Language Teacher Cognition: A Sociocultural Perspective [1st ed. 2020] 978-1-137-51133-1, 978-1-137-51134-8

Table of contents :
Front Matter ....Pages i-xx
Introduction to the Book (Li Li)....Pages 1-17
Sociocultural Theory and Teacher Cognition (Li Li)....Pages 19-50
Interaction Analysis and Teacher Cognition (Li Li)....Pages 51-85
Teacher Cognition about Teaching and Learning (Li Li)....Pages 87-134
Teacher Cognition and Interactive Decision-Making (Li Li)....Pages 135-164
Teacher Cognition about the Use of Technology (Li Li)....Pages 165-202
The Impact of Teacher Education on Teacher Cognition (Li Li)....Pages 203-239
Teacher Cognition and Identity (Li Li)....Pages 241-275
Teacher Cognition and Teacher Education (Li Li)....Pages 277-312
Back Matter ....Pages 313-353

Citation preview

Li Li

Language Teacher Cognition A Sociocultural Perspective

Language Teacher Cognition

Li Li

Language Teacher Cognition A Sociocultural Perspective

Li Li Graduate School of Education University of Exeter Exeter, UK

ISBN 978-1-137-51133-1    ISBN 978-1-137-51134-8 (eBook) https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8 © The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2020 The author(s) has/have asserted their right(s) to be identified as the author(s) of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. This work is subject to copyright. All rights are solely and exclusively licensed by the Publisher, whether the whole or part of the material is concerned, specifically the rights of translation, reprinting, reuse of illustrations, recitation, broadcasting, reproduction on microfilms or in any other physical way, and transmission or information storage and retrieval, electronic adaptation, computer software, or by similar or dissimilar methodology now known or hereafter developed. The use of general descriptive names, registered names, trademarks, service marks, etc. in this publication does not imply, even in the absence of a specific statement, that such names are exempt from the relevant protective laws and regulations and therefore free for general use. The publisher, the authors and the editors are safe to assume that the advice and information in this book are believed to be true and accurate at the date of publication. Neither the publisher nor the authors or the editors give a warranty, express or implied, with respect to the material contained herein or for any errors or omissions that may have been made. The publisher remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Cover illustration: ZUMA Press, Inc. / Alamy Stock Photo This Palgrave Macmillan imprint is published by the registered company Springer Nature Limited. The registered company address is: The Campus, 4 Crinan Street, London, N1 9XW, United Kingdom

For Y.Z.

Preface

I am delighted to be able to prepare the second book on language teacher cognition, which is a fast-growing field with diverse interests from different contexts and perspectives. My first book on teacher cognition focusing on a new perspective in researching the concept has gained a lot of attention from fellow researchers and practitioners—some teachers even use the book to guide their teaching and learning! That was the first full-­ length, comprehensive and accessible synthesis of a discursive psychological perspective of language teacher cognition, highlighting the social and discursive nature of teacher cognition in a moment-by-moment interaction in their professional life. In that book, I defined teacher cognition as cognition-in-interaction and used conversation analysis (CA) as methodological principles. This book, built on the first book, aims to expand the understanding of teacher cognition from a sociocultural perspective, highlighting the significance of ‘context’ and ‘social interaction’ in the development of one’s understanding and knowledge. This book is also the first of its kind (as far as I am aware), in which sociocultural theory, discursive psychology and conversation analysis were brought together to understand how ‘knowing, understanding, conceptualising, doing, learning and being’ are displayed through interactive work that teachers do in a situated micro-context. In the field of teacher education, we see a move towards a sociocultural perspective of teacher learning, teacher identity and teacher cognition. vii

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Regarding teacher cognition, social contextual factors are often used to explain teachers’ beliefs and behaviours. In my research, discursive psychology is used to research how teachers construct their understanding through the understanding of ‘others’ perspectives’ in the conversation. In reading the works in teacher cognition and conversing with colleagues, students, teachers and those who are interested in social interaction and teachers’ lives, I came to the conclusion that a new book on language teacher cognition from a broader sociocultural perspective was now timely. Although many would argue that sociocultural theory, conversation analysis and discursive psychology are not compatible, I want to demonstrate that in understanding language teacher cognition there is a common ground for all three important theories. On that note, I had engaged in many conversations with those who came to my presentations at conferences, invited talks and workshops, and conducted self-­reflections when I explained my research areas to students and friends. Writing this book has also been a journey to answer my questions: what roles do the constructs of sociocultural theory play in understanding teachers, in particular in micro-contexts? How can we use conversation analysis to explicitly articulate teachers’ positioning and cognitive development in their work? Is it possible to bring discursive psychology and sociocultural theory together? With these questions in mind, I started the proposal by jotting down some key ideas I wanted to develop, and of course, with the exploration going further, I made changes in both content and approaches so that a strong link between sociocultural theory, discursive psychology and conversation analysis was possible. Of course, the primary aim of writing this book was that I wanted an opportunity to provide a broader and a deeper account of teachers’ decision-making, knowing, learning and being—and implications for teacher development and effective pedagogy—through a detailed analysis of sophistication and complexity in their day-to-day interactions with those they encounter. In my view, a broader account includes not only categorising in-service and pre-service teachers’ pedagogical knowledge but also illuminating certain aspects that deeply concern teachers and professionals, such as ‘integrating technology in teaching’ and ‘professional identities’. Those who engage in teacher cognition research and teacher identity know there has been a debate between the relationship of teacher cognition and teacher identity. For me, the interconnectedness between these two

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aspects of teachers’ lives cannot be separately considered, as building knowledge and understanding is essentially a process of constructing ‘self ’. A broader account also means that I provided a review of the development of teacher cognition, the different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches associated with it and included a separate chapter discussing the value of ‘applied’ conversation analysis in institutional talk. This also serves as a starting point for those who wish to consider CA as a possible practical method in their research. There is no doubt, therefore, that in a book of this kind a broad understanding of the field is required in terms of theories, empirical literature, methodological approaches, analysis of data and implications. In a similar vein, a deeper account meant three things. First, I aimed to provide an in-depth analysis of what sociocultural constructs are utilised in the book and how they are connected with teacher cognition. By arguing how higher mental development is made through interaction in a situated context, a link was made between the constructs such as the zone of proximate development, cognition and interaction. Again, by arguing the central value of social interaction in learning, CA became a natural choice as a way to display ‘cognition-in-interaction’. Second, a deeper account means that knowing, decision-making, understanding, developing and being is explicitly analysed in micro-contexts in an institutional setting, where a pedagogical agenda is in place, and social order is to some extent pre-defined. In this sense, the macro-contextual value and the institutional fingerprint manifested in the social interaction and encounters, and became significant factors that shaped teachers’ thinking and doing. Third, a deeper account focuses on the value of CA in teacher learning and effective pedagogy, and how CA can be used not only as a research method but a professional tool to engage teachers in improving their professional lives. The fine-grained analysis of this in different chapters demonstrates how ‘applied’ CA can be adopted in understanding pedagogical thinking, decision-making and teacher learning. In a way, this book seeks to show in a more explicit way how ‘applied’ CA can contribute to the understanding of teachers: Conversation Analysis-for-­ Teacher Cognition (CA-for-TC). Exeter, UK

Li Li

Acknowledgement

The following extracts were taken from my previous work and modifications have been made for transcriptions. Extract 3.1 is taken from Li and Walsh (2011a) Extracts 5.1 and 5.6 are taken from Li (2017a) Extracts 6.1, 6.3–6.6 are taken from Li (2015b) Extracts 7.2, 7.8, 7.9, 7.11, 8.1, and 8.2 are taken from Li (2012). Li, L. (2012). Belief construction and development: Two tales of non-­ native English speaking student teachers in a TESOL programme. Novitas-ROYAL (Research on Youth and Language), 6(1), 33–58. Li, L. (2015b). What’s the use of technology? Insights from EFL classrooms in Chinese secondary schools. In C.  Jenks & P.  Seedhouse (Eds.), International perspectives on classroom interaction (pp. 168–187). Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan. Li, L. (2017a). Social interaction and teacher cognition. Edinburgh University Press. Li, L., & Walsh, S. (2011a). ‘Seeing is believing’: Looking at EFL teachers’ beliefs through classroom interaction. Classroom Discourse, 2(1), 39–57.

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Contents

1 Introduction to the Book  1 Introduction   1 A Brief Review of Language Teacher Cognition    4 The ‘Social’ and ‘Discursive’ Turn of Teacher Cognition    6 The Significance of the Book    8 Structure of the Book   11 References  14 2 Sociocultural Theory and Teacher Cognition 19 Introduction  19 The Importance of Teacher Cognition   20 Theoretical Perspectives of Teacher Cognition   25 Sociocultural Turn of Teacher Cognition   32 Summary  43 References  44 3 Interaction Analysis and Teacher Cognition 51 Introduction  51 Language and Cognition   52 Teacher Cognition and Professional Interaction   54 Approaches to Discourse   60 xiii

xiv Contents

Conversation Analysis  63 The Data  74 Summary  81 References  81 4 Teacher Cognition about Teaching and Learning 87 Introduction  87 Conceptualising Teaching and Learning   88 Summary 129 References 131 5 Teacher Cognition and Interactive Decision-Making135 Introduction 135 Interactive Decision-Making  136 Teacher Profiles  138 Unpacking Interactive Decisions  139 Summary 159 References 161 6 Teacher Cognition about the Use of Technology165 Introduction 165 Technology Use  166 Benefits and Roles of Technologies  168 Teacher Profiles  173 Teacher Cognition and Technology Use  174 Summary 194 References 195 7 The Impact of Teacher Education on Teacher Cognition203 Introduction 203 Teacher Education  206 Learning Theories Regarding Teacher Education  208 Teacher Profiles  210

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The Development of Pre-Service Teacher Cognitions  211 Summary 233 References 236 8 Teacher Cognition and Identity241 Introduction 241 Defining Teacher Identity  242 Important Factors Influencing Professional Identity Formation  248 Constructing Language Teachers’ Professional Identities  250 Summary 269 References 270 9 Teacher Cognition and Teacher Education277 Introduction 277 Teacher Education and Teacher Development  278 Pedagogy 294 Teacher Knowledge  300 Final Remarks  304 References 306 References313 Index347

Abbreviations

BALLI Beliefs about language learning inventory CA Conversation analysis CA-for-TC Conversation analysis-for-teacher cognition CALL Computer-assisted language learning CDA Critical discourse analysis CLA Critical language awareness CLIL Content and language integrated learning CLT Communicative language teaching CMC Computer-mediated communication CQ Counter-question DA Discourse analysis DP Discursive psychology EAL English as an additional language EFL English as a foreign language ESL English as a second language IC Interactional competence IRE/F Initiation–response–evaluation/feedback L1 First language L2 Second language LPCs Lesson planning conferences MoE Ministry of Education NCEE National College Entrance Examination NNS Non-native speaker xvii

xviii Abbreviations

SCT SLA TCUs TESOL ZCD ZFM ZPA ZPD

Sociocultural theory Second language acquisition Turn-construction units Teaching English to Speakers of Other languages Zone of collaborative development Zone of free movement Zone of promoted action Zone of proximal development

Transcription Conventions1

(1.8)

Numbers enclosed in parentheses indicate a pause. The number represents the number of seconds of duration of the pause, to one decimal place. (.) A pause of less than 0.2 seconds. = An equal sign is used to show that there is no time lapse between the portions connected by the equal signs. This is used where a second speaker begins their utterance just at the moment when the first speaker finishes. [ ] Brackets around portions of utterances show that those portions overlap with a portion of another speaker’s utterance. .hh This indicates an audible inhalation of air, for example, as a gasp. The more h’s, the longer the in-breath. ((looking)) a description enclosed in a double bracket indicates a non-verbal activity. an- A dash indicates an abrupt cut off, where the speaker stopped speaking suddenly. sou::nd A colon after a vowel or a word is used to show that the sound is extended. The number of colons shows the length of the extension.

 Adapted from Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008)

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? !

Transcription Conventions

A question mark indicates a rising intonation. Exclamation marks are used to indicate an animated or emphatic tone. (would) When a word appears in parentheses, it indicates that the transcriber has guessed as to what was said, because it was indecipherable on the tape. If the transcriber was unable to guess as to what was said, nothing appears within the parentheses. ↑↓ Up or down arrows are used to indicate that there is sharply rising or falling intonation. The arrow is placed just before the syllable in which the change in intonation occurs. Under Underlines indicate speaker emphasis on the underlined portion of the word. CAPS Capital letters indicate that the speaker spoke the capitalized portion of the utterance at a higher volume than the speaker’s normal volume. °would° This indicates an utterance that is much softer than the normal speech of the speaker. This symbol will appear at the beginning and at the end of the utterance in question. Work Translation. > ‘Greater than’ and ‘less than’ signs indicate that the talk they surround was noticeably faster, or slower than the surrounding talk. £C’mon£ Sterling signs are used to indicate a smiley or jokey voice. → Arrows in the left margin point to specific parts of an extract discussed in the text. (T:00.23) Data source.

1 Introduction to the Book

Introduction This scene takes place in an office between two teachers in a Chinese secondary school where they have a chat about teaching writing classes.

(See the transcription conventions) © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_1

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A number of things can be observed from this exchange, but here I would like to specifically emphasise the value of interaction in understanding teacher cognition. Examining the exchange, we can clearly see Lu’s understanding about giving feedback to students’ writing in an efficient way and the affordances of using a technological tool in achieving that. Her idea becomes visible through her chat with her colleague Rui, and more specifically, through the interactional work they do. Lu shares her recent pedagogical practice (lines 1–2), which is followed by an acknowledgement receipt from Rui (line 3)—the rising tone displays Rui’s interest in hearing more about the innovation. Lu carries on her turn to provide reasons for her decision (lines 4–7, 9–10), with a brief agreement from Rui (lines 8 and 11). The understanding of affordance of technology may also have a discursive explanation when we look at the way Lu interacts with her colleague Rui through a conversation analysis (CA) construct, an adjacency pair. Between lines 1 and 11, Lu provides information whereas Rui shows acknowledgement, encouragement and agreement. Rui’s turns are brief and short, but follow Lu’s closely and sometimes overlap with Lu’s utterance (e.g., line 8), suggesting that she is in a position of receiving information and assisting with the development of Lu’s idea. It is important to note that the smiley voices in lines 10 and 11 suggest that the teachers are building a shared knowledge and co-­ constructing the meaning that it is difficult to read students’ writing sometimes. As the conversation continues, Lu declares that this is indeed a new practice (lines 12–13), but she is interrupted by Rui this time, who asks for students’ responses. On the one hand, Rui demonstrates her interest in learning how students react to the innovation; on the other, Rui asks the question to evaluate the possibility of adopting this method, as suggested later (line 19). Rui’s question put Lu in a position of evaluating the acceptance of the method by students. She does provide a positive comment, voting for confidence in students’ ability to adapt (lines 15–16). The positive confirmation in line 17 suggests that Rui confirms the use of Word in writing as a good practice, and potentially one to adopt in her own practice. At this point, Lu makes a suggestion to encourage Rui to use the similar approach (line 18), and Rui accepts (line 19).

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This is typical everyday talk that teachers have, and such talk gives insights into the decisions teachers make, reflections they have and plans they develop. The value of everyday talk in understanding everyday discursive practice is highlighted by Edwards and Potter (1992): What we find in everyday talk is … a rich seam of concern about truth and error, mind and reality, memory and perception, knowledge and inference … people casually and routinely construct formulations of such things (perception, knowledge, inference and so on) as part of everyday discursive practice (Edwards & Potter, 1992, p. 17)

Teacher cognition is a complex concept which has been studied from various perspectives, and a strong theme across different disciplines and research paradigms is to understand what constitutes ‘cognition’ and to argue its importance for effective pedagogy and teacher development. By observing what teachers do and say in their professional context, we are able to make sense of what they think and how that thinking is displayed in their practice. From the example given earlier, we can see that ‘the relation of thought to word is not a thing but a process …. In that process, the relation of thought to word undergoes changes that themselves may be regarded as development in the functional sense’. (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 218). From Rui’s responses, we can see she is developing an idea of using Word in her writing class as a result of interacting with her colleague Lu. Her position moves from the very beginning as someone who is receiving information about Lu’s experience (line 3), to a teacher who recognises the affordances of the ‘track changes’ function of Word in teaching writing (line 8) and a colleague who shares the knowledge about students (line 11), to someone who is interested in adopting this in her class (thus demonstrating interest in learning about students’ experience) (line 14), to a peer who provides positive evaluation on the practice (line 17) and finally to a teacher who is going to change her practice (line 19). The pedagogical idea that Rui develops here is a result of interaction with her colleague but is shown in the language that she uses. So her thinking and language are working together. What I illustrate here are the key points central to the arguments of the book: there is interrelatedness between language and cognition, and

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c­ ognition is developed in and through social interaction. In my view, the concept of cognition is ‘cognition-in-interaction’, which is different from individually held mental states. Cognition-in-interaction is a special kind of psychological reality—not the one defined by the mental state or process, but by the participants orienting practically in an ongoing interaction. That is, ‘cognition is socially and publically displayed understanding, knowing, positioning, conceptualising and stance-taking’ (Li, 2017a, p. 56). It is fluid and changing, existing in situ and shaped by the understanding of the distributed cognition in prior turns-at-talk, and shapes the development of the next turn (ibid). Without going into further detail, I would like to discuss language teacher cognition research briefly as an introduction to the book, before discussing the theoretical positions I take in researching teacher cognition.

A Brief Review of Language Teacher Cognition Language teacher cognition has contributed significantly to our understanding of teacher education. As Johnson (2006, p.  236) has rightly pointed out, ‘[M]any factors have advanced the field’s understanding of L2 teachers’ work, but none is more significant than the emergence of a substantial body of research now referred to as teacher cognition’. Despite the different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that researchers take, the consensus is that the impact of teacher cognition not only sheds light on the issues in developing effectiveness pedagogy and improving student learning but also promotes understandings of classroom instruction at a micro-level, as well as contributing to teacher learning (Li, 2017a). Research in the last 30 years or so in language teacher cognition has been prolific, and this level of interest confirms that the field has changed from a relatively new and undeveloped area into an important and well-­ researched field of inquiry (Li, 2017a). The focus includes all aspects of teachers’ lives, including the study of teachers’ beliefs, interactive decisions, teacher knowledge and conceptions, teacher identity and emotions, and so on. Typical work includes investigations of the ‘match’ between learners’ and teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Cohen & Fass, 2001; Kern,

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1995; Peacock, 1999), beliefs about subject matters such as grammar and grammar teaching, and literacy (e.g., Andrews, 2003, 2006, 2007; Çapan, 2014; Svalberg & Askham, 2014; Watson, 2015), changes in teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Li, 2012; Mattheoudakis, 2007; Peacock, 2001), the influence of beliefs on teachers’ classroom behaviour and the convergence of practice and beliefs (e.g., Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, & Thwaite, 2001; Farrell & Lim, 2005; See Basturkmen, 2012 for a review) and the influence of beliefs on both pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes (Borg, Birello, Civera & Zanatta, 2014; Busch, 2010; Lamb, 1995). In recent years, new lines of inquiry have been added to the profile of research in teacher cognition, which is particularly significant in understanding the nature of teacher thinking and its relationship to teachers’ practical work. For example, with the development of technology, there is abundant research concerning pedagogical beliefs and the uptake of technology in classrooms (Li, 2014; Öz, 2015; Van Praag & Sanchez, 2015; Yusop, 2015). Many scholars and researchers are starting to pay attention to the role of pedagogical knowledge and beliefs in understanding the affordances of technology integration in language learning, because there is strong evidence to suggest the direct link between these two (e.g., Li, 2008). Equally, teacher cognition about early year education, in particular at the primary level, has developed into a new area due to the widely implemented educational policy of teaching English from early years in many countries and areas (e.g., China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Bahrain) (e.g., Büyükkarci, 2014; Gaitas & Alves Martins, 2014; Lemon & Garvis, 2015; Ottley et  al., 2015). In recent years, with the global movement, multilingual and multicultural awareness has also become an emerging area in second language learning. As a result, there is a growing interest in teaching professionals’ conceptions, perceptions and beliefs about multilingualism and multilingual pedagogy (Cross, 2011; Griva & Chostelidou, 2012; Haukås, 2015). This book builds on previous work on the sociocultural perspective of teacher education (Johnson, 2009), the discursive psychological perspective of language teacher cognition (Li, 2017a), and the value of social interaction to explore in-depth several key areas of teacher cognition through ‘applied’ CA (ten Have, 2007). By bringing all these important areas together, this book aims to shed light on the nature of teacher

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c­ ognition being a socially shared understanding, and the significance of contexts in which it emerges. The motive for the book is mainly to theorise and analyse teachers’ thinking, believing, being and doing in their professional contexts through the lens of social interaction and Vygotsky’s theory of mental development.

 he ‘Social’ and ‘Discursive’ Turn of Teacher T Cognition At the outset, it is important to highlight teacher cognition as being ‘social’ and ‘discursive’. I will briefly discuss the position this book takes and how sociocultural theory (SCT),  discursive psychology (DP) and conversation analysis (CA) can be utilised in addressing the social and discursive turn of teacher cognition. Sociocultural theory highlights the sociolinguistic experience that one has in the process of intellectual development of the mind. Under this perspective, cognition, emotions, identity and other psychological matters are developed in social contexts through interaction. Artefacts and tools are utilised by individuals in sense-making, meaning negotiation and collaboration in activities. In the field of teacher education, teachers are conceptualised and recognised as participants of a learning community, learners in teaching activities and agents who constantly develop and construct identity in professional contexts. Teachers’ professional knowledge, understanding and beliefs are shaped by the professional contexts they are in and the lived experience they may have. To this end, Johnson (2009) calls for a social turn for teacher education, stressing the importance of teacher learning in communities, and how their experiences can help them develop professional thinking and understanding. Discursive psychology views cognition as social action, which is changing, developing and evolving in the social acts of people, and is not a static object which exists in the minds of individuals. A discursive psychological perspective of teacher cognition is put forward by Li (2017a, p. 191), who claims teacher cognition ‘is not a fixed entity but involves thinking, knowing, understanding, conceptualising and stance-taking

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which is displayed in the professional encounters’. It is termed as ‘cognition-­in-interaction’, which highlights the significance of the emergence of cognition in social interaction in a micro-context and the merit of the discursive psychological perspective is ‘the emphasis on action, context and natural talk’ (italics in original; ibid., p. 54). The position that language is social practice, as taken up by Edwards and Potter (1992), also highlights the specific features of the talk in a specific context. Institutional contexts will create a unique ‘fingerprint’ for institutional interaction (Heritage, 2004, p. 225). In the professional contexts where teachers are the subject of the study, interactional talk has three specific features: first, there are always specific goal orientations, such as pedagogical goals in classrooms, or developing pedagogical knowledge in a teacher training course; second, the degree of relevance of individuals’ contributions is determined by the specific goals and agendas; third, there are specific inferential frameworks and procedures—for example, a teacher normally initiates the question and decides the flow and direction of the conversation in a classroom. In this sense, ‘cognition-in-­interaction’ is shaped by the features of the institutional interactions. The merit of CA lies in uncovering the tacit reasoning procedures underlying the production and interpretation of talk in organised sequences of interaction (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008). Conversation analysis is concerned with intersubjectivity and allows the data to speak for the phenomenon and how participants orient to the preceding talk. That is, participants work together to achieve and maintain mutual understanding, or, ‘intersubjectivity’ in talk-in-interaction (e.g. Heritage, 1984). Thus, CA is particularly relevant to research in teacher cognition, that is, to understanding how teachers take stances and make interactive decisions in their social actions. Specifically, the main aim is to describe, firstly, what teachers’ understandings, knowledge and decisions are; secondly, their means of displaying their understanding and stance-taking. Conversation analysis has been used as a major methodology to consider teaching and learning in L2 classrooms (Sert, 2015), and in pedagogy generally (Wong & Waring, 2010). In terms of researching teachers, Li (2017a) adopts CA in uncovering teacher cognition, and in a related field, Benwell and Stokoe (2006) and Gray and Morton (2018) propose a ‘discursive turn’ in analysing learner and teacher identity, making the centrality of the approach in

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understanding the construct of identities (also see a special issue on social interaction for language teacher education in Classroom Discourse, 2019). De Jaegher, Di Paolo, and Gallagher (2010) argue, ‘investigating interaction is central to understanding social cognition’ (p. 441), and CA thus now has been taken up by researchers to investigate knowing, stance-taking, being, understating and conceptualising in institutional talk. In a nutshell, despite the differences in SCT, DP and CA, there remains some common ground between them, central to the argument of this book: • Cognition is socially constructed, an action of interaction with others. Cognition is displayed and developed in social contexts. • Talk is a medium of action, which is locally and situationally organised (te Molder & Potter, 2005), and interactions ‘constitute social situation’ (Barwell, 2003, p. 202). • The interactional work is done ‘in and through talk’ (Roth, 2008, p. 35). Talk therefore not only establishes and maintains the topic, but also establishes and maintains the activity in which participants discuss a particular topic (Li, 2017a, p. 53). • Language is social practice (Edwards & Potter, 1992, p. 15) and institutional interactions have a ‘fingerprint’ of institutional agenda, such as specific ‘goal orientations’, ‘allowable contributions’ and specific ‘inferential frameworks and procedures’ (Heritage, 2004, pp. 224–225).

The Significance of the Book Language Teacher Cognition: A Sociocultural Perspective offers a close investigation of what language teachers think, believe and do in their professional practice, and helps readers understand how they may construct assumptions, conceptions and ideologies in contexts and in social interaction. Arguing that teacher cognition is developed and developing in social interaction stresses the ‘social’ practice and the significance of social contexts in developing and shaping it. Equally, understanding cognition as action in interaction from a discursive psychological perspective ­highlights the developmental and situational nature of what teachers are thinking, believing, being and doing, but at the same time, how they are

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thinking, believing, being and doing. Therefore, cognition is not fixed and a static mental state, but ‘socially and publically displayed understanding, knowing, positioning, conceptualising and stance-taking that is publicly displayed in action’ (Li, 2017a, p. 56). Thus, cognition is fluid and changing, it exists in situ and is shaped by the understanding of the distributed cognition in prior turns-at-talk, and shapes the development of the next turn (ibid). This alternative perspective emphasises the ‘social’ and ‘discursive’ nature of the construct. By adopting ’applied’ CA, the book explicates key pedagogical understanding and conceptions of teachers as significant elements in learning by closely examining verbal and non-verbal features of their interactions in their professional practice. The detailed transcriptions and illustrations of professional talk using CA reveal teachers’ pedagogical conceptions of teaching and learning (Chap. 4), decision-making processes in various situations (Chap. 5), as well as knowledge, assumptions and implementation of new technology in assisting teaching and learning to reflect the current development of pedagogical thinking with the advancement of technology, and adds detailed evidence of decision-making in embracing innovative practices (Chap. 6). Furthermore, this book tackles one of the significant issues in researching teacher cognition: the impact of teacher education on teacher learning (Chap. 7), and an emerging field in teacher cognition: how teachers form and display their professional identities in the process of teaching and knowledge co-construction with learners (Chap. 8). These chapters together form a significant part of teacher cognition about pedagogy and professionalism, reflected in Calderhead’s (1996) model of teacher beliefs: subject matter, their beliefs about teaching, learning and learners, the teacher and professional development. In this sense, this book adopts the constructs of SCT in understanding teachers’ understandings, conceptions and propositions. The focus is placed on articulating how ‘cognitions’ are developed in and shaped by the social interactions that teachers engage in. The significance of this book also lies with the datasets used. The extracts in the book come from three different types of learning settings concerning Chinese students. Specifically, the first type of learning ­setting is Chinese secondary schools in both urban and rural areas. The second type is Taiwanese secondary schools, which share similarities to

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the first. The third setting is Chinese pre-service teachers who are learning to teach in UK institutions; the majority will be working in Type 1 and Type 2 settings after graduation. Thus, the data is representative of a broad Chinese culture of learning, but also offers an in-depth analysis of a current phenomenon regarding EFL teachers’ thinking, believing, being and doing. The up-close analysis might shed light on several specific areas. First, this will make a great addition to the existing work of teacher cognition research in EFL and EAL contexts, where lack of research has been pointed out by both Borg (2006) and Li (2017a). Second, this will specifically make a contribution to the understanding of the specific Chinese culture of learning, which has attracted significant attention in recent years because of the ‘paradox of Chinese learners’ (Li, 2015a; Li & Wegerif, 2014). Nevertheless, it should be noted that it is not an intention of this book to make any generalisations; rather, it offers an example of in-depth understanding of a group of EFL teachers. Third, examples from professional interaction enable us to see in great detail how professionals construct ideologies, beliefs, and understanding in action, and how this construction is co-managed and co-developed by all the participants in a talk. What this book therefore offers can be shared and learnt by teachers and researchers who work in wider professional contexts. The intended audience of this book, therefore, is broad. Researchers who are already working on teacher cognition might find the discussions illuminating, and those who are working in interaction will also benefit from the discussion of the role of interaction in understanding professional thinking and lives. Of course, researchers who are working in the areas of SCT should also find this book attractive, because it provides an example of linking thought and action within the broad theoretical framework of mental development. Doctoral and Master’s students, as well as teachers, can also benefit since it provides them with a starting point of understanding the field of teacher cognition and how it informs pedagogy and teacher development. Equally, the book introduces the key concepts of SCT and how educational professionals can use the framework in guiding their research and inquiry. The detailed and exemplary work of using principles of CA gives readers a tool to understand the dynamics of classroom, learning and teaching, as well as teachers and learners as active participants in the process of learning. With such a

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wide-ranging potential readership in mind, I present the theoretical framework and key concepts of SCT and interaction in the subsequent chapters and then move on to discuss various aspects of teacher cognition before I provide implications and conclusions. I will provide a more detailed description of the content in the following section.

Structure of the Book This book consists of nine chapters. The current chapter presents my personal interest in researching language teacher cognition through the lens of SCT and summarises the current research agenda. In what follows, a brief discussion of the theoretical positions underpinning the book is offered, followed by description of the readership. The significance is discussed in order to offer the reader a holistic view of the uniqueness of this book, and the contribution to both language teacher cognition and education in general. Next, I will describe the key elements of each chapter. Chapter 2, ‘Sociocultural Theory and Teacher Cognition’, reviews the theoretical underpinnings of research in teacher cognition and highlights the contribution of a sociocultural perspective in understanding what teachers know, believe and think in their professional work. Specifically, this chapter offers an up-to-date overview of research in language teacher cognition by comparing and contrasting different theoretical perspectives, and discussing its growing importance. The constructs of SCT, such as mediation, zone of proximal development (ZPD) and internalisation, are briefly introduced and discussed in order to justify the appropriateness of the approach in teacher cognition research. Chapter 3, ‘Interaction Analysis and Teacher Cognition’, discusses the role of interaction in understanding teacher cognition, in particular in the area of knowledge, belief and decision-making. Discourse analysis and conversation analysis are compared to propose why a CA informed approach is useful in the study of teacher cognition (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008). The chapter makes a strong case for looking at cognition through interaction and illustrates how teachers’ knowledge, understandings and beliefs are embedded in interaction—for

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example, in the choice of activities, tasks, managing classrooms and selecting materials. This chapter particularly looks at how ‘applied’ CA is beneficial in researching what actually goes on in a classroom. The fine-grained, ‘up-close’ analysis provides an in-depth understanding of what teachers think in a moment-by-­moment interaction in their professional context; a concept termed as ‘cognition-in-action’ (Li, 2017a). Chapter 4, ‘Teacher Cognition about Teaching and Learning’, offers insights into the meanings of teaching and learning from the perspective of teachers. It mainly looks at what teaching a language is and what learning a language is through analysing detailed classroom transcriptions. The complexity about pedagogical knowledge and thinking observed in the classroom interaction suggests that teaching and learning is not a linear process and teachers do not hold a simplistic view of their professional work. Indeed, they might have different interpretations of English language learning and take different approaches to it. Chapter 5, ‘Teacher Cognition and Interactive Decision-Making’, focuses on critical moments in teaching and explores how teachers make their interactive decisions (Tsui, 2003), or conduct online decision-­ making (Walsh, 2006, 2011), by looking at classroom data. Teachers, as active decision makers, are continually making choices to maintain student interest and engagement (Richards, 1998). Because of the significance of interactive decisions, this chapter explicates what knowledge is activated and how teachers use it in making decisions about their dayto-­day and moment-by-moment activities. A number of explanations have been identified in the literature concerning those occasions when interactive decisions are taken, including (1) unexpected or dispreferred contributions from learners; (2) task difficulty level; (3) potential learning opportunities; and (4) insufficient knowledge (Li, 2017a). I will further explore these categories of interactive decision-making in this chapter. Chapter 6, ‘Teacher Cognition about the Use of Technology’, explores understanding, conception and utilisation of technological tools in supporting achievement of pedagogical aims. This chapter is included to reflect the current thinking of integrating technology in teaching and learning. In particular, foreign language teachers globally are expected to

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bring technological innovation into classrooms. Building on my other work in technology-enhanced language learning (Li, 2008, 2014, 2017b), this chapter details what teachers think regarding the role and functions of technology and how their use of such tools is closely related to their pedagogical thinking. Chapter 7, ‘The Impact of Teacher Education on Teacher Cognition’, investigates the development of pre-service teachers’ knowledge and beliefs as they undertake a programme of teacher education overseas. Using data from micro-teaching and practicum, lesson-planning conferences and post-lesson interview, this chapter provides insights into the trajectory of development in two student teachers’ understanding, knowledge and beliefs about language teaching and learning, as well as their conceptions of themselves as teachers. Chapter 8, ‘Teacher Cognition and Identity’ looks at the importance of identity in effective teaching (Richards, 2006), as teachers are the most critical players in deciding what learning is and what resources are brought into learning. For a long time, they were assumed to hold one professional identity, and little has been explored about the different identities they may assume in their interactions with learners (Gray & Morton, 2018; Li, 2017a). Furthermore, teacher emotion is rarely discussed in the literature on teacher education yet it affects aspects of teachers’ professional practice. Therefore, in this chapter, I explore the role of teachers in the classroom and how their different identities are co-constructed. In this sense, this chapter further contributes to our current thinking of the roles of learners, and their contributions to the dynamics of the classroom. Chapter 9, ‘Teacher Cognition and Teacher Education’, builds on analyses in the previous chapters to discuss the implications of teacher cognition in teacher education and pedagogy. Suggestions are made regarding how to enhance teacher learning and development in EFL contexts. The key message of this chapter is that the aim of language teacher education is not to develop the ‘best’ teachers but to ‘empower’ individual teachers by understanding their practice in ‘live’ contexts, as they play a central role in shaping classroom events. As a concluding chapter, this chapter also highlights the value of social activity in teacher cognition research.

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References Andrews, S. (2003). ‘Just like instant noodles’: L2 teachers and their beliefs about grammar pedagogy. Teachers and Teaching, 9(4), 351–375. Andrews, S. (2006). The evolution of teachers’ language awareness. Language Awareness, 15, 1–19. Andrews, S. (2007). Teacher language awareness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Barwell, R. (2003). Discursive psychology and mathematics education: Possibilities and challenges. Zentralblatt f¨ur Didaktik der Mathematik, 35(5), 201–207. Basturkmen, H. (2012). Review of research into the correspondence between language teachers’ stated beliefs and practices. System, 40(2), 282–295. Benwell, B., & Stokoe, E. (2006). Discourse and identity. Edinburgh, UK: Edinburgh University Press. Borg, S. (2006). Teacher cognition and language education: Research and practice. London: Continuum. Borg, S., Birello, M., Civera, I., & Zanatta, T. (2014). The impact of teacher education on pre-service primary English language teachers. London: British Council. Breen, M. P., Hird, B., Milton, M., Oliver, R., & Thwaite, A. (2001). Making sense of language teaching: Teachers’ principles and classroom practices. Applied Linguistics, 22(4), 470–501. Busch, D. (2010). Pre-service teacher beliefs about language learning: The second language acquisition course as an agent for change. Language Teaching Research, 14(3), 318–337. Büyükkarci, K. (2014). Assessment beliefs and practices of language teachers in primary education. International Journal of Instruction, 7(1), 107–120. Calderhead, J. (1996). Teachers: Beliefs and knowledge. In D. C. Berliner & R.  C. Calfee (Eds.), Handbook of educational psychology (pp.  709–725). New York: Macmillan. Çapan, S. A. (2014). Pre-service English as a foreign language teachers’ belief development about grammar instruction. Australian Journal of Teacher Education, 39(12), 131–152. Cohen, A. D., & Fass, L. (2001). Oral language instruction: Teacher and learner beliefs and the reality in EFL classes at a Colombian University. Journal of Language and Culture, 6, 43–62.

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Cross, R. (2011). Troubling literacy: Monolingual assumptions, multilingual contexts, and language teacher expertise. Teachers and Teaching, 17(4), 467–478. De Jaegher, H., Di Paolo, E. A., & Gallagher, S. (2010). Can social interaction constitute social cognition? Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 14(10), 441–447. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tics.2010.06.009 Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive psychology. London: Sage. Farrell, T. S. C., & Lim, P. C. P. (2005). Conceptions of grammar teaching: A case study of teachers’ beliefs and classroom practices. TESL-EJ, 9(2), 1–13. Gaitas, S., & Alves Martins, M. (2014). Relationships between primary teachers’ beliefs and their practices in relation to writing instruction. Research Papers in Education, 30, 492–505. Gray, J., & Morton, T. (2018). Social interaction and teacher identity. Edinburgh University Press. Griva, E., & Chostelidou, D. (2012). Multilingual competence development in the Greek educational system: Fl teachers’ beliefs and attitudes. International Journal of Multilingualism, 9(3), 257–271. Haukås, Å. (2015). Teachers’ beliefs about multilingualism and a multilingual pedagogical approach. International Journal of Multilingualism, 13, 1–18. Heritage, J. (1984). Garfinkel and ethnomethodology (Vol. 53). Cambridge: Polity Press. Heritage, J. (2004). Conversation analysis and institutional talk: Analysing data. In D.  Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative research: Theory, method and practice (pp. 222–245). London: Sage. Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. (2008). Conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Johnson, K. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for L2 teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 235–257. Johnson, K. E. (2009). Second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective. New York and London: Routledge. Kern, R.  G. (1995). Student’s and teachers beliefs about language learning. Foreign Language Annals, 28(1), 71–92. Lamb, M. (1995). The consequences of inset. ELT Journal, 49(1), 72–80. Lemon, N., & Garvis, S. (2015). Pre-service teacher self-efficacy in digital technology. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 22, 387–408. Li, L. (2008). EFL teachers’ beliefs about ICT integration in Chinese secondary schools. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast.

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Li, L. (2012). Belief construction and development: Two tales of non-native English speaking student teachers in a TESOL programme. Novitas-ROYAL (Research on Youth and Language), 6(1), 33–58. Li, L. (2014). Understanding language teachers’ practice with educational technology: A case from China. System, 46, 105–119. Li, L. (2015a). A Confucian perspective on teaching thinking in China. In R. Wegerif, L. Li, & J. Kaufman (Eds.), Routledge handbook of researching for teaching thinking skills (pp. 45–57). London: Routledge. Li, L. (2017a). Social interaction and teacher cognition. Edinburgh University Press. Li, L. (2017b). New technologies and language learning. Palgrave Macmillan. Li, L., & Wegerif, R. (2014). What does it mean to teach thinking in China? Challenging and developing notions of ‘Confucian Education’. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 11, 22–32. Mattheoudakis, M. (2007). Tracking changes in pre-service EFL teacher beliefs in Greece: A longitudinal study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(8), 1272–1288. Ottley, J. R., Piasta, S. B., Mauck, S. A., O’Connell, A., Weber-Mayrer, M., & Justice, L. M. (2015). The nature and extent of change in early childhood educators’ language and literacy knowledge and beliefs. Teaching and Teacher Education, 52, 47–55. Öz, H. (2015). Assessing pre-service English as a foreign language teachers’ technological pedagogical content knowledge. International Education Studies, 8(5), 119–130. Peacock, M. (1999). Beliefs about language learning and their relationship to proficiency. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(2), 247–263. Peacock, M. (2001). Pre-service ESL teachers’ beliefs about second language learning: A longitudinal study. System, 29, 177–195. Richards, J. C. (1998). Teacher beliefs and decision making. In J. C. Richards (Ed.), Beyond training (pp. 65–85). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, K. (2006). ‘Being the teacher’: Identity and classroom conversation. Applied Linguistics, 27(1), 51–77. Roth, W. (2008). The nature of scientific conceptions: A discursive psychological perspective. Educational Research Review, 3, 30–50. Sert, O. (2015). Social interaction and L2 classroom discourse. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Svalberg, A. M. L., & Askham, J. (2014). Student teachers’ collaborative construction of grammar awareness: The case of a highly competent learner. Language Awareness, 23(1–2), 123–137.

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te Molder, H., & Potter, J. (Eds.). (2005). Conversation and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ten Have, P. (2007). Doing conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Tsui, A. A. M. (2003). Understanding expertise in teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press. Van Praag, B., & Sanchez, H. S. (2015). Mobile technology in second language classrooms: Insights into its uses, pedagogical implications, and teacher beliefs. ReCALL, 27, 288–303. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Walsh, S. (2006). Investigating classroom discourse. London: Routledge. Walsh, S. (2011). Exploring classroom discourse: Language in action. London: Routledge. Watson, A. (2015). The problem of grammar teaching: A case study of the relationship between a teacher’s beliefs and pedagogical practice. Language and Education, 29, 332–346. Wong, J., & Waring, H. Z. (2010). Conversation analysis and second language pedagogy: A guide for ESL/EFL teachers. New York: Routledge. Yusop, F.  D. (2015). A dataset of factors that influence preservice teachers’ intentions to use web 2.0 technologies in future teaching practices. British Journal of Educational Technology, 46(5), 1075–1080.

