Belief-practice congruence/incongruence : an investigation into Thai EFL teachers teaching reading in an international university context
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2022
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This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
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Nutcha Euanorasetr (2022). Belief-practice congruence/incongruence : an investigation into Thai EFL teachers teaching reading in an international university context. Retrieved from: https://repository.nida.ac.th/handle/662723737/6588.
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Belief-practice congruence/incongruence : an investigation into Thai EFL teachers teaching reading in an international university context
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Abstract
In the past decades, researchers have examined relationships between teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices in different educational settings. However, the literature on the examination of relationships between teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices in terms of congruences is not available in an international university context. This present study attempts to fill up this research gap. The results of this study are expected to increase teachers’ awareness of their own beliefs and practices with the hope to further accommodate the improvement of their professional skills and students’ learning achievement in this special context.
This study aims at exploring Thai teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices towards teaching EFL reading skills in an international university context while also investigating the extent to which these two aspects are related. It focuses on two reading constructions of teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices, which are text-based and competency-based reading constructions.
The data collection methods employed in this study were initially quantitative method through surveys, and qualitative method via classroom observations and semi-structured interviews. The participants for the survey were twenty-four teachers in the Business English Department at the international university with the employment of the adapted TORI questionnaire to explore the participants’ beliefs towards ten themes concerning text-based and competency-based reading constructions. To elicit their teaching practices in actual classroom settings, six teachers teaching in three reading courses at this university were observed and interviewed sequentially.
The results of the survey revealed that the participants strongly believed in ten themes within competency-based reading construction. For themes in text-based reading construction, they believed in “stressing students’ correct answer”, “giving detailed explanation of language elements”, “assessing students’ understanding of the text”, and “paying attention to knowledge transmission”, but not “applying teacher-directed instruction” in the reading instruction. More specifically, the results of the inferential statistics, Independent-Sample T-Test and One-Way ANOVAs, unfolded that the demographic factors, which are teachers’ gender, academic qualification, educational background, and years of teaching experiences, have an impact on teachers’ beliefs. The results of the beliefs from the interview were based on competency-based themes more than text-based. The results of the classroom observation uncovered that the participants tended to perform their teaching practices according to text-based reading construction themes.
In terms of congruency between teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices in text-based reading construction, the incongruences happened for all participants on “giving detailed explanation of language elements”. Conversely, the congruences were found on “stressing students’ correct answers” and “assessing students’ understanding of the text” for five participants, and “applying teacher-directed instruction and “paying attention to knowledge transmission for four participants. With reference to congruences of competency-based reading construction, the congruences of teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices were identified in “applying reading strategy instruction” and “assessing students’ reading competencies” for all participants, in “creating multiple-answer questions” for five participants, and in “applying student-directed instruction” for four participants. On the contrary, the incongruences between teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices on “enhancing students’ self-learning abilities”, for five participants.
The investigation of teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices help teachers gain their self-awareness through their reflection on their beliefs and actual performance. In addition, the information from the investigation is useful for researchers to seek for ways for improving teaching and learning within the context and for educators in the context to consider the professional training and developments for those teachers. This study suggests that enhancing teachers’ awareness of their beliefs and their understanding and knowledge based on themes driven from text-based and competency-based teaching reading constructions is needed. Moreover, the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices can be possibly influenced by contextual factors because of their complexities.
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Thesis (Ph.D. (Language and Communication))--National Institute of Development Administration, 2022