holds the floor and onlyhands over to learners at the end of the extract, marked by the softly uttered discoursemarker ‘ok’.

In addition to highlighting the importance of vocabulary, Li Fang also commentson its difficulty for learners. In Excerpt 4a, she emphasises in the interview the factthat vocabulary is ‘the most difficult part’ and the fact that ‘they [learners] always findit difficult’.

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Excerpt 4a

Vocabulary is the most difficult part because they always find it difficult to memorizethe words and the usage. I don’t think there is a way to solve this problem except moreexercises and clear explanation.

Li Fang provides further evidence of her beliefs about vocabulary learning and teach-ing when she refers to the difficulty learners face in memorising new words and inknowing how to use them. She goes on, in Excerpt 4a, to suggest a solution to thisproblem: ‘more exercises and clear explanation’.

When we compare this stated belief with her interactions with students, we seeonce again that Li Fang spends some time dealing with the meanings of key vocabu-lary. In Excerpt 4b, taken from the same class on Martin Luther King, the teacher firstgoes over new words and then displays PowerPoint slides giving further information.While students read the text on the slide, Li Fang explained and checked the meaningsof key vocabulary:

Excerpt 4b

1 T Do you know action ACT is the verb action is the noun for2 act is the noun ok of do you know ACTion action act is the3 verb verb what does it mean act4 L1 ((xxx))5 T louder you don’t have to be shy (1.0) ok Mei Lin, do you6 know action7 L1 ((Chinese translation))8 T ((translation)) OK how about its noun form 9 ((translation of the question))?10 L1 ((Chinese translation of actor))11 T ((Chinese translation of actor)). ((Chinese12 translation of action))? Act actor actress it’s 13 ((translation of actress)) here is ((asking a14 question in Chinese)) what organise his first actions 15 ((translation of the16 question as well as the answer))

In Excerpt 4(b), the teacher launches the topic in line 1, focusing attention on theword ‘act’ and attempting to elicit its meaning in the display question (a question towhich the teacher already knows the answer) in line 3. Following an inaudibleresponse in line 4, and a one-second pause, the teacher nominates a student in line 5.The IRF sequence which follows (lines 5–8) is repeated in lines 8–11, with the teacherinitiating a response (lines 5 and 8), the student responding (lines 7 and 10) and theteacher offering an evaluation or feedback on that response (lines 8 and 11). It is strik-ing too that the code-switch initiated by the student in line 7 is taken up by the teacherand extended in subsequent turns (lines 8 and 11–15). There is progressively greateruse of Chinese through the extract, with the teacher using more and more L1, eventhough the switch was initiated by the student.

In terms of Li Fang’s beliefs about vocabulary teaching, we can again see conver-gence between her stated and enacted beliefs. In Excerpt 4(a) she comments on acommon problem that she encounters in her teaching (‘they always find it difficult tomemorize the words and the usage’), and then goes on to describe her strategy fordealing with the problem (‘more exercises and clear explanation’). In the classroom

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interaction in Excerpt 4(b), we see Li Fang using the different forms of the word ‘act’to teach its meaning. Her explanation focuses very much on the forms (act, actor,actress, action) of the word, while to explain the different meanings Li Fang uses aChinese translation. Excerpt 4(b) opens with an elicitation of the meaning of the wordaction. Stressing the word act, Li Fang attempts to demonstrate the connectionbetween the verb act and the noun action. Her question do you know is repeated (inlines 1 and 2), but fails to elicit any response. She eventually elicits a response byasking a modified question what does it mean act (in line 3). The student’s responseis undecipherable and apparently inaudible to the teacher who asks for a repetition inline 5. The one-second pause and nomination strategy in line 5 result in the samestudent offering a Chinese translation of the word act (in line 7). Later in the sameclass, we again see how Li Fang highlights the importance of vocabulary and stressesthe need for learners to pay attention to spelling and pronunciation.

From the extracts examined here, and indeed across the interview and observationdata, Li Fang consistently demonstrates that her stated beliefs and classroom practicesare aligned: that is, what she believes is what she does, and vice versa. We can saythat her spoken, stated beliefs and her professional actions correspond very closelyindeed. There is congruence between the words used to express her beliefs and heractions, expressed through interactions with her students.

We now turn our attention to the second teacher, Da Xin.

