The Content of Teachers’ Beliefs

5 Teachers‟ context of work It plays a critical role in shaping the teachers‘ philosophy of teaching and instructional approaches. Experienced teachers in a school often exert influence on new teachers to conform to their teaching norm. Constraints of the teaching context such as heavy teaching load, large class size, low student motivation, and lack of classroom discipline may also pressure teachers away from the beliefs which they have acquired on teacher education courses towards a more traditional view of teaching and learning Pennington Richards, 1997. In short, the school environment influence on teachers‘ beliefs.

d. The Content of Teachers’ Beliefs

There is a growing body of research on what teachers believe in. The following section will review three contents of teachers‘ beliefs. They are teachers‘ beliefs about learning, teaching, and subject matter. 1 Teachers’ beliefs about learning In the field of general education, Tang 2001 identified six conc eptions of learning that the teachers‘ held in the classroom; the first three conceptions are regarded as ‗text focused‟ and the rest as ‗meaning focused‟: a Acquiring knowledge – The learner‘s role is to gain more knowledge in books or course materials by putting in efforts. commit to user b Preparing for examinations or completing assignments – The learner is to fulfill the requirements of the course by learning key points for answering questions. c Applying – The learner is to learn theories and methods and apply them in real-life situations. d Explaining and relating phenomena – The learner‘s role is to pick up theories and use them to explain and relate phenomena. e Changing perspectives or attitudes – The learner is helped to see the inadequacy of his or her own perspective and to gather new perspectives. f Personal development – The learner‘s personal development is stressed, with an emphasis on the learner‘s moral aspects. Meanwhile, in the field of second language teaching, teachers‘ beliefs about learning have on the whole been less well explored. Brindley 1984: 97 is one of the few studies which claimed that learning consists of acquiring knowledge through encountering experience and learning a language consists of learning the structural rules of the language and the vocabulary through such activities such as memorization, reading and writing . Other researchers have conducted studies about teachers‘ cognitions which provide fascinating insights into what ESL teachers‘ beliefs about learning. Tsui 2003, for example, presented rich descriptions of four secondary ESL teachers‘ knowledge, beliefs, and instructional practices. One of the teachers, Marina, believed that students should produce things when they learn English. She did not think it necessary for students to use their mother perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user tongue to master the language, but they could learn effectively by working in groups and collaborating with each other. She also emphasized motivating students to learn by giving them a sense of achievement and letting them know that they were making progress. Another teacher, Eva, had different beliefs about learning and learners. She saw students as individuals who should be respected, and felt it important to value each student‘s contribution in class. Thus, after a student had answered a question, she seldom said whether the answer was right or wrong but encouraged other students to comment. Underlying this practice was a belief that establishing trust and a close relationship with students promoted learning. However, some students felt a bit lost when they did not have the final word from the teacher. Cases such as those reported by Tsui 2003 provide insights into ESL teachers‘ beliefs about learning, but such studies are relatively scant in the literature. This calls for further investigatio n of teachers‘ beliefs using the case study paradigm. 2 Teachers’ beliefs about teaching A teacher‘s beliefs about teaching include what he or she considers to be models of effective instruction, instructional approaches, his or her teaching role, and appropriate classroom activities. This category of belief has been investigated in a number of studies in both the fields of general education and second language teaching, as summarized below. In the field of general education, two strands of research have addressed the question of what teachers believe about teaching. The first strand perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user has investigated teachers‘ ― conceptions of teaching ‖ while the second one has focused on ‖ the metaphors and images ‖ that teachers use to talk about their work. In the first strand of research, Kember 1997 reviewed 13 studies of mainly Western university academics and identified four conceptions of teaching: 1 imparting information, 2 transmitting structured knowledge, 3 facilitating understanding, and 4 conceptual changeintellectual development. He then reduced these first two classes into the ― teacher centeredcontent oriented ‖ category, and the two others into ―student centeredlearning oriented‖ category. In a related study, Gao and Watkins 2001 explored the teaching conceptions of secondary school teachers of physics in mainland China. They found that the teaching conceptions were: a The Chinese teachers seemed to view students‘ examination performance as the most important indicator of successful teaching, and b The Chinese teachers seemed to combine classroom teaching with the cultivation of good learning attitudes and good conduct. To summarize, one strand of research on teachers‘ thinking has identified two broad views of teaching. These range from a focus on the teachercontent to a focus on the studentslearning. The second strand of research has examined teachers‘ beliefs about teaching through their use of metaphors and images. According to Lakoff and Johnson 1980:3, ―Our ordinary conceptual system, in term of which we both think and act, is fundamentally metaphorical in nature‖. It has therefore been commit to user suggested that the metaphors teachers use to express themselves in order to reveal significant features of their beliefs and values. Teachers‘ metaphors are not just windows on their minds. They have a behavioral component and impinge on classroom procedures. Munby and Russell 1990 illustrated this in their description of a teacher who used the metaphors of ―a captain of a ship‖ and ―an entertainer‖ to characterize his teaching role. As the metaphors were incompatible, they not only caused confusion for the students as the teacher switched from one metaphor to another, but also created difficulties in the teacher‘s approach to teaching. In addition to metaphors, teachers have also been found to hold images of teaching and learning. Elbaz 1983 characterized ―image‖ as a brief, descriptive statement which captures some essential aspect of a teacher‘s perception of hisher teaching, hisher situation in the classroom, and himherself. Using this concept as general metaphors for thinking about teaching, Clandinin 1986 described teachers with images of ― classroom as home” and “language as the key”, which shed light on their understanding of classroom processes. Similarly, Calderhead and Robson 1991 identified such images as “the teacher as an