4.3 The teacher’s cognition and classroom practices in terms of
4.3.3 The relationship between the teacher’s cognition and
The table on the next page presented the participant’s cognition and classroom practices related to the third theme of the study, i.e. teacher roles. The items were in order of frequency (from the most frequent to the least frequent).
Theme Cognition Classroom practices
3. Teacher roles
In accuracy- focused activities
In fluency- focused activities 1. facilitator 1. feedback
provider
1. participant
2. resource 2. controller 2. feedback provider 3. observer 3. participant /
resource / facilitator
3. resource / facilitator
4. mediator 4. observer 4. controller
5. feedback provider 5. prompter
6. participant
Table 4.3 The relationship between the teacher’s cognition and classroom practices in terms of teacher roles (Note: 1-6: most frequent to least frequent)
The table above showed that the participant’s cognition was both consistent and inconsistent with her classroom practices in terms of teacher roles. She played the roles of facilitator and resource as stated in the semi-structured interview.
Although she had wanted to be a facilitator and a resource the most, she often played the roles of feedback provider and participant in speaking activities. One contextual factor led her to intervene in speaking activities was her students’ levels.
In the next section, the participant’s cognition and classroom practices related to teacher roles will be discussed.
4.3.4 Discussion of the teacher’s cognition and classroom practices in terms of teacher roles
The teacher thought that she should be a facilitator most often, which was in line with her counterparts in the study of Sougari and Sifakis (2007). This cognition was executed in her classroom practices in that she created a relaxing atmosphere for learning, made students feel confident, and helped them follow each other more easily. Without the teacher’s rationale given in the stimulated recall interview, it would be difficult for me to identify which classroom practices indicated that she facilitated the students’ learning. This stressed the importance of conducting stimulated recall interviews to understand the relationship between teacher cognition and classroom practices more clearly.
The fact that she wanted to play the roles of facilitator, resource, and observer most frequently indicated her ideal-oriented cognition, i.e. the speaking activities in her class should be more fluency-focused which allowed the students to work together to “achieve their communicative goals” (I) and her to walk around and observe them. However, in the stimulated recall interview, she stated that the activities in her class were “bridges” (SR) between accuracy and fluency and the students should not work on their own in these activities because their levels were still low. This explained why she often played the roles of feedback provider in the classroom to help students develop their oral accuracy and participant to help them with fluency. This was her reality-oriented cognition because it was shaped by one contextual factor in her classroom practices, i.e. the students’ levels. It could be seen that the roles she played in her class were guided by her reality-oriented cognition (i.e. helping students develop both accuracy and fluency and not letting them work on their own because of their levels), which confirmed Borg’s (2006) assertion and the findings of the studies of Phipps and Borg (2009) and Gerami and Noordin (2013) that reality-oriented cognition shaped classroom practices.
Therefore, simply stating that teacher cognition was inconsistent with classroom practices was insufficient. To fully understand the relationship between teacher
cognition and classroom practices, it is important to identify which type of cognition (ideal-oriented or reality-oriented) guiding classroom practices.
The findings also showed that the teacher adopted different roles in different speaking activities, which supported Harmer’s (2007) assertion that the roles teachers play in their classrooms depended on the types of activities. He also stated that three teacher roles relevant to helping students develop their oral fluency were prompter, feedback provider, and participant; and the teacher in this study also played these roles in fluency-focused activities.
In summary, the roles the teacher thought she should play most often (facilitator, resource, and observer) indicated her preference for more fluency- focused activities in her class. However, because of one contextual factor, i.e. her students’ levels, and her reality-oriented cognition that she should help them develop both accuracy and fluency and they should not work on their own, she was often a feedback provider and participant in her classroom practices. In the following section, the participant’s cognition and classroom practices related to the last theme of the study, i.e. teacher feedback, will be presented.