A Case Study On Relationship Between College English Teachers’ Writing Teaching Belief And Their Teaching Practice

With the continuous development of cognitive science, recent studies of foreign language teachers’ beliefs have been the research focus in the field of education. There is an increasing number of researches focusing on foreign language teachers’ beliefs, foreign language teacher’ behaviors and the relations of the two. A large amount of researches concerning foreign language teachers’ beliefs were conducted abroad. However, in China, studies about foreign language teachers’ beliefs are still in the early stage and the number of relevant researches is quite small. At the same time, most of the researches on foreign language teachers’ beliefs usually explored from a macroscopic view. Few researches aimed at specific teachers’ belief in certain aspects of teaching. Researches on the writing teaching beliefs of foreign language teachers are especially scarce.On the other hand, as the most difficult language skills to teach and to learn among listening, speaking, reading and writing, the instruction of English writing in China, is still confronting many practical difficulties. Present situation is that there is no specific writing class provided for non-English major students in a majority of colleges and universities. Thus, teachers can only permeate writing instruction in intensive reading classes. It has long been proved in studies of second language acquisition that reading and writing are inseparable. Reading is the premise and basis of writing, while writing can promote understanding of reading as well. It is reasonable to integrate writing into the Intensive Reading and combine the training of reading and writing. However, in the real teaching practice whether teachers of Intensive Reading can realize their beliefs of writing teaching in their teaching behavior and which factors affect this realization may impact the effect of writing teaching directly in Intensive Reading.Therefore, based on previous relevant researches, this research adopted qualitative research method, taking six college English teachers from one of the universities in northeast area who use the same textbook in Intensive Reading as the research subjects. The investigation lasted for two months. Semi-structured pre-class interview, class observation and after-class stimulated interview were used to explore the writing teaching beliefs held by college English teachers of Intensive Reading, the relationship between their beliefs and their actual teaching behaviors and the influencing factors.After detailed analysis of the data collected, present research found that:All six teachers have a comprehensive knowledge in writing and writing teaching. Their teaching beliefs in writing nature, role of teachers, writing teaching in intensive reading class and writing teaching methods are mostly similar. However, there are both overlapping and divergent parts. For the belief about teachers’ role, all six teachers do not agree with the opinion that “Writing is learnt, not taught”. They believe that in the process of students’ writing learning, teacher does play an important role. At the same time, they all agree teacher should play the role of a guider in students’ writing learning. But among them, two teachers also think teacher should be a facilitator to improve students’ writing competence. Concerning the nature of writing, all six teachers stressed that writing is not only an input and output process, but also a self-discovery and creative thinking process and that writing is a kind of expression of one’s thought in written form. As of the belief about intensive reading course, all the six subject teachers agreed that reading and writing can promote each other and are closely connected no matter in learning or teaching a language, and that it is very necessary for college English teachers to integrate writing instruction into reading instruction. Toward writing teaching methods, all teachers have a positive attitude to the interaction between teachers and students in writing instruction, and teachers’ feedback. But they have different opinions on peer review and the contents of teachers’ feedback. In addition, all teachers support the combination of reading and writing instruction and its implementation in class.It is also found that there is a close relationship between teachers’ writing teaching belief and their classroom teaching behavior, but not highly consistent as research on writing teachers of English major students indicated. There is no one-to-one correlation between teachers’ writing teaching beliefs and their actual classroom behaviors. A certain writing teaching belief held by a teacher may affect one or several classroom teaching behaviors. Several classroom behaviors of a teacher may reflect one certain writing teaching belief held by this teacher, and a single classroom behavior may reflect several writing teaching beliefs held by a teacher. However, for certain college English teachers, their writing teaching beliefs and their classroom behaviors can be highly inconsistent.Factors influencing the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their teaching behaviors are both external and internal. Firstly, teacher’s research interests have a positive effect on the implementation of teachers’ writing teaching belief in their classroom practice. These teachers usually would like to assume the laborious and onerous work concerned writing instruction, and adopt various writing teaching methods. Secondly, teachers’ teaching experience is not only a source of their belief but also a factor that influences the realization of their beliefs. To some teachers, their successful teaching experiences in reading become a hinder for them to try some new teaching methods like reading and writing combination. Such teachers are usually used to the traditional reading-oriented intensive reading instruction. Therefore, their writing teaching beliefs are usually inconsistent with their teaching behaviors. Moreover, demands and responses of the students will also have influence on the final implementation of teachers’ writing teaching beliefs, especially their attitudes towards peer review. Students’ distrust in peer review will cause teachers to give up this kind of writing teaching method. In addition, the problem of curriculum design is one of the main factors that cause the discrepancy of teachers’ writing teaching belief and their teaching behaviors. There are too many contents required to be covered in the limited teaching hours of intensive reading course, yet there are no specific regulations and requirements for the teaching hours and aim of writing instruction. As a result some teachers will choose to skip writing instruction first since it is always considered as time-consuming. The incomplete teaching evaluation system is another factor that causes the discrepancy of teachers’ writing teaching beliefs and their actual teaching practice. There are no assessments nor awards for writing instruction, a natural result of which is the absence of teachers’ impetus in writing instruction, thereafter, their writing teaching beliefs, since it won’t make any difference whether they teach writing or not. Finally, the influence of CET is still there although weakened in recent years to avoid over-emphasis on it. In semesters when students are going to take CET tests, teachers tend to organize more writing activities and practices in their intensive reading classes, while in semesters without CET test, fewer. In summary, the external factors influencing the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their teaching behaviors tend to be stronger than the internal factors.Based on the research results above, some suggestions for the development of college English teachers and writing instruction in intensive reading course are put forward. Firstly, college English teachers themselves should fully understand their writing teaching beliefs and keep updating their knowledge in teaching theories and approaches while abandoning the once-for-all belief. In order to let these acquired theories, concepts, methods transform into their genuine beliefs, teachers need to create chances or environment for implementing them. In addition, Teachers’ experiences of learning, teaching and academic research are the basis and sources of their beliefs. Colleges and universities should pay attention to the training of writing instruction for college English teachers, and provide more opportunities for class observation for teachers to learn from each other. Teachers should also be encouraged to apply the most efficient teaching methods in the class and realize their writing teaching beliefs.. Moreover, more specific curriculum requirements for writing teaching should be set up to ensure important writing knowledge and strategies are covered and enough class hours are kept for writing instruction and writing practice. Besides, proper awarding mechanism should be set up to encourage teachers to realize their writing teaching belief in the classroom. Last but not least, at present, not enough attentions are paid by non-English major college students to the development of their writing capacities. Steering students’ attention away from exams to a broader view of English writing ability is one of the most important things to do for college English teachers.