2 Sociocultural Theory and Teacher Cognition

Introduction Teacher cognition has become an important agenda in the language teacher education in recent decades, which is evidenced by the proliferation of journal articles (over 700 since the year 2000) and dedicated books (including this one) (e.g., Barnard & Burns, 2012; Borg, 2006, 2013; Kalaja, Barcelos, Aro, & Ruohotie-Lyhty, 2016; Kubanyiova, 2012; Li, 2017a; Phipps, 2010) and a few special issues (e.g., System, 2011; Language Learning Journal, 2013; Modern Language Journal, 2015). With field interest in teacher cognition at a high point, it seems necessary to reflect on both the insights and implications that may arise from research. As a starting point, rather than offering a comprehensive, detailed literature review of the field (but see Li, 2017), I believe it is essential to map out the key areas that researchers and teacher educators are devoted to. A review of the literature on second language teacher cognition suggests various terms have been used by the researchers and the most widely used are perception, conception, attitudes and beliefs. ‘Beliefs’, a frequently used and an interchangeable term for ‘cognition’ can also be viewed with different dimensions, such as cognitive, affective, subjective and objective © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_2

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(Richards & Lockhart, 1994). Calderhead (1996) has identified five foci for the study of teachers’ beliefs: subject matter, their beliefs about teaching, learning and learners, the teacher and professional development. Teachers’ beliefs, therefore, can be understood, investigated and observed as a process in which these components interact (e.g., Li, 2008), and are influenced by various factors, such as learning and teaching experience (Kubanyiova, 2012; Tsui, 2003), teaching practice (Li, 2012; 2017a) and workplace culture (Li, 2008; Sato & Kleinsasser, 2004). In a recent review of the development of language teacher cognition, Borg (2019) offers a more sophisticated and developed definition of teacher cognition, defining it as ‘understanding, with reference to the personal, professional, sociocultural and historical dimensions of teachers’ lives, how becoming, being, and developing as a teacher is shaped by (and in turn shapes) what teachers (individually and collectively) think and feel about all aspects of their work’ (p. 4). It is clear that teacher cognition has expanded to a multidimensional concept that incorporates a teacher’s past, present and future professional lives. The recent development of teacher cognition also sees the addition of terms such as ‘identity’, ‘emotion’, ‘motivation’, ‘commitment’ and so on. Now that I have briefly introduced the field, I will explore the importance of researching teacher cognition, and move on to discuss theoretical perspectives in defining this rich area and associated methodological approaches. Here, I would like to highlight that explicit acknowledgement that teacher cognition can be understood from different epistemological perspectives and researched with different methodological approaches is critical. The last section of this chapter is dedicated to the sociocultural theory and in particular, the key constructs such as mediation, zone of proximal development (ZPD) and internalisation (appropriation), which is the epistemological perspective of teacher cognition adopted in this book.

The Importance of Teacher Cognition The importance of teacher cognition is widely discussed in the literature, and it can be considered from different aspects. As early as in 1997, Burden and Williams pointed out that what and how teachers think affects everything in classrooms (my emphasis). Similarly, Li (2017a) claims that teacher cognition is significant in developing effective peda-

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gogy and teacher learning. There is a vast literature, making a connection between teacher cognition and their classroom behaviours, and attitudes towards innovation and new approaches to teaching, and classroom interaction and assessment. Breen et  al. (2001, pp. 471–472) outlined four main reasons for studying teachers’ beliefs: 1. Identifying the guiding principles that teachers articulate concerning their classroom work can complement observational studies by enabling research to go beyond description towards an understanding and explanation of teacher actions. 2. Teachers’ beliefs provide a source of experientially based professional ‘know how’ that may serve as a focus both for initial teacher education and to promote reflective practices in ongoing teacher development. 3. Any educational innovation has to be accommodated within a teacher’s own frameworks of teaching principles. Increased awareness of such frameworks in specific contexts can inform curriculum policy and planning in relation to any innovation. 4. Conversely, beliefs may result in the emergence of new teaching principles which produce grounded alternatives to the ‘accepted wisdom’ passed on by methodologists who may be far removed from actual classrooms (Kumaravadivelu, 1994; Pennycook, 1994; Phillipson, 1992). These four reasons reflect the importance of teacher cognition in four areas, which I will discuss in detail: • • • •

Teachers’ perceptions and behaviour in teaching The role of learners and the teacher Pedagogy Teacher learning

Previous research has suggested that teacher cognition heavily affects teachers’ perceptions and judgements of teaching and learning, illustrated through behaviour in classrooms (Borg, 2006; Clark & Peterson, 1986; Clark & Yinger, 1987; Li & Walsh, 2011a). Over the past 30 years, research has suggested that beliefs heavily influence pedagogical practice (e.g., Barcelos, 2016; Farrell, 2015; Farrell & Ives, 2015; Mangubhai, Marland,

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Dashwood, & Son, 2004; Ng & Farrell, 2003), their instructional decisions in the classroom (Tillema, 2000), and acceptance and uptake of new approaches, techniques and activities (Donaghue, 2003; Li, 2014). Specifically, what teachers think, believe and perceive could strongly influence the way teachers plan their lessons, the activities and tasks they design, the evaluation of learning, and all kinds of decisions they make in the teaching process (Li, 2012; Pajares, 1992). For example, Li and Walsh (2011a) suggest that teachers holding different pedagogical beliefs tend to have different interaction patterns and foci in teaching. Similar claims have also been made by other researchers (e.g., Borg, 2003b; Mangubhai et al., 2004). There is certainly a link between teachers’ understanding about their pedagogical considerations and their instructional decisions in the classroom. To strengthen the significance of teacher cognition to teachers’ practice, Williams and Burden (1997, p. 57) argue, ‘teachers’ deep-rooted beliefs about how languages are learned will pervade their classroom actions more than a particular methodology they are told to adopt or course book they follow’. In this respect, teachers make decisions using their own principles concerning the activities they design; the materials they use; the ways they interact with students, participation and role of students in this process. Equally, Clark and Peterson (1986) make the same observation and argue the necessity for considering both thought and action together in the research on teacher cognition because ‘(T)eacher behaviour is substantially influenced and even determined by teachers’ thought process’ (p.  255). They further argue that ‘the process of teaching will be fully understood only when these two domains are brought together and examined in relation to one another’ (p. 258). However, current research also understands that the relationship between teacher cognition and classroom practice is ‘symbiotic’ (Foss & Kleinsasser, 1996, p. 441; Li & Walsh, 2011a). That is, teacher cognition shapes teachers’ behaviour but equally that classroom events, in turn, influence the subsequent decisions a teacher may make. As Shavelson and Stern (1981) remark: ‘a decision will, in all likelihood, be changed somewhat by the consequent behaviour of the teacher’ (p. 460). This view is also echoed by Borg (2006), who claimed that ‘teacher cognitions and practices are mutually informing, with contextual factors playing an important role in mediating the extent to which teachers are able to implement instruction congruent with their cognitions’ (p. 284).

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The second area where teacher cognition research has made a significant contribution is in understanding the role of teachers and learners, especially how teachers interpret their evolving identity ‘self-as teacher’ (Bullough, Knowles, & Grow, 1992; Clark & Peterson, 1986), as well as how students are perceived and positioned. As we already know, language learners need to interact with their peers and teachers in order to learn and improve their L2 competence and capacity, and the teacher is usually the one who provides a space or hinders the opportunity for learners to participate in such interactions (Li, 2011). Therefore, the dynamics and relationships between the teacher and learners, and between learners, are an important aspect of teaching and learning. When a teacher positions learners as active participants, space for learners to be engaged in activities is provided through interaction, whereas when a teacher views learners as passive knowledge receivers, less or no opportunities are given to students. These might not represent different images of teachers or philosophies of pedagogy, but they do reflect how teachers perceive both themselves and learners in teaching and learning activities. In the former setting, learners are active participants and language users who can regulate and manage their learning, whereas in the latter setting, the teacher has the absolute control and power in deciding what to learn and how it is learnt. Of course, closely related to the role of a teacher and learner is the concept of identity. Despite the importance of the role of teacher and learners in understanding pedagogy and learning, little research has been carried out to investigate their identities in classrooms (but see Gray & Morton, 2018). When it comes to learning a foreign language, a teacher’s decision-making and understanding reflect their cognition about themselves and the learners. That is, teacher cognition can be considered as a lens to study images and positioning of teachers and learners. In a similar vein, researching teacher cognition about teaching and learning has a significance in understanding and improving pedagogy. Speer (2005) proposed three important reasons to study teacher ­cognition concerning innovative pedagogy; she points out that teacher cognition can provide insider knowledge about the plausibility of such innovation and potential barriers and possible conditions; second, strategies or guidelines or pedagogies developed by teachers within that particular situation can facilitate such innovation and speed up its adoption. The underlying assumption is that teacher cognitions are essential factors shaping teachers’ decisions

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about what knowledge is relevant, what teaching routines are appropriate, what goals should be accomplished, and what are the important features of the social context of the classroom. (p. 365)

What is suggested by Speer here is that teachers are perceived as the key stakeholders to assess the suitability and appropriateness of the innovation. Their assessment will become a catalyst or hindrance in the process of implementing the innovative practice. Similarly, teachers might develop strategies and guidelines from their practice, which will serve as a framework for them to implement such innovation in their contexts. On the other hand, Breen et al. (2001) suggested that researching teacher cognition may lead to frameworks for language pedagogy emerging directly from classroom work on a range of different teaching situations that would generate grounded alternatives to the ‘accepted wisdom’ of language teaching methodology. The personal theories or principles teachers developed from their practice become their guidance for future practice. Both works emphasised the importance of pedagogical thinking being context-specific and context-bound. This is especially true when we see why the same principles are interpreted and implemented in different contexts differently and why the different pedagogical considerations can be used to explain the same theory. As such, research on teacher cognition could be utilised as a means to raise teachers’ awareness of effective pedagogy and consequently develop appropriate teaching methodology for their contexts. Studying teacher cognition also has significant implications for teacher learning. In particular, Golombek and Doran (2014) highlighted a significant means of professional development for teachers through unifying teacher cognition, emotions and activity. In researching pre-service ­teachers’ beliefs, we understand how their learning experience, previous coursework, educational background and sociocultural contexts influence their beliefs, and how teacher education programmes can help to shape and develop their personal practical knowledge through experiencing, learning and reflection (Horwitz, 1985; Kubanyiova, 2012; Li, 2012). In fact, research on teacher cognition has been taken by researchers in the field of second language teacher education (SLTE) as a source of experientially based professional ‘know how’ that may serve as a focus both for initial teacher education and for reflection in ongoing teacher

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development (Freeman & Richards, 1996; Johnson, 2009a; Richards & Lockhart, 1994). Equally, researching in-service teacher cognition enables researchers and teachers themselves to understand the relationship between teachers’ thinking and doing in their professional contexts, and their professional growth. This said, Kubanyiova (2012) raises the question of what constitutes a meaningful and worthwhile impact of teacher education. In this respect, Li (2017a) argues for a collaborative dialogic framework to enable the teachers to develop in a supportive community. It is not just a means to engage teachers in reflective practice, but it offers an opportunity for teachers to see evidence for their knowledge and understanding.

Theoretical Perspectives of Teacher Cognition Teacher cognition, like any other research areas in applied linguistics, can be understood from different theoretical perspectives. Li (2017a) proposed three different theoretical frameworks that have been adopted by researchers, namely the cognitive perspective, interactionist’s perspective and discursive psychological perspective, which I will discuss briefly in the following sections.

The Cognitive Perspective The dominant and prevailing theoretical position that researchers take on in language teacher cognition research is the cognitive perspective. Cognitive learning theories and information-processing models influence this perspective, and place emphasis on what knowledge teachers have, how they use the knowledge, and what impact their decisions have on their classroom instructions. The cognitive perspective focuses on the mental state of teachers, viewing teacher cognition as fixed mental entities (e.g., assumptions or prepositions) that exist in teachers’ heads, which guide their decision-making and actions. In this view, teachers’ beliefs, stance and understandings are considered as a person’s static traits that remain constant across situations.

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There are several key points to be made about this perspective. First, teacher cognition is understood as a static mental entity existing in teachers’ heads. It rarely acknowledges the significant role of contexts in shaping and developing cognition. When ‘context’ is taken into consideration of teacher cognition, it is viewed as explanations for why teachers might do things differently from what they believe. Teacher cognition is defined as ‘an attitude consistently applied to an activity’ (Eisenhart, Shrum, Harding, & Cuthbert, 1988, p. 54), which can be interchangeable with terms such as ‘attitudes’, ‘judgements’, ‘opinions’, ‘ideologies, ‘perceptions’, ‘conceptions’, ‘conceptual system’, ‘preconceptions’, ‘dispositions’, ‘implicit theories’, ‘personal theories’ and ‘perspectives’ (Calderhead, 1996). Second, teacher cognition is very often understood as the drive that affects teachers’ classroom behaviours. Therefore, classroom practice is not considered as part of teacher cognition, and on the contrary, it is a performance affected and guided by beliefs. From the cognitive perspective, there is overwhelming research evidence to suggest that teachers’ classroom practices are heavily guided and influenced by teachers’ knowledge and beliefs—for example, when planning lessons, giving instructions or interacting with children (Richards & Lockhart, 1994; Woods, 1996). Although decisions and beliefs sometimes differ dramatically between teachers, for each teacher there is strong evidence that the decisions made in planning and carrying out the course are internally consistent. That is, their teaching is consistent with deeper underlying assumptions and beliefs about language, learning and teaching. Because the focus of this perspective is on teachers’ mental entities, it sees teachers’ practice as a separate issue from teacher thinking. The deliberate separation of beliefs and practice makes it common for researchers to examine the convergence and divergence of teachers’ beliefs and their practices, and the contributing factors to the possible mismatches. Research with this focus tends to describe what teachers know and believe and for ‘using those as frameworks for examining systematicity in participants’ actions in the classrooms’ (Speer, 2005, p. 376). In this respect, research has depicted a complex picture of the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and their classroom practices. In this regard, cognition is treated as a psychological matter and the drive to influence teachers’ practice. On the one hand, there is strong evidence that teachers’ instructional

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decisions and practices are heavily guided and influenced by teachers’ knowledge and beliefs (Richards & Lockhart, 1994). On the other hand, there is considerable disagreement as to the precise relationship between stated/professed and enacted/attributed beliefs (e.g., Basturkmen, Loewen, & Ellis, 2004; Orafi & Borg, 2009). Research has observed discrepancies, inconsistencies and mismatches between teachers’ beliefs and practice, and various perspectives have been offered regarding the contributing factors. In many studies, contextual factors were cited to account for the mismatch between beliefs and practice, and they neglect the interactive nature of the classroom, where teachers are constantly making interactive decisions (Tsui, 2003). Therefore, macro and meso contexts are recognised as contributing factors for discrepancies and mismatches, such as the curriculum, testing, educational policy and school cultures (e.g., Sato & Kleinsasser, 2004). Meso factors include wider school environments and the immediate classroom, and school culture and its norms and recognised values (Davis, 2003). For example, in a Japanese context, Sato and Kleinsasser (2004) revealed that teachers’ beliefs were closely tied to context, or the school’s (technical) culture—its norms and values. Norms, which those teachers described as ‘managing students and various task assignments’ and ‘keeping pace with other teachers’, guided not only what they taught, but how they taught (Sato & Kleinsasser, 2004, p.  811). Students (e.g., their learning styles, preferences, and linguistic levels) are often recognised as one of the most important contextual factors which influence what teachers do in classrooms. These understandings help develop teachers’ beliefs about teaching ‘the same way for the common test and to maintain classroom management’ (ibid). Li (2013) also highlights the role of macro and micro contexts in shaping a Chinese expert teacher’s classroom decision-­making. This research evidence suggests that language teachers’ behaviour is certainly linked very closely to their social, cultural and institutional context (Burns & Knox, 2005; Li, 2008). Contextual factors can sometimes put strains on teachers, resulting in their ‘inability to apply the new ideas within the existing parameters of syllabus, examinations, and other practical constraints’ (Lamb, 1995, p. 75). Apart from contextual factors, there are also other influential factors contributing to the development of teachers’ beliefs and practice, such as years of teaching

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experience (Gatbonton, 2008; Tsui, 2003), and the teachers’ level of thought processes and reflections. Most research in teacher cognition follows this more traditional thinking and tends to elicit what teachers think about one or many aspects of their professional lives. Cross-sectional research or tests are probably the most distinctive research methods associated with this approach. Cross-­ sectional research often adopts Likert-scale questionnaires, such as BALLI (Horwitz, 1985), Belief Inventory (Johnson, 1992), a scenario-based questionnaire (e.g., Borg, 2006), or tests to investigate teachers’ knowledge (e.g., Andrews, 1999, 2003; Andrews & McNeil, 2005). The underlying assumption is that teachers’ propositions, assumptions, perceptions, and conceptions of language learning and teaching guide their classroom management and teaching techniques, and beliefs are stable and fixed so that they can be described or elicited by self-report instruments. This approach also indicates beliefs or assumptions held by the teacher might be contradictory. Therefore, the motive of the research might be associated with illuminating the misconceptions.

Interactionist Perspective The interactionist perspective challenges the view held by the cognitive perspective that beliefs may serve as an explanatory principle for teacher actions and decision-making, to claim that a teacher’s actions must be understood ‘as entities that may be transformed or even emerge in and as a result of his or her interactions with students’ (Skott, 2001). As such, the motives of the teacher actions should not be seen as predetermined by beliefs. Thus, from the interactionist perspective, it is inappropriate to focus on inconsistency or discrepancy between beliefs and practice. Rather, what teachers say and do should be considered as a unified whole in order to understand teacher cognition. As we already know that teachers’ interaction with students and teaching activities might exert a strong influence on their behaviour in the classroom which might not match what they claim to believe, thus, the key position of the interactionist’s perspective is that beliefs are fluid, and they emerge as a result of teacher– student interactions.

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Research in this tradition focuses on the emergence of beliefs in interaction and places a high value on the actual practice of the teacher. Argyris and Schön (1974) suggest that people’s beliefs should be inferred from how they act rather than from what they say they believe. This view has been taken on by an interactionist perspective of beliefs, and classroom interaction data are used to understand how teachers attempt to relate sensibly to a multitude of different and possibly subjectively incompatible aspects of the situations at hand. Research following this perspective considers both teachers’ articulation of their personal theories and their classroom practice through the lens of classroom interaction.

Discursive Psychological Perspective Discursive Psychology (DP), first coined by Edwards and Potter (1992), is another rarely considered perspective in researching teacher cognition (but see Li, 2017). It is a ‘perspective that has addressed cognition in the context of interaction most systematically in a psychological context’ (te Molder & Potter, 2005, p. 19). Discursive psychology focuses on psychological motives, attitudes, and morals that underpin conversations and interactions (Edwards & Potter, 1992). At a theoretical level, the psychology domain ‘is an object, in DP, it is practical, accountable, situated, embodied and displayed’ (Potter, 2005, p. 740). In DP, ‘the subject matter of psychology has to take account of discourses, significations, subjectivities, and positionings, for it is in these that psychological phenomena actually exist’ (Harré & Gillett, 1994, p.  22). Disccursive psychology treats language as a central activity in social life and ‘it is a vehicle through which our sense of the world, and indeed psychological concepts themselves (such as memory, attitude, or cognition) are actively constructed’ (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008, p.  6). Therefore, from a DP perspective, words are actions. As such, teachers’ articulations of their beliefs and understandings, and their interaction in the professional contexts are their cognition. Clearly, in DP, there is no deliberate separation between beliefs and practice. It focuses on the ways in which beliefs and knowledge ‘emerge’ from discourses and are ‘accomplished’ locally. As such, ‘interaction can be seen as patterns of activity which take place in and

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constitute a social situation’ (Barwell, 2003, p.  202) and DP is more interested in ‘how issues like knowing are dealt with by the participants themselves’ (ibid., p. 203). Li (2017a) argues the case for the DP perspective towards teacher cognition, which she defines as ‘cognition-in-interaction’ to differentiate it from the point of view that cognition is fixed and stable across situations. As she argues, cognition-in-interaction is a special kind of psychological reality—not the one defined by the mental state or process, but by the participants orienting practically in an ongoing interaction following the rules for turn taking. Cognition-in-interaction is organised and displayed by the participants orienting practically in ongoing interaction. From a DP perspective, teacher cognition is socially and publicly displayed understanding, knowing, positioning, conceptualising and stance-taking. Thus, cognition is fluid and changing, it exists in situ and is shaped by the understanding of the distributed cognition in prior turns-at-talk, and shapes the development of the next turn. The fundamental theoretical position of DP is that ‘talk is both the terrain/context and tool of human activity’, and talk ‘not only establishes and maintains the topic but also establishes and maintains the activity in which participants talk about a particular topic’ (Roth, 2008, p.  35). It looks at the different sorts of things that are said, how they are said, to what purpose and to what effect in interaction, following the tradition of conversation analysis (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008). te Molder and Potter (2005, p. 3) summarise that DP emphasises that: • Talk is a medium of action • Talk is locally and situationally organised • The point of view of the interactant is basic to understanding talk-in-interaction • The primary analytic approach is the empirical study of the natural interaction The DP perspective adopts the CA approach to understand how, why and where teachers’ professional talk mobilises psychological concepts such as cognition, attitudes, beliefs, identity, conception, emotion and motivation. Language is not considered as a channel to these mental enti-

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ties, but as a resource that people use in interaction to manage public affairs. In particular, it places emphasis on action and natural talk and views beliefs as locally constructed and publicly displayed understandings—for example, by analysing student–teacher interactions in classrooms as well as interviews with teachers about their beliefs (Morton, 2012). The focus, therefore, is placed on the understanding of teacher cognition of ‘particular moments’ rather than their overarching beliefs, and how their distributed cognition is publicly displayed and negotiated. The merit of the DP perspective on teacher cognition is the emphasis on action, micro context and natural talk, which is distinct from the cognitive view of teacher cognition that stresses the cognitive psychological labels using experimental manipulations or decontextualised examples. Talk therefore not only establishes and maintains the topic but also establishes and maintains the activity in which participants discuss a particular topic. However, the DP perspective does not consider the macro context, such as the sociopolitical and sociocultural settings in which teachers learn and develop their knowledge, beliefs and understandings. In reviewing these theories and in acknowledging the significance of broader contexts and learning experience in shaping and developing teacher cognition (Kubanyiova, 2012), I feel it is time to build on the existing research to further develop the epistemological perspective to understand teacher cognition-in-interaction as a social phenomenon. I argue that SCT is appropriate to be considered tougher with DP to emphasise the ‘social’ and ‘discursive’ nature of cognition. As I have already highlighted in Chap. 1, DP and SCT are compatible because they both emphasise the significance of ‘context’ and ‘interaction’ in constructing cognition. Furthermore, there are two distinctive reasons to consider the sociocultural perspective in researching teacher cognition-­ in-­interaction. First, as Johnson (2009a) claims, SLTE has taken a ‘social turn’ to emphasise the influence of interactions, significant others and learning experience in shaping what teachers know and conceptualise in their workplaces. Second, despite the growing body of research on teacher cognition, we are yet to gain sufficient knowledge about how teachers co-construct their beliefs and make informed decisions mediated by the social context, and the extent to which their past and present experiences facilitate their development in their professional contexts. To be more

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specific, as Kubanyiova and Feryok (2015) suggested, we still need to find out how language teachers create meaningful learning environments for their students and how teacher education, continuing professional development, and the wider educational and sociocultural context facilitate such learning in language teachers. To address these issues, it is crucial for researchers to be able to see the beliefs and understandings are constructed, shaped and developed in social interaction, and how beliefs and understandings are displayed in this social interaction. Through the lens of SCT, not only could we understand the mediational process and the significance of macro and micro context, but also see the ‘social’ nature of teacher cognition, shared and co-constructed between individuals. In the next section, I will discuss SCT further and a sociocultural perspective on teacher cognition.

Sociocultural Turn of Teacher Cognition Sociocultural Theory (SCT) and its Key Constructs Social constructivism, which builds on the early work of Vygotsky (1978, 1986) emphasises the importance of culture and the social context in one’s development, especially on how ‘culture provides the child with cognitive tools needed for development such as language, cultural history, and social contexts’ (Narayan et al., 2013, p. 171). This theoretical framework has been developed further in recent decades by Lave, Rogoff, Wenger, Wertsch, and others (Lave, 1988; Lave & Wenger, 1991; Rogoff, 1993; Wertsch, 1991), and is broadly termed a sociocultural perspective. In the second language educational context, Lantolf (2000a, 2006) drew special attention to the role of context and culture in shaping L2 learners’ language acquisition and development, claiming that language itself and the sociocultural context is important for developing meaning and constructing knowledge. In this process, learning is less about internalisation and more about appropriation in a local context. In the field of teacher cognition, there is a strand of research arguing that teacher cognition is sociocultural in nature (e.g., Johnson, 2006, 2009a; Zheng, 2015), and there is substantial research placing the focus

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on the role of context in shaping teachers’ cognition. In particular, Borg (2003b) pointed out, ‘the study of cognition and practice without an awareness of the context in which these occur will inevitably provide partial, if not flawed, characterisations of teachers and teaching’ (p. 106). In supporting this view, Johnson (2006) in particular, pointed out that teachers’ decision-making processes take place within ‘complex socially, culturally, and historically situated contexts’ (p. 239). Despite the strong interest in SCT, a sociocultural perspective is rarely taken up by researchers as a lens to study teacher cognition. Questions asked by researchers, teacher educators, teachers and policymakers still remain: how do teachers develop their knowledge and understanding through socialisation and work? How do teachers understand themselves as professionals in the workplace and how are these understandings displayed and shared? How do teachers make informed decisions mediated by the context? And how do teachers make sense of learning and teaching? To me, these questions can be addressed through carefully examining teacher cognition in their workplace to see how beliefs, knowledge and understanding are situated, publicly displayed, negotiated and mediated. To this end, this section is to describe the key concepts of SCT and argue its relevance to researching teacher cognition. It is by no means a comprehensive review of SCT, rather, the main objective here is to highlight the key elements of SCT in relation to teacher cognition and these discussions are underpinning data analysis in the later chapters. It is also worth noting that the term ‘sociocultural’ is often applied to a wide array of approaches, but I will restrict interpretation in this book to refer to the specific theory of ‘cultural-historical psychology’ proposed by Vygotsky (1986). To be specific, it is a position proposed by Lantolf and Beckett (2009), who clarified the term ‘sociocultural’ as a way of capturing the notion that human mental functioning results from participation in, and appropriation of, the forms of cultural mediation integrated into social activities. There is a vast literature to suggest the direct and close link between culture, language and cognition, as Wertsch (1995) highlights: ‘the goal of research is to understand the relationship between human mental functioning … and cultural, historical, and institutional setting’ (p. 56). Equally, the relevance and significance of SCT in studying cognition has been emphasised by James Lantolf and Steven Thorne, who claim that:

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Vygotskian cultural-historical psychology, often called sociocultural theory in applied linguistics and SLA research, offers a framework through which cognition can be systematically investigated without isolating it from social context. (2006, p. 1)

At this point, it is essential to clarify that SCT ‘is not a theory of the social or of the cultural aspects of human existence’, but rather, ‘a theory of mind … that recognizes the central role that social relationships and culturally constructed artifacts play in organizing uniquely human forms of thinking’ (Lantolf, 2004, p. 31). The primary contributions of SCT lie in the following two aspects: 1. The relation between human beings and their environment, both physical and social: Analysing practical thinking in children, Shapiro and Gerke (cited in Vygotsky, 1980) emphasised the dominant role of social experience in human development. In their view, social experience exerts its effect through imitations; through observing adults’ use of tools and objects, children can master the very principle involved in a particular activity (Vygotsky, 1978, p.  22). Before mastering their behaviours, children need to master their surroundings with the help of speech, thus language and other tools can help children to plan and control complex psychological process. 2. The relation between thought and language: Sociocultural theory places a heavy emphasis on ‘the impact of culturally organized and socially enacted meanings on the formation and functioning of mental activity’ (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 2). In the development of cognition, social interaction plays a fundamental role. Vygotsky believes that everything is learnt on two levels—first through interaction with others, and then internalised by individuals to integrate it into their own cognitive structure. In this sense, ‘culturally constructed meaning is the primary means that humans use to organise and control their mental functioning, and for this reason, language development and use plays a central role in Vygotsky’s theory of mind’ (ibid, p. 1). This claim makes a strong link between social interaction and human development, and the essential role of speech in the organ-

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isation of higher psychological functions is highlighted (1978, p. 23). Along this line, van Compernolle (2015) points to the significant role of SCT in understanding learning and cognitive development. He writes: Vygotskian SCT offers a powerful alternative, nonreductive framework in which the internal-psychological and the external-social are brought together as a dialectical unity. The foundational tenet of SCT is that higher psychological processes—for instance, learning—are mediated by culturally constructed artifacts, or mediational means. (p. 6)

That is, learning takes place through the mediation of artefacts, such as language and concrete materials, and the development of higher psychological functions happens in the ZPD, where individuals get scaffolded assistance. In the following sections, I will discuss the key SCT constructs that are relevant to teacher cognition research.

Mediation Mediation is the central concept of SCT. Vygotsky’s fundamental claim is that human’s higher forms of mental activity are mediated by culturally constructed artefacts. Accordingly, ‘human development is the product of a broader system than just the system of a person’s individual ­functions, specifically, systems of social connections and relations, of collective forms of behaviour and social cooperation’ (Vygotsky, 1999, p. 41). The relationship between humans and the world around them, therefore, is a mediated one. Language, of course, has always been considered as the prime tool for mediational activities, and the other types of mediated tools include artefacts or material objects. Lantolf and Thorne (2006) clarify the term artefacts in SCT, stating that ‘artifacts are simultaneously material and conceptual (or ideal) aspects of the human goal-directed activity that are not only incorporated into this activity but are constitutive of it. This is true of symbolic artifacts, such as language, or concrete artifacts, such as physical objects’ (p. 62). In this respect, concrete artefacts

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can be materials, technological tools and other products that the teacher and students make in the process of teaching and learning. Vygotsky (1978) explains how mediation works: the simple stimulus-response process is replaced by a complex, mediated act … it transfers the psychological operation to higher and qualitatively new forms and permits humans, by the aid of extrinsic stimuli, to control their behaviour from the outside. The use of signs leads humans to a specific structure of behaviour that breaks away from biological development and creates new forms of a culturally-based psychological process. (p. 40, original emphasis)

Here, I want to highlight the explicit mediation, which is ‘a “stimulus means” into an ongoing stream of activity’ (Wertsch, 2007, p. 180). Van Compernolle (2015) explains that explicit mediation ‘requires the presence of a person who directs another individual’s behaviour by intentionally introducing overt, visible, forms of mediation into the course of activity’ (p. 10). In talking about the role of psychological tools in completing a complex task, van Compernolle (2015) provides an example of a parent assisting a child in completing a difficult jigsaw puzzle by directing the child’s attention to the picture of the completed image (psychological tool) and asking questions. He argues that ‘intentionally introducing the image of the completed puzzle may mediate the child’s performance because the image provides the key to solving a problem’ (p. 10). As mentioned earlier, language is a symbolic and psychological tool. In a classroom setting, a teacher’s use of interactional resources, including pointing, paraphrasing, eye contact and simplification, together with psychological tools, such as pictures, objects and diagrams, are mediational means in assisting language development. The use of language as a psychological tool can also mean linking learners’ metalinguistic knowledge to their performance (van Compernolle, 2015). Lantolf (2006) noted that one of the most exciting new areas of SCT is the appropriation and use of gestures as a form of mediation. According to McCafferty (2004), a gesture can contribute to the development of higher mental activities, as it can ‘function as a separate, spatiomotoric mode of thinking’ (p. 149). For that reason, gestures cannot be ignored in exploring teacher cognition because speech and gesture are inseparable; McNeill

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(2000) described as a unit of thinking ‘growth point’, a notion which is closely linked to Vygotsky’s concept of inner speech.

Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD) As discussed earlier, learning takes place through interaction, at two different levels. Vygotsky (1978) wrote: Every function in the child’s cultural development appears twice: first, on the social level, and later, on the individual level; first, between people (interpsychological) and then inside the child (intrapsychological). This applies equally to voluntary attention, to logical memory, and the formation of concepts. All the higher functions originate as actual relations between human individuals. (p. 57, original emphasis)

From a Vygotskian perspective, the potential for cognitive development is limited to individuals’ abilities. In understanding learning, the concept of the ZPD is a relevant and important one. It can be defined as ‘the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers’ (Vygotsky, 1978, p. 86). The concept is an extremely useful one which captures the development of individuals or a group in learning and doing, and so for any mediation or development to occur, it must be sensitive to the individual’s ZPD (Vygotsky, 1987). Put simply, it is where learning and development come together. According to Aljaafreh and Lantolf (1994), ZPD is ‘the framework, par excellence, which brings all of the pieces of the learning setting together—the teacher, the learner, their social and cultural history, their goals and motives, as well as the resources available to them, including those that are dialogically constructed together’ (p. 468). In short, learning takes place within the learners’ ZPD, with the ‘graduated’, ‘contingent’, and ‘dialogic’ assistance/guidance (ibid, p. 495), which is usually offered by the more knowledgeable/able to the less knowledgeable/able individual.

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Golombek and Doran (2014) drew on Vygotsky’s work to explain the concept of ZPD in teacher learning, claiming that it is ‘the difference between the level of development already obtained and the level of potential development made possible through mediation by more expert others’ (p.  104). In fact, it is this difference between the teachers’ current level of competence and potential expertise they can gain through teacher learning that teachers and any teacher education programmes need to pay attention to. Research suggests that teachers are able to develop themselves through various means, including peer dialogue and reflective practice. However, identifying this space (ZPD) and their growth point is the first and essential step for any teacher learning. Valsiner (1997) proposed two other relevant concepts which enable the development of children: the zone of free movement (ZFM), representing environmental constraints that limit freedom of action and thought; and the Zone of promoted action (ZPA), a set of activities offered by adults and oriented towards promotion of new skills. In the field of teacher learning and teacher education, ZFM represents the social and institutional contexts and how these environments enable or constrain pedagogical practice, whereas ZPA represents the efforts of significant others who have an influence on individual teachers’ thinking and practice in their context, in particular with regards to implementing innovative approaches. Vishalache and Claiborne (2012) extended the ZPD to a concept of zone of collaborative development (ZCD), which emphasises the importance of collaborative problem solving in the ­process of learning, where students’ social and cultural contextual background serves as important tools and settings. Rather than focusing on the cognitive development of individuals with the assistance of others, ZCD places a special focus on collaborative development, where students share each other’s experiences and cultures, to reflect, compare, justify and challenge each other’s views and solutions to a problem. Of course, in order to facilitate collaborative learning, a safe environment is essential. In terms of teacher education or development, a dialogic process might be useful. In this process, student teachers’ prior learning experiences and pre-existing beliefs need to be considered and reflected upon, in specific sociocultural settings. As Warford (2011) describes, ‘teacher educators should acknowledge and validate candidates’ prior experiences of teaching and

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learning, while employing the future tense in discussing new tenses through which they will consider the same phenomena’ (p.  254). Therefore, student teachers’ conceptions and assumptions of learning and teaching a language can be used as a starting point to develop.

Internalisation/Appropriation Internalisation is another key concept worth discussing here. Lantolf and Beckett (2009) define this as ‘the process through which individuals appropriate social forms of mediation, including cultural artifacts such as language, and use it to regulate their own mental activity’ (p.  460). Lantolf (2006) suggests that internalisation of L2 learning takes place through imitation, very often occurring in private speech. He argues that learners, no matter whether children or adults, rely on imitation in their private speech when they encounter new linguistic affordances, claiming that imitation is ‘an intentional and potentially transformative process rather than as rote mimicking’ (p. 67). However, internalisation is traditionally associated with the cognitive structure of the learner, and I would argue appropriation is more relevant if the focus is placed on the individuals’ development as progress of appropriate knowledge gained in their own context rather than the cognitive or psychological development of those individuals. Appropriation, therefore, includes not only individuals’ behaviour of ‘regulating’ their thinking using language, but also intentions of linking the acquired new knowledge to their situations and contexts.

The Social Nature of Teacher Cognition As Golombek and Doran (2014) rightly point out, the earlier work on teacher cognition focuses on the cognitive aspects of teachers’ understanding and thinking and ignores the affective aspect of teachers’ professional lives by reviewing research on teacher emotion. They argue: Noticeably absent from this definition is what teachers feel about what they think, know, believe, and do. An emotional subtext can be implied in

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some of this research, such as the role of positive and negative prior language learning experiences on teaching thinking and instructional decisions, in which teachers appraise their language learning experiences in order to identify beneficial and detrimental instructional practices. (p. 103)

In a similar vein, Cross (2010) highlighted the role of historical origins and development or historicity in influencing the relationship between teachers’ thought and practice and argued for the explanatory power that SCT has in fully understanding teachers’ professional lives. Considering the centrality of teacher’s emotion as well as the argument of higher mental development from a sociocultural perspective, it seems that there is a value to Vygotskian SCT for examining and explaining language teacher cognition (Cross, 2010; Golombek & Doran, 2014; Johnson, 2009a; Johnson & Golombek, 2002). The human psychological process is organised by three cultural factors: activities, artefacts and concepts, which can be understood as follows: • Activities: teaching, teachers’ reflections, learning to teach activities (including practicum and micro teaching) • Artefacts: both physical and symbolic artefacts, such as books, papers, teaching materials and tools, and technological apps • Concepts: teachers’ beliefs, understandings, perceptions and knowledge These three factors can be defined differently in different contexts, but they ‘generally function as an integrated organic system’ to help people to achieve goals (Lantolf, 2006, p. 69). So ‘[O]nce appropriated, these cultural factors mediate the relationships between people, between people and the physical world, and between people and their inner mental worlds’ (ibid). However, as Scollon (2001) noted, these cultural factors can also reduce and constrain people’s ability in other ways. The close tie between language and cognition also reflects the social nature of cognition. From such a perspective, language is both functional and constructive; Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008) claim it is ‘a medium which people use to accomplish specific communicative tasks, and it is a vehicle through which our sense of the world, and indeed psychological concepts themselves (such as memory, attitude, or cognition) are actively constructed’ (p. 6).

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Based on the arguments outlined earlier, I offer a position in understanding teacher cognition through SCT. This view of cognition is not situated in a cognitive perspective, but a sociocultural perspective of learning and instruction, which sees learning and doing being mediated and shaped by sociocultural elements. In this perspective, teacher cognition is not static and does not exist alone in teachers’ heads, but is fluid and interactive understanding that is situated in a given context. That is, cognition is not a state at a cognitive level, it is social. Language is a key part of the development of cognition, and words and cognition are inseparable.

Cognition Is Social Like any learning, cognition happens first at the interpersonal level, and then intrapersonal. As I have already argued earlier, people develop higher mental ability through interaction when they engage in social activities. Lantolf and Johnson (2007) unambiguously describe their position on the relationship between social activity and cognition, saying ‘[T]he argument is not that social activity influences cognition, but that social activity is the process through which human cognition is formed’ (p. 878). I want to highlight the social nature of teacher cognition at two levels. First, cultural norms and practice provide individuals with an existing cognition repertoire. For example, Sun (2012) observed that cultural heritage has a strong influence on shaping the teacher’s personal practical knowledge and classroom practice. On a second level, it is through social interaction in professional contexts that individuals develop knowledge, understanding and conceptions of the accepted practice. For example, Morton and Gray (2010) believe that some student teachers’ practical knowledge is developed through joint meaning construction in lesson planning sessions with their tutor. In such a discursive practice, joint lesson planning is used as a channel for student teachers to accumulate their practical knowledge—to some degree, it is similar to students’ own learning experiences and background knowledge.

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Cognition Is Mediated Through Language Sociocultural theory incorporates mediation as a core construct in its theorising about language learning. Lantolf (2000a) argues that the central and distinguishing concept of the theory is that higher forms of human mental activity are mediated, and human forms of mental activity arise in the interactions we enter into with other members of our culture and with the specific experiences we have with the artefacts produced by our ancestors and by our contemporaries (Lantolf, 2000a, p. 79). Human beings use symbolic tools or signs to mediate and regulate their relationships with others and with themselves, and language is the prime tool for mediation. Therefore, the relationship between us and the world is a mediated one. In learning, in order for mediation to happen, we must consider an individual’s or group’s ZPD, an important concept that explains and can assess the full extent of development of an individual or group. Li (2017a) suggests a strong relationship between teacher talk and their cognitions—what teachers think learning is and how they go about facilitating learning is displayed in their professional talk. That is, there is a strong link between teacher cognition about teaching and learning and their professional discourse. Therefore, in facilitating learning and creating a space for learning, we must understand teachers’ thinking about language learning, as it is the teacher who controls the development of a lesson, opportunities for learning, and when and how they obstruct or construct these opportunities (Walsh, 2002).

Teacher Learning Is a Social Activity It is also critical to consider teacher learning when we examine cognition, as cognition is developed in a sociocultural context, mediated by the use of artefacts and tools. When teachers engage in their work interacting with their colleagues, students and even themselves, they go through unconscious learning during which they might develop/change/consolidate their understanding and knowledge. From that point of view, development is in and through interaction. Johnson (2009a) points out the need to turn our attention to the process of the teacher knowing—how

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teachers come to know what they know, how certain concepts in teachers’ consciousness develop over time, and how their learning processes transform them and the activities of L2 teaching. She talks about the ‘social turn’ in teacher education and illustrates the current view of teacher learning with the following features: This research depicts L2 teacher learning as normative and lifelong, as emerging out of and through experiences in social contexts: as learners in classrooms and schools, as participants in professional teacher education programs, and later as teachers in settings where they work. It described L2 teacher learning as socially negotiated and contingent on knowledge of self, subject matter, curricula, and setting. It shows L2 teachers as users and creators of legitimate forms of knowledge who make decisions about how best to teach their L2 students within complex socially, culturally, and historically situated contexts. (Johnson, 2009a, p. 239)

Teacher learning thus is not just a way for teachers to explore and enhance their content and pedagogical knowledge, but also a process in which they define who they are and what they are. On that aspect, Richards (2008) suggests that ‘[I]t is often through dialogue that teacher-­ learners create and experience different representations of themselves’ (p. 169). In this sense, teacher learning is an interactive, reflective and experiential process through interactions with peers and experts, and negotiating identities in the community.