Da Xin

When analysing the interview data for Da Xin, a number of commonly occurringthemes emerge, broadly related to oral communication in the classroom. Thecomments below offer several insights into this teacher’s beliefs about what languageis and how it should be taught:

Excerpt 5

(a) So in my teaching, I try hard to let them accept my belief that communication goesfirst and language is not only a subject but a media you go into another community.

(b) Learning focus first should be developing communicative skills, and second shouldbe developing cognitive skills, like thinking and analyzing skills. I personally don’tagree that learning should be viewed as a knowledge acquiring process.

Several themes emerge from these interview comments. First, Da Xin regardslanguage as being more than a subject for academic study; according to him, the mostimportant thing is that language is used for communication. By studying a second-language, he seems to be suggesting that learners are able to access another culture(‘you go into another community’). Second, Da Xin sees learning, in the first instance,as being about the acquisition of skills rather than knowledge. When we consider ateaching episode, we can gain further insights into this teacher’s stated beliefs. InExcerpt 6, students have just finished reading the play The necklace by Guy deMaupassant. In this 45-minute lesson, students have spent some time learning aboutthe play through PowerPoint slides, reading, and watching a video-clip of the play. Inthe last 15 minutes of the class, the teacher Da Xin asks each student to stand in turnand relate, in their own words, the sequence of events that make up the story. As thestudents seem to have some difficulties in retelling the story, the teacher probes anduses questions to try to elicit the main events.

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Excerpt 6

1 T Ok I have a question why WHY ((gestures student to stand))2 why didn’t she Mathilde I mean have er a diamond necklace (3)3 L1 °because she was not rich°4 T it’s very important she was not rich go on ((gestures for another5 student to stand))6 L2 on the way [home]7 T [on on] her way home did she did she take part in8 the PArty did she take part in the BALL or in the party (.) did9 she take part in the ball or in the party (.) yes or no10 L2 yes (nods)11 T so tells us tell us something about party (.) do you think ↑so?12 L2 er in the play er he:: he:: he may has pretty=13 T =she might have been pretty at that day er at that night ok on14 that night and then and did she have a very good time (.) did15 she have a very good time at the party in the party ok yes ok16 she had a very good time (.) and her husband=17 L2 =and they have a very good time=18 T =they had a very good time ok sit down go on that’s all go on19 L3 but on her way home=20 T =on her way home on THEIR way home21 L3 oh oh oh on their way home he find the the diamond necklace22 was not around her neck=23 T =good thank you

Throughout this extract it is apparent that Da Xin is attempting to get students to usetheir own words to recount the details of the story, stopping them when he is not satis-fied with a response. In line 2, for example, his request for clarification followed by athree-second pause alludes to a piece of key information that is currently missing. Theresponse ‘because she is not rich’, is eventually provided by Student 1 in line 3, saidsoftly. A similar sequence occurs in lines 4–17 where the teacher offers an assessmentof the student’s contribution in line 7 (did she take part in the party?), which serves toboth highlight to the student that something is wrong with his response and indicatesthe need to tell a story in the right sequence order. The question is repeated three timesin lines 7–9, with the teacher finally clarifying for Student 2 that a simple ‘yes/no’ willsuffice as a response.

In line 12, we see Student 2 struggling to express himself and explain whathappened at the party; in line 13, L2 is interrupted by the teacher, who then asksanother prompt question (‘did she have a very good time?’), which is answered by DaXin in line 15. The combined prompt question and modelled self-response (‘she hada very good time’) followed by the mention of her husband eventually result in thestudent’s response in line 17, Essentially, this act of communication is simply a repe-tition of what the teacher has been offering all along. It is corrected in line 18 (‘theyhad a very good time’).

The floor is now handed to Student 3, who takes up the story in line 19 and isimmediately corrected in line 20 (‘on THEIR way home’). His contribution in lines21 and 22 is finally met with approval by Da Xin in line 23, even though there wereobvious errors which this teacher might have corrected on another occasion.

From the data presented here, it seems that this teacher’s prime objective is topromote oral communication, confirming his belief that communication goes first (seeExcerpt 5a). It would be unfair to dispute the fact that a lot of interactional work takesplace in Excerpt 6 in order to elicit, clarify, provide missing information, and so on.

