Chapter OneLiterature Review

1.1 Concept of teachers’ beliefs

Plato was the first person who gave an explanation on the belief, in his opinion,knowledge proved to be the true beliefs (Cornford 143). Brown and Cooney (1982) in theirresearch stated belief as the directions of action and determining factor of behavior (13).With further research, belief was extended to the psychology, Sigel (1895) gave a definitionthat belief is a potential experience or the spiritual reconstruction for the individual whichcan guide his/her behavior, it will usually be compressed or integrated into the schema orconcepts of human being (345-371); Harvey (1986) proposed belief is a true manifestation ofthe individual, and it is credible enough to effectively guide the thinking and behavior(143-159). To 2001, Borg (2001) defined belief as: belief is an intentional or unintentionalopinion, it may be the individual faith, and therefore it has a strong identification in emotion.In addition, it guides the thinking and behavior (Borg 186-188). In 1970s, belief was appliedinto education field. Sahin, Bullock and Stables (2002) in their study indicated that teachers’beliefs is the interpretation of the teacher’s thinking and behavior, involving their feelings,attitudes, experiences and decisions (371-384); Shavelson and Stem (1981) distinguish beliefand knowledge by using the way that teachers will rely on beliefs to guide their behaviorswhen their knowledge is unable to provide enough assistance (473); Tabaehnick (1989)applied teachers’ perspectives to represent the beliefs, in his view, teachers work (target,children concept, courses) beliefs are consistent with teachers behaviors and performance inthe classroom (89). Teachers’ beliefs generally refer to the theories, views and assumptionsteachers usually hold for the role of teachers, teaching process, curriculum, students andother relevant factors in the teaching situation and teaching process, which affect educational practice and student physical and mental development (Li Haiyan&Zhang Li 65).

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1.2 English teachers’ beliefs about students and teachers’ behaviors

Meyer in 1985 considered the most fundamental issue in the researches of teachers’beliefs is the relationship between belief and behavior. Peterson pointed out that teachers’beliefs are the foundation of all teachers’ inner thoughts and behaviors in the classroom,including the presentation of subject, the way how to present, and the degree of difficulty forthe students to master the learning contents. Pajares (1992) believed that teachers’ beliefs notonly affect the perception of teachers and the way they deal with the information and issuesin their class, but also plays an important role to the design of teaching goals and tasks.Aguirre’s further research indicated that when teachers’ beliefs influence their teachingbehaviors, some of the interrelated beliefs are often effect one activity as a whole. Thusteachers’ beliefs have an important impact to teaching behaviors.Breen (2001) believed that the teachers’ thinking process is actually the process theyorganize and implement the teaching, in this process, the teachers’ personal beliefs about thelanguage, education and language teaching and learning are mainly obtained fromexperience.

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Chapter TwoResearch methodology

2.1 Research purpose and research questions

This paper mainly focuses on two senior high school English teachers and tries to studytheir beliefs about students and find out the relationship between teachers’ beliefs aboutstudents and their teaching behaviors, offering some strategies which can help teachers torebuild their beliefs about students so that they can improve their teaching behaviors.The problems the thesis mainly deals with are as follows:First, what are the beliefs the teachers hold about their students?Different teachers have different beliefs about the students, teachers’ beliefs aboutstudents, fundamentally speaking, is to establish views and ideas of students in teachers’minds. Generally speaking, there are two sources of beliefs: one is the direct source, and theother is the indirect source. Direct source is their life experiences, their living environment,attitude, feeling, etc. Indirect sources are through books, the Internet and other ways to getthe beliefs. Belief is a recognition that can only come from practice, so practice is theultimate source of beliefs. Because the direct source and indirect source teachers get aredifferent, teachers’ beliefs can be also different. Moreover, when they meet differentstudents or get into different teaching environments, they may adapt their beliefs to thecontexts.

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2.2 Research setting and participants

There are two teachers who took part in this research. Both of them are experiencedteachers who have taught English in middle school for more than 20 years. They have taughthundreds of students and formed their own beliefs about students.The first one is a male teacher who is called Mr. Wang, comes from Datong NO.3Middle School.It’s fortunate that the author got an opportunity to go to Datong NO.3 Middle School todo the case study on teachers’ beliefs about students and their behaviors.Datong NO.3 Middle School is a second-rate school among the schools in Datong, thisis not mean that the teachers or teaching facilities are not good, but the students in thisschool is not the best students in study, the score for the admission of this school is not thehighest, here is the scores for the admission of the schools in Datong in the recent threeyears:

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Chapter Three Results and discussion ..........19

3.1 Ms. Dong’s stated beliefs about students..........19

3.2 Ms. Dong’s behaviors in and after class ..........21

3.3 Mr. Wang’s stated beliefs about students ..........25

3.4 Mr. Wang’s behaviors in and after class..........27

Chapter Four Implications ..........32

4.1 Teachers need response for their students ..........32

4.2 Teachers must enrich their experience and broaden their horizons..........32

4.3 Teachers should find an appropriate position for themselves ..........33

4.4 Hierarchical teaching is a good way for the teachers..........34

4.5 Try to inspire students’ interest in learning English ..........35

4.6 The integration of multimedia English teaching..........35

4.7 Respect students’ learning methods..........36

4.8 Encourage students’ progress ..........37

Chapter FourImplications

4.1 Teachers need response for their students

Teachers must hold the beliefs that the presuppositions of good teachers are the teacherswho love their students, they can know well about their students. According to the study ofthese two experienced teachers, other teachers need to realize that no one teaching methodcan satisfy all kinds of students, teachers need to make a teaching plan which may applicablefor their own students’ actual situation. Teachers should try their best to care about themembers in their class and pay more attentions to the students’ feedback, by which they canadjust their teaching strategies in time.Before the class, teachers not only need to prepare the text contents, but also thestudents, they should predict the harvest of the students and unexpected situations about theirstudents. After class, they need do a reflection timely and come up with solutions in casenext time the same situations happen. At present, most teachers can do the reflections afterclass and they really got benefits from this process. However, some of them cannot do a highlevel reflection. A high level reflection can help teachers adjust their teaching aims and thefollowing teaching activities according to their students’ feedback. Teachers adopt the mostuseful parts, and then apply to their own teaching process in order to improve theeffectiveness of their teaching process. Only by this way, can a teacher understand theirstudents better and rebuild their beliefs about their students correctly.

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Conclusion

On the basis of the theory of beliefs proposed by Borg and other scholars, this paper ismainly focused on English teachers’ beliefs about students and their behaviors. The authorchose two senior high school English teachers as samples to do case studies. Both of theteachers are experienced English teachers but with different characteristics who hold theirown beliefs about their students and whose behavior are not same in and after class. In orderto study the 2 teachers’ beliefs, the author employed classroom observation, teaching logsand in-depth interview as research methods and the main findings from the research are asfollows:Both of them love their students and know them well. They believe students are thecenter of the class and respect their students’ learning process. They believe confidence isvery important for the students and so they encourage their students very often. They regardthemselves as prompters or tutors and help their students improve their English learningabilities. They use different teaching methods but both of them get achievements. Theirteaching practice are very valuable and their beliefs about the students can provide a positivereference for other English teachers, which can help them rebuild their beliefs about theirstudents and improve their teaching process.

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Reference (omitted)