Summary This chapter has discussed the importance of studying teacher cognition, and the different theoretical understandings and approaches to its study. It is important to realise different theoretical frameworks have different perspectives towards the meaning of the concept and therefore it is crucial to define this at the outset before any investigations are carried out. This chapter also offers an understanding of the key concepts of SCT, which are relevant to researching teacher cognition. In summary, teachers’ thinking, understanding, displayed knowledge, and professional

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practice they engage in at work is primarily mediated through the use of language in their professional contexts. Here, I have summarised key concepts of the sociocultural perspective towards teacher learning and teacher cognition: • Teaching is a social practice and interaction is central to effective teaching and learning. • Teacher cognition is about teachers’ knowing, understanding, conceptualising and doing their work in their professional context; it is not a static mental object held by teachers. Rather, it is one outcome of the interaction with the context, which is highly shaped by and defined in situ. • People orient to each other in interaction. Interaction is not a channel for cognition but the action of cognition. Meanings are co-constructed by participants through various interactional strategies. Meaning is produced not only through what is said but also how it is said.

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Donaghue, H. (2003). An instrument to elicit teachers’ beliefs and assumptions. ELT Journal, 57(4), 344–351. Edwards, D., & Potter, J. (1992). Discursive psychology. London: Sage. Eisenhart, M.  A., Shrum, J.  L., Harding, J.  R., & Cuthbert, A.  M. (1988). Teacher beliefs: Definitions, findings and directions. Educational Policy, 2(1), 51–70. Farrell, T. S. C. (2015). It’s not who you are! It’s how you teach! Critical competencies associated with effective teaching. RELC Journal, 46(1), 79–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688214568096 Farrell, T. S. C., & Ives, J. (2015). Exploring teacher beliefs and classroom practices through reflective practice. Language Teaching Research, 19(5), 594–610. Foss, D. H., & Kleinsasser, R. C. (1996). Preservice elementary teachers’ views of pedagogical and mathematical content knowledge. Teaching and Teacher Education, 12(4), 429–442. Freeman, D., & Richards, J. (Eds.). (1996). Teacher learning in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Gatbonton, E. (2008). Looking beyond teachers’ classroom behaviour: Novice and experienced ESL teachers’ pedagogical knowledge. Language Teaching Research, 12(2), 161–182. Golombek, P. R., & Doran, M. (2014). Unifying cognition, emotion, and activity in language teacher professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 39, 102–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.01.002 Gray, J., & Morton, T. (2018). Social interaction and teacher identity. Edinburgh University Press. Harré, R., & Gillett, G. (1994). The discursive mind. London: Sage. Horwitz, E. K. (1985). Using student beliefs about language learning and teaching in the foreign language methods course. Foreign Language Annals, 18, 333–340. Hutchby, I., & Wooffitt, R. (2008). Conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Cambridge: Polity Press. Johnson, K. E. (1992). The relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices during literacy instruction for non-native speakers of English. Journal of Reading Behavior, 24(1), 83–108. Johnson, K. E. (2006). The sociocultural turn and its challenges for L2 teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 40(1), 235–257. Johnson, K. E. (2009a). Second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective. New York and London: Routledge. Johnson, K. E., & Golombek, P. R. (Eds.). (2002). Teachers’ narrative inquiry as professional development. New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Kalaja, P., Barcelos, A. M. F., Aro, M., & Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2016). Beliefs, agency and identity in foreign language learning and teaching. Palgrave Macmillan. Kubanyiova, M. (2012). Teacher development in action: Understanding language teachers’ conceptual change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Kubanyiova, M., & Feryok, A. (2015). Language teacher cognition in applied linguistics research: Revisiting the territory, redrawing the boundaries, reclaiming the relevance. The Modern Language Journal, 99(3), 435–449. Kumaravadivelu, B. (1994). The postmethod condition: (E)merging strategies for second/foreign language teaching. TESOL Quarterly, 28(1), 27–48. Lamb, M. (1995). The consequences of inset. ELT Journal, 49(1), 72–80. Lantolf, J. P. (2000a). Second language learning as a mediated process. Language Teaching, 33, 79–86. Lantolf, J.  P. (2004). Sociocultural theory and second and foreign language learning: An overview of sociocultural theory. In K. van Esch & O. S. John (Eds.), New insights into foreign language learning and teaching (pp. 13–34). Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang. Lantolf, J. P. (2006). Sociocultural theory and second language learning: State of the art. Studies in Second Language Acquisition, 28, 67–109. Lantolf, J. P., & Beckett, T. (2009). Research timeline for sociocultural theory and second language acquisition. Language Teaching, 42(4), 459–475. Lantolf, J. P., & Johnson, K. E. (2007). Extending Firth & Wagner’s ontological perspective to L2 classroom praxis and teacher education. The Modern Language Journal, 91, 875–890. Lantolf, J. P., & Thorne, L. (2006). Sociocultural theory and the genesis of second language development. Oxford University Press. Lave, J. (1988). Cognition in practice: Mind, mathematics and culture in everyday life. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Li, L. (2008). EFL teachers’ beliefs about ICT integration in Chinese secondary schools. Unpublished doctoral thesis, Queen’s University, Belfast. Li, L. (2011). Obstacles and opportunities for developing thinking through interaction in language classrooms. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6(3), 146–158. Li, L. (2012). Belief construction and development: Two tales of non-native English speaking student teachers in a TESOL programme. Novitas-ROYAL (Research on Youth and Language), 6(1), 33–58.

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Li, L. (2013). The complexity of language teachers’ beliefs and practice: One EFL teacher’s theories. Language Learning Journal, 41(2), 175–191. Li, L. (2014). Understanding language teachers’ practice with educational technology: A case from China. System, 46, 105–119. Li, L. (2017a). Social interaction and teacher cognition. Edinburgh University Press. Li, L., & Walsh, S. (2011a). ‘Seeing is believing’: Looking at EFL teachers’ beliefs through classroom interaction. Classroom Discourse, 2(1), 39–57. Mangubhai, F., Marland, P., Dashwood, A., & Son, J.-B. (2004). Teaching a foreign language: One teacher’s practical theory. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(3), 291–311. McCafferty, S.  G. (2004). Space for cognition: Gesture and second language learning. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 14, 148–165. McNeill, D. (2000). Growth points, catchments, and contexts. Japanese Journal of Cognitive Science (Special issue on gesture, S. Kita, Ed.), 7, 22–36. Morton, T. (2012). Classroom talk, conceptual change and teacher reflection in bilingual science teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28(1), 101–110. Morton, T., & Gray, J. (2010). Personal practical knowledge and identity in lesson planning conferences on a pre-service TESOL course. Language Teaching Research, 14(3), 297–317. Narayan, R., Rodriguez, C., Araujo, J., Shaqlaih, A., & Moss, G. (2013). Constructivism—Constructivist learning theory. In B.  J. Irby, G.  Brown, R.  Lara-Alecio, & S.  Jackson (Eds.), The handbook of educational theories (pp. 169–184). Charlotte, NC: Information Age Publishing. Ng, J., & Farrell, T.  S. C. (2003). Do teachers’ beliefs of grammar teaching match their classroom practices? A Singapore case study. In D. Deterding, A.  Brown, & E.  L. Low (Eds.), English in Singapore: Research on grammar (pp. 128–137). Singapore: McGraw-Hill. Orafi, S.  M. S., & Borg, S. (2009). Intentions and realities in implementing Nucommunicative curriculum reform. System, 37, 243–253. Pajares, M. F. (1992). Teachers’ beliefs and educational research: Cleaning up a messy construct. Review of Educational Research, 62(3), 307–332. Pennycook, A. (1994). The cultural politics of English as an international language. London: Longman. Phillipson, R. (1992). Linguistic imperialism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Phipps, S. (2010). Language teacher education, beliefs and classroom practices. Saarbrucken: Lambert Academic Publishing. Potter, J. (2005). Making psychology relevant. Discourse & Society, 16, 739–747. Richards, J. C. (2008). Second language teacher education today. RELC Journal, 39, 158–177.

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Richards, J.  C., & Lockhart, C. (1994). Reflective teaching in second language classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Rogoff, B. (1993). Children’s guided participation and participatory appropriation in sociocultural activity. In R. Woxniak & K. Fischer (Eds.), Development in context: Acting and thinking in specific environments (pp.  121–153). Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum. Roth, W. (2008). The nature of scientific conceptions: A discursive psychological perspective. Educational Research Review, 3, 30–50. Sato, K., & Kleinsasser, R.  C. (2004). Beliefs, practices, and interactions of teachers in a Japanese high school English department. Teaching and Teacher Education, 20(8), 797–816. Scollon, R. (2001). Mediated discourse: The nexus of practice. London: Routledge. Shavelson, R. J., & Stern, P. (1981). Research on teachers’ pedagogical thoughts, judgments, decisions, and behavior. Review of Educational Research, 51, 455–498. Skott, J. (2001, June). Why belief research raises the right question but provides the wrong type of answer. Paper presented at the 3rd Nordic Conference on Mathematics Education, Kristianstad, Sweden. Speer, N. M. (2005). Issues of methods and theory in the study of mathematics teachers’ professed and attributed beliefs. Educational Studies in Mathematics, 58(3), 361–391. Sun, D. (2012). “Everything goes smoothly”: A case study of an immigrant Chinese language teacher’s personal practical knowledge. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28(5), 760–767. te Molder, H., & Potter, J. (Eds.). (2005). Conversation and cognition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tillema, H. H. (2000). Belief change towards self-directed learning in student teachers: Immersion in practice or reflection on action. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16, 575–591. Tsui, A. A. M. (2003). Understanding expertise in teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press. Valsiner, J. (1997). Culture and the development of children’s action: A theory of human development (2nd ed.). New York: John Wiley & Sons. van Compernolle, R. A. (2015). Interaction and second language development: A Vygotskian perspective. John Benjamins. Vishalache, B., & Claiborne, L.  B. (2012). Vygotsky from ZPD to ZCD in moral education: Reshaping Western theory and practices in local context. Journal of Moral Education, 41(2), 225–243. Vygotsky, L. (1978). Mind in society. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

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Vygotsky, L. S. (1980). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Vygotsky, L. S. (1987). Thinking and speech. In R. W. Rieber & A. S. Carton (Eds.), The collected works of L. S. Vygotsky. Vol. 1. Problems of general psychology (pp. 39–285). New York: Plenum. Vygotsky, L. S. (1999). Mind in society: The development of higher psychological processes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Walsh, S. (2002). Construction or obstruction: Teacher talk and learner involvement in the EFL classroom. Language Teaching Research, 6(1), 3–23. Warford, M. K. (2011). The zone of proximal “teacher” development. Teaching and Teacher Education: An International Journal of Research and Studies, 27(2), 252–258. Wertsch, J. (1991). Voices of the mind: A sociocultural approach to mediated action. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. Wertsch, J.  V. (1995). The need for action in sociocultural research. In J.  V. Wertsch, P.  Del Rio, & A.  Alvarez (Eds.), Sociocultural studies of mind (pp. 56–74). New York: Cambridge University Press. Wertsch, J. V. (2007). Mediation. In H. Daniels, M. Cole, & J. V. Wertsch (Eds.), The Cambridge companion to Vygotsky (pp. 178–192). New York: Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CCOL0521831040.008 Williams, M., & Burden, R. (1997). Psychology for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Woods, D. (1996). Teacher cognition in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Zheng, H. Y. (2015). Teacher beliefs as a complex system: English language teachers in China. Cham: Springer.

3 Interaction Analysis and Teacher Cognition

Introduction Historically, teacher cognition has not been investigated through discourse, and there is often a lack of detail on how teachers’ knowledge, understandings and beliefs are evident in their interactional work. To this end, Li (2017a) argues a case for the need to examine how teachers conceptualise and understand their work through the interactional work they actually do in talk-in-interaction. She argues that there is a need to examine how cognition is displayed in social interaction as an object in and through talk. In her argument, cognition is no longer a fixed and static mental object that resides within teachers’ minds. Rather, it is situated, fluid and developmental, constructed in and shaped by the dialogue that individuals are engaged in. Therefore, it is cognition-in-interaction rather than the cognitive mental state that has significance in teachers’ professional lives, given that they are constantly interacting with others. Discursive psychology (DP) and conversation analysis (CA) thus are appropriate approaches to investigate cognition-in-interaction. This chapter further discusses the relevance of interaction in researching teacher cognition from a sociocultural perspective, highlighting the © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_3

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close connect between social interaction and higher mental development. This chapter will start with a discussion of the relationship between cognition and language, with a particular attention to why interaction is connected to teacher cognition, thus making a strong case for looking at cognition through interaction. To this end, I will illustrate how teachers’ knowledge, understandings and beliefs are embedded in interaction, for example, in the choice of activities, tasks, the managing of classrooms and the selection of materials. Discourse approaches (DP and CA) are compared to propose why ‘applied’ CA (ten Have, 2007) is useful in the study of teacher cognition. This chapter considers the centrality of CA and argues that the fine-grained, ‘up-close’ analysis offered by CA provides an in-depth understanding of what teachers ‘think in action’. Finally, this chapter addresses the issues concerning data collection and transcription for CA, and introduces the kind of data used in the book.

Language and Cognition From a sociocultural perspective, there is a close connection between thought and language, which Vygotsky (1986) defines as a process, ‘a continual movement back and forth from thought to word and from word to thought’ (p. 218). That is, all this higher mental development— thought, ideas, judgement, conceptions and perceptions—is not fixed, static or pre-existing in people’s minds, but a part of a developmental process which is displayed in and through language, in particular in social interaction. Taking a sociocultural view, there are at least three things to be said about the connection between language and cognition development. First, it is important to clarify that thought and speech are not the same thing. What people say is not a channel to their mental state, rather, it is their positioning, understanding and beliefs that are manifested in the words they use and the way they communicate. Although thought and speech are separate, and in many cases, we cannot observe what people are thinking, we do see how they argue the course of their action and decision-making. In this process, we can see that thought and speech are not two separate concepts but are intertwined and internally connected.

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In this sense, they are ‘tightly interrelated in a dialectic unity in which publicly derived speech completes privately initiated thought’ (Lantolf, 2000b, p. 7). In other words, thought might be developed individually and privately, but it is publicly displayed in dialogues with others. So in this process, language is ‘a means for engaging in social and cognitive activity’ (Ahmed, 1994, p. 158). From a sociocultural perspective, knowledge, understanding and conceptions are ‘privately initiated’ or appropriated but ‘publicly derived’. Essentially, there is a close connection between thought and speech in order to make them a unified whole. Second, the sociocultural perspective on cognitive development emphasises its ‘social’ nature. Knowledge construction is done through the culture and social environment, including the society that one belongs to and socialises within. It is not only the shared common knowledge and practice that one learns from the society, but also the way knowledge is acquired and learnt. Social and cultural contexts thus become a framework in which one builds meaning. In supporting this view, Walsh (2006) explicitly points out, ‘[U]nlike many other theories of self-development, or ontogenesis, which consider the individual as an enclosed unit, Vygotsky stresses the importance of social interaction to an individual’s development’ (p. 33). Learning and development, therefore, are considered or viewed as social activities in which people share knowledge and insights, adopt new ideas and perspectives, and change their viewpoints or further develop them. Social interaction thus has two functions. On the one hand, it is the space where scaffolding might be offered by an expert, who can be a more able peer of that moment, or an adult (e.g., a teacher). On the other, interaction is the scaffolding to be offered, which might include the use of different interactional resources and strategies. Because the cognitive development is social, cognition is heavily influenced by the macro and micro context that one socialises within. That is, the ‘fingerprint’ of social norms, values and practices are unconsciously embedded in the interactional work that one does with others. Third, as we know, private speech plays a key role in the course of cognitive development. Private speech is not explicitly addressed to other people but rather to the self for the purpose of self-regulation. Therefore, it serves no interpersonal communication function. Vygotsky (1986) believes that self-talk or private speech arises from children’s social

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i­nteraction and is a part of the process of normal development of communication, as well as other higher order mental and psychological skills. Even if he argues that private speech normally disappears at kindergarten age, we still see evidence of older children, adolescents and even adults using private speech to regulate, plan and monitor their behaviour, especially when dealing with a challenging task (e.g., Duncan & Cheyne, 2002; Kronk, 1994; Winsler & Naglieri, 2003). As such, private speech is part of their socialisation and probably interaction, if we consider it as a venue where individuals consider and talk to themselves through different perspectives. According to Furrow (1984), there are 12 functional categories of private speech, some of which closely indicate its significance in the development of higher order thinking. Such functions may be self-­ regulatory, interactional, referential, imaginary, informative and so on. In this sense, the private speech one engages in can be part of the argument that one constructs, and this argument might be used in a social encounter later on. Equally, ideas and knowledge one acquires and learns in a social encounter might be reflected in one’s private speech, and this contributes to the internalisation or appropriation of the knowledge. So learning, therefore, can switch between inter and intra communication.

Teacher Cognition and Professional Interaction According to Ellis (1998, p.  145), teaching is a ‘series of interactional events’, a position echoed by van Lier (1996, p. 5) who claims that ‘interaction is the most important element in the curriculum’. Any understanding of teaching and learning, therefore, should focus on the turn taking and exchange structures in operation and pay attention to the collaborative nature of the discourse between teachers and students, as well as between the latter. There are three important reasons for studying teacher cognition through analysing classroom interaction. First, there is a strong link between what a teacher does pedagogically and the use of language in the classroom. When the teacher’s pedagogical goal is on the accuracy of linguistic knowledge (e.g., grammar), then there is complex teacher talk which explains the rules and gives examples. On the contrary,

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when the pedagogical goal is to get students to participate in a discussion or to elicit points of view, there are more and perhaps longer learner turns, which are facilitated by the teacher. Thus, understanding the ways in which classroom talk is ‘accomplished’ (Mehan, 1979) is crucial to an understanding of pedagogical considerations and decision-making. Second, the preference for uncovering teachers’ knowledge, beliefs and decision-making, as well as assumptions about tasks at hand, the materials they use and the views they obtain through self-reported data, privileges the teacher cognition research. However, this is not to say that teacher cognition cannot be examined in interactions they may engage in in their professional contexts at a micro level. Indeed, the micro-analytic approach to what goes on in teachers’ understandings and decision-­ making on a moment-by-moment basis can cast light on what constitutes teaching and learning, as well as the positions and relations between participants in the classroom (Li, 2017a; Walsh & Li, 2013). Such insights are significant in understanding the dynamics and ecology of a language classroom. On that aspect, researchers following different perspectives share the same view of the importance of including classroom practice in researching teacher cognition (e.g., Li, 2013; Morton, 2012), and the evidence suggests that the moment-by-moment interaction in the classroom is, in essence, a socially mediated display of teachers’ knowledge, understanding and beliefs. Third, a focus on interaction gives teachers insights into their local contexts, which is a critical aspect of teacher cognition research. The obvious starting point for discussing beliefs is the local context in which they work; an understanding of that context would surely facilitate better understandings of how cognition is shaped by the context. Related to this are the opportunities to empower teachers to become reflective and active thinkers who can draw on sources to understand their pedagogy, and hence, improve teaching and learning (Li, 2017a). In short, understandings about teachers’ beliefs must acknowledge the importance of interaction, given that it creates the context in which teachers live. Having argued for a case to study teacher cognition-in-interaction, I will illustrate how beliefs, knowing and understanding are displayed in the professional interaction that teachers engage in.

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Extract 3.1 is an example of classroom interaction. In this extract, the teacher is teaching a listening and writing class, based on the story of Martin Luther King. In this extract, the teacher displays her beliefs about the importance of vocabulary work and an effective way to learn it through the interactive work she does with the students. In line 1, the teacher launches the topic, focusing attention on the word ‘act’ and attempting to elicit its meaning. After a brief pause, she provides an explanation to the class, highlighting the correlation between the verb ‘act’ and the noun ‘action’. Note here, she uses metalanguage (e.g., verb, noun) to direct students and tap into their existing linguistic knowledge about the verb ‘act’. In her interactive work, she also uses pitch and sound volume to help them see the link (lines 1 and 3). She then delivers the third attempt of the first pair part, projecting a relevant answer as ‘meaning for the word action’. Following Extract 3.1

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an inaudible response in line 4, and a subsequent one-second pause, during which there is no self-selection, the teacher uses an ‘individual nomination’ (Mehan, 1979) to bring Mei into the interaction (line 7). At this point, the teacher asks the question again with a falling tone, expecting the student to deliver a relevant response. The student provides a relevant second pair part, providing the meaning for the verb ‘act’ (line 8). The teacher then echoes the response in line 9 and then a transition marker OK, which has a multiplicity of functions, including getting attention, signalling the end of one activity or stage, and moving on to the next question (Walsh, 2006). Note here, the teacher asks for the noun form of the verb, using both L2 and L1 (line 10). It is striking too that the code-switch initiated by the student in line 8 is taken up by the teacher and extended in subsequent turns (lines 9, 10, 12–15 and 17). The student makes her contribution in Chinese (line 11), this time, providing another related response. However, this is a dispreferred answer as the teacher repeats the answer in the L1 and then after a micro pause, provides the relevant answer herself as a suggestion, indicated by the rising voice at the end (line 13). She then produces an extended turn (lines 13–17), in which she revisits and expands the student’s contribution (line 14), asks a question (lines 15 and 16), and answers the question (line 16) with the Chinese translation (line 17). We can see the importance of vocabulary and the importance of metalanguage in her teaching. We can also see translation is probably one of the effective methods for her to learn or teach vocabulary. She does so by using the metalanguage, tapping into the students’ pre-existing linguistic knowledge, and translation activities. What is striking in this analysis is not just what beliefs and understandings this teacher appears to have about teaching and learning a language, but also how these are displayed in her interactional work with students. It is the kind of questions she asks, the turns she has and how turns are handled in interaction that shows how she puts vocabulary and translation at the heart of this learning activity. Obviously, the classroom is not the only place where teachers engage in professional interaction. In the next extract (Extract 3.2), a teacher-­ learner is discussing her practice with her tutor using the video-based stimulated recall method. In a module, she had learnt how to use Prezi, which she used in her micro teaching subsequently. Here, she reflects on her choice of the tool and how that decision was made.

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Extract 3.2

At the beginning of this dialogue, the tutor asks the trainee teacher, Lucy, a first pair part, enquiring about the teaching practice. It is a very general question and clearly any answer regarding that teaching practice can be interpreted as a relevant answer. The micro pause at the end of the tutor’s turn in line 2 indicates turn-giving as the tutor’s turn is seen as completed. Here, Lucy takes the turn and provides a relevant answer (lines 3–5) and we can see the trainee is probably quite confident and relaxed at this point as she engages in eye contact with the tutor (line 4), who provides a supportive acknowledgement token here (line 6), with a rising tone, demanding further information. There is a 0.2-second pause

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which probably belongs to Lucy, who then looks away and takes the turn to discuss her teaching activity (lines 7–12). This is an extended turn, and there are two interesting things worth mentioning. First, there is clear hesitation in Lucy’s account, as she is recalling what really happened in her teaching, and this recalling is further evidenced by her behaviour of checking the teaching video (line 9). Second, Lucy rephrases the idea of teaching idioms ‘about pet and birds to £hhh about animals’. She says it with a smiley voice as she is probably embarrassed but, at the same time, she makes her articulation more specific. Here, we can see her skills of translating an activity she does in class to a pedagogical idea. From line 13 onwards, they start to talk about the use of Prezi in which Lucy makes her decision-making visible. In lines 13–14, the tutor makes a commentary about her teaching observation, mentioning the technological tool Lucy used in teaching: Prezi. Again, the teacher uses a pause for turn-giving. After a 0.3-second pause, Lucy takes the cue and confirms that she used Prezi and then makes comments about her experience. First, she acknowledges that it has been her first time (lines 15–16), which leads to her subsequent evaluative comment: ‘£I am not good at it£’. Again, the smiley voice in her comments is used to reduce embarrassment. The tutor then shows empathy (line 18) by highlighting the ‘practice nature’ of the experience and probably re-establishing the purpose of the talk—reflecting on decision-making rather than evaluating teaching. The tutor does so by asking the teacher-learner to talk about her decision to choose Prezi (line 20), leading to a response, judging Prezi to be clear and simple to use (line 21) The immediate hesitation marker (line 22) indicates that she has not yet finished her turn, as she follows up to explain what she means is ‘vivid’. Note the overlapping acknowledgement from the tutor in line 23, which is perhaps interpreted by Lucy as a relevant transition place; she then holds the floor by producing the next line quickly (line 24). The extended turn she has here (lines 21–31) is not just articulation of her decision-making but a display of her pedagogical knowledge about the role of this particular technological tool. We can also see her thinking moves from general evaluation of the tool to the more specific functions of it. First, she talks about it making the idioms easy to understand because the videos embedded in Prezi are illustrative. Then she moves on to use terminologies such as ‘authentic’ and ‘real life’ to highlight the benefits of the tool.

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Here, I have demonstrated how teacher cognition can be studied in interactional work, and what ‘cognition-in-interaction’ is like. The next section discusses two approaches to discourse and justifies why ‘applied CA’ (ten Have, 2007) is an appropriate methodology.

Approaches to Discourse Discourse approaches are used to analyse what people say or write. This book is only concerned with spoken discourse. Antaki, Billig, Edwards, and Potter (2003) argue that generally ‘discourse analysis means doing analysis’, which means that any discourse analyst doing DA must ‘add value’ to what is readable or hearable in the words. As Antaki (2008) further argues, DA must be able to provide insights which are beyond simple paraphrases or glossing, and there must be evidence grounded in the words used (p.  444). There are many approaches to analysing discourse— discourse analysis (DA), critical discourse analysis (CDA), interactional analysis and conversation analysis (CA), just to name a few. According to Antaki (2008), there are four shared core features of any type of DA. They are: • the talk or text is to be naturally found, which means the material is not scripted; • the words are to be understood in their co-text at least, and their more distant context if doing so can be defended; • the analyst is to be sensitive to the words’ non-literal meaning or force, including gestures and facial expressions (e.g., eye gaze); and • the analyst is to reveal the social actions and consequences achieved by the words’ use. Of course, different approaches have different foci and purposes; for example, critical discourse analysts typically work with official and unofficial texts or speeches such as media accounts to reveal power relations, political agendas or social matters. On the contrary, CA places a focus on the moment-by-moment organisation of interactional life in real time,

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which is also used commonly now in institutional settings (e.g., courtrooms, helplines, hospitals and classrooms). In what follows, I will mainly discuss two approaches that are prevailing: DA and CA—the major approaches to the study of naturally occurring interaction in language learning and teaching, and adopted in researching teacher cognition and identity (e.g., Gray & Morton, 2018; Li, 2017a).

Discourse Analysis Discourse analysis is the most widely adopted approach in researching L2 classroom interaction (Seedhouse, 2004), partially because it is one of the most established, partially because of the influence of Functional Linguistics. One of the earliest works in this field was by Sinclair and Coulthard (1975, 1992) who created a model for spoken DA which included 22 speech acts, concentrating mainly on interactions between the teacher and individual students. This has been considered as ‘a well-­ grounded, descriptively adequate theory of discourse’ and ‘very useful for analysing patterns of interaction where talk is relatively tightly structured’ (Malouf, 1995, p. 1). For Sinclair and Coulthard (1992), a typical lesson follows a descending order of discourse hierarchy (see Fig. 3.1).

Fig. 3.1  Discourse hierocracy of a typical lesson (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1992)

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The default structure is that the rank can be expressed concerning the units right below it—for example, a transaction consists of units of exchanges, an exchange units of moves, and a move units of acts. The lesson is the largest unit of the highest rank, which is not usually examined in the analysis, as it is considered ‘an act of faith’ (Coulthard, 1985, p. 123). The next level is the transaction, which also ’proved to be difficult’ to define (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1992, p.  31). Most discourse research through the DA model is done at the level of exchange, including boundary exchanges and teaching exchanges. According to Sinclair and Coulthard, ‘a typical exchange in the classroom consists of an initiation by the teacher, followed by a response from the pupil, followed by feedback, to the pupil’s response to the teacher’ (1992, p. 3). This exchange is termed as IRF (Initiation-Response-Feedback), which is widely used to describe and evaluate classroom interactional patterns and functions. IRF structure takes up 60–70 per cent of classroom discourse, as Brazil (1995/1997) explains, ‘the teacher knows what he or she wants to tell the class but chooses to do it by setting up situations in which they are steered—more or less successfully—into telling it themselves’ (p. 22). Therefore, the IRF structure is usually considered teacher-led discourse and perceived as negative because teachers ask fact-based questions and dominate the classroom talk, whereas student participation is limited to answering questions, usually seeking the preferred answers that the teacher has in mind. The Sinclair and Coulthard system has been widely used across different subject areas and in different sociocultural settings. However, the limitations of this system have also been noted by researchers. For example, Levinson (1983) pointed out the multiple functions of utterances in classrooms and the IRF structure might not cover all the interactional work that the teacher and students do in pedagogical activities. Walsh (2006) critiqued the Sinclair and Coulthard system as unsuitable for today’s classrooms, since it was derived from ‘traditional’ primary school classrooms in the 1960s and cannot demonstrate the entire dynamic process of what is truly going on in a classroom. He claims that ‘there is far more learner-initiated communication, more equal turn-taking, and less reliance on teacher-fronted and lockstep modes of learning’ (p. 47). If he is correct, then today’s classrooms would see more student initiation and participation, as well as other forms of interactional work between learn-

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ers, and perhaps an alternative approach is desired in order to reflect the dynamics of teaching and learning. On that front, Waring (2009) demonstrated how one ESL student successfully manages, in close coordination with the teacher, to establish a renewed participation structure which allows for student-initiated negotiations and participation.

Conversation Analysis Comparing DA with CA, Montgomery (1986, p. 51) remarks that the former tends to be concerned with ‘verbal interaction as a manifestation of the linguistic order’, while ‘conversation analysis is more concerned with verbal interaction as instances of the situated social order’. Conversation Analysis is the study of talk, which does a ‘systematic analysis of the talk procedure in everyday situations of human interaction: talk-in-interaction’ (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008, p. 11). It places emphasis on issues of meaning and context in interactional work between participants. As such, sequences of actions constitute a significant part of the meaning in that context. Schegloff (1991, p. 46) pointed out one of the theoretical assumptions of CA is that ‘talk amounts to action, where action projects consequences in a structure and texture of interaction which the talk itself is progressively embodied and realizing, and where the particulars of the talk inform what actions are being done and what sort of social scene is being constituted’. Its interest in social interaction is placed primarily on what the participants do; for example, ‘how they structure and coordinate their actions to produce a coherent interaction’, over what they say—‘the construction of language per se’ (Garcia, 2013, pp. 5–6). Conversation Analysis does not treat language as a system independent of its use, but it treats ‘grammar and lexical choices as sets of resources which participants deploy, monitor, interpret and manipulate’ in order to perform their social acts (Schegloff, Koshik, Jacoby, & Olsher, 2002, p. 15). In principle, CA considers talk as action rather than a channel to action. Participants’ understandings and perspectives are the basis of understanding talk-in-interaction, and the central focus is how sequences of action are generated (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008, p. 14). In conversa-

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tion, interactants display their interpretation of each other’s utterances and the social actions they represent. The conversation also performs a social display of the interactants’ cognitive, emotional and attitudinal states. The participants’ understandings and points of view are discovered by how they might understand and interpret each other’s actions and develop a shared understanding of the progress and direction of the interaction. It is important to note that CA is not able to establish the cognitive state of individuals but ‘the progress of intersubjectivity or socially distributed cognition’ (Seedhouse, 2004, p. 239). Intersubjectivity is the way in which interactants achieve mutual understanding through their organisation of sequence, turning-taking and repair. In achieving shared understanding, interactants are constantly displaying to each other their social actions and cognitive state, and their understanding of this. CA takes an emic viewpoint to study behaviour as from inside the system, which means it is crucial to see ‘the participants’ perspective within the interactional environment in which the talk occurs’ (Seedhouse, 2005, p. 166). It also has a dynamic, complex, highly empirical perspective on context and considers talk to be socially and locally constructed by participants in micro contexts. Heritage (1998, p. 4) points out that CA bears three significant features: ‘the responsiveness to context by producing a “next” action that a prior action projected, the creation of context by the production of that next action, and the showing of understanding by these means—are the products of a common set of socially shared and structured procedures’. Essentially, CA simultaneously analyses action, context management and intersubjectivity, because all these three features are simultaneously, but not always consciously, the objects of participants’ actions. That is, ­‘context’ is both a project and a product of participant action. It is through the interactional work that a context is built, invoked and managed. The idea that conversations are context-shaped and context-reviewing is significant in understanding the ‘psychological reality’ of cognitive entities; the ‘psychological reality’ is not defined as a process in the head but as an orientation to the interaction in the course of ongoing interaction—the socially distributed and negotiated cognition. So the focus is not set on mental entities, but actual descriptions in talk or texts, and the involvement of those descriptions in action. In CA, talk is the primary

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medium for action, rather than a pathway to mental objects. Cognition thus is situated and mediated in the social interaction, and this position values the significance of social interaction in which understanding and conceptions are developed in the unfolding of conversations (e.g., Li, 2017a; Morton, 2012).

Conversation Analysis for Teacher Cognition Drew and Heritage (1992) highlighted the institution-relevant identities in institutional interactional work since the participants normally have a specific goal orientation—for example, achieving a pedagogical objective of learning the past tense. In educational settings, discourse is by and large shaped by pedagogical goals, which decide what materials and tasks the teacher may choose. Therefore, it is difficult to study cognition without considering such goals. There are at least two key reasons for using CA in researching teacher cognition. First and foremost, as I have pointed out earlier, we have to acknowledge the close connectedness of language and cognition; Schegloff (1991) highlighted the embeddedness and the intertwinedness of cognition and interaction. In that respect, Seedhouse and Walsh (2010) claim, ‘CA analysis not only demonstrates what understandings the interactants display to each other but how they do so by normative reference to the interactional organisations’ (p. 182). Second, CA provides a fine-grained analytical perspective of what is going on in talk-in-interaction, thereby it is possible to focus on the nature of the cognition being socially shared, socially mediated and publically displayed. The key issues here are to gain insights into the participants’ understandings of their own cognition and to uncover the ‘organisation of talk’ as organised by themselves, rather than to approach the data from an extraneous viewpoint. That is, the focus is placed on how the participants display for one another their understanding of the situation they are in. In such talk-in-interaction, speakers display in their sequentially ‘next’ turns an understanding of what the ‘prior’ turn was about and how they are positioned and who/ what oriented to (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008). Data, therefore, are not approached with a predetermined set of features but treated in a rather

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open manner. In terms of CA as a methodology, the researcher gains access to displays of understanding in the same way that participants gain access; the researcher is, in essence, a participant observer who views the interaction in the same way as those participating. The foreground of using CA to analyse teacher cognition is that talk is a central activity in social life, and it is not merely two speakers that exchange information. Rather, it involves a process in which participants collaborate with the purpose of achieving orderly and meaningful communication. In order to uncover the structure of the organised talk, CA emphasises the analysis of actual talk recorded in a naturally occurring setting. Institutional talk, such as exchanges between the teacher and students, is one example of such talk, although the structure of the talk is highly influenced by the institutional agenda and norms. As a methodology, CA follows principles and assumptions, as summarised by Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008, p. 20): • Talk-in-interaction is systematically organised and deeply ordered. • The production of talk-in-interaction is methodic. • The analysis of talk-in-interaction should be based on naturally occurring data. • Analysis should not initially be constrained by prior theoretical assumptions. It should be noted that CA principles are used in this book to research teacher cognition, that is, ‘applied’ CA, which uses ‘CA concepts and methods for accomplishing a particular agenda’ (ten Have, 2007, p. 56). In what follows, I will consider the key issues and principles regarding CA as a methodology.

CA Principles As pointed out already, CA concerns naturally occurring interactional data to uncover the organisation of the talk, whereas ‘applied CA’ in institutional talk focuses more on politically or socially relevant themes or materials. As such, it is important to clarify that this book concerns insti-

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tutional interaction, which might be interviews or classroom data which involves one or more institutional agents or professionals (ten Have, 2007). Earlier papers identified six distinct domains of interactional phenomena which might be relevant to institutional interaction (Drew & Heritage, 1992; Drew & Sorjonen, 1997; Heritage, 1997). These domains are: 1. Turn-taking organisation 2. Overall structural organisation of the interaction 3. Sequence organisation 4. Turn design 5. Lexical choice 6. Epistemological and other forms of asymmetry Turn-taking organisation in institutional interaction, according to Heritage (1997) has a specific turning-taking system, which displays the shared nominative orientations towards turn taking (ten Have, 2007). For example, classroom interaction is ‘formal’ and follows a particular system in turn structure (cf. McHoul, 1978; Mehan, 1979). The overall structured organisation of the interaction concerns the overall ‘map’ of the interaction, and the ‘boundary’ of the talk. Interaction therefore can be considered as several ‘sections’ or ‘phases’, with each of them having a specific goal or focus. This is ‘defining boundary’ and this analysis will allow the reader to see how participants in that task jointly construct the meaning to achieve the goal of the task (Heritage, 1997). Sequence organisation lies at the heart of CA. ten Have (2007) claims that ‘sequencing involves the ways in which participants arrange for each to talk about specific issues in specific ways, for instance as “questions” and “answers”’ (pp.  180–181). Obviously, the sequencing organisation should not be used as a fixed ‘framework to fit data into’ but an evolving structure that ‘the parties orient to it in organising their talk’ (Heritage, 2004, pp. 229–230). Depending on the purposes of the talk, the organisation varies, when it comes to turn design, it concerns preference organisation. ten Have explains the general idea of turn design is:

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(1) That, when alternative actions are open possibilities, one may be ‘preferred’, that is expected and chosen if possible; and (2) that the difference between ‘preferred’ and ‘dispreferred’ alternatives is demonstrated in the turn shape chosen for doing one or the other. (p. 137)

That is, turns can be designed to show they are doing the preferred, or the dispreferred. In a classroom setting, for example, when a teacher asks a question to request the demonstration of understanding, a preferred turn would be a positive response. A negative indication, in this instance, will be treated as dispreferred. Lexical choice, in Heritage’s words, indexes an interactant’s stance towards the particular circumstance, interactional context and relevant others that they are engaged with in very precise ways (2013, p. 13). He offered an example to illustrate this view. For example, when speakers use ‘we’ to refer to themselves rather than ‘I’, it means they are speaking on behalf of an institution (Drew & Heritage, 1992; Sacks, 1992). Another broad theme of lexical choice is ‘institutional euphemism’: ‘the tendency for representatives of institutions to be less than specific or affirmatively ambiguous in the terms they select to characterize objects and events’ (Heritage, 2013, p. 14). Finally, institutional interactions are characterised by four different kinds of asymmetries: (i) participation; (ii) ‘knowhow’ about the interaction and the institution in which it is embedded; (iii) substantive or technical knowledge; and (iv) rights to articulate substantive knowledge. Regarding participation, one observation that can be made about institutional talk is that institutional authority has discursive rights in the situation (Drew & Heritage, 1992; Heritage, 2010). This is clearly the case in classroom talk, for example, where the teacher retains the initiative in opening topics, and ‘in determining (i) when a topic is satisfactorily concluded, (ii) what the next topic will be and, (iii) through the design of their questions, how that new topic will be shaped’ (Drew & Heritage 1992; Heritage, 2010, 2013, p. 16). In terms of asymmetries of interactional and institutional ‘knowhow’, the gaps in knowledge and knowhow are very great in institutional talk. Closely related to this are the asymmetries of substantive and technical knowledge, and rights to articulate that knowledge. These asymmetries to some extent shape the turn design and positioning of the participants. For example, in a typical

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classroom, a teacher holds the knowledge, and the role of expert, whereas learners are positioned as the novice, even if the novice might ‘hold’ or ‘hide’ relevant knowledge in any situation. Having briefly reviewed the characteristics of institutional talk, I will focus on discussing turn construction units (TCUs) and turn taking, adjacency pairs and preferences, as well as repairs. The reason for selecting these elements is mainly because they are the most important elements in deciding how participants construct ideas together, how they orient to the preceding talk, and what interactional resources are involved.

Turn Taking The central assumption of CA is that talk is a highly organised, socially-­ ordered phenomenon. The purpose is to uncover the ‘often tacit reasoning procedures’ by studying its structure and meaning-making when participants engage in a social action (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008, p. 12). The key idea is to ‘uncover the organisation of talk not from any extraneous viewpoint, but from the perspective of how the participants display for one another their understanding of “what is going on”’ (Hutchby & Wooffitt, 2008, p. 13). That is, speakers display their understanding in the sequentially ‘next’ turn of what the ‘prior’ turn is about; turn taking is thus an important aspect of CA analysis. When sequences unfold, people’s understandings of one another’s actions unfold, and CA treats the turn taking as a way to reveal two things: first of all, the ‘next’ turn is the place where speakers display their understanding of the completion of the ‘prior’ turn. It displays the second speaker’s analysis of the first speaker’s utterances; second, it displays the mechanisms and relationship between the two participants, the negotiation and collaboration between them in constructing the talk-in-interaction. All interactions involve the use of some kind of turn-taking organisation, and there are three basic features of conversation: (1) turn taking occurs; (2) one speaker talks at a time, and (3) there is gap or overlap between speakers’ utterances (Sacks, Schegloff, & Jefferson, 1974). Heritage (1998) has claimed that many kinds of institutional interaction use the same turn-taking organisation as ordinary conversation. However,

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when institutional talk involves specific agendas and goals, there might be a special turn-taking system with a potential influence on parties’ opportunities for action and interpretation of almost every aspect of the activities that they structure. Heritage (1998, p. 6) further clarifies the fact that special turn-taking organisations tend to have two significant features: (a) there are a large number of potential participants in the interaction, whose contributions must be ‘rationed’ in some kind of formal way, and/or (b) when the talk is designed for an ‘overhearing’ audience.

The turn-taking model has two components: a ‘turn-construction’ component and a ‘turn-distribution’ component. Turn construction units are normally used by speakers to decide what kind of turn it is and when it is completed, and where the ‘transition-relevance places’ are. Sacks et al. (1974) described a set of rules which explains how turns are allocated and taken: • The current speaker identifies or selects the next speaker. • If no selection or identification is made by the first speaker, then any speaker can self-select to be the next speaker. • The current speaker might carry on with the turn until the next is identified, selected or self-selected. It has to be acknowledged that even the talk in an institutional setting is usually highly constructed according to rules and orders; there are overlapping turns (sometimes multiple overlapping turns) at the ­ transition-­relevance places. Jefferson (1986) identified three major categories of overlapping talk: transitional onset (when a speaker recognises a transition-­relevance place), recognitional onset (when the next speaker recognises what the current speaker is saying and can project a completion), and progressional onset (when the next speaker recognises a ‘struggle’ in the current turn to complete the turn in order for the talk to move forward). These three categories are common for classroom interaction.