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Da Xin does a lot of interactional work to ensure that students provide completeresponses and do not omit key details. However, when we look more closely at theinteraction, we are able to make a number of observations about the precise nature ofthe communication. In particular, we see that this teacher has very specific answerswhich he is trying to elicit:

● whether Mathilde is rich or not (line 3)● information about the party (lines 7–12)● levels of enjoyment (lines 13–18)● what happened on the way home (lines 19–22)

Patterns of communication throughout this extract follow very closely the three-part elicitation script where teacher initiates (I), students respond (R) and teacher givesfeedback (F):

I T why didn’t she Mathilde I mean have er a diamond necklace (3)?R L1 °because she was not rich°F T it’s very important she was not rich

Essentially, what the students are doing is responding to prompts from the teacher,who has preconceived notions of what constitutes a ‘correct’ response. Apart from theopen-ended question in line 2 (‘why didn’t she have a diamond necklace?’), theremaining questions are of a closed variety, capable of only producing yes/noresponses from the students. So in lines 7–9 we have the question ‘did she take part inthe party’, repeated three times, while in lines 13–16 we have the question ‘did shehave a good time’, again repeated. Finally, in line 15 the teacher answers his ownquestion: ‘yes ok she had a very good time’. For their part, learners typically eitherecho the words of the teacher or respond to his prompts, as evidenced in the followingstudent turns taken from Excerpt 6:

3 L1 °because she was not rich°17 L2 =and she have a very good time=21 L3 oh oh oh on their way home he find the the diamond necklace

In order to understand the relationship between this teacher’s stated beliefs and hisinteractions in class, we would clearly need to know much more about what he meansby ‘oral communication’. In Excerpt 6, for example, the teacher’s pedagogic goalsmight be to quickly check understanding of the text, in which case his interruptionsmight be deemed appropriate. In line 7, for example, he completes the turn of L2 (indi-cated by the overlap [ ]), who up until that point was holding the floor; similarly, inline 13, he interrupts L2 (indicated by the latched turn), a strategy that is repeated inlines 18, 20 and 23. What this highlights is that stated beliefs can only be interpretedin relation to specific contexts and specific pedagogic goals. Our understandings ofbeliefs about ‘oral communication’ require additional data such as statements aboutspecific pedagogic goals and classroom interaction data.

There is evidence too in Excerpt 6 that students are capable of more sophisticatedresponses, greater spontaneity and topic development, all features of naturally occur-ring communication. In line 3, for example, L1 is able to reply to the teacher’s openquestion ‘why did Mathilde not have a necklace’ with a perfectly appropriateresponse: ‘because she was not rich’. In line 6, L2 is prevented from developing his

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opening topic (‘on the way home’) by the teacher’s interruption in line 7. Similarly,in line 12 the same student is unable to retain his turn. After two false starts and theuse of Chinese, the teacher seizes the floor in line 13, preferring to model what L2should say (‘she had a very good time’), rather than allowing the student to ‘struggle’and produce his own answer. Student 3 produces the longest, most elaborate responsein lines 21 and 22, but even this is interrupted in line 20 by the teacher’s direct, other-initiated repair: ‘=on her way home on THEIR way home’.

From the classroom interaction extracts and interview data, it is apparent that therelationship between Da Xin’s classroom interaction and his interview comments ismore complex and less ‘linear’ than in the case of Li Fang. While his classroomactions do not always appear to coincide with his stated beliefs, it may be the case thatlocal contextual factors have a role to play here. Da Xin’s interest in oral communica-tion is evident, although a more precise definition of what is meant by that would beneeded in order to fully understand his classroom actions.

Discussion

In this article we have looked at the beliefs of two teachers, first by analysing inter-view data and then by looking at their interactions with students. Our findings demon-strate how the many complex beliefs held by teachers can be studied both by analysingwhat they say about their beliefs and by looking at their interactions in class. By focus-ing on this complex inter-relationship between stated beliefs and actions while teach-ing, we offer not only finer-grained understandings of teachers’ beliefs, but thepotential to problematise more fully the relationship between professed and attributedbeliefs (cf. Speer 2005).

Rather than there being a single, straightforward and linear relationship betweenstated and enacted beliefs, the picture is much more complicated. For both teachers,this relationship is complex and personal and closely related to contextual factors, afinding that coincides with other teacher cognition research (Li 2008; Borg 2006; Satoand Kleinsasser 2004). In the case of Li Fang, some of these contextual factors werealluded to in the interview data, including students’ attitudes (Excerpt 1); desiredstudents’ language level and the importance of examinations (Excerpt 2); her under-standing (maybe experience) of learning English (Excerpt 3); and her observation onstudents’ learning (Excerpt 4). Similar phenomena have been widely noted in the liter-ature (for example, Andrews 2003; Burns and Knox 2005). It is also worth noting thatLi Fang demonstrated a strong sense of the importance of vocabulary in languagelearning and teaching, and learning by listening to the teacher – as evidenced by thefact that she both comments on and practises her need to dominate the discourse whileteaching.

