Teachers’ and Students’ beliefs within a Deweyan Framework: Conflict and Influence:
by Ana Maria Ferreira Barcelos
Tessie says: ---Finally I got this book and started reading it last week. I flicked through chapters and located on this section about new approaches to doing research on beliefs about SLA: Focus on students and teachers.
The Conflicts of beliefs about classroom atmosphere, teacher and learner roles, and grammar
A case study of an ESL teacher and an ESL learner about how they percieved the learning and view of themselves as a language teacher and learner.
The consequences from the conflicts between teachers’ and students’ beliefs:
- Misunderstanding and miscommunication: playing games and doing collaborative tasks are waste of time. Students want games that were productive in terms of producing grammar, whereas teachers talked about games in terms of using the language.
- Frustration and unhappiness: students may feel that the class was not addressing their needs. Everything in the class was not what they expect to have.
- Questioning the credibility of the teacher: students thought that the teacher didn’t give enough content unlike the other classes. The students may question the management of the course and the quality of the proficiency test.
- Passive resistance: Students describe the class negatively and think they don’t learn much from the class. Sometimes they adopt more active role and pursue their own agenda outside the class. In other word, if teacher did not explain the grammar points in class, they studied at home.
Researchers (and teachers) have to understand the environment in which a student learned English, and the principles of continuity and interaction as related to her beliefs about learning English. The conflict of beliefs involved factors such as issues of identity and time. If the given identities contrast to the learners’ perceptions, they may be frustrated and cause problems and resistances.
Some factors contributing to teachers’ and learners’ beliefs conflicts.
- Length of the course
- Learners’ preferred identity
- The influence of peers
- The teachers’ contrasting instructional approach
- Learners’ frustration and disagreement to the placement test
Implications for the future research
The role of context should be more seriously considered in studies about students’ and teachers’ beliefs about SLA. Students’ and teachers’ beliefs about SLA and actions shape context and are shaped by it.
The student’s beliefs about SLA help her to construct identity for herself as a competent learner in an ESL environment. Her beliefs about SLA represent her unique way of struggling to belong to and, at the same time, of rejecting the categorizations imposed on her.
Dewey’s concept of experience and principle of interaction helps us see the more complex and organic relationship between students’ and teachers’ beliefs about SLA that requires looking at their beliefs and actions as embedded in their experiences. Beyond the similarities and conflicts, teachers and learners influence each other of their explicit beliefs as they are purposeful agents struggling to have their perspectives and beliefs recognized.
>>> Tessie's experience about the interaction between learners' experiences and beliefs in SLL.>>>
++ How amazing when I read this chapter and it reminds me of my learning experience last year. The conflicts took place in the class at CUPEL last year. When some lecturers from NU attended an intensive English course for 8 weeks, they were looking for IELTS preparation and formal grammar – writing instruction from the course. As they are expected to increase their IELTS scores after the course, they felt that they need more test-oriented structured course to meet their needs. I myself enjoyed the activity and learned a lot from the course because I am not a test-oriented learner. I could learn English from everyday situations and focus on how to use the language in real life interaction.
Anyway, my colleagues were not happy with the class activities and asked for additional IELTS tutorials. Finally one of the staff gave us extra tutorials after class. (I didn’t attend the extra tutorials because I had passed the test already – rather spent my time shopping in town)
After class, whenever they found that they didn't get what they expected from the class. They talked to each other and sorted out how they would negotiate with the teachers to give them more test-oriented lessons. ---I think if they were not required to gain higher scores in the IELTS, they would be happier and learn the language more naturally.---- These are all the influences from their experiences, expectations, and self-perceptions about ELL.
by Ana Maria Ferreira Barcelos
Tessie says: ---Finally I got this book and started reading it last week. I flicked through chapters and located on this section about new approaches to doing research on beliefs about SLA: Focus on students and teachers.
The Conflicts of beliefs about classroom atmosphere, teacher and learner roles, and grammar
A case study of an ESL teacher and an ESL learner about how they percieved the learning and view of themselves as a language teacher and learner.
The consequences from the conflicts between teachers’ and students’ beliefs:
- Misunderstanding and miscommunication: playing games and doing collaborative tasks are waste of time. Students want games that were productive in terms of producing grammar, whereas teachers talked about games in terms of using the language.
- Frustration and unhappiness: students may feel that the class was not addressing their needs. Everything in the class was not what they expect to have.
- Questioning the credibility of the teacher: students thought that the teacher didn’t give enough content unlike the other classes. The students may question the management of the course and the quality of the proficiency test.
- Passive resistance: Students describe the class negatively and think they don’t learn much from the class. Sometimes they adopt more active role and pursue their own agenda outside the class. In other word, if teacher did not explain the grammar points in class, they studied at home.
Researchers (and teachers) have to understand the environment in which a student learned English, and the principles of continuity and interaction as related to her beliefs about learning English. The conflict of beliefs involved factors such as issues of identity and time. If the given identities contrast to the learners’ perceptions, they may be frustrated and cause problems and resistances.
Some factors contributing to teachers’ and learners’ beliefs conflicts.
- Length of the course
- Learners’ preferred identity
- The influence of peers
- The teachers’ contrasting instructional approach
- Learners’ frustration and disagreement to the placement test
Implications for the future research
The role of context should be more seriously considered in studies about students’ and teachers’ beliefs about SLA. Students’ and teachers’ beliefs about SLA and actions shape context and are shaped by it.
The student’s beliefs about SLA help her to construct identity for herself as a competent learner in an ESL environment. Her beliefs about SLA represent her unique way of struggling to belong to and, at the same time, of rejecting the categorizations imposed on her.
Dewey’s concept of experience and principle of interaction helps us see the more complex and organic relationship between students’ and teachers’ beliefs about SLA that requires looking at their beliefs and actions as embedded in their experiences. Beyond the similarities and conflicts, teachers and learners influence each other of their explicit beliefs as they are purposeful agents struggling to have their perspectives and beliefs recognized.
>>> Tessie's experience about the interaction between learners' experiences and beliefs in SLL.>>>
++ How amazing when I read this chapter and it reminds me of my learning experience last year. The conflicts took place in the class at CUPEL last year. When some lecturers from NU attended an intensive English course for 8 weeks, they were looking for IELTS preparation and formal grammar – writing instruction from the course. As they are expected to increase their IELTS scores after the course, they felt that they need more test-oriented structured course to meet their needs. I myself enjoyed the activity and learned a lot from the course because I am not a test-oriented learner. I could learn English from everyday situations and focus on how to use the language in real life interaction.
Anyway, my colleagues were not happy with the class activities and asked for additional IELTS tutorials. Finally one of the staff gave us extra tutorials after class. (I didn’t attend the extra tutorials because I had passed the test already – rather spent my time shopping in town)
After class, whenever they found that they didn't get what they expected from the class. They talked to each other and sorted out how they would negotiate with the teachers to give them more test-oriented lessons. ---I think if they were not required to gain higher scores in the IELTS, they would be happier and learn the language more naturally.---- These are all the influences from their experiences, expectations, and self-perceptions about ELL.
4 comments:
That's a really good article that shows the mundane reality of beliefs, particularly teachers'...
(i)(b)I'll keep this on mind for current research...(/i)(/b)
It was certainly interesting for me to read the blog. Thank author for it. I like such topics and anything connected to this matter. I definitely want to read more soon.
There is obviously a lot to know about this. I think you made some good points in Features also.
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