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The IRF structure mentioned earlier is one typical turn-taking system, in which a teacher normally has two turns, and students have one. This type of talk normally is controlled by the teacher and it involves a potentially large number of participants and an audience. However, when it concerns institutional interaction, the general idea is that the TCU is almost predefined. That is, turn allocation and turn-type allocation is predefined by the agenda of the institutional talk. The turn-taking system is useful to teacher cognition, as turn allocation, distribution and management display what teaching and learning are, and the positionings of the learners and the teacher.

Adjacency Pairs and Preferences One of the most noticeable thing about conversation is adjacency pairs, which means utterances come in pairs, such as question/answer; complaint/denial; offer/accept; request/grant; compliment/rejection; challenge/rejection; instruction/receipt. Conventionally, the second pair part is a response to the first. Adjacency pairs typically consist of two utterances, each of which is produced by a different speaker. In most cases, the utterances are adjacent, that is, the second immediately follows the first. An example in a classroom discourse would be:

This exchange is a typical question and answer. The basic rule for adjacency pairs was outlined by Schegloff and Sacks (1973, p. 295): Given the recognisable production of a first pair part, on its first possible completion, its speaker should stop and a next speaker should start and produce a second pair part from the pair type the first is recognisably a member of.

However, there are incidents when an insertion sequence could come between the first and second pair part in an adjacency pair (Schegloff,

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1968). Insertion sequences traditionally perform two functions: clarification and delay. When participants conduct adjacency pairs, the second pair part can be described with a label as ‘preferred’ or a ‘dispreferred’ action (Pomerantz, 1984, p.  64). When an insertion sequence is produced, it can be used as a delay to put off a dispreferred second part—for example, a refusal in response to a request, offer or invitation, or an unexpected answer in response to a question. In the following example, Cici used an insertion sequence to delay a ‘dispreferred’ answer to Tina. As we can see, in line 1, Tina asks Cici whether they are going to do a lessonplanning session together. In this situation, a preferred response would be a positive response. However, instead of providing a relevant second pair part, Cici produces another first pair part seeking information (line 2), which is irrelevant to the original first pair part. Here lines 2 and 3 are used as an insertion adjacency pair to delay the ‘dispreferred response’ from Cici in lines 4 and 5 when she declines the invitation and provides an unconfirmed answer.

Sometimes, an adjacency pair will have a third part to it. This is called the sequence-closing third. In the next example, we can see the teacher and a student engage in an adjacency pair in which the former initiates a question as the first pair part, and the student provides a relevant second pair part; this sequence is finished by offering positive feedback or assessment.

Adjacency pairs have significant value in uncovering how mutual understanding is displayed and achieved in talk. As Schegloff and Sacks (1973) put it, when an adjacency pair is produced, a second speaker can show their understanding of the first speaker’s intention, and display

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their willingness or unwillingness to go with that intention. Of course, the adjacency pair also tells the first speaker whether their intention is understood or misunderstood, accepted or refused. Again, the second speaker has the chance to deliver an insertion.

Repair There is a large amount of work in CA regarding repair to show how it illustrates participants’ orientations to the basic turn-taking rules. Schegloff, Jefferson, and Sacks (1977) outlined four repair sequences: • Self-initiated self-repair, meaning the speaker initiates and carries out the repair of the trouble source

As can be seen, in the exchange above, the teacher asks a question, and the student makes a tense mistake in the response but immediately initiates a repair. In this case, the student engages in a self-initiated self-repair. • Other-initiated self-repair, when others initiate but the speaker repairs the trouble source

In this exchange, the teacher asks the student to describe a given picture. The student then provides a relevant second pair part but makes a mistake in the use of the pronoun (line 2). The trouble source is identified by the teacher, who makes an initiation by repeating it as a question. The student then makes a repair and produces a correct second pair part. • Self-initiated other-repair, when the speaker initiates but requires the others to make the repair

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In this exchange, two students are talking about teaching mentor allocation. We can see in line 3, student 2 presents a trouble source of not remembering the other girl’s name but can describe her appearance (line 4). In line 5, student 1 projects the possible completion of student 2’s turn because she recognises what she is saying, therefore overlapping the turn and offering repair. • Other-initiated and other-repair, meaning both initiation and repair is carried out by others.

In this exchange, a teacher asks a student to report their trip, and the student makes a relevant second turn, and upon completing the turn, the teacher initiates and repairs the trouble source in line 3. The initiation and repair also consist of an explanation of the vocabulary usage. Given the primary focus of the talk is to construct meaning and achieve understanding, repair is a significant part of the conversational structure, which allows the participants to manage intersubjectivity as an ongoing process (Schegloff, 1992). Repair is perhaps more important for an institutional setting such as a classroom, especially a language classroom, as the most important pedagogical goal is to achieve accuracy and fluency.

The Data This section presents the types of interaction data used in the book, as well as how data are usually handled in terms of recording and transcription.

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The Dataset As explained in Chap. 1, data come from three types of multiparty L2 settings, where English is taught and learnt as a foreign (second) language. The dataset includes classroom interaction, interviews, video-­ based post-lesson reflections and lesson-planning sessions. In total, the dataset constitutes 1462 minutes of in-service teacher classroom data and 1216 minutes of pre-service teacher classroom data. Data also include 2346 minutes of interview data of both types of teachers, their video-­ based reflections and lesson-planning sessions. The recordings were watched several times before they were transcribed. Detailed transcriptions of verbal and non-verbal behaviours were made and subjected to fine-grained analysis, using ‘applied’ CA methodology (see Appendix for transcription conventions). That is, the focus is placed on how the teachers display their understanding of the situation and their stance-taking in the moment. Next, I will outline the typical professional discourse utilised in exploring teacher cognition.

Classroom Discourse Classroom discourse is typically used in researching second language learning and there is a tradition to examine student participation, communication and meaning negotiation in the SLA research (Jenks, 2014; Sert, 2015). In recent years, there has been a trend of using classroom interactional data to explore teachers’ practice, such as feedback and pedagogy (e.g., Waring, 2016; Wong & Waring, 2010), as well as teacher cognition (Li & Walsh, 2011; Li, 2013, 2017a) and identity (Gray & Morton, 2018). Here, I would like to discuss the relevance of classroom discourse to researching teacher cognition. First, I would like to highlight the ‘naturalness’ of classroom talk. Like any other institutional talk, classroom conversation should be considered as natural talk, as put forward by Edward and Westgate (1994, p. 116): The point is not that classroom talk ‘should’ resemble a conversation, since most of the time for practical purposes it cannot, but that institutionalized talk […] shows a heightened use of procedures which have their ‘base’ in

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ordinary conversation and are more clearly understood through comparison with it.

Although the conversation in the classroom does not have the same features as ‘ordinary’ conversation, there are some similarities: first, it is ‘organised’ between speakers, with one usually speaking at a time, although overlaps do occur. Thus, turns-at-talk are organised sequentially. Second, interactional strategies are used by speakers to fix breakdowns. What differentiates the classroom discourse from an everyday conversation is that it is goal-oriented and that its prime orientation is to maximise learning (Seedhouse, 2004). As in any institutional discourse setting, teachers have pedagogical purposes associated with language learning in a language classroom, and conversations are primarily influenced by the prevailing features of that context (Walsh & Li, 2013). Research in classroom discourse has identified the uniqueness of classroom interaction, suggesting that it has its own ‘interactional architecture’ (Seedhouse, 2004) that can be traced through ‘institutional fingerprints’ (Drew & Heritage, 1992). Language has dual functions in language classrooms, as it is the content and the medium of learning. On the one hand, it is the object of learning and learners are expected to be able to produce relevant words, sentences and passages at a certain stage of learning, with accurate lexical choices and grammar rules; on the other hand, it is the medium and channel in and through which learning takes place. In language learning, interactional opportunities and contexts in which language is in use are equally important for a learner, as we already know that language develops through and in social interaction (Ellis, 2003). Thus, in a language classroom, the role of teacher language and peer interaction is most significant, as it has various roles in facilitating learning. First of all, teacher language can serve as input, and in some learning settings, perhaps the only type of input. Therefore, the effectiveness and appropriateness of teacher language are crucial in learning. This input, as pointed out by various researchers (e.g., Seedhouse, 2011; Sert, 2015; Walsh & Li, 2013), includes both verbal and non-verbal resources. Second, the language teacher orchestrates the proceedings. For example, in a classroom, they usually decide how long the interactional work might last, who has the right to speak and in what format. In brief, the teacher

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offers, manages and sometimes restricts learner participation by managing turns. Students typically take their cues from teachers, and role relationships between both are unequal (Walsh, 2002). This is evidenced in various studies (e.g., Morton, 2012; Walsh & Li, 2013). Third, as pointed out by Walsh and Li (2013), interaction and levels of participation vary according to the pedagogic goal of the moment and local circumstances in classrooms. For example, when the teacher does work on grammar explanations, or other teacher-fronted tasks, it is common to have a high level of complex teacher talk and very little learner participation. When the task is oriented towards discussion, and the pedagogical goal is to elicit learners’ opinions, it requires more active learner participation, consisting of longer and more complex learner turns. Finally, interactional resources and strategies are important for teachers to achieve their pedagogical goals (Walsh & Li, 2013). Thus, it is important to investigate the understanding of teaching and learning, as well as teachers’ epistemic thinking. Sert (2015) argues for the role of detailed classroom interaction in understanding this better, claiming that ‘[T]his understanding requires a micro-analytic approach to L2 classroom interactions so as to uncover epistemic and pedagogical phenomena, by paying attention to participants’ utterances, nonverbal details of talk, suprasegmental features of language, gaze movements, gestures, and orientations to classroom artefacts’ (p. 2, original emphasis) In summary, classroom interaction is a useful source to investigate teacher cognition since it provides evidence of developments of conceptions, making decisions and positionings on a moment-by-moment basis.

Interview The interview is one of the most widely used data collection tools in the social sciences. Traditionally, interview transcripts are analysed using thematic content analysis but the CA perspective challenges this approach. As Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008, p. 161) point out, the traditional way of handling interview data might not address some critical features of the interaction between interviewer and interviewee, such as ‘the way turns are exchanges, the methods by which misunderstandings and other trou-

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bles are repaired, or the effect of letting misunderstandings go unrepaired or how they co-constructed meanings’. Equally, Li (2017a) highlights the potential problems of losing the richness and subtlety of the meaning co-­ construction between the interviewer and interviewee, as well as the shared meanings when the interview data is handled through the traditional thematic analysis. In her words, ‘it is not clear how the teacher’s understanding is co-constructed with the researcher and how the belief is elicited by the researcher if a thematic analysis is adopted’ (Li, 2017a, p. 61). Elsewhere, Potter and Hepburn (2005) have pointed out some contingent problems in the reporting of interviews, in particular regarding the deletion of the interviewer and the failure to consider interviews as interaction. To that end, Li argues the case for using CA to analyse interview data in order to capture not only what teachers’ cognitions are but also how they are publically displayed in the social interaction. In this dataset, semi-structured interviews are included when the researcher asks a set number of questions, although the sequence or orders of the questions vary in different situations and the way the questions are asked might be different. As such, the interviewer has the liberty to explore issues arising in the course of the interview.

The Video-Based Post-Lesson Reflection A post-lesson reflection is a common approach for many teachers to evaluate their classes. This approach is also widely used in teacher training programmes to allow trainees to reflect on action and perhaps explain what they were thinking in that moment, and at the same time to evaluate their practice (Copland, 2008). According to Li (2017b), post-lesson reflection based on video recordings is a useful tool for engagement in critical reflection, as the videos provide a structure and concrete evidence to reflect on, develop and learn from. This type of reflection is similar to an open interview, where no guidelines are used or agenda predetermined, and is particularly used to gain the participants’ insights and interpretations of their practice (Li, 2017a). This dataset consists of episodes from teachers who engage in a reflective dialogue either with colleagues, the researcher or tutors. It is a useful way to collect data regarding what teachers think because it provides ‘the

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opportunity to verbalize their thinking, in a relatively free and open-­ ended manner’ (Borg, 2006, p. 210). More importantly, the video-based reflection serves as the basis for reflection and becoming aware of decision-­ making, and for researchers to see from the teachers’ perspectives their understandings, knowledge and decision-making (Li, 2013).

Lesson-Planning Conferences and Team Planning Taking situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991), and specifically Wenger’s (1998) model of learning as participation in communities of practice, Morton and Gray (2010) focus on ‘lesson-planning conferences’ (LPCs), in which a teacher educator and a group of student teachers work on one student teacher’s lesson plan. The LPC is a dynamic recursive process in which problems of instruction emerge, and solutions are suggested. Morton and Gray argue that shared lesson-planning is a promising strategy for the construction of novice language teachers’ personal practical knowledge, because in this process they not only get input from the expert but also have a space for realising and developing their own thinking. The conference places an emphasis on knowing and can be seen as a ‘discursive problem-solving’ action that takes place in a socially-­ structured place (Edwards, Gilroy, & Hartley, 2002, p.  114). In this social place, novice and expert construct their understanding of teaching and learning through doing genuine productive work. The lesson-­ planning conference is also widely used among teacher language education programmes if micro teaching and teaching practice is involved. This is also a common practice among in-service teachers in many EFL contexts, when teachers carry out group lesson-planning activities weekly. The conference has a dual function—it serves as a genuine practice that teachers engage with in schools when they prepare lessons together and as an example of instruction, usually from more experienced teachers.

Recording The analysis of talk-in-interaction requires audio or video recordings, ideally the latter as they provide more details of gestures, facial expressions and body language, which is indeed part of the structure of talk-in-­

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interaction. In a classroom setting, when small group work is the principal form of learning activity, a stations approach is recommended (Markee, 2004), where each group can be separately recorded. When possible, multiple recording strategies is encouraged as it gives the researcher more accurate information about pauses, laughter tokens, the onset and overlaps. It is however not possible sometimes for data collection. For one-to-one interactional data, such as semi-structured interviews and video-based stimulated recall, a video camera can be placed close to the teacher and the researcher. Voices and gestures of the two participants could be recorded. For interactional data when multiple participants may be involved, two video cameras ought to be used where possible. For example, as it is not practical to use the station’s approach to make the classroom recording, two cameras are used, with one placed in the front of the classroom, focusing on the students, and the other at the back, focusing on the teacher. As such, classroom recordings were made to record the interaction between the teacher and students, as well as among the latter.

Transcription Conversation analysis places a heavy emphasis on the use of the transcript of data. Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008) claim that transcription is a necessary initial step in enabling CA, and the production of transcripts represents a distinctive stage of data analysis. In this sense, transcripts are a ‘representation’ of data. Therefore, transcription is a core procedure of analysis and accuracy is a significant issue. Traditionally, analysts worked with audio recordings, and it is hard to transcribe salient features such as eye contact, hand gestures and facial expressions (e.g., head shaking). Although there is no fixed rule about CA transcriptions, Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008) suggest that two areas of conversation are important: dynamics of turn taking, such as overlaps, gaps, pauses and characteristics of speech delivery, such as stress, intonation and pitch. This does not mean the transcript is better if the more detailed information is provided. The purpose of the convention is not to produce an accurate representation of the talk, but to provide the reader with accessible information of what’s going on therein. The focus of transcription, thus, is placed on the features

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of talk-in-interaction that are analytically significant to the analysis. The extracts used in this book were transcribed following the conventions of CA suggested by Hutchby and Wooffitt (2008), with some modifications.

Summary This chapter discusses the connection between teacher cognition and social interaction, demonstrating how teachers’ understanding, knowing, conceptualisation and beliefs are displayed in the interaction with others. A detailed discussion of the rationale of using CA to analyse teacher cognition, its principles with a particular focus on its organisations of talk, as well as data collection and transcription is offered. This exemplary-based chapter provides the reader with an understanding how ‘applied’ CA is used in researching an institutional matter, such as teacher cognition. The following five chapters will present and discuss different aspects of teacher cognition.

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Brazil, D. C. (1995). Classroom and spoken discourse. Centre for English language studies. Birmingham: The University of Birmingham. Copland, F. (2008). Deconstructing the discourse: Understanding the feedback event. In S. Garton & K. Richards (Eds.), Professional encounters in TESOL: Discourses of teachers in teaching (pp. 1–5). New York: Palgrave Macmillan. Coulthard, M. (1985). An introduction to discourse analysis (2nd ed.). Burnt Mill: Longman. Drew, P., & Heritage, J. (1992). Analyzing talk at work: An introduction. In P. Drew & J. Heritage (Eds.), Talk at work (pp. 3–65). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Drew, P., & Sorjonen, M.-L. (1997). Institutional dialogue. In T. v. Dijk (Ed.), Discourse: A multidisciplinary introduction. Volume 2: Discourse as social interaction in society. London: Sage. Duncan, M. R., & Cheyne, J. (2002). Private speech in young adults: Task difficulty, self-regulation, and psychological predication. Cognitive Development, 16, 889–906. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0885-2014(01)00069-7 Edward, A. D., & Westgate, D. P. G. (1994). Investigating classroom talk (2nd ed.). London and Washington, DC: Routledge and Falmer. Edwards, A., Gilroy, P., & Hartley, D. (2002). Re-thinking teacher education: Collaborating for uncertainty. London: Routledge and Falmer. Ellis, R. (1998). Discourse control and the acquisition-rich classroom. In W. A. Renandya & G. M. Jacobs (Eds.), Learners and language learning, Anthology (pp. 145–171). Singapore: SEAMO Regional Language Centre. Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Furrow, D. (1984). Social and private speech at two years. Child Development, 55, 355–362. Garcia, A. C. (2013). Introduction to interaction: Understanding talk in formal and informal settings. London: Bloomsbury Publishing. Gray, J., & Morton, T. (2018). Social interaction and teacher identity. Edinburgh University Press. Heritage, J. (1997). Conversation analysis and institutional talk: Analyzing data. In D.  Silverman (Ed.), Qualitative analysis: Issues of theory and method (pp. 161–182). London: Sage. Heritage, J. (1998). Conversation analysis and institutional talk: Analyzing distinctive turn-taking systems. In S. Cmejrková, J. Hoffmannová, O. Müllerová, & J.  Svetlá (Eds.), Proceedings of the 6th International Congress of IADA (International Association for Dialog Analysis) (pp. 3–17). Tubingen: Niemeyer.

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Pomerantz, A. M. (1984). Agreeing and disagreeing with assessment: Some features of preferred/dispreferred turn shapes. In M.  Atkinson & J.  Heritage (Eds.), Structures of social action: Studies in conversation analysis (pp. 57–101). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Potter, J., & Hepburn, A. (2005). Qualitative interviews in psychology: Problems and possibilities. Qualitative Research in Psychology, 2, 281–307. Sacks, H. (1992). Lectures on conversation. 2 vols. Oxford: Blackwell. Sacks, H., Schegloff, E. A., & Jefferson, G. (1974). A simplest systematics for the organization of turn-taking for conversation. Language, 50(4), 696–735. Schegloff, E.  A. (1968). Sequencing in conversational openings. American Anthropologist, 70, 1075–1095. Schegloff, E. A. (1991). Reflection on talk and social structure. In D. Boden & D. H. Zimmerman (Eds.), Talk and social structure: Studies in ethnomethodology and conversation analysis. Cambridge: Polity Press. Schegloff, E. A. (1992). Repair after next turn: The last structurally provided defense of intersubjectivity in conversation. American Journal of Sociology, 97, 1295–1345. Schegloff, E. A., Koshik, I., Jacoby, S., & Olsher, D. (2002). Conversation analysis and applied linguistics. Annual Review of Applied Linguistics, 22, 3–31. Schegloff, E.  A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica, 7, 289–327. Schegloff, E.  A., Jefferson, G., & Sacks, H. (1977). The preference for self-­ correction in the organization of repair in conversation. Language, 53, 361–382. Seedhouse, P. (2004). The interactional architecture of the language classroom: A conversation analysis perspective. Malden, MA: Blackwell. Seedhouse, P. (2005). Conversation analysis and language learning. Language Teaching, 38(4), 165–187. Seedhouse, P. (2011). Conversation analytic research into language teaching and learning. In E. Hinkel (Ed.), Handbook of research in second language teaching and learning (pp. 345–363). Abingdon, Oxon: Routledge. Seedhouse, P., & Walsh, S. (2010). Learning a second language through classroom interaction. In P. Seedhouse, S. Walsh, & J. Chris (Eds.), Conceptualising ‘learning’ in applied linguistics (pp.  127–146). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Sert, O. (2015). Social interaction and L2 classroom discourse. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

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Sinclair, J., & Coulthard, M. (1975). Towards an analysis of discourse. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Sinclair, J., & Coulthard, M. (1992). Towards an analysis of discourse. In M. Coulthard (Ed.), Advances in spoken discourse analysis (pp. 1–34). London: Routledge. ten Have, P. (2007). Doing conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. van Lier, L. (1996). Interaction in the language curriculum: Awareness, autonomy and authenticity. New York: Longman. Vygotsky, L. S. (1986). Thought and language. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Walsh, S. (2002). Construction or obstruction: Teacher talk and learner involvement in the EFL classroom. Language Teaching Research, 6(1), 3–23. Walsh, S. (2006). Investigating classroom discourse. London: Routledge. Walsh, S. (2011). Exploring classroom discourse: Language in action. London: Routledge. Walsh, S., & Li, L. (2013). Conversation as space for learning. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 23(2), 244–267. Waring, H.  Z. (2009). Moving out of IRF (initiation-response-feedback): A single case analysis. Language Learning, 59(4), 796–824. Waring, H. Z. (2016). Theorizing pedagogical interaction: Insights from conversation analysis. New York: Routledge. Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning, and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Winsler, A., & Naglieri, J. A. (2003). Overt and covert verbal problem-solving strategies: Developmental trends in use, awareness, and relations with task performance in children age 5 to 17. Child Development, 74, 659–678. Wong, J., & Waring, H. Z. (2010). Conversation analysis and second language pedagogy: A guide for ESL/EFL teachers. New York: Routledge.

4 Teacher Cognition about Teaching and Learning

Introduction As discussed in previous chapters, what teachers believe and conceptualise is part of what they are, and what they do in their professional lives. Understanding what teaching and learning is requires a close examination of activities teachers design, the material they use and how they interact with students. Given the importance of teacher cognition in understanding pedagogy, instructional practice and teacher development (Li, 2017a), this chapter is devoted to offering insights into the meanings of teaching and learning from the teacher perspective through analysis of classroom interaction. Given the data for this chapter comes from Chinese English classrooms, at the outset it is crucial to briefly discuss the social, cultural and educational contexts of Chinese learning. Various studies have been published regarding Chinese learners and the culture of Chinese learning, claiming that the learners are obedient and passive, and much teaching and learning involves rote learning and knowledge acquiring and retrieving, rather than collaborative learning striving for knowledge construction and creation. This is to some extent true and perhaps is due to the education system—students spend six years in primary and six years in secondary © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_4

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school (with three years for junior high and three years for senior high sections). Thus, for an ordinary learner, there are three high-­stake examinations which take place at the end of primary school (year six) and the end of junior high school and senior high school. These three exams are crucial for learners because they are selective exams for further education, especially the NCEE (National College Entrance Examination) at the end of senior high school. The NCEE determines whether a student can obtain a place at a university, and the university ultimately decides their job prospectus. In essence, the NCEE has become the real aim and motivation of high school study (Ding & Lehrer, 2007). The NCEE is also the indicator of the effectiveness of teaching at high school (Luo & Wendel, 1999), and an influential critical factor for any education reforms (Li, 2008). For all these reasons, Chinese education is known as exam-oriented, and passing exams is a symbol of success (Kirkpatrick & Zang, 2011). In 2001, the Chinese government launched the Chinese education reform (Li, 2011), including a new curriculum and syllabus to encourage critical and creative thinking skills, to change the focus on receptive learning, rote learning and mechanical drilling and to advocate learner participation, exploration, information collection and comprehension, problem-solving, negotiation and collaboration (Ministry of Education [MoE hereafter], 2001). Regarding foreign language education, the new curriculum emphasises the application of language in real-life contexts to explore, negotiate, communicate, collaborate and participate. This entails that EFL (English as Foreign Language) teaching in China should not only involve applying English in real-life situations but also prompt skills of exploration, participation, collaboration, negotiation and communication. At a policy level, these skills are explicitly mentioned as learning outcomes in language classrooms, indicating (foreign) language learning should not be treated as a sole linguistic concept, but a tool to reach beyond linguistic horizons.

Conceptualising Teaching and Learning In the literature, what teachers believe about teaching and learning is identified as the most important factor influencing their understanding of classroom pedagogy. Studying teacher cognition thus enables us to

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gain a deeper understanding of deep-rooted theories of teaching and learning from teachers’ perspectives. As Li (2017a) claims, we need a closer look at teachers’ knowledge in their local contexts in order to understand how they conceptualise and operate learning. Teachers’ understanding of teaching and learning influences how they plan to teach and what they do in teaching, and their classroom practice displays knowledge and thinking about teaching and learning. In recognising teacher cognition as a critical aspect of a teacher’s professional life, much work is being done in understanding their knowledge about what teaching is (cf. Ben-peretz, 2011). The scope of research into teacher knowledge has also expanded from content subject knowledge and pedagogical concerns to teachers’ personal, practical knowledge derived from their own experience. The concept of practical knowledge is knowledge ‘broadly based on (teachers’) experiences in classrooms and schools and is directed towards the handling of problems that arise in their work’ (Elbaz, 1981, p.  67). This means practical knowledge is derived from their ‘first-hand experience of students’ learning styles, interests, needs, strengths and difficulties, and a repertoire of instructional techniques and classroom management skills’ (Elbaz, 1983, p. 5). In a way, how they conceptualise their students, the context and the subject matter in the process of learning, helps them develop their practical knowledge. Connelly and Clandinin (1988) proposed ‘personal practical knowledge’ to claim such knowledge is found in classroom practice, therefore studying an individual teacher’s practice is the ultimate way to gain insights into such knowledge. The other significant aspect of Connelly and Clandinin’s understanding of teacher knowledge is the ‘personal’ and ‘experiential’ aspect of the knowledge construction of individual teachers, and this perspective represents a more situational form of knowledge than formal professional knowledge (Munby, Russell, & Martin, 2001, p. 881). It is clear that although it is the personal practical knowledge that individual teachers accumulate in their experience, cultural norms and formal education have a stronger impact than one might expect. This knowledge is also an open and developing concept, which is ‘evolving, changing and growing’ (Johnson & Golombek, 2002, p. 8). Learning is positioned on a continuum from knowledge-transmission at one extreme and discovery-based approaches at the other, and peda-

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gogy is equally located on a continuum from teacher-centred to learner-­ centred. In teaching, teachers adjust their position on this continuum in response to the micro context they are in. That is, the moment-by-­ moment interaction with their students, colleagues or significant others in their professional lives. Of course, teacher cognition is a complex system in which all elements of teaching and learning are involved, such as the subject matter, the tasks and activities, the learners, the materials and assessment; as in the process of teaching and learning, these components interact. Examining the dataset, there are six prevailing themes of teacher cognition about language teaching and learning, they are: 1 . Focusing on linguistic knowledge 2. Fostering communication skills 3. Promoting content-integrated language learning 4. Integrating culture knowledge in language learning 5. Developing creativity and criticality 6. Enhancing teaching learning strategies In what follows, I will unpack the themes by examining the interactional work teachers do in their professional encounters.

Focusing on Linguistic Knowledge Linguistic knowledge has always been a significant feature of EFL and ESL classrooms. It is clear that the accuracy of vocabulary and grammar has become the centre of language learning, and as Li (2017a) identifies, there are two associated reasons. First, research into grammar learning has a long history and has always been an important aspect of language ­learning (see a review in Ellis, 2008), and its importance and relevance remain key, even though the focus of language learning has switched to communication. Second, research supports the role of grammar instruction in facilitating language learning (Nassaji & Fotos, 2011), although it is still not clear how grammar should be approached, and pedagogy regarding linguistic knowledge has always been controversial. For exam-

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ple, even when researchers agree that grammar should be a core element of second language learning, no consensus has been made regarding whether grammar is best taught integratively or as a separate component of the foreign language learning syllabus. At the same time, language teacher research suggests discrepancies between teachers’ thinking and classroom practice regarding grammar work. In a study conducted by Borg and Burns (2008), the majority of their teachers (84 per cent of an international sample of 176 teachers) disagreed that ‘grammar should be taught separately’ from other skills (p.  466). It is widely reported that EFL teachers value explicit grammar work across different contexts (Nishino, 2011; Sakui, 2004, 2007; Sato & Kleinsasser, 2004; Underwood, 2012). Of course, this is not to blame language teachers for not doing what they say; rather, this research suggests that there are significant factors that we need to take into consideration when examining teacher cognition. The local contexts, including macro, meso and micro contexts, perhaps are more important in shaping what teachers do in their professional lives (Li, 2013; Sato & Kleinsasser, 2004). In what follows, I will present extracts showing teachers’ understanding regarding enhancing linguistic knowledge. Extract 4.1 is taken from a class where the teacher, Ai, is going through a reading text with students. For her, teaching and learning involves a lot of grammar and vocabulary work, and teachers’ explanations, as well as drills, are important. Such understandings and conceptions unfold in her interaction with students. This extract starts with the teacher’s explicit instruction outlining the pedagogical goal of the activity: ‘we will look at some important phrases’ (lines 1–2). It is the following 29 lines of interaction between the teacher and students that make the ‘importance’ of language points possible from the teacher’s perspective. As we can see, this view is co-constructed and developed between all participants. First of all, this line is treated by both the teacher and students as a ‘pre-announcement’ (Terasaki, 2005), which makes the dedicated controlled practice legitimate. It is worth noting that after the teacher moves to the first important phrase (provide for), we see a ‘self-initiated insertion’ (lines 5–6). Normally, insertion is used when the first pair part is questioned or misunderstood, or further clarification is required (see Chap. 3). Here, the teacher herself

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Extract 4.1

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Extract 4.1  (continued)

inserts an unrelated turn to guide the students to make notes. Two things can be interpreted here: first, students are not taking notes, even when the teacher has pre-announced the importance of the work; second, Ai believes that taking notes is a useful strategy to learn or to memorise. We can infer that memorising language points is a critical element of second language learning. The emphasis placed on phrases here is not a surprising finding, as in many EFL classrooms, linguistic knowledge, especially grammar and vocabulary, takes up a significant part of a lesson. This request to take notes puts the students and teacher in a position where learning will take place through drilled work and memorisation. From line 7, the teacher goes back to the original plan: reading out the phrase, providing its Chinese equivalence after a brief pause, repeating the Chinese translation (line 8), and then giving students an example (lines 9–11). Interestingly, students recognise the relevant transition place to take the turn without a pause (noting the latching turn in line 12), translating the example provided by the teacher. The teacher continues to provide the Chinese equivalence (line 13), as shown in the overlaps between this students’ turn and the teacher’s on lines 12 and 13. From here, we can see ‘translation work’ is perhaps one of the most frequently-­used activity in this classroom, as both students and the teacher seem to follow ‘usual practice’. There is no turn-giving by the teacher, using speaker nomination strategy, or there seems no interruption even though the students ‘interrupted’ the teacher’s turn by providing the translation. As shown in line 14, the teacher repeats the translation and moves on to the next activity, this time using their L1 to give an instruction. Here, we can see the L1 is used as a mediational tool so that students will have a clear understanding of the instructions, thereby following the next activity without confusion. In the next few lines (15–22), the teacher

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and students co-construct the learning event by doing translation work, in which the former provides a Chinese sentence bit by bit (lines 15, 17 and 19) and students produce equivalent English segments and eventually the whole sentence (lines 16, 18 and 20). This is followed by an embedded correction from the teacher (line 21) and the Chinese equivalency to reinforce the link between the Chinese and English versions of the sentence (line 22). The embedded feedback can also be viewed as a reformulation to make the contribution from the student correct and relevant to everyone in the classroom. The teacher moves on to the next important phrase ‘protect from’. This time, she repeats the phrase (line 23), and then provides an example (lines 24–25). We can see she reverts to providing the translation of the example from the repetition in line 25 after a hesitation marker um. This transition suggests that Ai sees matching the Chinese and English version of the sentence is an effective and useful strategy to aid in understanding and remembering the usage of the phrases. As shown earlier, the same strategy has been used when she finishes the first phrase. Again, students, without being selected or nominated, take the turn to provide an overlapping contribution in line 27. This further indicates the normalisation of translation work in this classroom. The teacher then finishes off this phrase by providing further information in line 28. It is interesting to note here that Ai repeats ‘­sunglasses’ several times in both English and Chinese in lines 28–30. Clearly, this is a key word that she expects students to remember from this example sentence. There are several interactional features that the teacher uses in this extract in her interactive work with the class. 1. Repetition is strategically used to highlight the important points, for example in line 4, she repeats the phrase to be learnt, and in line 6, her instruction to students to make notes. This strategy is repeatedly used in lines 8, lines 10–11, 14, 29 and 30, to either highlight the phrases they are practising or as translation of the examples to enhance understanding of the exemplary sentences. 2. L1 or translation is used as a scaffolding tool, as well as a mediational tool for students to engage in learning. For example, when the teacher instructs everyone to make notes in line 6, she uses the L1 to make sure students are with her and understand her intention. In her view, making notes is a useful strategy to learn, as discussed earlier. Another example is in lines 17, 19 and 28, when she uses the L1 as a cognitive tool.

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3. It is interesting to note that there is no direct repair in this extract given the focus is on the accuracy of using phrases. The teacher has used reformulation of students’ input to provide embedded feedback. Examining this extract from a CA perspective, we can also see how this teacher displays her understanding of teaching and learning: 1. There exist unequal turns between the teacher and students, with only five turns taken by students and three of them are of a second pair part (lines 16, 18 and 20) as a response to the teacher’s initiation (lines 15, 17 and 19). Two student turns (lines 12 and 27) are self-selection, indicating this kind of response or participation is expected. It is clear that the teacher should be the centre of an instructional activity, dominating most of the talk. Again, it is the teacher who takes the responsibility to provide explanations, give feedback and control who shall participate or contribute, and when. 2. Concerning turn management, we see very little involvement of the students. Again, there is only one place showing clear turn-giving from the teacher, when she requests that students participate (line 14). However, the following turn management between the teacher and students shows that it is controlled participation (lines 15–22)—the students provide relevant information when it is required (lines 16, 18 and 20). There are two places where students make self-selection to take turns (lines 12 and 27), demonstrating their interpretation of turn completion on the teacher’s part and their active involvement in learning. When the focus is placed on linguistic knowledge, it is clear to this teacher that student participation should be limited. 3. Regarding repair, there is little repair work apart from the reformulation provided by the teacher in line 21. There is no positive or negative evaluation, given that student participation is limited. This embedded correction suggests that providing correct input is more important than making direct repair. Similar evidence exists in Extract 4.2. In this classroom, the teacher, Bin, is asking the students to find the most critical grammar structure in the examples he has given. Although in his design of the lesson he involves students in discovering grammatical rules, it is still clear from his interac-

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Extract 4.2

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Extract 4.2  (continued)

tion that the teacher explanation is key to second language learning. His moment-by-moment understanding about teaching and learning is unfolding in his interaction with the students. This extract spans over 2 minutes 23 seconds in 48 lines. Bin in the first pair part, asks a question, requesting relevant information. Then he selects a student to take the turn promptly. An expected second pair part would be

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an example of grammar structures, which the selected student, Juan, produces in line 3. Upon receiving the information, Bin acknowledges it using a discourse marker, ‘Ok’, and after a brief pause, produces another first pair part, this time requesting the students to read the sentence (line 4). However, this time, he does not select a participant to take the turn. In contrast, there is a rather long pause (6.0 seconds in line 5) before a student makes a self-selection to produce the relevant second pair part—translation of the example (line 6). Bin then repeats his translation and acknowledges it (line 7), and allowing the student to sit down indicates the completion of the turn and contribution (lines 7–8). Now, if we look at the 6-second long pause earlier, we can infer that students might be confused by the first pair part: ‘read it out’. It turns out a relevant second pair part is not merely reading the sentence but providing a translation equivalence. In line 8, the teacher makes eye contact with another student, Jin, and offers the next turn to this learner. It is interesting that there seems no first pair part, but Jin offers a relevant response. In lines 9–12, Jin provides a detailed explanation of using the ‘be going to’ structure in Chinese, which seems to be interrupted by the teacher in line 13. However, if we consider the teacher’s feedback in line 13, we can see it is not an interruption. Rather, from the teacher’s point of view, the student’s turn is in completion, and there is no further need to keep going. In line 13, the teacher takes over the turn and announces Jin’s turn being completed (by suggesting her take a seat). As with Ai in Extract 4.1, Bin makes a ‘pre-­ announcement’ (Terasaki, 2005) to set the agenda for the following turns. Here, Bin also does some interactional work with the students to make sure the structure ‘be going to’ is well-understood by others. He does it by providing explanations in both English and Chinese (lines 16–17), requesting an example sentence (lines 19–21 and 25) and encouraging student contributions (line 27). Eventually, he nominates an individual, Ying, to take the turn after failing to have a volunteer contribution (line 30). This nomination puts Ying on a ‘platform format’ (Goffman, 1983), and he provides a relevant second pair part (line 31). From line 32 to 34, feedback is given to Ying’s contribution. Bin does this in various ways to make sure the feedback is taken up by students: first of all, he repeats the student’s contribution. Although repetition of student contribution can be viewed as either negative or positive feedback, judging from the following turn, it is clear that it is not a positive assessment

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in this case. As we can see, in line 33, his repetition has a rising tone, which indicates uncertainty. The uncertainty is further reinforced in line 34, where he makes a suggestion in Chinese to explain the rule and then provides a direct correction, with an emphasis on the correct verb form. After a brief pause, Bin selects another student, Jin, who makes a correct contribution, again as a relevant second pair part to his earlier request to make up a sentence (lines 19–28). Interestingly and also quite unusually, Jin takes the initiative to select another student when she completes her turn, and the other selected student, Tian, now produces another sentence with a correct form (line 36). In the following turn, the teacher acknowledges Tian’s contribution and instructs her to sit down, and then repeats the first half of her sentence, while translating the second half in a joking way indicated by the smiley voice (lines 37–38). It is then followed by a further repetition of Tian’s offering as a positive confirmation (line 39), which is followed by a reformulation, a slightly different way of saying it: ‘I am going to sleep’. In line 40, the teacher makes a pre-announcement. In lines 41 and 43, the teacher initiates another first pair part, requesting information on how to change the sentence produced by Tian into a negative sentence. This is followed by explanation using the L1 and a consequent nomination (lines 44 and 45). Li takes the turn and produces the correct second pair part (line 46), which Bin confirms with a positive response firstly, and then explanation and translation in the L1 (line 47), as well as a repetition in English (line 48). Again, examining this extract using CA principles, we can see that: 1. Bin sees that linguistic knowledge is important in second language learning; therefore he dedicates time to foster such knowledge. However, student participation seems equally important, as we can infer from the activity designed (to discover the rule of ‘be going to’ and to create sentences). 2. The L1 can be a psychological and cultural tool to mediate learning. His focus is placed on an understanding of the linguistic knowledge rather than using the language. This is evident by his Chinese instructions (lines 4, 23 and 44–45), encouragement (line 24), the translation activity (lines 6, 38 and 47), explanation work (lines 16–17 and 34), feedback and acknowledgement (lines 7, 13, 28 and 34), and

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student contributions (lines 9–12). As with Ai in Extract 4.1, Bin believes the L1 has more potential in second language learning. Looking at turn management and exchanges, as well as repair from a CA perspective, we can see the following evidence to support the beliefs outlined earlier: 1. There are seven student turns, and although the number of teacher turns is more or less the same, the student turns are generally brief apart from the contribution made by student 3, who explains the rules of ‘be going to’ in Chinese. All other six turns are produced as a response to the first pair part from the teacher, either a request for information or example, clarification or explanation. Regarding turn management, we can see in most cases that the teacher has selected the speakers except for Jin, who self-selected through eye contact with the teacher (line 8). Notably, all turns are allocated by the teacher apart from Tian’s turn which was initiated by Jin (line 35). The predominant role of the teacher suggests that the teacher controls teaching and learning, revealing the authority that the teacher has in terms of what to learn, how it is learnt and who is involved in the activity. 2. Concerning repair strategy, we can see that Bin uses different strategies to focus on accuracy. In particular, repetition is utilised to achieve different pedagogical purposes. This extract suggests teacher repetition cannot be ‘neutral’, as Norrick (1987) claims; it seems the teacher repetition could be acknowledgement or evaluation of student participation with the ‘reshaping and revoicing work’ to meet the teacher’s pedagogical goal or ‘to shape the trajectory of the immediately following discourse’ (Hellermann, 2003, p. 83). For example, in this extract, teacher repetition acknowledges and confirms the student contribution, or revoices it (lines 7, 39 and 48), or provides a negative evaluation before offering a correction (lines 32–33). Other repair strategies include direct correction (line 34) and further explanation (line 34). 3. Related to repair and TCU is feedback. In this extract, only one student, Jin, has two turns, and her first turn is gained by self-selection using direct eye contact with the teacher, and the second turn is allocated. Her participation rate is higher than other students, but her

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learning experience might not be the best, as is shown by the feedback from the teacher. After a rather long turn (lines 9–12), her turn is interrupted by the teacher. At that point, the teacher provides her with evaluative feedback, which can be interpreted as a negative evaluation judging from the following sequences. Her contribution is not considered clear enough. Hence the comment from the teacher ‘summarise what you want to express’ (line 13). Then the teacher takes the turn to offer his explanation. Jin’s second turn is allocated to her, yet despite the correct contribution, she does not receive any feedback. In fact, she is the only one who does not receive any feedback. Lack of feedback here can be interpreted as ignorance of Jin’s contribution. Not getting proper feedback is not new in the second language classroom, in fact, Li (2017a) observed that ‘F position’ is commonly replaced by a form of sequence-closing third in CA terms (Schegloff, 2007), such as the use of oh, okay or an assessment (e.g., great), designed not to project further turns within the sequence (p. 90). Walsh and Li (2013) highlight the importance of proper feedback in terms of learning opportunities provided for students. In Jin’s case, her opportunities for learning are not maximised. Focusing on linguistic knowledge also means doing a great deal of pronunciation work. From many teachers’ perspective, pronunciation is important for communication, and in order to achieve higher ­communicative skills, it ought to be given sufficient attention. As with grammar and vocabulary work, drilling is an effective method to foster accurate pronunciation. In Extract 4.3, Cici’s teaching illustrates such a view. In this extract, we can see clear evidence of this teacher’s belief about the importance of pronunciation. First of all, 22 lines of interactional work are dedicated to producing the correct pronunciation of a word. The teacher opens this exchange by pre-announcing the requirements of the task: ‘listen carefully’. Such a requirement also shows the action expected: listening. Then the teacher asks the question, requesting pronunciation of ‘temperature’ (line 2), projecting a relevant second pair part being the correct pronunciation of this word. After a brief pause, the teacher nominates a student, Dong, whom she might have perceived as having difficulty in pronouncing the word correctly. This is confirmed

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Extract 4.3

because Dong’s pronunciation is incorrect, with stress on the wrong syllable (line 3). Following this error, Cici immediately takes up the turn to correct his mistake, doing so by first providing the correct pronunciation and, after a micro pause, explaining in the L1 where the stress is supposed to be (line 4). This is followed by further modelling (line 5). In order to make sure the student has taken up the correct pronunciation, Cici requests a second attempt from Dong. Dong takes the turn in line 6, producing incorrect pronunciation again when trying to produce a sentence rather than just pronouncing the desired word. His turn is interrupted by the teacher immediately after the wrong pronunciation (line 7), where the teacher uses a sequence-closing third marker ‘ok’ to terminate Dong’s turn and provides direct corrective feedback for ‘temperature’ (line 7). After a 2-second pause (line 8), the teacher instructs the student, requesting him to listen carefully, before providing the correct

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pronunciation again (line 9). Dong takes the turn to show uptake of the feedback by producing the expected correct pronunciation in line 10. The drilling work does not stop here, as the teacher reinforces the correct pronunciation by providing a second round of imitation (lines 11–12). This work is extended to the whole class when Dong makes a second mistake (line 6). After doing some individual correction work (lines 7–12), the drilling Cici does with the whole class can be treated as an inclusion activity to make sure this corrective feedback to an individual student is relevant to the group (lines 13–17). At the same time, it can also be treated as a learning opportunity for the whole class. In lines 18–19, the teacher goes back to Dong and asks him to make a third attempt to pronounce the word by using an eye gaze. This time, he produces the correct pronunciation. Interestingly, other students also treat the invitation to take a turn as relevant to them (line 20), hence, joining in the pronunciation work in line 21. From a CA perspective, we can see Cici displays her understanding of teaching and learning English as such: 1. Pronunciation is considered an important part of the English language and one of the useful ways to learn is through repetition. This idea is shown in the way turns are taken. Although they are almost evenly allocated, clearly it is the teacher who directs what the conversation is about, who has the turn and how long it is. In this extract, we can see the teacher’s turn-taking has various functions, such as making a pre-­ announcement (lines 1, 9 and 13), eliciting information or giving instructions (lines 2, 13, 16 and 18–20), providing explanations (line 4) and evaluation (line 22). 2. Turns are allocated by the teacher (lines 2, 5, 13, 16 and 18–19); in particular, gestures are used to give out turns (lines 13 and 18). 3. Clearly, for Cici, modelling is a useful way to show how to pronounce the word correctly. She does modelling work in various places in this extract (lines 4, 5, 8, 9, 11 and 14). Also, the interactional work in this extract suggests that drilling is effective because when the student makes a mistake, the teacher devotes time to the corrective feedback, to provide model pronunciation and drilling opportunities (lines 5

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and 10–21). Overall, pronunciation is treated as one of the most crucial components of linguistic knowledge that students should develop.

