Abstract
This chapter focuses on the examination of the complex features of the six EFL teachers’ belief system from the perspectives of the dynamic interaction between the teachers’ beliefs and their instructional practice and the interactions between the teachers’ professed beliefs and their beliefs in practice. By summarising five major types of activity and twelve major types of commentary surfaced from the data, the chapter reveals the general consistency with the teachers' understanding of the structure of language teaching. The further probe into the interaction between the teachers’ professed beliefs and their beliefs in practice shows that they are either consistent or conflicting with each other, which highlights the dynamic interaction between the teachers’ core and peripheral beliefs. The idea that the teachers’ core beliefs exert more powerful influences on practice than peripheral beliefs is recognised as the result of the teachers’ pursuit of the balance in their belief system in different teaching contexts.
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Notes
- 1.
Section A starts with a picture presenting the new words in a real-world setting. This picture introduces key vocabulary for students to use while practising the new language. It then continues with several step-by-step practice activities for pair work or groupwork. Then a grammar focus summarises the important grammar of the unit. The section ends with an interactive exercise taking the form of a game or other whole-class activities, which allows students to use the new language in a collaborative way. Section B introduces new vocabulary while repeating the language presented in Section A. Activities in Section B also help students integrate the new target language with the language studied in earlier units. This repetition is believed to reinforce previous language learning while providing additional practice with newly learned language. Self-check is the section for students to complete in class or as homework. These activities help students review all keywords as well as new grammar items. In the textbook for Grade Nine, there is one more section about extensive reading.
- 2.
In the notation T.1st SR interview, T refers to Tang; 1st SR interview refers to the 1st stimulated recall interview. This format of notation is used throughout this chapter. T refers to Tang; X refers to Zhixi; Y indicates Ying; P indicates Zhiping; L indicates Li; J indicates Juan. This is the translated version of the teachers’ interviews.
- 3.
Only phrases in double quotation marks were used in English. The rest were used all in Chinese.
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Zheng, H. (2015). Interactive Dynamics Between Beliefs and Instructional Practice. In: Teacher Beliefs as a Complex System: English Language Teachers in China. English Language Education, vol 4. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-23009-2_5
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