In the case of Da Xin, there is evidence too that his professed beliefs were enactedin his interactions with students, although in this case more information is neededconcerning what is meant by oral communication. It is apparent that his enactedbeliefs are fine-tuned by the local context and by micro-contexts that bring togetherpedagogic goals and the language used to realise them. Again, rather than there beinga one-to-one relationship between stated and enacted beliefs, his interactions withstudents appeared to be much more closely guided by local, contextual issues. Da Xin,while focusing on oral communication with his students, does so in a very controlledand ‘managed’ way – they respond largely to his prompts and guiding questions. Thiscould be due to the local context, where large class sizes, shy students who have little

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opportunity to practise, examination pressure, and so forth, all play a huge part ininfluencing classroom practices.

From the limited data presented here, it is apparent that teachers’ beliefs and theirclassroom practices exist in a complex and complicated relationship that can be inves-tigated. We argue that teacher belief and classroom practice exist in a ‘symbiotic rela-tionship’: beliefs are both shaped by and shape ensuing interactions (Foss andKleinsasser 1996, 441). This is illustrated in both classrooms: Li Fang’s stated beliefsof the primacy of vocabulary appeared to strongly influence her teaching and the waysin which she interacted with her students, focusing, for example, on knowing themeaning, pronunciation and form of new words. Likewise, her practice of going overnew words took up quite a big chunk of her lesson and suggests that she attachesimportance to this activity. Similarly, we can see how Da Xin’s beliefs about theprimacy of ‘oral communication skills’ is reflected in his attempted ‘conversations’with his students and his ‘control’ in clearly demonstrated IRF patterns. His extensiveuse of IRF may reveal something about Da Xin’s beliefs about learning; a suggestion,perhaps, that for him IRF is central to learning.

In the present study, it may be the case that beliefs are strongly determined bydifferences in teaching experience, an observation that coincides with previousresearch (see, for example, Allen 2002; Flores 2001). Novice teachers are moreconcerned with student behaviour and reactions to them rather than with pedagogicalprocedures and learning outcomes, while experienced teachers are more concernedwith language management (for example, Gatbonton 2008), which this study does notfully support.

What our findings demonstrate quite clearly is that there is considerable value incollecting data from different sources when examining teachers’ beliefs. The value ofcollecting both interview and classroom data lies not in the extent to which the twodatasets converge or diverge, but in the ways in which they highlight the complexityof the relationship between stated beliefs and classroom practices. Had we notcollected both sets of data, we would have had a less clear idea about both teachers’beliefs and their practices.

Conclusion

This article, focusing on two EFL teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices, offers away of trying to access the complexities of teachers’ beliefs through a study of theirclassroom interaction in an EFL context. Our study suggests that a research meth-odology that combines interview and classroom data is more capable of showingthe very important relationship between stated beliefs and interaction. We arguethat beliefs – central as they are to an understanding of professional practice –cannot be fully understood when considered in isolation by using, for example,interview or questionnaire data alone. By considering what teachers say along withwhat they do, by examining their stated beliefs alongside their interactions, wepropose that it is possible not only to gain a fuller understanding of the relationshipbetween beliefs and practices, but also to consider the extent to which beliefs andclassroom interactions converge or diverge. By adopting this methodology, weargue that a teacher’s stated beliefs and classroom practices can be tracked moreeasily and more accurately.

This study points to the need for further research that offers insights into the class-room practices of TESOL teachers and the relationship between those practices and

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the teachers’ own beliefs. Given the power of beliefs and their consequence for bothteaching and learning, there is clearly scope for future studies that endeavour to offerunderstandings of beliefs from different perspectives by, for example, using interviewand classroom observation data. By comparing statements about beliefs with class-room practices, it is possible to extend the methodology used in this study to otherareas of beliefs research. For example, it would be possible to consider how differentbeliefs interact in the process of teaching and learning, and the extent to which beliefsshape or influence that process. It would also be possible to address questions like: towhat extent are beliefs shaped and changed by the teaching and learning process andhow far is this a symbiotic relationship? How do interactions with different groups ofstudents affect what teachers think and believe? And, from a teacher developmentperspective, how might teachers’ behaviours be changed by improving understand-ings of the inter-relationship between beliefs and interactions, interactions andbeliefs?