Fostering Communication Skills What becomes important in language learning and teaching is that in addition to increasing students’ linguistic knowledge (for example, grammar and lexis), language teaching is also expected to focus on language as a channel to convey information, to develop and to negotiate ideas. In language classrooms, language is an object of the subject as well as a tool. The ability to use language to construct meaning by all participants jointly is termed ‘interactional competence’ (IC) (Young, 2008), which has attracted steadily-increasing interest in language research. This shift from knowledge-based teaching to skills-based learning highlights learners’ roles in classrooms and the importance of developing autonomous and active learners. Developing student communication skills or interactional competence has been highlighted in the second language learning literature (see a thematic issue in Classroom Discourse, 2018, featuring articles on IC in a second/foreign/additional language). From a functional and communicative perspective, the goal of language teaching is to develop IC, which is performing co-constructed discursive practices via the language users’ deployment of resources for interaction (Young, 2000). Essentially, teaching should engage learners in meaningful and authentic language use. Fostering communication skills is another theme emerging from the data. Although linguistic knowledge is highlighted as the most desirable aspect of second language learning in this study, it is clear from the data that teachers value opportunities for developing communication skills for learners. This is especially true with younger teachers who themselves have been abroad to learn to become a teacher; this trend is influenced by several other social factors. At a macro level, the revised curriculum requires students to be able to interact and communicate in the target language, and teaching emphasis is placed on targeting students’ affective, cognitive and cross-cultural development. Teachers are encouraged to use teaching methods and activities which encourage real-life commu-

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nication. At a professional development level, teachers are provided with all kinds of opportunities to develop their professional knowledge of using communication-oriented pedagogy (e.g., communicative language teaching (CLT) and task-based teaching). At a societal level, more and more students and parents have encounters with the rest of the world, and they see the necessity of being able to use a language in real-life situations. The desires and needs for communication skills from learners, society and educational authorities have influenced and shaped teachers’ beliefs about language learning. In the following extracts, I will discuss how their beliefs about communication skills are displayed in the classroom. Extract 4.4 spans over 2 minutes 48 seconds and is one of the most extended examples of when a teacher engages in communicative tasks. In this extract, the teacher Dan is working with her class to discuss a real-life topic: living a healthy life. From the interactional work she does with her students, we can see what her beliefs and understandings about teaching and learning are, and how they unfold. Like most of the English teachers in the dataset, Dan uses a ‘pre-­ announcement’ (Terasaki, 2005) to set the agenda of the lesson: something interesting. She does so by adding a requisite: asking students to discuss a question with their partners. The way Dan sets her agenda reveals her thinking at two levels: first, her request suggests an active involvement of students; second, it is not information, but opinions which are required. From the following turns, we can see pair work is vital as her request is further emphasised after she outlines the task: ‘you can discuss with your partners’ (line 10). When she moves forward the lesson to deliver her request (lines 7–9), she provides two first pair parts, with one focusing on the most important thing, and the other the most valuable thing. Clearly, she seeks opinions rather than information in this incident and an expected relevant second pair part would be personal opinions on critical and valuable things in their life. This is a genuine topic, which generates a significant level of interest among students as evident by the lengthy discussion (line 11). When Dan initiates another first pair part in line 15, she invites opinions and responses. After a brief pause, she repeats her request, with a low voice to

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Extract 4.4  Dan (00.06_02.54)

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Extract 4.4  (continued)

soften the tone (line 17). A soft voice is used by many teachers as a way to ‘make the invitation less threatening’ (Li, 2017a). Then Dan sets the rule for bidding to speak (line 18). Now we can see that when she makes the request, students do not take the turn. Judging from Dan’s instruction of how to speak, we can infer that there is a rule of how to bid for turns. After a slightly longer pause, the teacher makes eye contact with one particular student (line 20) and offers the turn to her (line 21). This offer also comes with a rephrase of the original first pair part, as the teacher repeats part of the question: ‘what’s the most valuable thing’. The brief pause here (line 24) is considered a relevant transition place, indicating the completion of the teacher turn. In line 25, the student takes the turn to give a relevant second pair part, which generates a laugh from the class. It is difficult to interpret the laugh here. However, the students’ responses to the teacher’s feedback request suggest that they all agree with Zhixia’s opinion (line 30). The teacher repeats the student’s response with a rising tone (line 27), suggesting uncertainty, disagreement or a clarification request. This is interpreted by the student as a clarification request, to which she then responds (line 28). From the teacher’s vague feedback (line 29), we can assume it is not a clarification that the teacher was seeking initially in line 27. Instead, it suggests that the teacher was not in agreement with Zhixia. At this point, the teacher strategically involves students in offering feedback to Zhixia (line 29). Judging from her reaction to Zhixia’s response, the teacher is not interested in ‘what’ other students think, but instead she is expecting some disagreement from students, which she does not get (line 30). The teacher steps back to her platform, offering

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disagreement ‘strategically’. It is interesting to note that returning to the platform at this point suggests that she is not ‘together’ with the class. Stepping away from students is widely observed in the dataset when the teachers disagree with students. Again, it is important to note that the teacher does not complete her turn because she aims to leave this space for others to think by inviting a different opinion (line 34). The teacher then begins to encourage students to bid for turns and, after a longish gap, she nominates a student, Xiaofei, who displays hesitation. Actually, after a longish pause, Xiaofei produces two words rather than an expected completed answer. In order to generate more of a contribution, Dan asks a further question, this time requiring a reason. Upon receiving the request, Xiaofei delivers a long response (lines 42–44), and the teacher follows up with a positive confirmative response, which also comes with a reformulation of the student’s contribution (lines 45–47). This reformulation serves as a reshaping to help students to achieve intersubjectivity. In line 48, she provides two further confirmation tokens and starts a new summary, which is also used as a new initiation (lines 48–50). This generates more responses (lines 51–53), which are followed by more of the teacher’s input (lines 54–57). Apparently, for this teacher, communication is important, as she spends time and creates space for opportunities for interactional practice. She does so by offering space to engage in group discussion (lines 3, 10 and 12), following up a student’s idea to help develop a more extended contribution (lines 27 and 41), reformulating responses to make them available and relevant to the whole class (lines 31–34 and 45–47), and offering her point of view (lines 48–50 and 54–57). If we take a closer look at the turntaking and management, from a CA perspective, we can see this teacher gives turns to students by inviting opinions (lines 15–17, 29 and 34), setting up turn-taking rules (lines 18 and 36) and nominating individuals when turns are not taken (lines 21 and 38). Despite the best efforts of the teacher, we can be sure that the students are not used to actively taking the turn even though they interpret the prior turn is in completion. Extract 4.5 also suggests that teachers believe communication is essential, and may create such opportunities by asking students to talk about the weather, for example, by using information from a weather forecast website.

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Extract 4.5

As in the previous extract, the teacher Fei uses another real-life topic to engage students in interactional skills: the weather. She opens the topic by referring to a weather forecast website and asks a question. This i­nitiation generates an immediate second pair part from student 1 (lines 3–5), which is also expected and relevant, as suggested by the follow-up response offered by the teacher in line 6. To get the conversation going, the teacher asks an immediate follow-on question, seeking more information from students

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regarding the weather in Dalian (line 6). After a brief pause, a second student makes self-selection to take the turn by offering more information about the clothing index, which is immediately followed by a third student offering information about appropriate exercises (line 9), which is also a relevant second pair part to the teacher’s first pair part in line 6. These two responses from students generate some interest, as evidenced by the laugh in line 10. Indeed, little is known about the reason for their laughs, yet one thing is certain—the students are engaged. Then the teacher follows up with a further request for more information, this time offering the turn to a student, Tong. After a longish pause, he makes his thinking visible by linking his response to a response made by student 3 earlier (lines 13–14). This is followed by the teacher’s positive evaluation (line 15). The teacher then invites another student (line 16), who this time initiates a first pair part for a new dialogue (line 18) after a slightly longer pause. The long pause in line 17 has various functions: (1) it offers this student a space to construct his response—an initiation on this occasion; (2) it offers some time to develop his analysis and interpretation of the teacher’s invitation. Judging from the teacher’s physical movement (line 16), the student understands that the earlier exchanges are completed. Hence a new initiation is started. The pause in the middle of his response, however, is a clear indication of space for him to decide on choosing a city. Then the teacher repeats the name of the city for the next topic and points at it on the screen (lines 19–20). As in previous turns, another student makes self-selection and produces a response in line 21, which is immediately queried by the teacher (line 22). Note here, she also uses repetition with a rising tone to show her uncertainty towards the answer. This is further accompanied by her body language (line 23). By staring at the screen, she is checking the accuracy of the information provided by the student in line 22, who then acknowledges the mistake—here, the discourse marker ‘oh’ suggests that he realises the mistake he has made in the previous turn. Then he corrects it in line 24, and receives a response from the teacher, who uses repetition again, but this time as an acknowledgement and confirmation token (line 25). The relatively long pause is interpreted by both parties as space for a turn to be taken (line 26). The same student then carries on his contribution and offers information about the temperature, which is interrupted by the teacher’s acknowledgement (line 30). It is an interruption because, from a CA perspective,

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the student still holds the floor (line 31). Note, however, for this teacher, the student contribution is in completion. So she uses teacher echo to confirm the student’s input (line 32) and then uses a sequence-closing third to close the turn, notably with the use of ‘ok’ and ‘good’ (line 34). Analysis of this extract suggests that language here is used as social practice (Johnson, 2009a), a tool to mediate thought and communicate ideas. This teacher shows her understanding of focusing on developing communication skills by offering more space for students to interact and speak. From a CA perspective, we can note: 1. Students have more turns in this extract, and most of the turns are long and extended (lines 3–5, 8, 9, 13–14, 18, 27–28 and 30) whereas the teacher turns are brief (lines 6, 11, 15, 16, 19, 22, 25 and 34). If we look at the teacher turns, most of them are inviting turns to be taken or nominating the next speaker (lines 6, 11 and 17), acknowledging information (lines 19, 25, 30 and 32), and giving feedback (lines 6, 15, 22 and 34). Only at the very beginning does the teacher ask a question as the first pair part, requesting information (line 2). Therefore, the teacher’s role is to facilitate and provide encouragement or ‘oil the wheel’ in the interactional work (McCarthy, 1991). 2. For this teacher, fluency is undoubtedly more important than accuracy, so we see very little corrective feedback or repair work. When the meaning is focused, the form is of less concern. For example, in lines 13–14, the student’s response is not grammatical, but because the meaning is clear, the teacher is happy to ‘let it pass’ (Firth, 1996). The only place where the teacher engages in repair work is in line 22, when she realises that the student has the wrong information for the city. She does not offer direct repair, but rather initiates the repair sequence, letting the student perform the self-repair.

Promoting Content-Integrated Language Learning Language is often referred to as a learning tool (e.g., Coyle, Hood, & Marsh, 2010). In a language classroom, very rarely has language been considered a tool for learning a different academic subject, until in recent years. As pointed out earlier, language has always been considered a tool

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for communication, but now in many EFL classrooms English is also considered a tool to learn the content of different disciplines (e.g., Hüttner, Dalton-Puffer, & Smit, 2013; Morton, 2012). In that respect, language learning concerns developing specific language knowledge (e.g., lexis), and teaching English means linking language skills and knowledge to a specific field. As data suggest, teaching language, as well as the content, seems to be another critical area in EFL classrooms, and most of the time the teachers focus on developing students’ subject-specific lexis. Extract 4.6 is taken from a class led by Chen, who firmly believes that language is a medium. Here, he is discussing the topic ‘Earth’ with students. In this extract, language is considered a medium to learn and understand other subject knowledge. Equally, other subject knowledge is used to faciliExtract 4.6

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tate language development. In line 1, Chen initiates the conversation by seeking information regarding the temperature of the centre of the Earth, and a relevant second pair part would be an estimate of the temperature, which a student provides in the L1 in line 3. Note in line 4, Chen starts to translate the student’s response, but then he hesitates, with a notable 2.0-second pause in line 5. This pause here signals turn-giving, as it is considered as a relevant transition place where students can provide a response. The pause can also serve as an elicitation method for new information, indicating the inaccuracy of the prior turn. In line 6, all students confirm the response from the first student by providing the same answer. This time, instead of giving any feedback, the teacher shows a picture of Earth and starts a new initiation (lines 7–10). At face value, the teacher has either accepted the answer and is ready to move on or ignores the answer because it is inaccurate. After some work on the layers of the Earth (lines 11–18), Chen reintroduces his question using the technical term to refer to the heart of the Earth: ‘inner core’. One student self-selects to produce an answer (line 19), which Chen rejects by offering the right answers (lines 20–23). In this extract, it is clear that the teacher’s focus is placed on the content, and that accuracy of the language is of less concern. This is shown in two ways: first, all contributions from students are made in the L1 (lines 3, 6, 11, 14 and 19). In fact, the dataset suggests that L1 use is one of the critical features in content and language integrated learning (CLIL) classrooms due to limited lexical knowledge; second, accuracy is not the focus as there is an inaccurate use of language by the teacher himself (lines 8 and 17). The interactional work suggests the focus is placed on learning content and language is strongly related to the subject—for example, specific vocabulary such as ‘crust, mantle, outer core, inner core and layers’ are evident. When the focus is on the content, grammatical accuracy is less of a focus, but vocabulary choices become a central issue. The following extract is another example of the teaching of content through English. Unlike in the previous extract, very little L1 is observed in this class, partially because of the limited input from the students, partially because students have already acquired some subject knowledge. In Extract 4.7, the teacher reviews the previous lesson by summarising the learning content (lines 1–3). This can be viewed as a ‘pre-­ announcement’ (Terasaki, 2005) of the first pair part, which requires stu-

114  Extract 4.7

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Extract 4.7  (continued)

dents to display the existing knowledge of the characteristics of the water (line 4). After a longish pause (line 5), a student self-selects to display the required knowledge (lines 6–10). Again, the utterance is less grammatical, but the input is considered relevant and appropriate, judging from the teacher’s positive feedback (line 11). The teacher carries on to summarise the previous session (lines 12–13) and then sets the agenda for the day’s task (lines 14–16). In order to facilitate reading, the teacher asks a question, seeking information (line 17). After a longish pause in line 18, she rephrases the question (lines 19–20), this time requiring detailed information regarding water coverage on Earth. There is a long pause (line 21), and no selection of the next speaker is made. The teacher then checks the student’s knowledge state, including comprehension of a specific word (line 22). Given the turn is not taken, after a micro pause, the teacher makes another attempt to check the state of knowledge (line 23), and after a longish pause (line 24), the teacher checks students’ understanding of the particular word, which she perceives to be the problem (line 25). After a short pause, a student self-selects and provides the expected answer (line 26). Now, the teacher gives positive feedback by repeating the student contribution (line 27). This is followed by her explanation and a different way of saying it (line 28). The eye contact with the student in line 29 serves as an invitation for turn-taking, which the student accepts and provides a complete response which contains not only the desired information but also the uptake of the explanation that the teacher has offered in the previous turn (lines 30–31). The teacher then closes the exchange by offering a compliment (line 32).

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In lines 33–38, the teacher initiates a second exchange with students, this time projecting the student into a position to offer relevant i­ nformation regarding the coverage of living space in the ocean. Experiencing reluctance from students to take part, this time the teacher nominates a speaker, Jiang, to take the turn after a 3.3-second pause (line 40). Jiang then provides the answer (line 41), which the teacher accepts. The acceptance of the answer is displayed in a positive confirmation (yeah), a positive evaluation (very good), and teacher repetition (ninety-­nine percent). After a brief hesitation and pause (line 45), the teacher makes a third initiation, this time requesting information regarding marine life. Again, after a longish pause in line 46, the teacher selects the next speaker to take the turn (line 47). The nominated student hesitates for over 2 seconds and then offers an apology claiming insufficient knowledge (line 49). Instead of letting the student pass, the teacher assists the student (line 50), who produces a relevant attempt (line 52). The teacher then summarises and offers appropriate input to the whole class (lines 53–56). From these exchanges, we can see this teacher does interactional work with students to co-construct meaning about life and the ocean. She does so by reviewing the previous session (lines 1–3, 12–13), eliciting input from students (lines 6–10, 26, 30–31 and 41) and offering positive feedback (lines 11, 27, 32 and 42). For this teacher, when the focus is placed on the content, language accuracy is not a concern as there is no repair work, even when there is a clear need for it (lines 6–10). Here, language is considered as ‘a means for engaging in social and cognitive activity’ (Ahmed, 1994, p. 158). From a CA perspective, the exchange focuses on producing relevant information. Teacher turns are generally long and stretched, whereas the student turns are short (lines 26, 41, 48–49 and 52) apart from two responses (lines 6–10, 30–31). It is not unusual since it is often difficult for learners to produce long and stretched utterances using the L2, let alone when talking about a complex subject topic. It is apparent that the teacher’s beliefs about how the students should participate in the discussion are developed as a result of her interaction with the students. In the beginning, even when there was no turn allocation, there was no difficulty in student participation as one student made self-selection. However, getting learners to take turns becomes difficult

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when the conversation rolls on, notably in lines 21–25, where the teacher struggles to have the turn taken, as evidenced by a long pause (line 21). We can see here the teacher initiates an ‘insertion’ sequence by checking the knowledge state as well as vocabulary comprehension in order to encourage the students to take the turn (lines 22–25). This struggle makes her change the way she gives turns in the subsequent sequence. For example, in both lines 40 and 47, she nominates the next speaker after a 1.2-second pause. As we can see, the teacher adjusts her practice regarding student participation, without altering her focus.

Integrating Cultural Knowledge into Language Learning Integrating cultural knowledge into language learning is another significant theme in the dataset. Within the framework of sociocultural theory, learning is conceptualised as participation and negotiation rather than knowledge acquisition (Donato, 2000; Young & Miller, 2004). The sociocultural theory views language as a primary mediating tool in enabling information exchange, knowledge sharing and ultimately learning (Vygotsky, 1978). Language exchange is understood as a tool which facilitates meaning negotiation, turn taking in an activity, the creation of a consensus between participants, and the developing of new forms of knowledge. This is also reflected in the macro level of understanding of teaching and learning English in China. Apart from language skills and linguistic knowledge that students need to develop, the new English Language Curriculum Standards (MoE, 2001) also highlights the need to address students’ affective aspects (e.g., motivation), learning strategy and cultural awareness (Pei, Pawan, & Jin, 2017). Teachers are encouraged to develop students’ intercultural awareness in learning; rather than focusing on subject centredness in their instruction. They are required to guide students to learn from experience, to know the real world (Zhu, 2007). In the following extracts, I will discuss how teachers understand and conceptualise integrating cultural knowledge into language learning. Extract 4.8 is a long exchange sequence in which the students and teacher co-construct ideas about ‘giving gifts’ in different cultural con-

118  Extract 4.8

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Extract 4.8  (continued)

texts. Before this exchange, the teacher had asked the class to talk in pairs to make dialogues about the topic. It is an unplanned discussion, as we can see the topic is initiated from a pair’s dialogue. This rather long extract starts with a teacher’s initiation to invite a contribution from the class. After the initiation, there is a reasonably long pause as no one takes the turn (line 2). Then the teacher makes another invitation, with no volunteers responding (line 4). After looking around briefly, the teacher makes an invitation to Julia’s group, which puts the students into a ‘forced platform format’ (Rampton, 2006, p. 7). After a long pause, the pair provides a short peer dialogue (lines 7–12). The teacher then provides evaluative feedback (line 13) and uses this dialogue

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as a springboard for more discussion. It is clear that the teacher uses student input here as a learning opportunity (Li, 2017a), which suggests this teacher’s expertise in managing emerging opportunities. She then highlights the pragmatic practice that students should be aware of (lines 14–15, 17–20). She does it in a way that she is confirming the idea with the class (lines 14–16). However, it is clear that her pedagogical purpose here is to appropriate the contribution from Julia and Kiki to make it relevant to the whole class. Also, she moves the focus of learning naturally from what Julia and Kiki have said about differences in cultural practice. As shown in lines 19–21, she provides input regarding cultural norms and compares it with home culture. Again, the teacher is skilful in involving students in the dialogue: rather than simply telling, she uses the existing cultural knowledge from the class to make a comparison (lines 20–21). Upon receiving different responses, she once again summarises the key point and the makes a pre-announcement of the next focus (Terasaki, 2005): ‘let’s look at cultural differences in giving and receiving birthday gifts’ (lines 23–25). At this point, the teacher makes another initiation, this time projecting the students in a position producing relevant information about cultural differences in giving and receiving gifts (line 26). This initiation is also treated by the teacher as an opportunity for bidding for a talk. After a longish pause in line 27, one student self-selects to produce a relevant second pair part with information about receiving gifts, which is a reformulation of earlier input from both students and the teacher (lines 9–21). The teacher then follows up with a positive evaluation and an invitation for further input from students. Again, the same student makes ­self-­selection to carry on making a related point (lines 32–33). At this point, the teacher takes the turn back and closes the exchange with the student using a sequence-closing third marker: ‘ok’ (line 34). However, after a brief pause, the teacher initiates another invitation, requesting a contribution from a different student. After a short pause, a second student takes the turn and offers her input (line 36). This generates some interest among the students, as shown from their laughter (line 37), and judging from the context, we can see that students recognise and share her viewpoint as one of the cultural practices. The teacher also jokes with students—this is more like a natural conversation and it is hard to see any strict pedagogical agenda of a language classroom. Language is naturally

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treated as a tool for participants to share and communicate ideas and thoughts. The second student carries on her turn and makes a further observation (lines 39–40). Once again, the teacher uses a sequence-­ closing third marker to close the exchange with this student, and starts a new initiation, requesting more information (line 41). Student 3 follows up on the point made by student 2 to make a new point—it is clear that learners are using their own experience to offer cultural input. However, this input is restricted to home culture and there is no comparison made, perhaps due to lack of target cultural knowledge. The teacher then offers positive feedback to this student and offers new input from a Western cultural perspective (lines 45–46). The conversation moves on and the teacher makes another initiation, requesting more information about giving gifts. Instead of letting students self-select to take a turn, this time the teacher nominates a student to put her in a ‘forced platform format’ (Rampton, 2006, p. 7). The long pause before Shuqi takes the turn indicates that she is probably not in a position to make any contributions, which is confirmed by her claim of insufficient knowledge (Koshik, 2002) in line 50. When the teacher accepts her insufficient knowledge claim and rephrases the earlier request to clarify the question, Shuqi produces a long turn (lines 52–53). It is clear now that Shuqi’s insufficient knowledge is only temporary here, as a result of the unclear instruction (line 48). The co-construction of meaning, therefore, requires both students’ and teacher’s interactional competence. Receiving Shuqi’s input, the teacher produces a back-channel token to indicate the receipt of the information (line 54). The back-channel token is not interpreted as an interruption, rather, an acknowledgement. Shuqi carries on to summarise her point in line 55 and hands the turn back. The 1.2 second pause here in line 56 is an indicator of turn completion and a relevant transition place. The teacher confirms her input and highlights part of her contribution by repetition (line 57), but simultaneously moves the conversation forward, requesting more input from students (line 58). A different student self-selects to provide further information (lines 60–62). Again, the teacher only offers an acknowledgement token in line 63 to indicate the receipt of the information, while the student overlaps the acknowledgement with further information (line 64). This student’s turn is projected to be completed as the teacher takes over the turn (note

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the overlapping between the teacher’s turn start and the student’s turn completion) in line 65, to summarise and expand the point (lines 65–69). This has raised students’ interest and they talk with each other until the teacher marks the completion of this conversation (line 72) and moves on to the next one (line 73). Examining the extract from a CA perspective, we can see this teacher display the following understandings: 1. Student participation is important in the process of learning. Whenever possible, students are encouraged in their contributions. This is achieved by inviting them to offer relevant input (lines 3, 5, 26, 30, 34, 41, 48, 51 and 58), and the invitation involves new initiation, seeking information as well as nominating students to take turns. Analysis also suggests that students take more turns than the teacher, and the majority of the teacher’s turns are categorised as management of the flow of the conversation. 2. There are only three teacher contributions that can be categorised as culture input (lines 19–21, 45–46 and 65–69). As students’ input is by and large restricted to their home culture, the teacher integrates the target culture in the discussion through making comparisons: ‘but in China, do we open it?’ (lines 20–21), ‘kids buy gifts or make gifts for their parents in the west’ (lines 45–46), and ‘giving money to friends is not appropriate in the west’ (lines 68–69). Offering appropriate culture input requires the teacher to have sufficient knowledge, which many EFL teachers may lack (Li, 2017a).

Developing Creativity and Criticality There is a strong link between language and cognition; Vygotsky (1978) specifically emphasised the relationship between thinking and the social organisation of instruction, which is structured by language and how language is used. In language learning, in recent years, there has been a development in the importance of language and effective thinking (Gardner & Hatch, 1989). As Rojas-Drummond and Mercer (2003)

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argued, ‘language acquisition and use are seen as having a profound effect on the development of thinking’ (p.  100). Vygotsky (1978) theorised that through the use of language—for example, language patterns and specific words use—thinking is shaped. He and other psychologists argue that the degree and direction of thinking development are related to the breadth of language use. Anderson (1985) goes further to suggest that the depths of one’s thinking govern the types of language one could use. In an L2 learning context, studies argue that learning a language not only means developing students’ linguistic competence but also allowing learners to be open-minded and prepared to take a risk (Casanave, 2010; Shahini & Riazi, 2011). Empirical research has suggested positive effects of thinking skills on second language acquisition (e.g., Ghanizadeh & Moafian, 2011; Hashemi & Ghanizadeh, 2012). Equally, learning a language has a positive impact on creativity. For example, Hommel, Colzato, Fischer, and Christoffels (2011) suggest that it is the underlying processes and mechanisms of creativity that are influenced by bilingual practice—not the unitary concept, per se. Creativity is enhanced by cognitive function, so it can be expected that developments in bilinguals’ cognitive function facilitate creative abilities. Kharkhurin (2007) argues that bilinguals’ experience of participation in two cultures makes them see the world through two different conceptual systems, which therefore enhances cognitive flexibility, divergent thinking and the creative expression of experiences. Although teaching thinking skills and creativity is not a significant agenda in many EFL classrooms, it is apparent that in this dataset there are many episodes when teachers engage in teaching criticality and creativity. An example of this can be found in the following extract. In Extract 4.9, the teacher, Mia, is teaching a reading class but she starts the lesson with story-telling. This extract spans over 1 minute 36 seconds in 64 lines, generating a lot of student interest. As we can see in lines 1–2, Mia is drawing people on the blackboard, which immediately raises students’ curiosity as they start to make a guess what the teacher is drawing (lines 3, 6, 8, 11, 13 and 15). The teacher shows interest in the students’ responses but rejects most of them (lines 4, 12 and 14). She does so by repeating the students’ response with a rising voice and a direct

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rejection. This is very much similar to a ‘guessing game’, so a direct rejection does not put students off; rather, it motivates them. This can be seen from lines 11–17, when the students engage in the conversation. Here, we can see that when the teacher carries on drawing more details on the blackboard, students carry on guessing what kind of people she is drawing (lines 11–15). After several guesses, the teacher then provides the answer (line 16). From the students’ reaction, we can infer that the drawing probably is not a true reflection of what the teacher claims it to be, especially when students show surprise and realisation (oh) and then amusement (laughter) (line 18). The ambiguity of the drawing is further supported by the teacher’s justification of her drawing (lines 19–20), an apologetic note about her drawing skills (lines 23–24) and a positive comment on students’ responses (lines 24–25). Then the teacher closes this exchange using a sequence-closing third: ‘all right’ and makes a ‘pre-announcement’ of the next activity (Terasaki, 2005) (let’s see). The teacher starts a story by giving some background information (lines 26–29), which indeed generates some interest, notably the 7-­second discussion among students. The teacher carries on (line 31), noting students are still talking to each other rather than listening to her after 2

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seconds, and she tries to manage her right to talk by bidding a turn: ‘let me begin the story’ (line 34). She has a rather long turn now to explain the context of the story (lines 35–41), which is followed by her explanations of the task (lines 42–52), outlining how she wants them to work (lines 42–44), and what they should focus on (lines 44–46). After a longish pause (line 46), she rephrases some questions to clarify the original request, this time offering some exemplary questions students can discuss (lines 47–51). These questions also serve as guidance to the dialogue they might construct. Finally, she repeats her instruction on group work (line 52). Students work for nearly 2 minutes before the feedback session, when the teacher calls the group back by seeking attention through clapping her hands (line 54). Her request is neglected as we can see students are still engaged on the task, so after a long pause (10.7 seconds) in line 55, she re-announces her request (line 57). After another relatively long pause—this time, 2.5 seconds—Mia revisits her original question (line 59). There is no evidence of turn-taking from students, so after a longish pause (line 60), further clarification and a request is initiated by the teacher as a second attempt to invite contributions (lines 61–62). This time, the request is taken by a student, as she bids for talking by raising her hand (line 63). The bid is then granted, and the student is allocated the turn (line 64). Analysis of this extract suggests that the teacher places a heavy emphasis on fluency and communication in language learning. This is very much in line with a sociocultural perspective of learning by ‘creating conditions for the co-construction of knowledge and understanding through social participation’ (Richards, 2008, p.  169). At the same time, Mia places ‘developing thinking skills’ in the teaching agenda, which she achieves in different ways. First of all, the task is to create a dialogue between students based on some contextual information, which requires a degree of imagination and working together. The collaboration required in ‘dialogue construction’ not only gives students an opportunity to work together but also develops their logic and reasoning. As the dialogue unfolds, they have to work out a relationship between the children and the old man, and possibly a story to go forward. All this requires creativity: risk-taking in coming up with ideas and shaping the story, imagina-

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tion in the future story and relationships between people, and reasoning ability to make the dialogue possible and plausible. Secondly, the teacher uses dialogue with the students to create the grounds for developing thinking skills. From a CA perspective, she provides opportunities for students to take turns so as to construct the ­setting with her. In the first stage, the students can use the clues from her drawing to make a guess. Even if there are no designated turns for students, we can see they have liberally taken turns whenever possible (lines 3, 6, 8, 11, 13, 15, 18, 21, 30 and 33). The wild guesses (lines 3, 6, 11, 13 and 15) featured in the first stage of the episode suggest that students are doing ‘possibility thinking’ (Craft, 2000). Although the student turns are short and brief, it is apparent that they are fully involved in the meaning-­ construction process of the setting for the story with the teacher. Equally, the teacher creates ‘thinking spaces’ throughout the dialogue  by using longish pauses to make sure the class is engaged in doing some reasoning work either independently (lines 5 and 22) or collaboratively (lines 30). As Li (2011) identified, thinking space is created through the use of extended pauses; however, extended pauses do not always mean ‘thinking space’ since sometimes teachers use extended pauses to regain the control of the class (e.g., lines 55, 58 and 60) or structure their thinking around ongoing decision-making (lines 16, 22, 24 and 32). Thinking skills, from this teacher’s perspective, involve creative ideas, logic development and co-construction of meaning. Because the focus is on developing creative thinking, there is no evidence of repair work as the meaning is exchanged. There are also other strategies that the teacher uses, such as drawing (lines 1–2 and 10), use of emotive language (line 4), the use of different voice tone and stress (lines 7, 29 and 42), direct feedback (lines 4, 12 and 14), questioning (lines 12, 14) and body language (lines 19–20).

Enhancing Teaching Learning Strategies Developing learning strategies and metacognitive awareness is also an important theme of teacher cognition in the dataset. As Li (2017a) suggests, teachers’ ability to develop strategies for learning is closely related to the creation of learning opportunities, and teacher expertise. The next

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extract is taken from a classroom in which the teacher is guiding students to a reading activity. In Extract 4.10, the teacher, Ding, is working with students on a reading task. She asks them to engage in independent reading but provides some guidance beforehand. As seen in lines 1–3, the teacher creates a scenario in terms of encountering an unknown word. Students provide expected answers in line 4, the kind of vocabulary strategies that are familiar to them. To follow up this idea, the teacher first acknowledges their input and accepts it. After a brief pause, she proposes a different scenario, this time requiring students to think more critically to solve the problem (lines 6–7). The question here in line 7 is a genuine request for possibilities that students can think of to resolve unknown words in reading. One student self-selects to provide an expected and relevant answer (line 8), which the teacher confirms and then extends the response to make it more specific and concrete, which is appropriate to the whole class (lines 9–10). Extract 4.10

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After a micro pause, the teacher moves on to point out the four aspects students are expected to focus on in learning a new word (lines 11–12). Note in line 13, the gesture from the teacher suggests that she wants attention on the blackboard, and to be precise, on the four aspects. Pointing to the four aspects written on the blackboard, she reads them out to highlight their importance (line 14), with the latter part overlapped by the students’ reading. This overlap here is significant because, at this point, the students are no longer the information recipients but members constructing the meaning with the teacher. Then after a short brief, the teacher instructs the class to do the reading task, highlighting that they need to focus on the new words and the associated four aspects. Specifically, she suggests everybody note down the new words by circling them and asking for help from the teacher (lines 17–20). It is clear that in this exchange the focus is on developing knowledge about vocabulary learning strategies through creating scenarios (lines 1–2, 6–7), eliciting responses from students (lines 3 and 7), appropriating students’ responses (lines 9–10) and providing guidance (lines 5, 9–10, 11–14 and 17–20). It is worth noting that responses are expected and appropriate, suggesting that learning strategies as part of this students’ learning process are being utilised (lines 4 and 8). It is clear to this teacher that learning strategies are important and students should control and manage their learning. In fact, she displays such an understanding in daily learning tasks and activities. This is only one of the examples that show how teachers may be integrating learning strategies into teaching. The ability to notice students’ learning behaviour and developing this as a learning opportunity demonstrates the teacher’s expertise in managing and understanding learning, as well as creating learning opportunities. Here, learning opportunities also ‘include the moment that teachers can enhance learners’ learning strategy or metacognitive strategies in learning (Li, 2017a, p. 157).

Summary This chapter has discussed the conceptions and knowledge teachers have regarding teaching and learning, evidenced in their interactional work with students. As argued in previous chapters and presented in this chap-

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ter, teacher cognition is dynamic, fluid and context-specific. Teachers bring a set of knowledge and understandings about how language is learnt, what teaching is about and how it is done (Harmer, 2003). If we place a teacher in a continuum, we can see a teacher who understands learning as acquiring knowledge might display the interactional structure as language-focused. It might involve knowledge memorisation and recall. On the other hand, a teacher who believes in a more communicative approach, that is emphasising communication both as the goal and means of learning a language, displays meaning-focused interaction with the learners. Language can be viewed differently in different contexts and according to the different needs learners have. As illustrated in the data, for some teachers, learning a language is acquiring blocks of language components, such as grammar, vocabulary and pronunciation, and therefore learning involves a massive effort of memorising and an emphasis is placed on accuracy. For others, a language enables individuals to access other materials and learn content, and it is a method, a tool and a channel. Within this perspective, learning involves using the language to gain knowledge of other disciplines and a focus is placed on meaning. There are also teachers who consider language as a social practice and they use language to express themselves and communicate thoughts and ideas. Learning thus is a way to participate and collaborate, in which participants might develop criticality, creativity and intercultural awareness. It is a means of achieving a shared understanding and creating collective knowledge and cognition. Of course, these views do not exist separately and teachers do not just follow one perspective. Indeed, in many EFL contexts, we see that learners need to master the language as a system, use the language as a tool and treat the language as a social practice. Equally, teachers do not and cannot follow the principles of one teaching method but make active decisions on which method may serve the pedagogical goal of a task. In this sense, teachers are flexible and have the autonomy to decide what the most effective method is for their lessons and the effective method is then contextualised within the teaching and learning agenda. We see teachers display sophisticated understandings about teaching and learning languages in their professional contexts and these beliefs and understandings are fluid, and thus understanding teachers’ thinking

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about teaching and learning of the moment, together with the pedagogical goal, is most appropriate. That is, when we talk about teachers’ beliefs/ knowledge about teaching and learning, we need to consider the macro context as well as the micro context, together with the teacher’s pedagogical goal of the moment.

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5 Teacher Cognition and Interactive Decision-Making

Introduction Teachers, as active decision makers, are continually making choices to maintain students’ interest and engagement (Richards, 1998). In recent years, one particular area of teacher cognition concerning how teachers make online decisions in teaching has started to attract more attention (Li,  2017a). Such decision-making is termed as ‘interactive decisions’. These are decisions made ‘in the moment by moment progression of a lesson and in the context of competing pressures such as time, the attention span of the learners, curricular demands, exam pressures and so on’ (Walsh, 2006, p. 48; see also Tsui, 2005). The metaphor of teacher-as-decision-maker (Nunan, 1992) reflects how teachers conceptualise their work and the kind of decision-making underpinning teaching (Tsang, 2004). It is widely acknowledged that teaching consists of well-established routines (Shavelson & Stern, 1981). Research has specifically discussed decision-making and thinking at different phases, such as pre-active, interactive and post-active phases. The majority of this research is to elaborate what teachers think and do in both pre-active and post-active phases, in particular in relation to how © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_5

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teachers interpret materials and the curriculum, plan a lesson and design a specific task. However, teachers also make interactive or ‘online’ decisions to adjust their plans, behaviours and materials in teaching. Research suggests interactive decisions account for a large chunk of classroom teaching and various reasons are reported to have affected how teachers make these interactive decisions (Borg, 2006; Li, 2017a). In particular, student reaction and behaviour account for teachers’ interactive decision-­ making because a classroom always consists of a series of unanticipated events, which require teachers to make decisions in a short period of time (Fagan, 2012; Tsui, 2005). Walsh (2006) suggests that teachers vary in their ability to create learning opportunities and make sound interactive decisions. Doing so means teachers having the ability to observe the class to find alternatives and select the best one to fit the specific immediate teaching context and address the pedagogical goal of that moment; therefore, it is important to examine when and how teachers make interactive decisions (Li, 2013, 2017a). Such an exploration contributes to our understanding of effective pedagogy and how teachers can develop. This chapter, therefore, focuses on critical moments in teaching and explores why and how teachers make their interactive decisions (Tsui, 2003), and how the decision-­ making of a moment displays deeply rooted beliefs and conceptions, by analysing the features of classroom discourse.

