6.Teachers’ Conceptions of Second Language Writing Instruction:

6. Teachers’ Conceptions of Second Language Writing Instruction:
Five Case Studies
LING SHI and ALISTER CUMMING JOURNAL OF SECOND LANGUAGE WRITING, 4 (2), 87-l 11 (1995)

Summary: Five experienced instructors were interviewed weekly about their ESL writing classes in selected courses over 2 years at a Canadian university, The study aims to document the qualities of their thinking about their pedagogical practices as well as the ways in which three of the teachers’ thinking accommodated a specific instructional innovation.

Methodology: Analyses of 48 tape-recorded interviews showed each instructor’s conceptions to be highly consistent in their individual, expressed views about their teaching practices but also individually grounded in a specific set of personal beliefs about teaching ESL writing.

The instructors using the pedagogical innovation focused much of their attention initially on composing processes (seemingly in response to the innovation). This focus in the innovation then declined markedly over time as they incorporated the innovation into their existing beliefs about teaching ESL writing. These findings suggest that curricular changes in second language writing necessarily need to be situated in reference to the individual qualities of teachers’ pedagogical conceptions as well as long-term views on the accommodation of pedagogical change.

Relevance: The research methodology of this study is well-planned and presents logical construction of the coding schemes. Shi and Cumming has modeled the how to code the interview data according to the nature of second language writing instruction. The literature review mentioned the other frameworks used in previous studies which attempted to describe teachers’ cognition and personal practical knowledge in language instructions. There has been a few numbers of studies in teaching conceptions in second language writing (apart from
Cumming, 1993; Wirier, 1992). Shulman (1986, pp. 9-10) has raised the issue about the specific “subject matter knowledge” and “curriculum knowledge” of experienced teachers and imply the observation into any instructional innovation or curriculum change in second language writing and the teacher conception. Shi and Cumming propose two distinctions to observe in regard on teacher thinking, the first aim is relevant to the initial teacher education that novice teacher may benefit from acquiring knowledge that more experience, skilled teacher possesses, and the other is to describe the qualities of teachers’ thinking with a view to understanding curriculum practices and change. From my own perspective, these distinctions will help when reading the research articles about teacher cognition as well as shaping my own research focus which expect to understand the teacher cognition about using IT in the EFL writing classroom.