An Exploratory Study of Chinese University English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) Teachers' Cognitions and Practices about English Grammar Teaching

Abstract

This thesis reports on Chinese EFL teachers’ cognitions and practices about grammar teaching in university English classrooms in China. Teachers’ cognitions are personal and situated teaching principles including their beliefs and knowledge through which teachers enact their practices in classroom teaching. Despite much research conducted on language teachers’ cognitions and practices about language teaching, little has been reported on Chinese university EFL teachers’ cognitions about grammar teaching in a context where teachers’ thinking and decision-making in the classroom are influenced by a range of psychological and socio-cultural factors. These factors range from deep-rooted Confucian teaching principles, a highly centralized education system, high-stakes examinations, to little exposure to any English language environment. This is especially true when the new College English Curriculum Requirement (Ministry of Education [MoE], 2007) was established, which was intended to develop university students’ ability to use English, in particular their ability to listen and speak in English. In order to address this issue, this study investigated Chinese EFL teachers’ cognitions and practices about grammar teaching, as a response to the new English curriculum development, in a province of China. Framed in Borg’s theoretical framework that teachers’ cognitions are not only mediated by their previous language learning experience, teacher education programs and classroom experience, but also by contextual factors, a sequential exploratory mixed-methods approach was adopted and implemented in two phases. In Phase One, a large scale questionnaire survey of 314 university teachers provided an overview of Chinese university EFL teachers’ cognitions and practices about grammar teaching. In Phase Two, an in-depth study was conducted on 10 teachers selected from the participants in the first phase. The purpose of Phase Two was to explore teachers’ cognitions and practices qualitatively and examine the relationship between their cognitions and practices as well as the reasons for any incongruence between them. The research findings reveal that, in general, Chinese university EFL teachers embraced the focus on form instruction and perceived that grammar teaching should be completed in a communicative context so that students knew how to use grammar in their speaking and writing activities. However, with regard to their practices in the classrooms, the in-depth study showed that most of the 10 teachers still adopted the focus on forms instruction in their grammar teaching. Subsequent interviews indicated that teachers’ insufficient knowledge of using the focus on form instruction and multiple contextual factors such as institutional issues, especially national examinations that are closely related to their students’ needs restricted their classroom practices. This study makes several significant contributions to teacher cognition research. First, it adds an understanding of teachers’ cognitions about language teaching and teacher professional development in different educational contexts, such as EFL environments in one Chinese province. Second, it provides further insight into the research methodology that can be used in investigating teachers’ cognitions about language teaching. The mixed-methods approach not only provides insights into teachers’ cognitions that can be generalized in similar and related contexts but also sheds light on individual teacher’s deep, personal, and situated understanding of language teaching, especially in relation to teaching English grammar. Finally, the study confirms that Borg’s theory about teachers’ cognitions provides a suitable framework for such research. Similar studies are suggested to adopt this theory to interpret their research findings.