Finally, if effective teaching is, at least in part, about making good decisions, deci-sions that have a positive impact on learners and learning, then there is a need to helpteachers make good decisions, decisions that are ‘acquisition rich’ (Ellis 1998). Suchdecisions, made in the course of teaching, are often based on a teacher’s beliefs. Assuch, there is a strong and compelling need to look more closely at the relationshipbetween stated beliefs and decisions made while teaching (by studying interactions inclass) as a means of promoting fuller, more in-depth understandings about teachingand learning.

AcknowledgementsThe authors gratefully acknowledge the generosity of the EFL teachers and students who tookpart in this study and the anonymous reviewers of Classroom Discourse for their constructivecomments on the initial draft.

Notes1. Government-funded secondary schools in Beijing are categorised as the following types:

City Key School, District Key School and Ordinary School, primarily based on aschool’s history, reputation and student academic achievement as shown in the majortests; for example, National College Entrance Examination. City Key Schools arepreferred by parents and students for their better resources, more experienced teachersand so on; it is really competitive to gain a place in these schools. District Key Schoolsare not as good as City Key Schools; however, they are well-regarded by parents andsociety. These schools enjoy good reputations in academic achievements, facilities,resources and support. Ordinary Schools are those with average academic results;students are less competitive in academic work and resources are not as advanced asCity Key Schools. More importantly, usually these schools face difficulties in keepingreally good teachers.

2. There are 19 districts in Beijing and each district has its own local educational author-ity that is responsible for weekly teacher professional development activities and testorganisation.

3. See note 1.4. Some very experienced teachers are nominated by their schools to local educational author-

ity as lead teachers based on their merits of academic expertise, their student academicachievements, their qualifications, experiences and sometimes research profiles. Theseteachers are supposed to be innovative and up-to-date with teaching methodology. One oftheir designated responsibilities is to support inexperienced teachers by setting a goodexample.

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Notes on contributorsLi Li is lecturer and director of MEd in TESOL in the Graduate School of Education, Univer-sity of Exeter. Her research interests include new technologies in language classrooms,language teacher cognition and identity, classroom discourse and sociocultural theory inlanguage learning.

Steve Walsh is senior lecturer in applied linguistics and TESOL and postgraduate researchdirector in the School of Education, Communication and Language Sciences at NewcastleUniversity. He has been involved in English language teaching for more than 20 years and hasworked in a range of overseas contexts, including Hong Kong, Spain, Hungary, Poland andChina. His research interests include classroom discourse, teacher development, secondlanguage teacher education, educational linguistics and analysing spoken interaction. He haspublished extensively in these areas and is the editor of the journal Classroom Discoursepublished by Routledge.

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Appendix 1. Interview guidelines

1. General reflection upon the session (student levels, materials, textbooks, any commentsteachers would like to make on their teaching)

2. Guidelines to teaching (how and why a certain activity was planned and organised; whatfactors affect their teaching planning and activity design; any particular principles theyfollow)

3. Understanding about EFL teaching in China (policy, curriculum, testing system, text-books)

4. Class organisation (teacher/learner role) (how pair work, group work, individual work areorganised)

5. A good language teacher (knowledge, skills, personality)6. Important and difficult parts in teaching (e.g. grammar, language points, skills for commu-

nication)

Appendix 2. Transcription conventions

T: – teacherL: – learner (not identified)L1: L2: etc, – identified learnerLL: – several learners at once or the whole class/ok/ok/ok/ – overlapping or simultaneous utterances

by more than one learner[do you understand?][I see] – overlap between teacher and learner= – turn latching: one turn follows

another without any pause.… – pause of one second or less marked by

three periods.(4.0/0.4) – silence; length given in seconds

or micro-seconds? – rising intonation – question or otherWHAT – emphatic speech: falling intonation((xxx)) – a stretch of unintelligible speech with the

length given in secondsPaul, Peter, Mary – capitals are only used for proper nouns((T organises groups)) – editor’s comments°said quietly° – soft speech, said more quietly than usual.

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Documents

‘Seeing is believing’: looking at EFL teachers’ beliefs through classroom interaction