Teaching Reading and Teacher Beliefs: A Sociocultural Perspective

196 Pages·2020·1.935 MB·English Language Education 20

by  Xinyu Mo

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
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Foreword
This book considers the complex issue of the teaching and learning of English lan-
guage 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 devel-
opment 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 John Trent,
Ting Kok, Hong Kong
v
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 contin-
ued guidance, support, and encouragement from my supervisors, participants,
friends, and family.
Among them, I would like to express my deepest gratitude to my principal super-
visor, 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.
vii
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
ix
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
xi
xii Contents
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