enthusiastic and approachable person”, “the classroom as a lively place where a lot of questions are asked and answered”, “teaching as being patient with students”, “the teacher as a helper”, and “teaching as having a good relationship between teacher and children”. These images affected what the teachers found relevant and useful in their professional preparation, and how they analyzed their own practices. commit to user In the field of second language teaching, there are three main lines of research on teachers‘ beliefs about teaching. These have focused on a ESL teachers‘ views of teaching, b ESL teachers‘ beliefs about teacher role, and c ESL teachers‘ metaphors. The brief explanations of those three lines are follows: a ESL teachers‟ views of teaching Richards, Ho, and Giblin 1996:252 identified three views of teaching. They are: 1 A teacher-centered perspective This sees the teacher as being the primary focus. In other words, lessons are perceived primarily in terms of ―classroom management, teacher explanations, teacher questioning skills, teacher presence, voice quality, manner, and so on‖. Performance by the teacher is stressed. 2 A curriculum-centered perspective This sees the lesson as an instructional unit. Key features emphasized include ―lesson goals, structuring, transitions, materials, task types, and content flow and development‖. 3 A learner-centered perspective This sees the learners as the primary focus. ―This views the lesson in terms of its effect on learners and refers to such factors as student participation, interest, and learning outcomes‖. perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user b ESL teachers‟ beliefs about teacher role. Falvey 1983 in Young Lee 1987:85 explored ESL teachers‘ beliefs about teacher role and classified the native-speaking ESL teachers into these following types: 1 The transmission teacher This type of teacher believes that the teacher‘s role is to provide information and whose approach ―encourages students to contribute to classroom communication only through the presentation of a finished draft, of a well-thought- through idea‖ 2 The interpretation teacher This kind of teacher believes that the teacher‘s role is to set up ―a dialogue in which the learners can reshape their knowledge through interaction with others‖. Students are ―free to explore the subject in collaboration with other students and with the teacher without the fear of the teacher‘s judgment in terms of right or wrong‖ c ESL teachers‟ metaphors Cortazzi and Jin 1999 have explored ESL teachers‘ beliefs about teaching through their use of metaphors. In a study of a large sample of teachers and students, they discovered a large number of metaphors of teaching and learning that teachers, trainee teachers, and students held. For the purposes of this review, only those metaphors elicited from trainee teachers will be summarized. Nine generic metaphors were identified: teaching is a journey ; teaching is fooddrinkcooking ; teaching is plant growth and cultivation ; perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user teaching is a skill ; teaching is an occupation ; teaching is entertainment ; teaching is searching for treasure ; teaching is family relationships ; and teaching is constructionpart of a building . While these metaphors shed considerable light on the teachers‘ beliefs about teaching, their origins were not traced, nor were their influence on classroom actions explored. 3 Teachers’ beliefs about subject matter In the field of general education, studies of teachers‘ beliefs about their subjects have taken place in Science, English Literature, Mathematics, Foreign Language, and Social Studies. This following example is a study of teachers‘ beliefs about English literature conducted by Grossman 1991 who described three orientations of beliefs which she termed as ‗text-orientation‘, ‗reader- orientation‘ and ‗context-orientation‘. The text-orientation viewed the meaning of a literary text to be in the text itself, in the language, tone, theme, and structure used. The reader-orientation considered the meaning of a literary text to be personal and subjective, rather than universal and objective. Finally, the context-orientation assumed that the meaning of a literary text was psychological and political, and therefore theoretical frameworks from psychology and history w ould be needed in the reader‘s interpretation of the text. In studying three teachers using the case study paradigm, Grossman found that these orientations or beliefs about subject matter influenced their instructional judgments and decisions. For example, while a teacher with a text- commit to user orientation found her students‘ personal responses to literature to be interesting, she would not accept them as valid interpretations unless they were supported with proof from the text. In the meantime, teachers‘ beliefs about subject matter in the second language teaching, language is not only the means by which the subject matter is taught but also the subject matter itself. In the ESL research literature, ESL teachers have been found to hold different conceptions of language, for example as a a product or a process, and b as skills. a Language as a product process Pennington et al. 1997:123 mentioned that teachers who view language as a product regard it as a set of items which can be represented in a book and learned by study and memorization. In contrast, those who view language as a process have an image of language as something fluid, changing, individual, and learnable only through real-life use or communicative activity. These views of language have been found to play a central role in shaping how teachers organize curricula and design lesson tasks. For example, in a study of teachers‘ decisions in the adult ESL classroom, Smith 1996 noticed that the more product-oriented teachers in her sample adopted a structural core for their curriculum design, developed tasks with grammar-based objectives, and were concerned primarily with the accurate completion of the task product. In contrast, the more process-oriented teachers organized curricula with a functional or topical core, and emphasized student interaction tasks. perpustakaan.uns.ac.id commit to user b Language as skills Language can be conceived not only as product or process, but also as skills, and teachers have been found to attach more importance to some skills than others. Richards, Tung and Ng 1992, for instance, explored the teachers‘ perception of the importance of the four skills. They found that the teachers in primary level ranked the importance of the four skills at elementary school as: a listeningreading, b speaking, and c writing. That is, the receptive skills were ranked ahead of the productive skills. However, the picture changed a little at the secondary level, where the importance of the four skills was ranked as: a reading, b writinglistening, c speaking. Richards et al. suggested that this probably reflected the need to emphasize skills which were more important for passing school examinations at each level of schooling. The findings, in other words, suggest that there is an interaction between teachers‘ beliefs about the four skills on the one hand and the nature and characteristics of their students on the other.

e. Relationship between Beliefs and Practices