Interactive Decision-Making Decision-making is a complex phenomenon—a cognitive, affective and pedagogical process. Teachers are constantly making decisions and justifications in their professional contexts, and the ability to make a good decision is a characteristic of effective teaching and expertise. Teachers’ decision-making is a dynamic, interactive process in which they consider macro contexts of the curriculum, teaching and learning, teachers’ roles, content or methodology, and micro contexts concerning classroom dynamics and what learners bring to the process in every lesson (Li, 2013). In teaching, every teacher needs to be able to make good decisions

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to address their pedagogical aims and concerns in their professional practice. Teachers often plan their lessons but do not necessarily follow the plan strictly in interactions with students. This is particularly true when teachers encounter a complex situation. The empirical research on interactive decisions lies in two major areas: research providing context-specific descriptions of teachers’ interactive teaching through process-tracing procedure (Bailey, 1996; Johnson, 1992), and research investigating factors influencing interactive decisions, and the relationship between teachers’ interactive thoughts and decisions, teachers’ behaviour, and student outcomes (Clark & Peterson, 1986; Fagan, 2012; Li, 2017a). Joyce (1978) suggested that when teachers make interactive decisions, they tend to fine-tune the original plan rather than making substantial changes, as the purpose of the interactive decision is to maintain a smooth flow of classroom activity (Duffy, 1982; Shavelson, 1983). Therefore, assumptions have been made that one of the reasons for interactive decision-making is to simplify the complexity of the task or activity in situ (e.g., Shavelson, 1983). As with any decisions which a person makes, interactive decision-­ making is a complex process in which teachers utilise perceived and believed appropriateness, relevance, importance and effectiveness in achieving their pedagogical goals (Li, 2017a). What makes it complex is that teachers need to make a decision quickly in accordance with their pedagogical objectives of the moment. Gaining insights into issues like this is thus critical in developing effective pedagogy, in understanding language teaching and learning, and in developing language teachers. There are different ways to tap into the ‘why’ and ‘how’ of teachers’ interactive decisions, and one useful way suggested by Li (2017a) is to look at the incidents in classrooms through the lens of discursive psychology, using ‘applied’ CA (ten Have, 2007). Li (2017a) uncovers different reasons why teachers make interactive decisions. The first and most important explanation is when a teacher receives an unexpected learner contribution, including unexpected and dispreferred contributions from learners, contributions outside the pedagogical focus of the lesson, challenges from learners, or when students display the target knowledge. The second most common factor is the task or activity, including the level

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of difficulty and students’ reaction to it. McMahon (1995) concluded the decision-making of expert teachers had antecedents related to problems that the teacher had already anticipated. However, there are also moments when they need to make decisions beyond their predictions and control. The third strand of interactive decision-making is made when the teacher recognises a potential learning opportunity and teaches to the moment. The fourth and final category is teachers’ insufficient knowledge. This chapter builds on Li’s 2017a work to reveal the most frequently identified reasons regarding interactive decisions. In this chapter, I will examine why and how interactive decisions are made, using ‘applied’ CA but through the lens of a sociocultural perspective. As discussed in Chap. 3, the underlying principle of using classroom interactional data is to observe and examine how decisions are being carried out as ‘classroom actions and events’ (Woods, 1996, p. 49). Understanding what knowledge is activated and how it is used by teachers in making decisions about their day-to-day and moment-by-moment activities is crucial to our understanding of what teaching is (Woods, 1996, p. 68).

Teacher Profiles In this chapter, I choose data from four teachers who teach in secondary school contexts. In the following sections, I will provide some background knowledge about each teacher and the social/cultural contexts they work in. Zhou is an expert teacher from a secondary school in Beijing, who has been teaching there for over 20 years. Due to his contributions to the English curriculum and pedagogy reform, he was appointed as Head of the English Department and has been in that position for over ten years. He has won many awards in teaching competitions and has been nominated as the most popular teacher by students. There were about 40 students in the class, and the students were aged 15–16. Zhou had been teaching them for over a year. The recorded teaching session was about ‘The The Necklace’, a short story by Guy de Maupassant. Yuan is also an expert teacher, who has worked in different types of school and has witnessed the transformation of pedagogy from more

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t­raditional translation methods to CLT-based approaches. He has been supported by the local education authority with continuous professional development activities, such as taking an overseas training course. His class had 43 students, the typical class size in Beijing. The students were aged 16–17 and were in their fifth year of formal instruction in English as a foreign language; they were set to take the National College Entrance Test (NCET) the following year. Their level was between intermediate and upper intermediate. Yuan had been teaching them for almost two years and the unit observed was on the topic of ‘how English people celebrate Christmas’. Dave is a relatively young teacher who works in a Taiwanese secondary school. It is a co-ed school, with 2700 students and he has been working there for five years, with four years teaching senior high school students and one year teaching junior high school students. He has a BA degree in English and enjoys teaching. Dave had 42 male students in his class and the content of the lesson reported here was about Frankenstein. Mei is a novice teacher who works in one of the best secondary schools in Beijing and students in her school are generally very motivated. She graduated from a well-established university for teacher education and had been teaching these students for 15 months. Her class consisted of 43 students, and in the recorded lesson she was teaching a writing class. At the outset, it is important to note that identifying interactive decisions can be a difficult task. Li (2017a) proposes that they can be accessed through the detailed scrutiny of classroom interaction, where the natural and smooth flow of the interaction is interrupted or where a swift topic change takes place. Equally, they can be accessed through video-based reflections from the teacher, who might review the video recordings immediately after the lesson in order to identify the moments when they made interactive decisions. In the following extracts, only the former method is used.

Unpacking Interactive Decisions It is interesting to see that such decisions were made by these teachers for different reasons, and various interactional strategies were used to address the situation. As discussed earlier, four main types of reasons are identi-

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fied by Li (2017a), and I will further explore how the most frequently identified reasons underlying teachers’ interactive decisions have been displayed and dealt with, which include: unexpected or dispreferred learner contributions, task and activity, claim of insufficient knowledge by teachers, and emerging learning opportunities.

Unexpected or Dispreferred Learner Contributions Teachers normally follow their plan, but equally, they have to make ongoing interactive decisions in light of the continually changing nature of classroom dynamics and in view of what learners bring to the classroom. Even though the teacher may have carefully planned the activity—the kind of questions they want to ask and which learners are asked these questions—they cannot guarantee that an expected answer is delivered. Unexpected contributions from learners are common in all types of classrooms. There are different definitions in the literature to describe what an unexpected contribution might look like. As Fagan (2012) suggests, expected answers can range from a sole correct answer to pedagogically relevant ones although not envisioned by the teacher, and then unexpected contributions are those beyond these categories. As shown in the dataset, the majority of interactive decisions are made as a result of unexpected classroom events, and such events include unexpected or dispreferred contributions from learners. These may or may not present teachers with relevant learning opportunities that they did not foresee. In what follows, I examine how a teacher made an interactive decision when encountering an unexpected or dispreferred contribution. Extract 5.1 is from Zhou’s (Zh) class where he asked the students to retell Maupassant’s short story ‘The Necklace’ by saying one sentence each. Zhou is expecting students to be able to produce contributions containing relevant information in the right sequence of the events according to the original story. In this extract, Zhou nominates a student, John, to carry on telling the story (line 1). Zhou is expecting John to make a relevant contribution. This nomination puts John on a ‘forced platform performance’ as he seems reluctant to participate (Rampton, 2006, p. 7). The unwillingness

5  Teacher Cognition and Interactive Decision-Making  Extract 5.1  (30.32_32.18)

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is displayed through hesitation devices in the form of a rather long pause before his contribution (line 2) and a false start: ‘Jeanne said that he had’, which suggests that John perhaps is having difficulty in understanding the teacher’s instruction or following it, although a fellow student has already made a contribution before him. One could argue that the long pause here is an indication of a space that the student uses to develop thoughts and perhaps rehearse them before speaking in public. However, the difficulty in understanding the instruction is further displayed in the teacher’s turn between lines 15 and 23, when Zhou clarifies the previous contribution (lines 16–18) and repeats it at a slow speed (line 21). The difficulty on John’s part results in an unexpected contribution (line 7), which triggers Zhou to make an interactive decision. In what follows, I will unpack how the interactive decision-making unfolds in a moment-by-moment interaction. As a first attempt, the learner, John, produces a contribution after a five-second- pause (lines 2 and 3). Receiving this response, Zhou displays confusion in his feedback requesting clarification. Confusion is observed through John’s facial expression (line 5) as well as a reaction from a different student (line 6). Clearly, John’s contribution is not acceptable to either the teacher or the students. John interprets their response as a clarification request, and he repeats the word ‘sold’, this time in his first language (L1). Here John uses the first language as a mediational tool to clarify his message. This attempt does not enable a satisfactory contribution as the long pause (3.0 seconds) before Zhou’s turn indicates that this answer is again not acceptable (line 8). At this point, we can see the teacher, Zhou, is happy to let this unexpected and unacceptable answer go and is ready to move on since he has invited another student to make contributions (line 10). However, other students’ reactions to John’s contribution lead Zhou to make an interactive decision to deal with John’s unexpected contribution. We notice that there is a rather long period when students are all saying different things upon hearing John’s contribution, which is quite unusual in a Chinese classroom when students seldom do self-selection and initiations. Here, I argue that we can treat this 16-second discussion as an indicator of disapproval of John’s contribution as students are expressing different opinions. This disapproval is further supported by comments from two individual students (lines

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13–14) who take turns simultaneously. Here, treating this contribution as an unexpected event is triggered by the evaluative nature of a contribution from S1 and the smiley voice of S2, as their comments suggest that the contribution is dispreferred as the story should not have finished. At this point, the teacher has to change his initial plan of inviting a second student to participate but asks John to make a new contribution (lines 15–18). Zhou walks back to John, firstly explaining what the previous contribution has been (lines 16–18) and then repeating it at a slow speed (line 21) to help John with a second attempt to produce a relevant and acceptable turn so that the activity can carry on. Again, John displays uncertainty and seeks confirmation from the teacher (line 23). Zhou is ‘doing interactive work’ to try to bring forth a relevant contribution from John by offering the beginning of the expected contribution (line 24). Now, John seems to be able to commence his second attempt (line 25) and the teacher offers confirmative feedback as a way to encourage the contribution (line 26). However, John again produces a false start (line 27), Zhou this time has to provide direct negative feedback with a smiley voice (line 28). We can see Zhou is very skilful in providing students with feedback in a friendly way, which is evidenced by students laughing (line 29). John then makes a third attempt, and this time he offers another unexpected contribution (lines 30–31). It is interesting to see how Zhou disapproves of this with facial expression (line 32) and the indirect evaluative feedback (line 33) indicates a surprise at the immediate prior turn (Ekman, 1979), and unacceptance. I will now discuss how Zhou has made interactive decisions and how he does interactive work to deal with this unexpected contribution. First, there are two moments when John made unexpected contributions, both of which are due to the difficulty in understanding the story and instructions given by the teacher. As we can see, the first unexpected response from John (lines 2, 3 and 7) indicates that he is struggling to understand what to do and thereby offering a relevant but unexpected/ dispreferred contribution. In dealing with this unexpected dispreferred contribution, Zhou’s initial reaction is to let it go. However, because of the students’ reaction and comments, he has to rethink his decision as he realises that the activity cannot be continued. Therefore, he asks the student to make a second attempt. Note here that Zhou does interactive

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work in order to help John to make relevant contributions by clarifying the contribution from the previous student (lines 15–17). Zhou also reformulates the contribution from the student before John to make sure that the latter understands what he is supposed to follow (line 18). In lines 23–26, they work together to clarify the storyline, and the learner (John) makes his second attempt, again with a false start (line 27); this time Zhou provides negative feedback in a friendly and joking way (line 28). We can see that the interactional strategies Zhou makes here include: clarification, reformulation, confirmation and providing direct feedback. The second unexpected and dispreferred contribution can be identified in lines 30–31 when John makes a third attempt, and Zhou offers disapproval (line 32) and indirect negative feedback (line 33). The laughter further indicates the contribution from John is unexpected and even considered unacceptable by both students and the teacher (line 34). Again, a surprise response from another student further displays the unacceptance (line 35). At this point, Zhou first of all jokes about it to ease the tension in the class, and perhaps to reduce the embarrassment for John (line 36), with whom he disagrees (line 37), then after a pause (line 38), he provides advice (line 40) and invites a different student to make another attempt (lines 40–41). The interactional strategies Zhou uses this time include: joking, offering feedback, inviting another contribution and clarifying the storyline. From this extract, we can see that unexpected and dispreferred contributions can trigger teachers to make an interactive decision. These unexpected and dispreferred contributions are not just decided by the teacher, who usually directs where interaction goes in the classroom, but also by the students, who are active participants in the activity. Here, ensuring the activity is carried out smoothly is not only the teacher’s pedagogical aim but also the learners’ participation agenda. Extract 5.2 is another example of when a learner’s contribution is perceived as incorrect and dispreferred. Dave is teaching the students a topic on Frankenstein. The activity requires students to work together to answer questions pre-prepared by him. In this extract, Dave invites students to come to the front to share their answers with the class. He selects a particular student by drawing numbers randomly. In lines 1–5, he nominates student 1  to take the task. The

5  Teacher Cognition and Interactive Decision-Making  Extract 5.2

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student reads out the first question (line 9) and provides a relevant second pair part—an appropriate answer to the first pair part (line 10). After a brief pause, he reads out the second question (line 11), to which he again provides an answer (line 12). After a rather long pause (line 13), Dave interrupts the student (line 14). Here the interruption suggests that Dave treats the student’s answer as a ‘no-like’, dispreferred response (cf. Liddicoat, 2007, p. 115). Dave then follows up with a question, requesting clarification from the student regarding the definition of sci-fi. The hesitation mark and a pause (line 17) suggest that the student is uncertain. Dave then provides a first part as elicitation (line 18), as indicated by a slightly rising tone, which is followed by another student, who provides a relevant and correct second pair part (line 19). Dave confirms the contribution and moves on to challenge student  1 by asking a specific question about Harry Potter (lines 20–21). At this point, Dave switches to the L1 to ask the whole class about the question (lines 22 and 23), this time rephrasing the questions into two parts, with the first part asking whether Harry Potter is a sci-fi movie and the second part pointing out that it has elements of fantasy and questioning whether it has science elements. This can be considered a counter-question (CQ) strategy (Markee, 1995, 2004) to regain control. This question generates a relevant yet incorrect answer from students from the teacher’s point of view (line 24). Although he briefly acknowledges the students’ contribution, he suggests the class think about the definition of sci-fi (lines 25–26). After a long pause (line 27), we see student 1 redirects his gaze towards the front ‘home position’ (Sacks & Schegloff, 2002), as he is ready to get on with his next question but is perhaps waiting for further instruction from the teacher (line 28). Here, Dave initiates another turn, this time asking students to choose between fantasy and sci-fi for Harry Potter (line 29). Students agree that it is fantasy (line 30), which Dave confirms (line 31) and moves on the lesson by offering the student a positive evaluative response (line 33). In this extract, an unexpected contribution emerges when a student provides a relevant but incorrect answer. In order to clarify what sci-fi is, Dave interrupts the student and engages with the whole class to discuss whether Harry Potter is sci-fi or fantasy. For Dave, his pedagogical aim here is not only to get everyone to participate and contribute but also to share relevant and correct information, so he makes an interactive deci-

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sion to clarify the dispreferred contribution from student 1. Again, Dave uses several interactional strategies, including interrupting (line 14), asking questions (lines 16, 21 and 23), making suggestions (lines 25–26) and eliciting a preferred answer (line 29). Unexpected student contributions also include challenges from students, although this is not usually observed in an EFL classroom for two reasons. First, in a classroom, where roles are asymmetrical, both students and the teacher have their defined roles, with power usually residing with the teacher. Second, it is difficult for students to challenge the teacher because their language proficiency is limited. However, there are occasions when students pose questions which can be interpreted as challenges, as seen in Extract 5.3. Extract 5.3 is taken from Mei’s class when she is teaching writing techniques. One of the things she explained before this exchange is how to structure a paragraph, so the extract begins when she offers a brief summary and is ready to move on, as signalled by the discourse marker ‘ok’ here (line 1). However, a student immediately takes a turn to ask a question about the position of the topic sentence (lines 2–3). The longish pause (1.3 seconds) here in line 4 suggests that this is an unexpected question and Mei perhaps is trying to comprehend it and make a decision on how she might respond. After a brief hesitation, she seeks clarification (line 4). The student then reformulates the question by asking the position of a topic sentence explicitly (lines 5–6). Although Mei immediately Extract 5.3

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takes the turn, the hesitation and brief pauses suggest that this is a challenge (line 7). However, Mei provides a firm response, followed by a slightly more detailed explanation, which is interrupted by the student (line 8). Here, we can see Mei’s response is interrupted as the student gives her an opposite opinion—this indeed is a challenge as the student is displaying a different opinion (lines 8–10). Mei accepts the student’s contribution by a vague agreement token ‘maybe’ and makes it more personal (line 11). She then moves on to correct the student’s English (line 12), which is a typical strategy that teachers use to gloss over the question from students. This is followed by a sequence-closing third, which indicates the closure of the exchange and that they should move on (line 13). Although Mei is a less experienced teacher, she manages to address the challenge by using different interactional strategies. First, upon receipt of the challenge, Mei uses a longish pause to recollect the information to assess how to answer, then she seeks clarification. When her turn is interrupted, she lets the student take the turn to hear out the counter-argument. Here, Mei demonstrates listenership, so that she can fully take the opinion of the student on board. When the student provides a convincing response, it is acknowledged but at the same time there is a hedge. Glossing over students’ challenges is a typical strategy when dealing with challenges from students, and Mei does that to successfully close the exchange (Fagan, 2012; He, 2004; Li, 2017a). Another type of unexpected contribution is student displaying target knowledge which is different from the level that is anticipated by the teacher. In the dataset, we can see teachers adopt different strategies when they underestimate student existing knowledge. Sometimes, the teacher has to adjust the teaching plan to the emergent knowledge level, while other times they have to make a topic change and this strategy is usually taken up by more experienced teachers. Another frequently used strategy is to stick to the original plan and ignore students’ display of knowledge. Interestingly, this often happens with novice teachers. The following extract displays how an expert teacher deals with an unexpected contribution from a learner who demonstrates target knowledge. In Extract 5.4, Yuan is teaching students a topic on ‘how English people celebrate Christmas’. One of the activities is to ask for contributions from the class regarding what they already know about Christmas. When

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Extract 5.4

student 3 is invited by Yuan, he makes a relevant contribution (lines 1–3), which is regarded as an unexpected response. This is shown by Yuan’s immediate reaction to the student’s contribution (lines 4–5), when he interrogates the student regarding the source of the input instead of providing feedback or evaluation. This CQ strategy indicates that the answer is indeed relevant but unexpected; so after the student provides confirmation of his existing knowledge about Christmas, Yuan displays surprise (line 7) which can be inferred from his tone. Then, after a micro pause, he acknowledges the receipt of the information (line 8). Here, the acknowledgement tokens such as ‘ok’ and ‘thank you’ are used to close down the conversation. However, to the student in question, this conversation is not over, as he continues the contribution by mentioning one more thing (line 9). His turn is interrupted by the teacher, this time rejecting the attempt by directly telling him not to use information from the book (lines 10–11). The student continues his turn though to make the contribution (line 12). At this point, the teacher takes over the turn by asking a further question ‘where do you think they will cut the trees?’, which is not a genuine question, as the teacher does not expect the student to respond because he answers his own ques-

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tion by offering possible answers (lines 14–15). This response is a light-­ hearted guess, as indicated by his laugh and a brief pause, and display of uncertainty in ‘I am not sure’ (lines 15–16); he then moves on to further articulate his reason (and closes the exchange in lines 16–17). As shown in this extract, the interactive decision-making is generated by Yuan via different strategies to deal with unexpected contributions from the student, such as the use of interrogating questions and CQ strategies, the use of acknowledgement tokens to close down the exchange, and ‘telling’ and ‘regaining control’ of the class by answering his own question.

Activities and Tasks The second type of factor contributing to interactive decision-making is the nature of the task or activity. Appropriate tasks and activities are essential because tasks provide a supportive methodological framework (Willis, 1996). Indeed, in language classrooms, activities and tasks are even more critical because an authentic and appropriate task/activity could enhance engagement and facilitate participation, thereby contributing to language learning. However, selecting an appropriate activity always presents a problem for many EFL teachers. On the one hand, it is difficult for language teachers to design a task at an appropriate difficulty level for their learners. This is generally because many classes are large in EFL contexts (e.g., in many Asian contexts) and have mixed ability learners. On the other, it is difficult to design an interesting and engaging task for learners to address their learning styles and preferences, because of constraints the teachers have regarding material selection and learning objectives outlined in the textbook or curriculum. Lessons are dynamic, unpredictable and interactive in nature, and are, therefore, characterised by constant change. Sometimes this means that teachers need to reconsider the activity at hand, as one of the priorities in instruction is to maintain interest and engagement. In Extract 5.5, Mei is teaching a writing class to senior students, and she has asked students to conduct a brainstorm activity as a pre-writing task to discuss advice on travelling in Beijing. In this extract, Mei has to extend the time for the class as a result of resistance from students in doing the activity; we can gather that it is a

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Extract 5.5  (00.55_01.54)

challenging activity, and students are negotiating with the teacher in order to gain more time. The unwillingness to participate in the activity requires Mei to make an interactive decision, and we now see how this unfolds in her interaction with the class. Mei uses a chart on the blackboard and requires specific students to complete the chart. This extract begins with her nominating five students—the subject reps—to come to the front to complete it (lines 1–3). Receiving no response, she further clarifies her instructions and points

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out the exact box that each subject rep needs to complete (lines 5–7). This results in no participation as we can see students are engaged in some discussion (line 9). Then in line 10, Mei urges students to participate in the activity, but students are still carrying on discussing who should go up to complete the chart (line 11). The resistance suggests that it could be a difficult task. In line 12, Mei is offering encouragement again, and following this, a student points out a potential problem as they have multiple subject reps for each subject (line 13), which is confirmed by other students (line 14). Here the laugh can be interpreted as agreeing that nominating a subject rep is problematic. In line 15, Mei acknowledges the problem and, after a brief pause, suggests that the primary subject rep should take the task. Again, this results in resistance from students as they start to nominate each other (line 16). Specifically, we can see one student is nominating his fellow leader, Wang Hao, who does not respond (line 17). The lack of response from a nominee can be interpreted as the unwillingness to participate here. After a rather long pause (line 18), aware of the situation, Mei starts to change her strategy, this time inviting different students, team leaders for study groups (line 19). Again, a longish pause in line 20 suggests further resistance from students in participation. Then in line 21, she tries to motivate them to respond. She does so by checking with students whether what she proposes is a solution to the problem identified (line 22). After another longish pause in line 23, Mei encourages those selected students (line 24), which is followed by instructions to others (lines 25–26). A student now takes the initiative to suggest that the task is problematic and more time may be needed, and this turn overlaps with Mei’s instruction (line 27). Then, there is a rather long pause (2.7 seconds) which can be interpreted as a space needed to make that particular interactive decision (line 28). Then Mei displays understanding and asks for confirmation (line 29). The class offers confirmation in unison with an unusually loud voice (line 30). At this point, Mei has to change her plan around timings (lines 31). From this extract, we can see that the nature of the task or activity is vitally important for the smooth flow of a lesson. In this particular class, the task is beyond the students’ level, and the difficulty results in resistance to the activity and requests for more time. This extract also suggests that the difficulty level of the activity is important for student engage-

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ment, so when a task is too difficult, it might result in a lack of engagement, participation and motivation. We can see in this extract, that students show resistance although they are still trying (lines 9, 11 and 16–17). This resistance is also evidenced by two self-selected contributions (lines 13 and 27) as a way to negotiate with the teacher. In this extract, Mei uses various strategies to deal with the unwillingness to participate, such as encouraging participation (lines 10 and 21), urging students (lines 12, 22 and 24), making suggestions (line 15), and giving new instructions (line 19).

Insufficient Knowledge Teachers, especially in EFL contexts, are usually considered as a knowledge source, because students do not have many opportunities to acquire the target language outside the classroom. When teachers claim insufficient knowledge, their identity and authority are equally challenged. In the following extract, Yuan, a very experienced teacher, displays insufficient knowledge and has to make a swift decision to deal with the situation. Extract 5.6 is taken from the same lesson taught by Yuan when he was asking students to make relevant contributions to the topic of how the English celebrate Christmas. The teacher’s request here can be interpreted as a genuine request or ‘pre-announcement’ (Terasaki, 2005). Yuan invites Linda to make a relevant contribution, putting Linda (the student) on a ‘platform format’ (Goffman, 1983); she offers the topic ‘mistletoe’ as a try-marked example related to Christmas. This contribution is somewhat unexpected as we can see when the conversation unfolds. In line 2, Linda brings up the topic of mistletoe, about which Yuan requires a clarification (line 3). When Linda repeats her response (line 4), Yuan turns to read the book without acknowledging the student’s turn as this is something unexpected. After this rather long pause (line 5), he takes a turn to provide Linda with feedback, identifies the source of her contribution (line 6), to which the learner is trying to provide comments by taking a turn unsuccessfully (line 7). Yuan gives a sort of ‘telling off’ to Linda as if she were not following the instruc-

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Extract 5.6  (4.04_5.15)

tions (lines 8–9). This is similar to a strategy identified by Fagan (2012) as glossing over learner contributions, which is adopted by teachers when unexpected learner contributions arise in either teacher- or learner-initiated sequences of talk. Glossing over also happens when receiving acceptable responses that do not match what is anticipated (Fagan, 2012) or receiving inappropriate/incorrect responses. Bypassing a student’s topic initiation was also reported in the literature as a strategy for a teacher to keep focused on the pedagogical goal and lesson plan (e.g., He, 2004). Here, in this case, it is clear that Yuan did not expect ‘mistletoe’ to be brought up by a student as a relevant contribution and he is not prepared to engage in this conversation. At the same

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time, Linda successfully takes the turn and interrupts Yuan by suggesting that she wants to say something about mistletoe (lines 10–11). It is worth noting that Linda switches to L1 to repeat mistletoe this time. By placing this second bid to speak, Linda is, on the one hand, treating her previous attempts in lines 2 and 4 as impaired (cf. Goodwin, 1979) due to the delayed recipiency display, and on the other, responding to Yuan’s turn ‘I want you to tell me [anything’ (line 9), and therefore treats it as a relevant second pair part. Rather than granting the student permission or encouraging the student to contribute, Yuan once again hesitates with a very long pause (7.2 seconds), checks the book (line 12), and repeats what Linda suggested earlier (line 13) as if he is trying to comprehend the topic himself, especially when he stretches the sound mistletoe (line 14). Again this indicates that Linda’s contribution is a ‘no-like’, dispreferred response (cf. Liddicoat, 2007, p. 115). Linda then takes the turn and makes her contribution, which is a rather long learner contribution (lines 15–20). Yuan attempts to interrupt (line 18) in the middle, but she manages to hold the floor to complete her turn. At the beginning of this extract, it seems that the student is making an unexpected contribution, but what follows suggests that the contribution is beyond Yuan’s knowledge and puts him in an uncomfortable position. In line 21, Yuan displays surprise at the information as he seeks confirmation from Linda about the information, which Linda confirms, but the wrong response causes confusion (line 22). So in lines 23 and 24, Yuan once again reformulates the question to seek confirmation, to which he receives positive and correct confirmation from Linda (line 25). It seems that Yuan is unsure about the information and he seeks further clarification with Linda, following up with an ­affirmative response (lines 26 and 27). At this point, Yuan claims insufficient knowledge (line 29), and is unable to make the information relevant to the whole class or expand the learning opportunity on this occasion. What Yuan does here is to claim insufficient knowledge (Koshik, 2002; Sert, 2011; Sert & Walsh, 2013) and move away from the topic. The use of a sequence-closing third marker ‘ok↓’ pronounced emphatically and loudly is placed at the end of a sequence (Beach, 1993; Schegloff & Sacks, 1973) to indicate that the topic is finished and the sequence is closed.

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Emerging Learning Opportunities Learning opportunities are considered vital but they are usually planned or designed by the teacher in the process of learning. However, learning opportunities can arise in interaction with others, so it is critical that both learners and the teacher take them, especially where the latter’s language use and pedagogic purpose coincide. Van Lier’s work (see e.g., 2000, 2004) on ecological approaches to learning is relevant here and it emphasises its emergent nature and the semiotic or meaning-making phenomenon in language learning. This view of learning attempts to explain learning in terms of the verbal and non-verbal processes in which learners engage rather than the processes which take place in the head. Van Lier offers the term ‘affordance’: the relationship between learners and particular features in their environment which have relevance to the learning process, and according to him, ‘learning opportunities arise as a consequence of participation and use’ (p.  92). That is, the interaction between the learner and their environment, through their perceptions and interpretations of what the environment can offer as affordances, is the key to learning opportunities. In this perspective, learning opportunities are seen from the learners’ perspective. However, in a classroom, a teacher usually helps to crystallise such opportunities due to the central role they play in structuring learning activities. This said, when learners and the teacher both see and jointly create such learning opportunities, student participation is more meaningful. The following extract is an example of such. In this class, Mei starts the lesson with a student ­presentation and identifies a learning opportunity from this presentation; that is, Mei makes an interactive decision when learning opportunities emerge. The following interaction happens after the oral presentation. As shown in Extract 5.7, the teacher makes an interactive decision to offer the class an opportunity to comment on the student’s presentation by inviting contributions. Here, we can see Mei makes two first pair parts, each of which requires a different response. Although responses are intelligible, it is evident that students are engaged in discussion and participation (line 5). The teacher, however, makes a second attempt to invite contributions, but this time slightly changes her requests (lines 6–9). The reworded requests immediately generate interest. As shown in lines 10–11, they are providing a relevant response.

5  Teacher Cognition and Interactive Decision-Making  Extract 5.7

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Extract 5.7  (continued)

The teacher could have stopped here but she makes a further initiation, seeking more information and opinions (line 12). After a brief pause in line 13, a student self-selects to produce an extended turn (lines 14–16). It is interesting that this student orients to Mei’s earlier information request (lines 6–9). Usually, when teachers set off a sequence of more than one question, the student tends to address the second or more specific question (Schwab, 2012). However, in this situation, the student decides to offer her opinion rather than just retelling the message from the presentation. Clearly, this student sees the request from the teacher as a personal learning opportunity to use the language to express herself. Her contribution carries on for another ten lines (lines 18–28). As we can see, even though only one student is participating, the others are together with her, seeing her contribution as relevant and interesting, evidenced by the laughs (line 17). It is this non-verbal turn (line 17) that suggests learner participation and the skill of information collection and comprehension. In line 29, the teacher’s echo summarises and confirms the learner’s contribution, which is understood by the student perhaps as a confirmation request, hence the student confirmation in line 30. The teacher moves on to repeat part of the contribution and after a longish pause, starts another initiation, this time requesting knowledge about a movie (lines 31–34). Again, because the students’ contributions are unintelligible, it is impossible to see whether they are relevant. From the teacher’s reaction in line 36, we can infer that perhaps the information in line 35 is irrelevant, as she first provides a negative response and then the demanded information (line 36). As shown in the data, as soon as the teacher suggests the name of the film, everyone joins in with the famous line ‘life is a box of chocolates’ (lines 37–38). This exchange finishes with an extended turn from the teacher to summarise the message from the movie (lines 39–41), to offer her opinion about life (lines 41–44), and to relate the discussion to the student presentation and the focus of the lesson: health (lines 44–48).

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This extract suggests that teachers also make interactive decisions when they see learning opportunities arising. In this particular case, it is the opportunity for students to make some contributions by offering comments on a student’s presentation. It is clear this was not planned in her lesson, as she had no idea what the learner would talk about in her presentation and how the others might react. Notwithstanding, the teacher makes a great effort here to involve everyone by inviting contributions (lines 1, 6 and 12), using extended pauses (lines 2 and 7) to allow students to reflect and construct ideas, perhaps to rehearse the utterance before speaking publicly (Li, 2011). Mei also uses different interactional strategies here to encourage student contribution and participation; in particular, she does not offer any corrective feedback as her focus is to get everyone involved. One might argue that Mei is trying to ‘close down’ the learning opportunity when she takes the turn in line 44, but if we consider the pedagogical goal of that moment, the intention is to draw attention to that day’s topic: health. Here, it is the pedagogical goal and objectives that direct the conversation between the teacher and learners. That is, because the teacher’s language use and her pedagogic purpose coincide, learning opportunities are facilitated (Walsh, 2002).

Summary Decision-making is a fundamental teaching skill, which is involved in every aspect of a teacher’s professional life. Interactive decisions are an essential element in guiding a lesson to achieve its pedagogical goals and effectiveness for learning. However, little research focuses on interactive decisionmaking, which might be due to the difficulty in gaining insights into the moment-by-moment decisions made in classrooms. This chapter, focusing on why and how teachers make interactive decisions, investigates the micro decisions that are made on a moment-by-moment basis and offers a framework to examine the moment-by-moment decision-making. Any lesson is developmental because teachers have to adjust their plans according to interactions, unexpected events, task difficulty levels and the pedagogical goal of the moment. As I have already argued earlier, understanding interactive decisions is crucial in improving pedagogical effectiveness and developing language teachers’ expertise. The analysis of the

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extracts in this chapter shows that teachers make online decisions using different interactional strategies to address their pedagogical goals. There are three important aspects, which I will now discuss. First, learner contributions are always a key factor in shaping classroom interaction and teaching sequences. When unexpected learner contributions arise, especially when they are relevant but dispreferred, teachers need to make a swift decision to utilise that contribution to make it relevant to the predefined pedagogical agenda or bypass the contribution. This decision will not simply happen but requires expertise in making judgements on potential learning opportunities in a short period. Stevick (1982) claims that teaching is about making ‘informed choices’ (p.  2); teachers need to engage in a dynamic decision-making process where they consider the micro context concerning classroom dynamics and what learners bring to the process in every lesson. Therefore, teachers need to develop the ability to observe the class to find alternatives and select the best one to fit the specific immediate teaching context and address the pedagogical goal of that moment (Li, 2013, p. 176). Therefore, the interactional strategies used in these moments are supposed to match the needs of addressing their pedagogical goals. Second, research suggests that the appropriateness of tasks and activities is critical in the lesson sequence. This is especially true if students are at different linguistic levels. Of course, we have to acknowledge that there exist different views regarding the most helpful activity in facilitating L2 learning (e.g., Ellis, 2003).Various activities have been proposed as effective in facilitating language learning in some aspects, and one of the key influential factors that decide their effectiveness is the students. This is also the reason why teachers find it difficult to foresee how well the planned activity will go in their classroom and what the reaction may be. Mullock (2006) suggests that knowing ones’ students—their backgrounds, personalities, proficiency levels, strengths and weaknesses—and being able to adjust one’s teaching to suit them is one of the most frequently mentioned knowledge issues identified by teachers. It is this contextual knowledge that teachers refer to in fine-tuning their pedagogical knowledge in classroom practice which is more critical. Third, teachers’ disciplinary knowledge is significant in making interactive decisions. We can see from Extract 5.6 that a teacher has to abandon a potential learning opportunity because of insufficient cultural knowledge.

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Research suggests that teacher knowledge is one key area for effective pedagogy and teachers can make an interactive decision specifically due to a lack of cultural knowledge (Li, 2013, 2017a). It also suggests that teachers could encourage sequence continuation when a learner initiates a topic that is unfamiliar to the teacher (e.g., Fagan, 2012; Hawkins, 2007; Richards, 2006), and I would suggest that lack of (linguistic or cultural) knowledge, or experience of insufficient knowledge, in teaching might also put teachers in an uncomfortable zone in developing themselves or involving learner participation. A teacher cannot be the only knowledge provider in the classroom and what this chapter suggests is that they should perhaps at least have an awareness of how to utilise students as a source of knowledge and integrate that into their pedagogical considerations. Teachers have to draw on the repertoire and knowledge developed over the years through both theoretical study and practical work to make an interactive decision effectively. It thus requires teachers to have a high degree of competence in interaction to be able to make the manoeuvre so that the lesson develops towards the desired direction, especially in very large classes. Regarding interactional strategies, a number of explanations have been identified in relation to those occasions where teachers make interactive decisions. The analysis of the extracts in this chapter revealed that they employ different interactional strategies to respond to the situation—for example, glossing over unexpected learning contributions, asking counter-questions, inviting other contributions, challenging indirectly, inviting a second attempt, abandoning the topic or swiftly shifting topic, and promoting involvement by spending more time on the activity. Obviously, this is not an exhaustive list of strategies a teacher might use in interactive decision-making, but it offers some insight into stance-­taking and thought processes.

References Bailey, K. M. (1996). The best laid plans: Teachers’ in-class decisions to depart from their lesson plans. In K. M. Bailey & D. Nunan (Eds.), Voices from the language classroom: Qualitative research in second language education (pp. 15–40). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Beach, W. A. (1993). Transitional regularities for ‘causal’ ‘okay’ usages. Journal of Pragmatics, 19, 25–52.

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Borg, S. (2006). Teacher cognition and language education: Research and practice. London: Continuum. Clark, C. M., & Peterson, P. L. (1986). Teachers’ thought processes. In M. C. Wittrock (Ed.), Handbook of research on teaching (3rd ed., pp.  255–296). New York: Macmillan. Duffy, G. (1982). Response to Borko, Shavelson and Stern: There’s more to instructional decision-making in reading than the “empty classroom”. Reading Research Quarterly, 17(2), 295–299. Ekman, P. (1979). About brows: Emotional and conversational signals. In M. von Cranach, K. Foppa, W. Lepenies, & D. Ploog (Eds.), Human ethology (pp. 169–248). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ellis, R. (2003). Task-based language learning and teaching. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Fagan, D. S. (2012). ‘Dealing with’ unexpected learner contributions in whole-­ group activities: An examination of novice language teacher discursive practices. Classroom Discourse, 3, 107–128. Goffman, E. (1983). The interaction order: American Sociological Association, 1982 presidential address. American Sociological Review, 48(1), 17. Goodwin, C. (1979). The interactive construction of a sentence in natural conversation. In G. Psathas (Ed.), Everyday language: Studies in ethnomethodology (pp. 97–121). New York: Irvington. Hawkins, B. (2007). Open-endedness, the instructional conversation and the activity system: How might they come together? In R. Alahen & S. Pöyhönen (Eds.), Language in action: Vygotsky and Leontievian legacy today (pp. 245–279). Newcastle, UK: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. He, A. W. (2004). CA for SLA: Arguments from the Chinese language classroom. The Modern Language Journal, 88, 568–582. Johnson, K. E. (1992). The relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices during literacy instruction for non-native speakers of English. Journal of Reading Behavior, 24(1), 83–108. Joyce, B. (1978). Toward a theory of information processing in teaching. Educational Research Quarterly, 3, 66–76. Koshik, I. (2002). Designedly incomplete utterances: A pedagogical practice for eliciting knowledge displays in error correction sequences. Research on Language and Social Interaction, 35, 277–309. Li, L. (2011). Obstacles and opportunities for developing thinking through interaction in language classrooms. Thinking Skills and Creativity, 6(3), 146–158.

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Li, L. (2013). The complexity of language teachers’ beliefs and practice: One EFL teacher’s theories. Language Learning Journal, 41(2), 175–191. Li, L. (2017a). Social interaction and teacher cognition. Edinburgh University Press. Liddicoat, A.  J. (2007). An introduction to conversation analysis. London: Bloomsbury Academic. Markee, N. (1995). Teachers’ answers to learners’ questions: Problematizing the issue of making meaning. Issues in Applied Linguistics, 6, 63–92. Markee, N. (2004). Zones of interactional transition in ESL classes. The Modern Language Journal, 88, 583–596. McMahon, L. A. (1995). A study of how teachers employ their teaching skills during interactive decision making (Doctoral dissertation, University of Lowell, 1995). Dissertation Abstracts International, 56, 2205. Mullock, B. (2006). The pedagogical knowledge base of four TESOL teachers. The Modern Language Journal, 90, 48–66. Nunan, D. (1992). The teacher as decision-maker. In J. Flowerdew, M. Brock, & S. Hsia (Eds.), Perspectives on second language teacher education (pp. 135– 165). Hong Kong: City Polytechnic. Rampton, B. (2006). Language in late modernity: Interaction in an urban school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C. (1998). Teacher beliefs and decision making. In J. C. Richards (Ed.), Beyond training (pp. 65–85). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, K. (2006). ‘Being the teacher’: Identity and classroom conversation. Applied Linguistics, 27, 51–77. Sacks, H., & Schegloff, E. A. (2002). Home position. Gesture, 2(2), 133–146. Schegloff, E.  A., & Sacks, H. (1973). Opening up closings. Semiotica, 7, 289–327. Schwab, G. (2012). Secondary schools in Germany and the notion of ‘English for all’. Anglistik, 23(1), 25–38. Sert, O. (2011). A micro-analytic investigation of claims of insufficient knowledge in EAL classrooms. Unpublished doctoral thesis, University of Newcastle. Sert, O., & Walsh, S. (2013). The interactional management of claims of insufficient knowledge in English language classrooms. Language and Education, 27(6), 542–565. Shavelson, R. J. (1983). Review of research on teachers’ pedagogical judgement, plans, and decisions. Elementary School Journal, 83, 392–413. Shavelson, R. J., & Stern, P. (1981). Research on teachers’ pedagogical thoughts, judgments, decisions, and behavior. Review of Educational Research, 51, 455–498.

