Teacher cognition and academic vocabulary: to what extent do teachers’ beliefs match their practices?
Teacher cognition and academic vocabulary: to what extent do teachers’ beliefs match their practices?
Daniel Morgan
Faculty of Development and Society
Department of Education, Childhood and Inclusion
TESOL Centre City Campus, Science Park Howard Street, Sheffield S1 1WB
www.shu.ac.uk/tesol
Over the last 30 years, a growing number of studies have concentrated on the correlation between second language teachers’ beliefs and their pedagogical practices. A limited number of studies, however, have explored teachers’ beliefs and practices concerning vocabulary instruction, and there have been no studies focusing on academic vocabulary, despite the crucial role that acquisition of academic vocabulary plays in the success of international students. The aim of this paper is to redress the balance by examining three English teachers working on a specialist course in academic reading and vocabulary, by investigating their beliefs about vocabulary teaching and their pedagogical practices. Semi-structured interviews, classroom observations and stimulated recall were utilized in order to elicit the teachers’ beliefs and to help understand their practices. It was revealed that teachers had similar beliefs with regards to such aspects of academic vocabulary pedagogy as explicit vocabulary instruction, word meaning guessing, and a focus on form. Nevertheless their pedagogical practices in the observed lessons demonstrated both similarities and differences. Moreover, while many of their reported beliefs corresponded with their practices, there was limited or no evidence of other beliefs.
Category: 2018 Thesis, Thesis