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Stevick, E. (1982). Teaching and learning languages. New  York: Cambridge University Press. ten Have, P. (2007). Doing conversation analysis (2nd ed.). Los Angeles, CA: Sage. Terasaki, A. (2005). Pre-announcement sequences in conversation. In G. Lerner (Ed.), Conversation analysis: Studies from the first generation (pp. 171–224). Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Tsang, W.  K. (2004). Teachers’ personal practical knowledge and interactive decisions. Language Teaching Research, 8(2), 163–198. Tsui, A. A. M. (2003). Understanding expertise in teaching. New York: Cambridge University Press. Tsui, A.  B. M. (2005). Expertise in teaching: Perspectives and issues. In K.  Johnson (Ed.), Expertise in second language learning and teaching (pp. 167–189). Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. van Lier, L. (2000). From input to affordance: Social-interactive learning from an ecological perspective. In J. Lantolf (Ed.), Sociocultural theory and second language learning (pp. 245–260). Oxford: Oxford University Press. van Lier, L. (2004). The ecology and semiotics of language learning: A sociocultural perspective. Dordrecht, The Netherlands: Kluwer. Walsh, S. (2002). Construction or obstruction: Teacher talk and learner involvement in the EFL classroom. Language Teaching Research, 6(1), 3–23. Walsh, S. (2006). Investigating classroom discourse. London: Routledge. Willis, J. (1996). A framework for task-based learning. Harlow: Longman. Woods, D. (1996). Teacher cognition in language teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

6 Teacher Cognition about the Use of Technology

Introduction Computer technologies have been widely acknowledged as playing a significant role in educational reform and curricular innovation, and teachers around the world have been encouraged to integrate technology into their teaching (Baek, Jung, & Kim, 2008; Pelgrum, 2001). Since 2000, research has flourished in the use of technology in second and foreign language learning (Chapelle, 2000; Lim & Shen, 2006), and various tools and applications have been used in assisting language learning in different contexts. One fundamental argument underpinning this drive is that when teachers engage in applying technology in their teaching, it will benefit learning. For example, research suggests that technology can reduce anxiety, increase learner motivation and engagement, reduce workload and enhance linguistic gains. However, realising the full potential of technology depends on how teachers actually utilise it (Cabanatan, 2003), and on the skills and attitudes they have regarding the effectiveness of the integration into the curriculum (Bitner & Bitner, 2002). Recognising the vital role teachers play in using technology for educational purposes, much work has been done to investigate teachers’ © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_6

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a­ ttitudes towards, and beliefs about, using technologies in the classroom (e.g., Baek et al., 2008; Li & Walsh, 2011; Li, 2014, 2015b). Results suggest teachers demonstrate overall positive attitudes, and various factors were reported to influence this (see Ottenbreit-Leftwich, Glazewski, Newby, & Ertmer, 2010; Li, 2008; Tondeur, Hermans, van Braak, & Valcke, 2008). However, in terms of the actual use of technology, in a range of educational settings across different countries, studies indicate that teachers are reluctant technology users (see, for example, Li & Walsh, 2011; Yang & Huang, 2008), even if various forms of technology have been reported in language classrooms, including both stand-alone computer tools and Web 2.0 technologies (see Liu, Moore, Graham, & Lee, 2002, for a pre-2000 review, and also Macaro, Handley, & Walter, 2012, for a post-2000 review). The current chapter places an emphasis on the role of technology and teachers’ pedagogical thinking in choosing technological tools, and utilising the affordances of technology from teachers’ perspective. This chapter starts with a brief literature review, then moves on to examine teachers’ understandings about technology use in teaching through classroom interaction and interviews.

Technology Use Meskill, Anthony, Hilliker-Vanstrander, Tseng, and You (2006) surveyed 847 K-12 ESOL teachers regarding their uses of technology and found that the most frequently used software is Word processing; a finding that resonates with the results of two national surveys by Becker (2000) and Doherty and Orlofsky (2001). Li’s (2008) survey of English teachers suggests that PowerPoint is regarded as the most popular and appropriate form of technology used in Chinese language classrooms to give students a different learning experience. In short, technology is mainly used for teaching preparation and instructional delivery following the traditional model (Li & Ni, 2011; Zhong & Shen, 2002). Similarly, Li (2014) further stresses that PowerPoint is the most frequently used technological tool to present learning content in Chinese English classes. Teachers used PowerPoint to present images, texts, explanations and exercises for language systems (phonological units, vocabulary, grammar and discourse)

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to improve lesson presentation. It is clear that in these language classrooms, using PowerPoint to improve lesson presentation may also be a means for teachers to regulate pace and content (Kelly, Hohmann, Pratt, & Dorf, 2013). In Li’s 2014 study, teachers also used technology to create customised materials; for example, adding supplementary language materials and constructing tasks using visual and audio materials. Macaro et al. (2012) provide an in-depth review of 47 post-2000 studies investigating the efficacy of technology in the teaching of L2 English, asking what technology has been used and why, what evidence there is that technology facilitates language learning, and what other insights can be drawn from the research in this field. They reported that vocabulary and writing were the most researched area (24 per cent), followed by reading (22 per cent). Concerning technological tools, multimedia studies show that vocabulary acquisition is facilitated with word processors, while CMC (computer-mediated communication)  and Web 2.0 technologies are used to enhance writing. In reviewing technology in language use, language teaching and learning, Chun, Kern, and Smith (2016) describe the contradictory discourses language teachers often find themselves caught in between when they make decisions about how to use technology in their classrooms. They write: On the one hand, technology is often seen as a means to enhance intellectual capacity and creativity. Moreover, educators are increasingly under pressure to use technology to prepare students to live in a technologically interconnected, globalised world (even if it is not entirely clear what skills and competencies students must have in order to function effectively in such a world). On the other hand, technology is sometimes portrayed as being detrimental to young people’s thinking and literacy, with the 21st-­ century ethos of rapid access to bits of information leading to fragmented experience, compromised ability to focus on other people, and lessened ability to think critically or argue logically. (Bauerlein, 2009; Carr, 2010; Chun et al., 2016, pp. 64–65)

As Chun et al. (2016) argue, it is not possible for teachers to ‘opt out’ of using technology because of its widely acknowledged benefits and

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affordances in human activities. They further argue that it is almost impossible for language teachers to teach a language without integrating technology, because they would create an artificial and limited learning environment for their students otherwise (p. 65). Despite the volume of research in teachers’ beliefs about technology use, there is still ‘a gap between […] the use of computers and technology for teaching purposes and […] the actual implementation [of such technologies] in EFL contexts’ (Timucin, 2006, p. 262). This is further highlighted in Li’s 2014 work as well as others’, claiming that the field is in need of more studies that show how technologies are embedded in classroom practice and how it mediates learning at a micro-level (Chapelle, 2003; Li, 2014; Stockwell, 2007).

Benefits and Roles of Technologies Research suggests integrating technologies into language teaching and learning is beneficial (see Macaro et  al., 2012; Liu et  al., 2002; Zhao, 2003 for a review), ranging from learning and teaching perspectives. A detailed review of the CALL (computer-assisted language learning) literature tells us that there are at least six benefits that technology can offer in language teaching and learning (Li, 2017b). First, technology (e.g., Internet and multimedia resources) provides students with high quality and authentic linguistic and cultural materials. Second, it can act as a cognitive tool to facilitate the acquisition of linguistic knowledge and the development of language skills—for example, by increasing noticing of linguistic forms. Third, it is a tool that mediates learning and through which learners appropriate new understandings. Fourth, it provides students with more opportunities to interact, a fundamental construct of sociocultural perspectives on learning, which attach huge importance to the role of interaction in learning. Fifth, technology can also be used as a ‘tutor’ to provide immediate and individualised feedback. Finally, perhaps the most widely acknowledged benefit is that technology increases student motivation and enhances engagement.

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A Language Resource Technology is widely used as a language resource for authentic input and to provide a context for the study of language use, primarily through the use of blogs and videos (e.g., Arndt & Woore, 2018). Given the significance of input in second language acquisition, Omaggio (1986, p. 41) proposed ‘a proficiency-oriented methodology’ that emphasises the use of authentic language in instructional materials wherever and whenever possible. The underpinning theory is that through using authentic sources in instruction, learners will be able to acquire ‘usable skills’ in real-life situations (Nunan, 1989, p.  54). An electronic medium is believed to serve well the authenticity of the text and the authorship of the language user—the two critical elements of communicative language learning (Kramsch, A’Ness, & Lam, 2000). On the other hand, learners can experience authentic language use when they engage in social networks for communication. Such experience might facilitate learners to increase their input, but at the same time, have a context for socialisation into L2 user communities (Thorne, Black, & Sykes, 2009). However, language gains are not always obvious (Isbell, 2018).

A Cognitive Tool Computers are believed to not only provide authentic resources for language learning but also increase linguistic knowledge. Multimedia presentations, including graphics and video clips, have a positive effect on vocabulary acquisition (e.g., Arndt & Woore, 2018; O’Hara & Pritchard, 2008; Silverman & Hines, 2009) and in writing (e.g., Hsu & Lo, 2018; Mak & Coniam, 2008). In recent years, collaborative writing through wikis, blogs and Google docs has been a core investigation in the effectiveness of using technologies in supporting L2 learning. In particular, research focus on the affordances of technology in engaging learners in content brainstorming and fostering collaborative scaffolding during the writing process regarding content and structure. For example, Lee (2010) claimed that learners were abler to linguistically scaffold each other to detect and correct errors at the sentence and the word levels. Hsu and Lo

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(2018) compared two groups of students to conclude that wiki-mediated collaborative writing enhances the content quality and linguistic accuracy of learners’ individual writing in L2. Of course, facilitating knowledge acquisition is not limited to linguistic information: studies show the value of technology for the development of intercultural awareness (Müller-Hartmann, 2000; O’Dowd, 2006; Ryshina-Pankova, 2018). For some researchers, ‘noticing’ is a necessary condition in successful second language acquisition (SLA) (Schmidt, 1990, 2001); technology can be used to promote noticing (Chapelle, 1998; Hegelheimer & Chapelle, 2000). Coyle and Reverte (2017) found that learners noticed and retained additional lexical items embedded in the task and used during the interaction, which might contribute to the improvement of lexical knowledge. Research has shown that linguistic input increases when learners notice linguistic features, using techniques such as marking salience, modification or elaboration (Schmidt, 1990; Skehan, 1998). Modification, making the input understandable to the learner through any means that ‘gets at the meaning’—for example, images, second language (L2) dictionaries and first language (L1) translation—enhances linguistic acquisition. As such, technology presents itself as a useful tool for modification to increase linguistic competence (Belz & Kinginger, 2003).

A Mediational Tool Sociocultural theory views language learning as a process in which a learner is involved (Lantolf, 2000a, 2000b). In this process, learning happens in the social mediation through interaction mediation, which can be defined as the way in which people use ‘culturally constructed artefacts, concepts and activities to regulate the material world or their own and each other’s social and mental activity’ (Lantolf & Thorne, 2006, p. 79). Vygotsky (1981) argues that human activities and mental functioning are mediated and facilitated by tools, artefacts and language, with language being the primary mediational tool relevant to thinking, learning and other cognitive development. Haas (1996) extended Vygotsky’s idea of language as a psychological tool and proposed that the use of t­ echnologies

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is a new psychological tool which can mediate interaction between the human and the environment around them. In this sense, the use of a shared screen, images, music and other artefacts can enhance shared understanding and facilitate linguistic acquisition. Grgurović and Hegelheimer (2007) and Sydorenko (2010) demonstrate how subtitles and video captions can be utilised for learners as a mediator to facilitate L2 learning.

A Learning Environment for Interaction Interaction lies at the heart of language learning and, as Ellis (1999) claims, learning occurs both in and through interaction. Chapelle (2003) proposed three types of interaction in the CALL context, namely ‘interaction between people’, ‘interaction between a person and the computer’ and ‘interaction within a person’s mind’. Much research has been carried out to investigate the affordances of technologies in promoting interaction between people, since it provides opportunities for negotiation of meaning, participation and collaboration—the key areas for L2 learning. The negotiation of meaning is ‘an important factor for successful L2 acquisition’ (Ellis, 1990, p. 16), and CMC enhances opportunities for meaning negotiation (Blake, 2000; Warner, 2004; see also Shekary & Tahririan, 2006; Yanguas, 2010). Communicative efforts during the negotiation of meaning can provide students with opportunities for achieving fluency and therefore the acquisition of L2 knowledge (Coyle & Reverte, 2017; Ellis, 1990). For example, Kitade (2000, p.  162) observes Internet Chat with task-based L2 interaction ‘facilitates comprehensible and meaning-making interaction, awareness raising, as well as collaborative learning’. Pellettieri (2000) claims that text-based chat may foster negotiation of meaning and form-focused interaction, thereby developing grammatical competence. The use of social networks can also enable students to improve literacies and language skills in general (e.g., Lee, 2006; Mills, 2011). Apart from increasing possibilities and opportunities for learners to engage in interactions to experience the language, social networks such as Facebook can also fostered an interactive community for communication,

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i­nteraction and discussions (Mills, 2011). Active use social networks can also increase oral proficiency, lexical acquisition and syntactic complexity (Lee, 2006). When social networks are integrated in the formal learning process, authentic tasks can facilitate natural language use and collaboration (Blake, 2000; Smith, 2004). As such, technologies create an environment where students use the language, the ‘symbolic tool’ to clarify and make sense of new knowledge, while relying heavily on discussions with the ‘expert knower’. However, Lin, Warschauer, and Blake (2016) proposed that support, guidance and well-structured activities are essential for effective use of social networks in encouraging participation and linguistic interaction.

A Tutor for Individualised Feedback Technologies can contribute to feedback in two ways. On the one hand, natural language processors can generate linguistic feedback (Coniam, 2004; Nagata, 2002), for example, immediate individualised grammatical feedback. The Intelligent Language Tutoring System is an example of such, which can provide detailed, error-specific and individualised feedback to learners (Chun, 2016). Usually, the feedback given by computers are more consistent and individualised feedback (Tsutsui, 2004). In a Spanish-learning context, Pellettieri (2000) examined task-based real-­ time computer interaction between adult learners of Spanish and concluded that computer-mediated interaction helps learners achieve higher levels of meta-linguistic awareness with corrective feedback during meaning negotiation. According to Nagata (1993, 1997), when students receive meta-linguistic feedback, they perform much better in the post-­ test than their counterparts who receive no feedback. In a way, the comprehensible meta-linguistic feedback is more effective than traditional feedback. On the other hand, the empirical data of learner-controlled practice and error correction can shed light on the impact of learner control on error correction (Heift, 2002). On that front, we can also utilise a corpus for learners to detect their own language problems and conduct self-correction.

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An Affective Tool Technologies, in general, are widely reported to engage and motivate learners (Braine, 2004; Chik, 2014, 2018; Schwienhorst, 2007; Warschauer, 2000). As Stockwell (2013) has pointed out in his comprehensive discussion of motivation and technology, there are two ways that technology can motivate or engage learners. First, some are motivated because they possess a genuine interest in technology, which promotes language learning through the use of technologies such as social networks or gaming. Second, those who are interested in language learning will take advantage of technology to enhance the learning process. Other researchers added further evidence to suggest that getting students involved in the selection of learning materials can enhance motivation and contribute to the development of meta-cognition (e.g., Benson, 2006; Godwin-Jones, 2019; Lai, 2017). In a similar vein, Reinders and White (2016) claim that social technologies enhance autonomy. When technology becomes an inseparable part of people’s lives, there are more opportunities for learners to engage in autonomous learning—for example, informal language learning through gaming, social networks and online participation. In that respect, they argue, social technologies focus on ‘the multiple environments in which individuals pursue their learning, the role of others and their contributions, and the ways in which learners work with and restructure aspects of their learning environments to establish more optimal learning conditions moment by moment’ (p. 149).

Teacher Profiles Liu is a male teacher in his second year of teaching. He is very passionate about teaching, and after graduating from a well-known university, he chose to become a secondary school teacher in a city key school in Beijing. The school has excellent computing facilities, with all the classrooms wired to the Internet. Teachers in the school are all equipped with a

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l­aptop for teaching. The technological tool used in his classes is mainly PowerPoint. Zhang is a female teacher, who works in a city school in Beijing, a relatively young teacher but with a considerable amount of teaching experience. She has been using technology in facilitating learning for some time and is considered by the local education authority and fellow teachers as someone with an innovative teaching philosophy. The lesson presented in this chapter was taught in a networked classroom, with one computer in front of each student. Zhang was teaching a reading lesson with a text about Captain Cook, selected from the Internet. Zhou is an experienced male teacher who works in a district key school. The school has similar facilities to other schools presented in this chapter. Zhou has more than 20 years’ teaching experience and is regarded as an expert teacher by his colleagues and the local education authority. He is also the head of the school’s English department, who has won a number of teaching contests. Lily is a young female teacher, who works in a city key school. This is her seventh year of teaching and she is studying a Master’s degree as a part-time student. She takes great interest in technology-facilitated language learning, since this is also her dissertation topic. She is clearly very capable and competent in using technology, having designed an English learning website.

Teacher Cognition and Technology Use The teachers have different conceptions of the roles and functions of technology, and I will explore teacher cognition in their respective professional contexts. More specifically, attention is given to how teachers’ understanding and knowledge of technology use is displayed in their practice, learning activities and administrative work. At the outset, three interesting observations about teachers’ understanding of technology should be mentioned. First, PowerPoint is the most frequently used technology, which echoes the earlier studies by Li (2008, 2014). It is the most popular tool among Chinese teachers, partly because of its ease of use, partly because of the presentation function in structuring a lesson.

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Second, despite the tools that teachers have adopted, the presentational and organisational function is clearly identified. Third, a positive image of technology is portrayed by the teachers collectively. In what follows, I will focus on other roles and benefits evidenced in the teachers’ practice and their articulations of their understanding of the technology in their professional lives. Emphasis here is on the perspectives and beliefs about the technology which is closely related to the way they use and perceive it. Specifically, it is viewed and used for the following functions: Addressing pedagogical goals • • • • • •

Facilitating interaction Establishing a learning context Performing a learning site Mediating learning Increasing student engagement Providing feedback Addressing teachers’ professional learning needs

• Developing subject knowledge • Developing pedagogical knowledge Performing administrative tasks It should be noted here that a single technological tool can be used for multiple purposes (e.g., as a presentation tool as well as a learning site); and in my analysis, I pay attention to the main functions of the tool.

Addressing Pedagogical Goals Teachers have various pedagogical goals at different stages of a lesson: they might use technology to facilitate interaction with students, establish a context for learning activities, mediate learning or increase student engagement. In the following extracts, we can see the use of technology is closely linked to their pedagogical goal of a moment.

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Facilitating Interaction Extract 6.1 is taken from Liu’s class when he is teaching a topic on ‘fact and fantasy’. It is taken from the beginning of his lesson. In this exchange, we can see the PowerPoint slides perform multiple roles, but one of the most obvious and important functions is to facilitate more interaction. In this extract, it is clear that Liu uses the PowerPoint as a presentational tool to establish a context to facilitate interaction. Student engagement and contributions are clear when the dialogue unfolds. First, Liu provides a picture of a summer night on the screen with glittering stars Extract 6.1

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in the sky, eliciting a response (lines 1–3). Here, by asking a referential question, Liu opens up a space for student contribution, which students provide in line 5. Then Liu acknowledges receipt of the information by echoing contributions, which can be considered a positive response (line 6) (Hellermann, 2003). This is further followed by a proper extension from Liu, making the contribution comprehensive and relevant to all students (shining stars and glittering stars) (line 6). Note here the appearance of the phrase ‘glittering stars’ on the night sky presents the PowerPoint as one type of input enhancement, a ‘modification’ to help the learners get to the meaning of the collocation (Chapelle, 2003). The opportunity for more interaction is further strengthened when Liu asks another first pair part, requesting more (line 8). At this point, we can see the slides do generate more interest as evidenced by two immediate simultaneous responses (lines 9–10). Instead of providing feedback, Liu repeats the phrase ‘glittering star’ to further enhance the earlier input (line 11). The deliberate ignorance of student input here might be interpreted as negative feedback, as Liu is trying to reinforce the expected and relevant answer: stars. The overlap (line 12) suggests that student 1 seems to be persistent with his answer ‘moon’, which is considered a relevant answer from the student’s point of view. Liu then follows up the student turn with an acknowledgement token and repetition of the student answer (line 13). At the same time, he shows the image of the moon, and the repetition of the student contribution is considered positive feedback (Hellermann, 2003). In this extract, the feedback is also provided through the use of an image (line 13). This is followed by two more student contributions (lines 14 and 15) related to the first pair part in line 8. At this stage, we can see Liu chooses again to ignore student 2’s contribution (line 15) and repeat one of the student’s contributions by asking a counter-­question (line 16). The CQ strategy is used to gloss over the student contribution as it is considered unexpected or irrelevant (Markee, 1995, 2004; see also Li, 2017a; Fagan, 2012). The teacher uses the CQ strategy here to close the sequence as it shows he is ready to move on to the next topic after a brief pause and a sequence-closing third marker ‘ok’ (line 17). This turn spans three lines and Liu specifically refers to the slides (note his gesture in line 19), drawing attention to the moon and initiating another first pair part, this time to request that students share knowledge of facts and fantasy about the moon. Clearly, the teacher has

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regained control, as after a brief pause, a second relevant pair part is delivered by students in unison (line 24). Liu then follows up with another first pair part, requesting more details/ideas about fantasies (line 25). After a pause, he selects a learner, who then produces a relevant second pair part (line 26), which generates enthusiasm from the class (line 27). Liu again echoes the student’s contribution (line 28) but makes it relevant to the class by linking the contribution and the moon. This link is then confirmed by the student (line 31). From here, we can see that both the class and Liu share common knowledge about the link between the moon and Chang’e’s story; this folk story of Chang’e ascending to the moon provides a context to discuss fantasy and fact. From a CA perspective, we can see turns are shared between the teacher and learners and most of the time the latter select themselves to make a contribution apart from one turn, which is allocated to Zhang (line 26). From this, we can see student participation is important for this moment of teaching activity and Liu has used different interactional strategies to facilitate interaction, including the use of PowerPoint. First and foremost, he uses technology to create a learning context where everyone develops the interaction. It establishes a shared understanding as both parties know what they are referring to—for example, he refers to the changing moon and makes a comment on this (line 20) to initiate a question (lines 21–22). The PowerPoint slides could be considered as mediators to help both parties to engage in the dialogue. Throughout this extract, Liu uses the slides to engage students by drawing their attention to the images (lines 7 and 19). In order to facilitate better interactions, he also promotes thinking by using animation. Liu’s question requesting knowledge about facts and fantasy (lines 21–22 and 25) develops creative thinking skills and generates language use (line 26). It’s worth noting that Zhang’s response in line 26 is a relevant one, which Liu expands on and confirms (lines 28–30). From the students’ reaction (line 27), engagement is obvious.

Establishing a Learning Context Extract 6.2 is taken from Zhang’s class when she is teaching a topic on ‘Captain Cook and his voyages’ using material from the Internet. The class is taught in a network-based classroom. The extract is taken from

6  Teacher Cognition about the Use of Technology  Extract 6.2

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the beginning of the lesson. Before this exchange, the teacher had instructed the students to turn on their computer and login, where students were able to see the website the teacher had designed. This is an extended extract which spans over 1 minute 34 seconds with 41 lines, showing the teacher is doing interactional work to contextualise the activity. As we can see, for Zhang, establishing prior knowledge is a very important step. So at the beginning of the lesson, she refers to a picture and asks a question, requesting a name as a relevant second pair part, which the students deliver in unison (line 3). Zhang provides positive feedback by providing a confirmation token ‘yeah’ and repeating the students’ answer (line 4). However, the student contribution is perceived as insufficient, as the teacher seeks more information (line 6). A student provides an unintelligible answer, perhaps irrelevant, leading to Zhang’s reformulation of her question with an emphasis on ‘what’ (line 8). The stretching sound in line 8 indicates a relevant transition space when she is giving a turn to students, which they take immediately. It is clear that the answer in line 9 is unexpected, although she confirms the relevance of the student input by echoing their answer (line 10). After a micro pause, Zhang reformulates her question, this time as a statement to be finished (line 11). Here, the micropause at the end of line 11 could be an indication of a relevant transition place. Students take the cue and offer some information. In line 14, Zhang confirms the input from the students, although it is unclear whether she is confirming the input in line 13 or the unintelligible answer in line 12. Unsatisfied with the input, Zhang repeats her statement in line 15 to push for a further response. Although her turn is interrupted by some unintelligible contributions in line 16, she carries on to help the class recall the memory of this person by referring to a previous lesson (line 17). Next, we see she has a rather long turn, answering the question she has set out earlier (lines 18–22), reminding students what they have learnt in the last lesson and outlining her next teaching step (lines 22–23). Then she operates the PowerPoint to help the quick review (lines 25–26), and this time, instead of asking students to identify what is on the slides, she explains and introduces the island (lines 27–28) to set the context for the revision activity. This is further followed by a question which requires a response (lines 29–31). Note the longish pause in line

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30, where she is hoping the students will take the turn to provide a relevant second pair part. This is not taken up, so Zhang starts to help by providing them with a map on a slide (line 31). One student takes the cue to provide a relevant but unexpected answer (line 32), overlapping Zhang’s explanation. Here, this student’s contribution is interpreted as an interruption and as seen from line 33 onwards, Zhang is not expecting the students to take her cue in line 31. Then she provides more explanation, draws attention to the map (line 37) and gives out the name of the street and related information (lines 40–41). Again, here, the explanation is interrupted by the students (line 39), this time with a relevant and expected response, which is confirmed in line 40. It is clear that, to this teacher, student participation is important, and setting a context for the activity and lesson is crucial. When she does not get expected responses, apart from helping students to recall information, she takes them back to revise what was taught in the previous lessons. Although Zhang does not ask many questions, she manages to maintain students’ interest by getting them involved. The strategies used include showing a map on a slide, asking a question (lines 24 and 31), using a slide to establish shared understanding (lines 31 and 37), and using stretching sounds to gain student attention (lines 31 and 41). In this extract, her idea of getting the class actively involved in learning is also reflected in the way that she uses technology. As we can see, PowerPoint here is used to achieve several aims. First, she uses it as a presentation tool to display images, information and a map. Second, the slides are used to maintain students’ interest, and establish a context for learning. We can see clearly in several places (lines 24, 31 and 37), Zhang refers to the slides—the visuals serve as a mediational tool for bridging the understanding gap between the learners and teacher, but more importantly, a context in which learning is developed.

Performing as a Learning Site Extract 6.3 is again taken from Zhang’s class when she asks students to do a reading task. Here, she considers the computer a learning site where learning materials and content is presented, and individual students can learn independently.

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Extract 6.3

In Extract 6.3, Zhang gives an extended instruction by stating the activity (lines 1–2), the reading content (line 2), what students need to do to locate the reading material (lines 3–6), the allocated time (line 8) and detailed instruction of things students need to pay attention to (lines 9–10). In this extract, we can see Zhang uses the technology, to be specific, computers and an intranet, as a working site where the class can access relevant information and conduct learning activities. In this extract, we can also see learning strategy is a side focus for the reading activity. From the CA perspective, we can see the teacher does interactional work to make sure students are actively involved in the activity. First, she provides an extended turn to explain the activity (lines 1–11), and it is clear that the computer is perceived and used as a learning site, as shown in lines 4 and 6–7 when the students operate the computer for the r­ eading activity. Second, she places an emphasis on understanding and knowledge about learning strategies (lines 10–15). Third, it is interesting to see this teacher places emphasis on taking notes, especially through the unusually loud voice in line 13 and a clear instruction with repetition (line 15).

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Mediating Learning Extract 6.4 is again taken from Zhang’s class. This extract concerns a task after the reading activity. Similarly to Extract 6.3, the computer is used as a working site here, but examining the extract suggests that it is also performing a mediational role, which is the focus of my analysis in this extract. Zhang draws the students’ attention by asking them to look at the map and checks that they are all on the same page (lines 1–2). Here the screen performs a mediating role by facilitating a ‘triadic interaction’ (van Lier, 2002), where both parties have to look at the screen to engage in the conversation. Zhang gives instructions for the next activity (lines 4–7), and students show comprehension and confirmation (line 8). Here, the map on the screen performs a mediational role to facilitate understanding of the task. The mediational role to provide ‘triadic interaction’ is more obvious in the following lines when Zhang turns to one student to check his progress in reading and engages in a conversation with him (lines 9–17). In fact, when she gives the same instruction of ‘draw on the map’ to the student, she also points to the screen (lines 11–12). The screen acts again as a focus of attention for both the teacher and the student in the next exchange. Zhang initiates another first pair part, requestExtract 6.4

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ing a relevant answer, the name of the place (line 14), to which the student produces the second pair part by pointing to the screen (line 15). Here the screen provides a shared visual display of this dialogic interaction. Zhang then confirms the student’s response with positive feedback ‘yes’, and clarifies her instruction to the whole class (lines 16–17). Although in this extract we see multiple roles of the computer, such as a work site or presentation tool, it is really the mediational tool and a shared visual display for a dialogue that is more important for facilitating understanding.

Increasing Student Engagement As presented earlier, when students are provided with multimodal information, they become more engaged. Extract 6.5 is taken from Zhou’s class where the topic is Guy de Maupassant’s short story, ‘The Necklace’. Zhou is using a PowerPoint presentation to engage students. This lesson Extract 6.5

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is carried out in a one-computer multimedia classroom with Internet access and the extract is taken from the middle of the lesson. In this extract, Zhou is introducing some background knowledge of the story that the students are going to read, part of which is about the author. In this short exchange, Zhou’s idea of using technology to engage students is clear. First, he shows a picture of the writer and checks the students’ existing knowledge (lines 1–2). Here the image works as input enhancement from a cognitive perspective of language learning or a mediational tool from a sociocultural perspective. Whichever perspective is taken, the pedagogical purpose is to help the students understand the link between the picture and what is shown in the next slide. When students provide a negative response (line 3), the teacher acknowledges the receipt of the information by repetition in a low voice. As we know, the teacher repetition cannot be neutral (Hellermann, 2003, p.  83), it is therefore useful to see how participants orient to this low-voiced repetition. Here, the repetition can be interpreted as a negative response, which shapes the trajectory of the immediately following discourse. The teacher repetition of the student’s response achieves two things: it acknowledges the response, but its prosodic packaging—low pitch level and lack of lengthening—also indicates to the class that the teacher is closing the questioning and moving on to the next slide (line 4) (Brazil, 1997). In fact, the turn-opener ‘ok’ here suggests a new exchange, this time the teacher presenting the name of the author (line 4). Here the PowerPoint slide is regarded as a knowledge source which contains relevant information that students need to know. Then the teacher elaborates with an attempt to establish a link between the name and students’ existing knowledge in such a way that he suggests that they should know it. The claim of insufficient knowledge on students’ part earlier in line 3 indeed is an unexpected answer from the teacher’s perspective (line 5). After that, Zhou shows the biographical information on the writer and reads it out (lines 7–11); here the PowerPoint slides are used as a presentation tool to display knowledge. The teacher then finishes reading, presents more information and introduces the content with a falling tone (line 11), which is interpreted as turn-giving. Students take the cue to read the information. At this point, the slide not only presents information but also acts as an engaging tool (lines 12–13). Zhou then repeats the infor-

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mation and moves on to make a connection between this writer and the story they are about to read (lines 14–16). This is followed by another slide which contains more information about the author (lines 16–17). From a CA perspective, we can see the teacher intends to engage and involve students by using the slides. Of course, he also emphasises the knowledge input in learning, judging from the content of slides.

Providing Feedback Extract 6.6 is taken from Lily’s class, teaching a grammar lesson in a network-based classroom where each student has a computer. This extract is taken at the start of the lesson, following her detailed instruction on how to access the website. In this extract, Lily first checks that all students have found the website (lines 1–2), before giving instructions about how to do the test (line 4). Here she specifies the procedure by requiring them to do the test (lines 4–8), also explaining how to finish it, and the role of the computer (lines 5–6), claiming ‘the computer will tell you the result’. Of course, for Lily, the purpose of doing this test is to get individualised feedback from the computer itself (lines 6–8). It is clear that technology here is considered not only a working site which contains the learning material but also a tutor that is able to offer immediate feedback and tutorials (lines 5–8). Extract 6.6

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When students demonstrate understanding and confirmation of her instruction (line 9), Lily then checks one student’s progress (line 10) and instructs him to finish the test by clicking the submit button (line 11), which he agrees to and does (line 12). She then checks his results and provides positive feedback (line 13). Here we can see the computer immediately provides feedback, and he only has one item wrong (line 13). After a longish pause, Lily provides further instruction to this student to read the notes attached to that grammatical item. In this extract, the computer (website) is a site where students work (lines 1–2 and 9) but more importantly, a tutor that provides feedback (lines 5–8, 12–14). Usually, students submit their work to a tutor and get feedback, but in this learning event, they are submitting their test paper to the computer (website), and it gives feedback and provides follow-on tutorials.

Addressing Their Professional Learning Needs Apart from using technology in teaching to address pedagogical needs, teachers also rely on technology to support their professional needs (Judson, 2006). Across subject areas, it is widely recognised that teachers use technology to address such needs in the areas of improving lesson presentation, creating customised materials and participating in professional development (e.g., searching for information for teaching and sharing ideas) (e.g., Li, 2014; Ottenbreit-Leftwich et al., 2010; Ruthven, Hennessy, & Deaney, 2005). In Chinese contexts, Li (2014) and Wang and Coleman (2009) have also indicated that teachers engaged in material searching, developing and sharing. There is also evidence that they share their experience with other teachers in the form of online professional development (Dede, 2006). Connecting with others also contributes to establishing a community for professional development, whereby teachers can develop their skills in evaluating and selecting appropriate materials to meet their pedagogical purposes with others who may share the same interests and pedagogic considerations (Sahin & Thompson, 2007). Here, in this section, I will only focus on the two types of knowledge that teachers aim to develop using the technological tools: subject knowledge and pedagogical knowledge.

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Developing Subject Knowledge This is one of the key areas for language teachers (Li, 2017a), and in the following extract, we see how the teacher conceptualises the significance of technology in fostering linguistic knowledge. Extract 6.7 is taken from an interview where Liu explains his view of technology use. The extract suggests that Liu considers technology a useful way to improve his own English, especially enlarging his vocabulary. This idea is co-constructed with the interviewer in the development of the conversation. First, we see the interviewer asks a question, prompting the ­interviewee to articulate the way he uses technology (line 1). However, this question is perceived by Liu to be vague, as we can see he does not take the turn immediately. On the contrary, there is a rather long pause (line 2). Then after a hesitation mark, he makes a general comment, which is produced with a smiley voice. It is interesting to note a smiley voice is often used to reduce embarrassment, indicate uncertainty or avoid potential conflict in Chinese culture (Li, 2017a). The vagueness is further supported by the interviewer’s abrupt interruption, noting the overlapping between their turns. In line 3, the interviewer provides a further clarification, which can be viewed as a new first pair part, requesting information about the role of technology related to Liu’s professional Extract 6.7

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activities. Upon receiving this request, he first of all acknowledges the receipt of the request, and then confirms his understanding (yes). At this moment, he demonstrates his experience and understanding of using technology to engage in professional activities and claims he uses technology to improve his own English (lines 5–6). This is further developed after a pause when he clarifies what subject knowledge he focuses on. The further question in line 7 is perceived as a request as well as a knowledge sharing opportunity, which not only allows both Liu and the researcher to discuss the exact technological tools used, but also offers a potential space to reflect on his experience of using technology to engage in professional development. Liu, on this occasion, briefly confirms that there are particular technological tools and a programme he uses, and then provides detailed information in lines 8–9 about his experience of using the social network and an application to learn vocabulary. Clearly, the interviewer does not know what ‘Baicizhan’ is, hence the confirmation check in line 10. Liu clarifies with further information including details of other apps and the fact that these apps are all developed for Chinese learners (lines 11–13). This long turn also provides a solid ground for us to understand Liu’s desire to improve his English for professional needs, and the way he sees himself as a learner: ‘it’s Chinese one so it’s for Chinese learners’. As can be seen, the researcher displays strong interest in the app (line 14), which might also lead to Liu’s positive evaluation of the app (line 15). Clearly, his understanding of the role of technology as a means of addressing professional needs is displayed in the conversation, in particular through the interactional resources that both parties employ, such as clarification request, confirmation request, acknowledgement and elicitation.

Developing Pedagogical Knowledge In the dataset, developing pedagogical knowledge is another key area where teachers use technology. This is in particular evident in the interview data when teachers reflect on their experience in using technology to address their professional needs. This type of knowledge includes that of designing activities (activity type and sequence, learning difficulties),

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technological considerations in design of the materials (e.g., graphic design, medium and colour), and selection of appropriate materials (Sert & Li, 2017). Extract 6.8 is an exemplary use of technology for teachers to engage in professional learning. In this extract, the interviewer is talking to the teacher Lily about using technology for professional development. The interviewer initiates a first pair part, requesting information about, or an example of, how Lily uses technology for her professional development. This request positions Lily as someone who provides a relevant example of using technology to develop her professional knowledge and skills. After a slightly long pause in line 3, she takes the turn (line 4). It is clear that Lily is unsure about how to approach the question or what to say, hence the hesitation marker ‘um’, the pause and a request for time to think (line 4). This is followed by another longish pause in line 4. Then in line 5, Lily attempts to provide a response, asking the interviewer to confirm the relevance of a possible answer. The request for confirmation here is significant as it demonstrates Lily’s understanding of the interviewer’s request, but also displays uncertainty of ‘attending online seminar’ to the Extract 6.8

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original request made by the interviewer: ‘your own learning’. This is interesting because we can see the effect of the social and cultural perspective of learning on her conceptualisation. Traditionally, learning is conceptualised as a formal activity which is organised. Therefore, attending online seminars independently and voluntarily might not be considered as a ‘learning’ activity. After the interviewer’s confirmation in line 6, we see Lily deliver an extended turn to describe how she uses technology for her own professional learning through an online seminar series. She also makes a link to the researcher by referring to a professor from England. This reference is not random here but is used as a way to establish a common ground, as they both have a link to England and a research community: ‘a professor in England’. This bond-building seems to work as it interests the interviewer in line 12, noticeably the falling pitch and rising tone in ‘rea↓lly?’ to show her interest and engagement. Lily immediately confirms and at the same time provides a positive evaluation of the seminar: ‘that’s really good’. We can see this exchange (lines 10–13) as an insertion here, which helps Lily to establish a close relationship with the interviewer. It is this insertion that changes the nature of the conversation from an interview to a talk between two people who have shared knowledge, recognised through the interviewer’s acknowledgement and positive feedback ‘Awww (.) that’s £ni↑ce£’. Here we can see in lines 17–20, Lily carries on with an example of how she engages in professional activities through the use of technology, specifically through the use of a social network, Wechat, to share ‘materials ­(.)lesson design and sometimes £lesson plans£’. Again, the smiley voice is used to reduce embarrassment as the teacher may feel it is inappropriate to share a lesson plan and worries she might be considered ‘lazy’. The interesting thing is the interviewee not only considers the technological tools and programmes (e.g., Wechat, online seminars) useful to professional learning, but also demonstrates her understanding of the role of technology in her professional life: to build a community among the teachers. Such an understanding is displayed when the conversation unfolds.

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Performing Administrative Tasks Apart from addressing their own professional needs, teachers also use technology to perform administrative tasks, such as recording grades and student attendance. However, it is interesting to see that Chinese teachers also engage parents through a social network tool: Wechat. This is primarily because of the gradual recognition of the importance of parents in students’ learning and the ‘collective endeavour’ between the teacher and parents (Murray, Mereoiu, & Handyside, 2013). Teachers and schools have started to increase the capacity of building a strong parent–teacher relationship to support students’ learning (Murray et al. 2013). In Extract 6.9, Zhang talks about her beliefs about using technology to engage parents. Extract 6.9

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In this extract, Zhang expresses her idea about establishing a parent group on Wechat to engage them and show how useful it is. She does so by talking through her experience with the interviewer. In line 1, Zhang makes a statement about how she uses technology to engage parents. In the interviewer’s understanding, this is unusual or surprising, as shown in the rising tone in the response (line 2). In line 3, Zhang gives an explanation and perhaps a justification for her use of Wechat to a wider sociocultural practice, claiming all (other teachers) do it, and offers a positive evaluation on the tool (line 4). In line 5, the interviewer asks Zhang a question, seeking more information about the use of Wechat. In line 6, Zhang provides a response with a smiley voice, and at this point, the interviewer provides a back-­ channel acknowledgement token  (line 7), encouraging more information. From line 8 to line 15, Zhang gives an example of how she uses Wechat to engage or involve parents on school matters. In this short exchange, we can see the interviewer’s surprise (line 10) and an intended interruption to present a potential counter-argument (line 14). When interrupted, Zhang holds the floor and completes her turn by talking faster (line 14). Here, we can see she uses interactional resources to ­present a case for using Wechat to engage parents. The conversation continues as the interviewer jokes with Zhang about her giving parents some homework. As we can see, the laughing perhaps is an acknowledgement token, whereas the smiley tone in ‘homework’ endorses the joke  (line 16). Zhang overlaps the interviewer’s last word and offers a justification from parents’ perspective (line 17). Here, we can see Zhang’s understanding about the usefulness of technology is well-­ situated in and shaped by the macro context—what parents expect from the school (teacher)—when Zhang provides a further explanation (lines 17–21). It is interesting to see that she actually interrupts the interviewer in lines 17–18 and speaks faster in order to successfully take the turn and offer her point of view. The interactional work she does here is to ensure that the interviewer is not misunderstanding her intention in engaging parents. From Zhang’s point of view, the interviewer is not simply being friendly or joking with her in line 16, because the surprise shown in the interviewer’s responses (lines 2 and 10) is a potential counter-argument (line 13). After her justification and explanation, the interviewer offers an

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endorsement in line 23 after a long pause (line 22). This pause is significant here as it indicates a relevant transition place for the interviewer to take the turn. At this point, Zhang once again takes the turn to offer her rationale for creating a Wechat group, this time not simply because other teachers do it but as a way to engage parents. In particular, she emphasises her belief about the importance of getting parents ‘ENGAGED’. The further explanation she offers in lines 26–27 gives more examples on the Wechat group—how she involves parents on school matters, in particular, ‘the activities and things they need to do for school clubs’. This exchange finishes with a positive confirmation from the interviewer (line 28). From a CA perspective, we can see Zhang does interactive work to present and explain her understanding of the role of technology in helping her to engage parents, whereas the interviewer poses questions and gives feedback to enable her to articulate what and how she thinks about the use of technological tools.

Summary This chapter focuses on teacher cognition about the use of technology to address their needs. Specifically, this chapter analyses teachers’ accounts of using technology to address their needs, and their practice of technology through the lens of CA. At face value, teachers use different forms of technology in their professional practice, including PowerPoint, multimedia material, the Internet and self-designed websites, and a social network application. Through an in-depth analysis, we can observe that teachers use technological tools to address different professional needs, including addressing pedagogical needs, addressing their professional learning needs and performing administrative tasks. In particular, when they demonstrate their understanding of the role of technology in addressing their pedagogical needs, we see different considerations of using technology according to pedagogical goals at different stages of lessons, rather than the tools they have. More specifically, we can see that technology can perform different roles—as a cognitive tool, a media-

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tional tool, a presentation tool, a shared display to generate interaction, a learning site, a tutor and a knowledge source, and an affective tool to engage students. Yet, we also see the same function can be achieved by different tools, so it is up to any teacher to see how the tools available best address their own pedagogical aims, students’ learning styles and needs. Equally, technology addresses professional needs, especially in enhancing subject and pedagogical knowledge. It further suggests that subject knowledge is a core element of good teaching, and teachers do place high value on it. Pedagogical knowledge, on the other hand, seems crucial for teachers to make the best use of technology. There is also evidence that it improves effectiveness in administrative tasks, such as engaging parents. Li (2008, 2017b) suggests that there are four interlocking factors teachers need to be aware of when integrating technology, including: • Context: school, the culture of learning and social values • Teachers’ technological competence and confidence, as well as pedagogical beliefs • Resources: time, software and access to technology • Professional development opportunities such as training, learning, support and community I would echo this to particularly highlight the significance of pedagogical beliefs, as they are not only about whether teachers adopt technology in teaching but how they use the technological tools available to facilitate learning. In this sense, perhaps more concerns should be placed on how technology is used rather than what tools are selected.

References Arndt, H. L., & Woore, R. (2018). Vocabulary learning from watching YouTube videos and reading blog posts. Language Learning & Technology, 22(1), 124–142. https://doi.org/10125/44660 Baek, Y., Jung, J., & Kim, B. (2008). What makes teachers use technology in the classroom? Exploring the factors affecting facilitation of technology with a Korean sample. Computers and Education, 50(1), 224–234.

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Bauerlein, M. (2009). The dumbest generation: How the digital age stupefies young Americans and jeopardizes our future (or, don’t trust anyone under 30). New York: Tarcher/Penguin. Becker, H. J. (2000). Findings from the teaching, learning and computing survey: Is Larry Cuban right? Education Policy Analysis Archives, 8(51). Retrieved October 5, 2016, from http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/442 Belz, J. A., & Kinginger, C. (2003). Discourse options and the development of pragmatic competence by classroom learners of German: The case of address forms. Language Learning, 53(4), 591–647. Benson, P. (2006). Learner autonomy 8: Insider perspectives on autonomy in language teaching and learning. Dublin, Ireland: Authentik. Bitner, N., & Bitner, J. (2002). Integrating technology into the classroom: Eight keys to success. Journal of Technology and Teacher Education, 10(1), 95–100. Blake, R. (2000). Computer mediated communication: A window on L2 Spanish interlanguage. Language Learning and Technology, 40(1), 120–136. Braine, G. (2004). Teaching second and foreign language writing on LANs. In S. Fotos & C. Browne (Eds.), New perspectives on CALL for second language classrooms (pp. 93–107). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates. Brazil, D. (1997). The communicative value of intonation in English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Cabanatan, P. (2003, June 18–20). Integrating pedagogy and technology: The SEAMEO INNOTECH experience. Presentation to Experts Meeting on Teachers/Facilitators Training in Technology-Pedagogy Integration, Bangkok, Thailand. Carr, N.  G. (2010). The shallows: What the Internet is doing to our brains. New York: W. W. Norton. Chapelle, C. (2000). Computer application in second language acquisition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Chapelle, C. A. (1998). Multimedia CALL: Lessons to be learned from research on instructed SLA. Language Learning and Technology, 2, 22–34. Chapelle, C.  A. (2003). English language learning and technology: Lectures on applied linguistics in the age of information and communication technology. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Chik, A. (2014). Digital gaming and language learning: Autonomy and community. Language Learning & Technology, 18(2), 85–100. Chik, A. (2018). Learning a language for free: Space and autonomy in adult foreign language learning. In G. Murray & T. Lamb (Eds.), Space, place, and autonomy in language learning (pp. 56–72). New York: Routledge.

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7 The Impact of Teacher Education on Teacher Cognition

Introduction Teacher learning is an important research agenda for teacher education and development. Pre-service teacher training deserves particular attention because it is the first step for student teachers to engage in professionalisation. Researching pre-service teacher cognition also provides teacher educators with a window into the effectiveness of teacher education in developing the knowledge and expertise of student teachers. It is widely acknowledged that student teachers enter TESOL programmes with relatively established pedagogical beliefs—for example, how languages are learnt and how they should be taught. Regarding pre-service teacher development, there is a vast literature contributing to the understanding of teachers ‘learning to teach’, and how the prospective teachers develop, change or consolidate their beliefs and knowledge about teaching and learning, and (de)construct their images and identities of being a teacher. As discussed in Chap. 2, the Zone of Free Movement (ZFM) and the Zone of Promoted Action (ZPA) are two important zones which affect teacher learning. Associated with ZFM are pre-service teachers’ own © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_7

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learning experiences, and an institutional context where pre-service teachers conduct their teaching practice and engage in professional learning. Elements regarding ZPA could be teacher educators, teaching practice supervisors and mentors, and fellow teachers. These ‘significant ones’ affect pre-service teachers’ belief construction, development and amendments during the process of learning. It is widely acknowledged both ZFM and ZPA are influential on pre-­ service teachers’ beliefs. Regarding teachers’ learning experiences, we know that prior language learning experiences affect pre-service teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Johnson, 1994; Kern, 1995; Peacock, 1999; Warford & Reeves, 2003). This has been termed an ‘apprenticeship of observation’ (Lortie, 1975). In both mainstream and language teacher education programmes, there is evidence to suggest that student teachers use their past experience to interpret the content of teacher education programmes (Johnson, 1994; Kagan, 1992). In fact, Peacock (2001) claims that prior language learning experiences had been considered as the foundation of beginning teachers’ conceptions of teaching and such experiences might exert a considerable effect throughout their professional lives. In terms of teacher education experiences, Kern (1995) discovered that student teachers’ beliefs shifted in French instruction courses. Similarly, Mattheoudakis (2007) found that during a three-year teacher education programme, the beliefs of the majority of student teachers did change. This line of research clearly suggests the positive impact of teacher education on student teachers’ beliefs (see, Cabaroglu & Roberts, 2000; M.  Borg, 2005; da Silva, 2005). Within the ZFM, the institutional context is one of the significant sociocultural factors which deserves more attention—for example, the culture of schooling into which novice teachers are socialised. Across international contexts, research suggests that, in fact, the school culture limits the effect of teacher preparation courses, though some argue that trainees can undergo significant changes in cognition (Richards, Ho, & Giblin, 1996; Sendan & Roberts, 1998). In a longitudinal study, Ruohotie-Lyhty (2011) explored 11 newly qualified teachers’ personal practical knowledge through teacher discourse and suggested that teachers’ perceptions and conceptualisation of their environment was important in the development of their professional knowledge.

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Similarly, ample evidence reveals that practicum experience has shaped student teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Farrell, 2001; Johnson, 1996). According to Farrell (2001), negative experience in practicum could have a powerful influence on these teachers’ conceptions of language teaching and what it means to be a language teacher. In Li’s 2017a study, two students co-­ constructed the negative experiences they had faced during teaching experience when their colleague (Rebecca) gained popularity among students due to ‘her beautiful English’. When a teacher’s authority is challenged (e.g., children kept challenging one of the student teachers by comparing her with Rebecca), their conception of English and their image can be affected. The negative experience, however, as Li (2017a) argues, can be utilised to facilitate teacher learning if they are treated as critical incidents to address teachers’ cognitive and emotional understanding of ‘being a teacher’. So, considering the factors that contribute to the pre-service teachers’ professional growth and cognition development, the teacher education programme is clearly a significant one. Given the importance of teacher education, this chapter is dedicated to the beliefs and understandings that pre-service teachers developed during a one-year TESOL programme, with particular attention to the development of cognition. Using detailed reflections, lesson-planning conferences and teaching, this chapter provides insights into pre-service teachers’ thinking, decision-making, knowledge and beliefs about language teaching and learning. In addition, the data in this chapter provides a possible trajectory of teacher development through the stories of two Chinese pre-service teachers who studied their MA TESOL degrees in the UK. At the outset, it is important to note that findings cannot be generalised to all student teachers and it is not this book’s intention to provide a formulaic description of stages of pre-service teacher development. Rather, this chapter provides some illustrative evidence of teacher learning and growth. This chapter first outlines teacher education and discusses learning theories underpinning the teacher education programmes. Following this, the chapter discusses the development of teacher cognition through interview, classroom interaction and the video-­ based post reflections of two student teachers.

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Teacher Education Traditionally, second language teacher education has centred on the learning theories of second languages to develop competent language teachers, rather than on teachers as ‘learners of teaching’ (Freeman & Johnson, 1998). Such an approach also focuses on developing teachers’ content knowledge and how this is learnt. Therefore, the emphasis is placed on ‘the knowledge’ in teacher education and much of the research in teacher cognition focuses on exploring ‘deficit’ teacher knowledge and making suggestions on correcting teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. In a teacher education programme developed under this philosophy, students are provided with a body of specialised academic knowledge and theory, which typically contains lecture-based courses on language awareness, teaching methodology and SLA modules. These modules are offered to expose students to the language systems and knowledge, and theories of teaching and learning, as well as to provide a historical and critical view of language teaching methodology. These components are exclusively theoretical, but students are expected to apply theories in classrooms during micro teaching and teaching practice. It is also a truism that many modules tend to link theory to practice through involving students in presenting their work. Alongside the theoretical input, students are required to engage in some micro-teaching sessions, usually in a small group of 4 or 5, which aims to develop a repertoire of teaching skills through observing, critically reflecting upon and analysing their own and their peers’ teaching, guided by the tutors. Normally when micro teaching is designed as part of the programme, students are also required to provide a comprehensive teaching plan, and a specific reflection on their teaching practice. Some programmes have a practicum, when students are required to conduct teaching practice for a short period with EFL or ESL learners. Although it is difficult for every programme to have a practical element, some TESOL programmes may provide students with opportunities to teach in primary or secondary schools, or private language schools, so that they can get a real feeling for teaching and apply what they learn in a real-life situation. During practice, students are expected to critically explore

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t­heoretical approaches to language teaching in their teaching contexts and adopt appropriate teaching methods. In theory, both micro teaching and teaching practice are designed to facilitate construction of the integration of theories and practice. Practicum serves as an accelerator for student teachers to begin their transformation into serving teachers (Shields, 2003). During the practice, they interact with other members of the community, such as teachers and students, and gradually adopt the practice. Several contextual factors contribute to pre-service teacher development in the community—mainly local mentors, school culture and attitudes towards pre-service teachers. Indeed, some researchers have pointed out the significance of collaboration between the pre-service teacher and the local mentor concerning teacher learning (Akcan & Tatar, 2010). However, there is also evidence to suggest that pre-service teachers do not benefit from practicum when the schools do not have confidence in them as potential professionals (Laker et al., 2008; Yan & He, 2010; Taskin, 2006). In this sense, Freeman (2002) proposes: ‘[T]eacher education must serve two functions. It must teach the skills of reflectivity and it must provide the discourse and vocabulary that can serve participants in renaming their experience’ (p. 11). There are, however, changes over time in the provision of teacher education. Richards (2008) observed that the traditional model of teacher training which focused on the content knowledge had been criticised for not considering the fact that language is socially and culturally constituted (Firth & Wagner, 1997; Miller, 2004; Norton, 1997). Barduhn and Johnson (2009a) reviewed three types of teacher education models and observed that the current view of teacher education is to enhance student teachers to become reflective practitioners. They write: In the craft model, all of the expertise of teaching resides in training, and it is the trainee’s job to imitate the trainer. The applied science model has been the traditional and the most present model underlying most teacher education and training programs. The followers of this model believe that all teaching problems can be solved by experts in content knowledge and not by the ‘practitioners’ themselves. The third model, the current trend in teacher education and development, envisions as the outcome of the training period that the novice teacher become an autonomous reflective

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­ ractitioner capable of constant self-reflection leading to a continuous prop cess of professional self-development. (p. 61)

L earning Theories Regarding Teacher Education In studies of teachers’ belief development, learning is an important concept that reflects changes in one’s behaviour or behaviour dispositions. Such learning is situated in a sociocultural context—in the present chapter, on a TESOL programme. What learning is and what learning is about varies in teacher education programmes due to the complexity of the course structure, content and tutors’ teaching styles. Cognitive learning theories define learning as an internal psychological and mental process, neglecting context and the learning environment. In Nunan’s (1995) words, this kind of view suggested ‘it is the learner who has to do the learning’ (p.  55). Grounded in this paradigm, the traditional ‘knowledge transmission’ approach and auditory learning is widely practised in language classrooms. This approach features teachers’ ‘lectures’ occupying most of the class time, focusing on grammar rules and vocabulary usage. Likewise, language teacher education has long been structured around the assumption that teachers develop their capacity and expertise in teaching through a large input of ‘knowledge’ and ‘teaching skills’. Hence, teacher learning is viewed as a way to improve or change teachers (Singh & Richards, 2006). Therefore, beliefs of student teachers educated via this approach inevitably focus on ‘knowledge-­ based’ initiatives, and the trainees try to acquire and apply what has been taught in practice. At the heart of the concept, as Cohen (1988) puts it, ‘teachers are active; they are tellers of truth who inculcate knowledge in students’ whereas ‘learners are relatively passive; students are accumulators of material who listen, read, and perform prescribed exercises’ (p. 10). On the contrary, the epistemological stance of sociocultural theory emphasises learning as a function of activity, context and culture in which it occurs or is situated. From a sociocultural perspective, learning is viewed as participation and meaning co-construction. That means

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­ rocesses of learning are negotiated with people through experiences in p the social practices associated with particular activities in which people engage, which is termed the ‘community of practice’ (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Social interaction, as a critical component of learning, encourages participation and dialogue. This approach places greater emphasis on how knowledge as a social product evolves through a process of negotiation of meaning within discourse communities leading to expertise. In all constructivist teaching-learning scenarios, the centre of the educational enterprise focuses on students’ own efforts to understand the concept and gain skills. They are viewed as agents in such activities rather than passive receivers. Thus, the relationships between teachers and students are more interactive and multidimensional. Student teachers who experience such learning might interpret it as a sharing and co-constructing activity, with a focus on encouraging dialogues with interlocutors or other members of a community. To summarise, ‘key to the teacher-learning processes are the role of participants, the discourse they create and participate in, the activities that take place and the artefacts and resources that are employed’ (Richards, 2008, p. 165). Given this, it is possible that teacher-learners have pre-existing knowledge and understandings about what teaching and learning is and the roles of the teacher and learners. It is possible that these pre-existing assumptions and understandings conflict with the input from a teacher education course, which sometimes is reviewed as a negative experience. Thus, when student teachers receive and appropriate input during the course, the conflict they encounter might also become a possible ‘growth point’ within their ZPD. With appropriate support and scaffolding, they can better utilise the perceived negative experience. The sociocultural perspective of teacher learning emphasises the role of context which shapes teachers’ knowledge and skills development, and how learning happens. As Richards (2008) puts it: [T]he course room is a setting for patterns of social participation that can either enhance or inhibit learning. In the other, learning occurs through the practice and experience of teaching … In the course room, learning is contingent upon the discourse and activities that coursework and class participation involve. In the school, learning takes place through classroom experiences and teaching practice and is contingent upon relationships

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with mentors, fellow novice teachers and interaction with experienced teachers in the school. (p. 165)

From a Vygotskyan sociocultural perspective, it is possible that the student teachers, who can be defined as novices, are at a point in their development where they need an excessive amount of guidance and support from the expert (e.g.,  tutors) in the development of subject and pedagogical knowledge. Following this perspective, it is essential however to note that the role of expert should not be limited to the teacher-­ educator, but can also be applied to peers who have different bodies of knowledge and skills. In other words, the process of learning to teach is a process of constructing the meaning of teaching and professional growth in planning a lesson, designing an activity, choosing appropriate materials, implementing the plan in the classroom, giving feedback and assessing students. Teachers are continually defining and redefining themselves and evaluating the role they play in this process consciously or unconsciously (Li, 2017a).

Teacher Profiles To discuss the potential impact of a teacher education programme on the development of pre-service teachers, two Chinese student teachers who studied on an MA TESOL programme in the UK are featured in this chapter. As argued in Chap. 3, it is essential to learn about the participants, and therefore, in this section, I will briefly outline the backgrounds of these student teachers. Liang is a male student teacher, who had about six months’ internship in a local summer school for young learners. He obtained a BA degree in English literature and language from a specialised teacher education university. In order to achieve a satisfactory result in IELTS (International English Language Testing System), he not only attended an intensive training course on IELTS, but made himself recite the Oxford Advanced Learner’s English-Chinese Dictionary. According to Liang, it was boring but a worthwhile experience.

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Fang is a female student teacher who is on a pre-service TESOL course. Her purpose of studying in the UK is to get a ‘proper job’ after graduation. Before she joined the programme, she had four weeks’ teaching practice in a local secondary school. She studied English language for her BA and achieved IELTS 7.0.

 he Development of Pre-Service Teacher T Cognitions It is important to acknowledge at the outset that teacher learning involves many aspects of teaching and learning and some elements seem to be more evident than others. Teacher learning is considered as establishing one’s stance and identity, raising one’s awareness and understanding as opposed to acquiring knowledge. How pre-service teachers demonstrate their understanding of teaching and learning reflects their ideology of the subject, as well as instructional practices. Borg, Birello, Civera, and Zanatta (2014) summarise previous research on teacher education, claiming that the teacher education programmes now have a significant impact on pre-service teachers’ beliefs when they are offered opportunities to learn experientially and to link theory and practice. This is especially true when pre-service teachers engage in reflections on their own beliefs and knowledge, so that they connect theory and practice consciously. In this sense, micro teaching, guided or informal reflections, as well as the practicum, have a significant value in assisting pre-service development. In what follows, I will discuss how two Chinese pre-service teachers grew and developed when they undertook their MA TESOL study. In this chapter, I will mainly focus on the significant themes which emerged from the data regarding teacher development and growth, which in essence addresses how their cognition developed in teacher learning. Four salient features regarding the development of pre-service teacher cognition emerged from analysis of data in the area of teacher subject and pedagogical knowledge, and conceptions of their roles. They are: 1 . Enhancement of the importance of linguistic knowledge 2. Realisation and expansion of the scope of language learning

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3 . Re-imagination and reconstruction of pedagogy 4. Shifts in understanding teachers’ roles

 nhancement of the Importance of Linguistic E Knowledge As indicated in the literature, teachers might have different ideas about the academic subject and how to approach it. For example, Li (2017a) categorised four views of language based on empirical data from teacher interviews, self-reflection and classroom teaching: namely language as a system, as discourse, ideology and social practice. However, in analysing pre-service teachers’ knowledge-base, she also notes that language as a system is somewhat overemphasised in teacher education programmes. Language as a system considers language as a set of sentences which are governed by rules and the ultimate goal of learning a language is to work out how to follow the rules to produce meaningful sentences. The language system includes all aspects of linguistic forms, such as phonology, lexis and grammar. The phonology system considers the sounds of a language, including phonological and phonemic systems and how these systems relate to words, stress, intonation and pronunciation. Knowledge about lexis considers semantics (meaning) and etymologies (the origins of words). The syntactic system deals with the rules and structure of grammar. Johnson (2009a) claims that the knowledge-base of L2 teacher education has drawn heavily from the disciplinary knowledge of linguistics and SLA to define what L2 teachers need to know about language and second language learning. Student teachers already have very strong views about the importance of linguistic knowledge in acquiring a second language, and this view is further strengthened or enhanced during the teacher training experience. In the dataset, we can see the beliefs about the importance of linguistic knowledge are consolidated during the teacher education programme. In order to illustrate how a particular belief is reinforced during the teacher education programme, I will focus on one particular student teacher, Liang, as follows.

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Extract 7.1 is an interview extract between Liang and the researcher about learning and teaching English as a foreign language. This extract follows a previous one when Liang clearly expressed his viewpoint on the importance of vocabulary. In line 1, we can see the researcher restates Liang’s point, but the rising tone suggests that confirmation is sought from Liang, who immediately takes the turn to confirm. After a brief pause, he clarifies his point by claiming that both vocabulary and grammar are important (line 2). The back-channel acknowledgement token (line 3) overlaps Liang’s utterance, but it is not treated as interruption, as can be seen from the following lines (4–8) when Liang elaborates on his view of the importance of grammar and vocabulary for language learning—the sufficient input of vocabulary and grammar is the base of language. Here, we can see Liang not only believes the core role of vocabulary and grammar but also sees the role of input in language learning. This leads to the researcher probing Liang’s own learning experience with a focus on grammar and vocabulary (lines 9–10). The smiley voice here is treated as an interactional Extract 7.1

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resource which helps both parties to engage in the conversation in a relaxed atmosphere rather than a Q-and-A session. In lines 11–12, Liang makes the claim that memorisation is a meaningful technique in the learning process. Again, the  embedded correction in line 13 from the researcher is not an intended interruption. On the contrary, the reformulation serves as a confirmation check. In line 14, Liang provides a positive response to the confirmation check, and elaborates what he means by ‘memorise and repeat’. For Liang, following the instructions from the teacher and memorising is effective, and perhaps the only effective way, as he claims ‘no trick’ can be done (line 15). The next part displays how one’s learning experience influences beliefs. After a brief acknowledgement, the researcher uses a confirmation check that Liang had indeed utilised the strategy he had already mentioned (line 16). After a longish pause, he gives an evaluative and positive response, suggesting that the strategy is an effective one, as he had achieved a high score in the IELTS test. Here, we see how the student makes a direct link between achieving a good result in English and memorisation. This is a useful and effective strategy in learning English, as the investment he had made (recitation) led to a gain (a good IELTS score). His own learning experience and positive evaluation provide strong evidence for the belief that memorisation is key and the centrality of vocabulary in the process. However, the researcher displays surprise at Liang’s anecdote of reciting the whole dictionary as an effective strategy (line 19) and hence the follow-on confirmation check. Liang recognises the surprise and tries to establish some common ground by describing the colour of the dictionary (line 20), which can also be viewed as an interactional strategy which contributes to achieving a shared understanding (line 21). In this extract, Liang positions himself as a successful example of this type of learner. For example, he enriched his vocabulary by memorising some of the Oxford Advanced Learners’ English-Chinese Dictionary, linked to success in the IELTS exam. What we can see for Liang is that linguistic knowledge is very important, and what he perceives English to be seems to be affected by his learning experience when ‘knowledge’ was overemphasised. Based on his lived learning experience, the premise is, teach the structure, and all else will fall into place. In this sense, ­sociocultural contexts shape the development of ideas and understand-

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ing, which are further implemented in practice and thus become shared knowledge. Such a belief is reinforced during the programme. In Extract 7.2, Liang is working with students on a grammar exercise. This extract is taken from a micro-teaching session and it is clear that Liang focuses on the role of grammar. In this extract, he reads a passage and prompts students to give answers. What is striking here is the fact that students are invited to say the verb forms rather than whole sentences. This again shows what Liang values: that students are able to use the correct verb forms is key to this exercise and students’ involvement and contributions are realised through giving the correct answers. In this extract, the teacher reads the paragraph and uses pauses (lines 2, 4 and 7) to offer turns to the students to respond (lines 3, 5 and 8). Interestingly, Liang takes the turn back immediately after the responses, as evidenced by the latched turn (lines 4, 6 and 9). Again, this suggests that the required answers or learner participation is limited to the correct verb forms, the most important element of this exercise. From a CA perspective, we can observe the following: 1. The exchange between Liang and his students broadly falls into the question–answer type. What he seems to be doing is eliciting the preferred answers from students (e.g., lines 3, 5 and 8). 2. Turns allocated to students are brief and controlled, as students are only allowed to offer the correct verb forms.

Extract 7.2

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Extract 7.3 is a post-lesson reflection when Liang elaborates his understanding of student participation. Clearly, in his perspective, being allocated turns to answer (even very briefly) counts as student participation and active engagement. As shown in the data, the researcher asks Liang to engage in self-­ evaluation (lines 1–2). The longish pause (line 3) can be interpreted as a space for preparing his own evaluation, delivered in lines 3–4. Then he follows up with a justification for his self-evaluation (lines 4–5). In lines 6–7, a follow-on question is asked to Liang regarding other forms of participation, which appears to put Liang on a ‘forced platform format’ (Rampton, 2006) when he has to respond. As shown in the extract, Liang provides a negative response (line 8) but with justification. Here, the researcher interprets Liang’s turn as in completion and offers another question seeking clarification on the meaning of ‘deep learning’ (line 10). Clearly, Liang’s justification of deep learning is about learning theory, which does not necessarily mean rote learning, and he presents, in my opinion, insufficient and fragmented knowledge about the concept by making a connection to gaining linguistic knowledge (lines 11–12). Extract 7.3

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In order to further tease out the meaning of ‘deep learning’, the researcher poses another first pair part, asking his opinion regarding ‘communication skills’ (line 13). The relevant second pair part ought to be some extended discussion of how communication skills can be part of deep learning. However, on this occasion, Liang classifies such skills as surface learning, contrary to deep learning (line 14). This inaccurate classification might be because of his limited understanding of the concepts. However, the focus here is not to criticise this student teacher but to see how he developed the idea. The following extended turn (lines 16–20) suggests that his prior learning experience appears to have a strong influence on how he understands effective pedagogy and what it means to learn a language. Liang’s emphasis on linguistic knowledge is evident throughout the programme. Extract 7.4 shows his reflections on the teaching practice that he had carried out in Term 2. Extract 7.4

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In this reflection, he clearly articulates the importance of linguistic knowledge through offering a positive evaluation of his teaching practice. We are able to unpack how he conveys his messages in his interactional work with the tutor. At the beginning of this exchange, he offers a positive evaluation of his teaching practice (lines 1–3). The back-channel acknowledgement token offered by the tutor is interpreted as encouragement for further elaboration here (line 4). The request for more information is also supported by a longish pause after the tutor’s acknowledgement (line 5). Indeed, this is a relevant transition place where the tutor gives Liang’s next turn. Liang then takes the turn to offer a justification for his evaluation (lines 6–9). This evaluation is further  supported by his elaboration of ‘well’, referring to language knowledge as the most critical part of language learning (line 8), and positive experience from students (line 9). At this point, the tutor asks another question, trying to elicit more information on his evaluation (line 10). Liang not only gives a positive response to the tutor’s question but also emphasises the usefulness of the teaching practice, this time elaborating the significance of the linguistic knowledge (including grammar and lexis) and how the teaching practice offered him an opportunity to explore ways to teach it effectively (lines 11–17). It is interesting that in line 18, the tutor wishes to seek clarification but is interrupted by Liang, who interprets the completion of the tutor’s turn and answers the question in line 19. His extended turn (lines 19–25) further provides evidence that he believes in the importance of linguistic knowledge. This time, he asks a counter-question with examples, in order to strengthen his argument (lines 21–25). Clearly, from this extract, we can see that from Liang’s perspective, learning a language means mastery of linguistic knowledge and this view had resided in him before he joined the programme, which was further consolidated by the programme—more specifically, the course input and the teaching practice. In a sense, we can claim that the sociocultural context (learning environment and the practicum) provides a space for him to make the abstract knowledge (ideas about the significance of the linguistic knowledge) concrete and realistic—for example, ‘I managed the language knowledge well’ (lines 6 and 7) and ‘I can see how I teach these effectively’ (lines 16 and 17).

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Similar to Liang’s experience, other pre-service teachers find themselves consolidating their view of the primary role of grammar and vocabulary in language learning. However, this does not mean that pre-service teachers are reluctant to accept other new ideas regarding the scope of a language.

Realisation of the Scope of Language Learning After studying a few months with both theoretical input and practical work, student teachers often start to realise aspects of teaching and learning beyond their pre-existing beliefs, and there are often possibilities that they start to expand their knowledge and understandings. The realisation and expansion of their beliefs are closely associated with the input from the course, as when they learn new ideas, they would like to put them into practice. There are certain insights that they might gain during the programme, such as the importance of raising learners’ intercultural competence and interactional competence. They might add these new insights into their pre-existing belief system, but such realisation might not necessarily lead to certain changes. For example, some student teachers might have realised linguistic competence is not the only component of learning a language, but this realisation does not have any significant impact on their overall conception about teaching and learning. This said, such realisation is an essential stage, if any changes are to take place at a later stage. As Mattheoudakis (2007) pointed out, ‘changes in human beliefs require time’ (p. 1283). In the extracts analysed in this section, we can see instances where the pre-service teachers, who had some prior knowledge about what teaching and learning English means, start to realise that the scope of the subject is more sophisticated than they had envisaged. In Extract 7.5, the trainee Liang starts to bring more elements to a language-focused lesson in his lesson-planning session with the tutor and his peers. As illustrated in this extract, he reveals his awareness by discussing his plans for a warm­up activity. In this extract, the tutor asks Liang to explain his warm-up activity, which the latter proposes as a ‘Valentine activity’; he realises cultural

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Extract 7.5

issues could form a part of language learning and thus tentatively proposes the idea of teaching a list of words associated with ‘love’. This idea becomes apparent when he starts to elaborate on his plan (lines 6–9). As we can infer from his articulation, he plans to teach culture or festivals, so that students might be able to use the target words (lines 8–9). Although he still focuses on vocabulary acquisition, he realises that culture is interesting and should be part of language learning (lines 11–12). However, he is uncertain about the idea as his lack of confidence comes across in his tone, as noticeably shown in the smiley voice when he mentions ‘culture’ in line 7. The lack of certainty is also displayed in line 10 when he hedges his plan, and in line 13 while seeking confirmation from the tutor. Even when the latter offers positive feedback with confirmation (line 14), he still shows a lack of confidence in the idea of including culture in this instance, as shown in the interactional work he does with the tutor (line 15). This seems to be oriented by the other trainees, as can be seen in the laughter in line 16. The exchange finishes by a further confirmation from the tutor (line 17). Another example of realisation occurs in Extract 7.6, in which the student teacher Fang displays her understanding of language learning when she is interviewed.

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Extract 7.6

In this interview, Fang is asked to reflect on the course and her reflections to some extent represent a change in her subject knowledge. More specifically, her subject knowledge dimensions expand from grammar, lexis and phonology towards discourse. In her reflection, Fang claims the course has been ‘good but difficult’ (line 2). When she is probed as to why, she mentions the struggle with the discourse (line 5). According to Fang, this is something new, and from her learning experience, language is broken down into grammar, lexis and phonology. At this point, the researcher presents her understanding of Fang’s articulation and makes a link between Fang’s evaluation of ‘difficult’ and a ‘new’ area in the subject (line 8). This is then confirmed by Fang, who then after a brief pause offers a further opinion regarding discourse: ‘it is important’. The 0.3 second pause in line 10 is an indicator of turn completion for Fang. However, this is not recognised by the researcher. In this case, Fang gives a further explanation for the importance of ‘discourse’ (lines 11–14). Further, she reveals her preference of the discourse type and understanding of the function of discourse (lines 16–18). It is interesting to note that Fang refers to the course handout to talk about her understanding of language (line 12). Again, the choice of the phrase to describe language as a ‘unified one’ comes from the course input (e.g.,

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handout). It seems her realisation of the dimensions of language is mainly due to the input she has received from the course. The literature suggests that when a pre-service teacher engages in professional learning activities, they may develop a more sophisticated understanding of subject knowledge, as well as pedagogical knowledge. Such realisation might be primarily due to course input. However, when students have real-life teaching practice, the practicum might exert a strong influence on their understanding of teaching and learning. The following extract illustrates Liang’s realisations after teaching practice. In Extract 7.7, Liang is discussing his teaching practice with the researcher. In this exchange, the researcher is trying to elicit Liang’s view about the teaching practice by asking him to comment on anything he would like to share (lines 1–2). Such an open question very often leads to interesting insights, as the interviewee has the freedom to pick the topic they feel comfortable with. In fact, on this occasion, after a 2.0-second pause (line 3), Liang discusses his observation on the local teachers, that they not only provide a model that a trainee teacher can learn from, but also constitute a community of practice that a trainee teacher can gain recognition from and fit in with. In lines 4–6, Liang makes an observation on local teachers regarding their views on grammar and vocabulary. Here, rather than viewing the local teachers as a model to learn from, Extract 7.7

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Liang considers them as a community in which he would like to practise himself. The further insights into how a local teacher performs teaching vocabulary and grammar in lines 7–8 are his learning points. That is, teaching linguistic knowledge with communicative practice is what Liang has learnt from teaching practice. Liang appears to be making his personal views about a principled pedagogical consideration (lines 11–16), and demonstrates his pedagogical knowledge by ‘doing’ different interactional work, for example: • by referring to himself as a member of the imagined community: teachers (line 11), • by focusing on the affective side of learning (lines 12–14), • by introducing the role of the learners (line 14), and • by theorising the practice (line 16). One thing that is worth noting in this exchange is that Liang is offered a space to articulate what he thinks about pedagogy, as evidenced by the back-channel acknowledgement from the researcher (lines 10, 15). The feedback is what he expects—a positive confirmation (line 17). It is clear from this extract that Liang’s pedagogical thinking has been affected by his observation of local teachers’ practice. In both cases, the ZFM offers student teachers space and a context where they engage in professional learning and practice. In the ZPA, pre-­ service teachers engage with teacher educators, local teachers and their peers to rethink their knowledge and conceptions.

Re-imagination and Reconstruction of Pedagogy Pedagogy is about how teachers teach and what they focus in instruction. As Li (2017a) claims, ‘it is very personal and contextualised and closely related to the teacher’s learning and teaching experience’ (p.  109). For pre-service teachers, to re-imagine or reconstruct their pedagogical knowledge is part of their cognition development. When student teachers gain new insights into teaching and learning, or realise new pedagogical ideas, they explore ways to re-imagine or reconstruct their pedagogy,

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although every teacher has particular reasons to make the change. Obvious changes are observed in both Liang and Fang’s teaching. The following illustrative extracts will show how they have reconstructed their pedagogical beliefs. The next extract is taken from Fang’s writing class. In Extract 7.8, Fang is eliciting information from students. Several changes can be observed in this session about her practice. First, instead of giving out explanations and structures using linguistic terms as she had done at the beginning of the term (see Extract 7.10), Fang now presents a context (once upon a time) to elicit ideas. Establishing a context seems rather important here to a writing session. Secondly, she tries to develop a dialogue with students (line 6). The open question generates some interesting student responses (lines 8–9). After receiving the expected information, Fang repeats their contributions and at the same time offers positive evaluation (lines 10–11). She then poses another question, this time requesting personal opinions (lines 11–12). As the Extract 7.8

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questions asked so far are genuinely interesting, we can see positive student involvement (lines 13, 15–16). Fang then seeks clarification on one of the student contributions (line 19), to which the student offers an immediate response (line 20). The response is satisfactory, as suggested by a comprehension token (lines 21–22). Then Fang offers her own opinion (lines 23–25), also as a relevant second pair part to the question she had asked in line 11–12. Moving forward, Fang raises another question (lines 24–25). From a CA perspective, we can make the following observation about Fang’s pedagogical thinking: 1. She involves students by giving them turns to participate in the discussion and proposing ideas. We can see all the four students involved self-selected at an appropriate point to offer a relevant second pair part (lines 8, 9, 13 and 15–16, 18). Although only a few students are offering contributions in this exchange, we can see all are engaged in the dialogue (lines 22 and 26). 2. We can also infer that Fang values different voices and clearly demonstrates her awareness of respecting students’ ideas and involvement. She does so by using various interactional strategies, such as asking open questions to elicit information (lines 6, 11–12 and 24–25), offering positive feedback (lines 10–11 and 14), seeking for clarification (line 19), demonstrating understanding (line 21), and offering her personal view to participate in the activity (lines 23–24). 3. There is no repair work, suggesting that her focus is placed on generating interesting student contributions. However, when Fang offers feedback, she uses different strategies to ensure that the contributions from students are relevant to everyone in the class. For example, in line 10, there is teacher repetition, used in many classrooms as a positive feedback strategy (Li, 2017a). Here, Fang also uses teacher repetition to make the contribution relevant to the whole class. In line 19, she seeks clarification to a student’s contribution. Judging from students’ reactions in line 22, we can infer that it was unclear to most of them. Here, a clarification request is used to appropriate the knowledge offered by an individual student so that all students may benefit from it. Similar changes are observed in Liang’s understanding and classroom practice. He re-imagines the pedagogy as a way of achieving his pedagogical aims. Consider Extract 7.9 from Liang’s classroom.

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It is evidenced in Extract 7.9 that Liang is trying to include more student participation, as exemplified in group work activities. However, he still places emphasis on consolidating the linguistic forms while using communicative tasks. In this extract, he uses an open question to elicit a response from the class (lines 1–2). Student 1 self-selects to provide a relevant second pair part (line 3), to which Liang offers positive feedback (line 4). At the same time, Liang engages an eye gaze with Lucy and nominates her to provide a response (line 5). Lucy takes the cue and provides another relevant but dispreferred response (line 6). The word romance is related to Valentine’s Day, but Liang rejects the answer as it is not closely related to the next question he has designed: the definition of love. In lines 8–9, the class is invited to define love; the teacher nominates Luke, to take the turn. After a longish pause in line 10, Luke offers a plausible definition (line 11), to which Liang offers positive feedback using teacher repetition (line 13). Then he follows up with another question, this time requesting that the class confirms the part of speech of the word ‘love’ (line 14). A relevant second pair part could be ‘yes’ or ‘no’. Students interpret this request as confusing, hence a long pause (line 15) and no one takes the turn. At this point, Liang asks another question (line 16), to which one student offers her contribution, overlapping with Liang’s last word. Examining the teacher’s next extended turn (lines 18–23), we can see that he answers the original question posed in line 14. After another long pause in line 24, Liang moves on to the next activity by offering his opinion (line 25) and an explicit signposting instruction (line 26). He explains the activity and asks one of the students to read the instructions (lines 37–39). Jess reads the instruction (lines 40–44), and Liang checks the students’ comprehension (line 45). Then students demonstrate a clear understanding and engage in the discussion activity (lines 46–47). From a CA perspective, we can see the teacher Liang has started to re-­ imagine the way he teaches. These can be inferred from the following points: 1. Unlike previous teaching (see Extract 7.2), he now involves students in different ways, even though sometimes the turns are brief.

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For example, they can make contributions in lines 3, 6 and 11 to the topic, demonstrate comprehension (lines 20 and 46), read the instructions (lines 40–44) and engage in group discussion (line 47). Clearly, student participation is now one of his pedagogical considerations. 2. Regarding turn management, we see students sometimes self-select to contribute (line 3), meaning that the teacher is no longer the only person who controls ‘the right to speak’. We also see he nominates students to take turns to make contributions, although not all contributions are regarded as relevant nor preferred (lines 5, 9 and 37–39). From these extracts, it is clear that teacher education programmes (as we might expect) have some influence on teachers’ pedagogical conceptions and actions. Student teachers may re-imagine and reconstruct how they teach in terms of pedagogical approaches, activity design, student participation and their roles. Although the moments we have observed in their practice cannot be defined as definite changes, student teachers do display the flexibility and possibilities that they possess regarding how teaching and learning is to be done. Of course, by saying that new insights and understandings are developed during teacher learning, we see the language teacher education programmes as a site for new teachers to develop their expertise through experience (Li, 2017a).

Shifts in Understanding Teachers’ Roles In professional contexts, teachers are constantly defining and redefining themselves, and evaluating the role they play. For pre-service teachers, as Li (2017a) points out, ‘the process of learning to teach is a process of constructing the meaning of teaching and professional growth in planning a lesson, designing an activity, choosing appropriate materials, implementing the plan in the classroom, giving feedback and assessing students’ (p. 97). Thus for these teachers, teaching to learn is essentially a process of becoming. As we already can see from the earlier extracts, pre-­ service teachers hold strong beliefs about who they are and what they do in teaching and learning activities. Such conscious or unconscious beliefs, in turn, affect how they interact with students and make pedagogical

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decisions. Li (2017a) suggests that teachers should take different roles in the classroom, such as organiser, participant, resource controller and assessor. However, she finds that pre-service teachers very much restrict themselves to the role of knowledge provider. Here, in this dataset, we will see how pre-service teachers engage in ongoing shifts concerning the understanding of roles. The following illustrative extracts show how the shifts are developing during the programme. Extract 7.10 is taken from Fang’s micro-teaching session when she taught the ‘past tense’ at the beginning of the programme. Fang uses a PowerPoint presentation with definition and rules, and different types of exercises. In her view, learning rules and knowledge about the language seems especially relevant. In this extract, we can see Fang performs the expert role and student contribution is minimal. Over this observation, she attaches great importance to memorising rules in language learning and rote learning, and sees herself as the knowledge provider. This is shown in her extended turn Extract 7.10

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in explaining the rules of regular verbs (lines 1–11). After a micro pause, students are instructed to do an activity (lines 13–15), and in lines 16–23, they engage in a drilling activity, when Fang provides the regular verb and the student gives its past tense. We can see how the role of knowledge provider comes out very strongly in the way she explains the rule and sets up the activity. In this exercise, she also considers herself an assessor, who provides evaluation (lines 18 and 23), and an instructor who has the power to control the direction of the dialogue and who speaks (line 20). This individually enacted identity of being a knowledge provider, however, is socially-constructed since the student teachers were likely taught this way when they learnt English, and linguistic knowledge has been considered the most important element of a language in their context (for example, see Extract 7.1). Nevertheless, this understanding of a teacher role is not stable or fixed, as pre-service teachers are engaged in ongoing role shifts and negotiation during their study. At a later stage, Fang shifted her understanding about roles from one extreme to another, namely, from a very teacher-dominant position to a more learner-centred one. In

Extract 7.11

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Extract 7.11, Fang asks students to perform a collaborative writing task, after watching a video. From this extract, we can see Fang incorporated group work into her teaching (line 2). Although her justification for the pair work is due to practicality (lines 5–6), she appears to see the value of this in the activity. In lines 6–10, she outlines the activity, requesting that they work collaboratively and rewrite the end of the story of their choice. Then after a micro pause, she checks student comprehension (line 11), and then after a short pause, gives further explanation (lines 12–16). Again, she checks student comprehension but this time referring to an individual student (line 17). When students present confirmation (line 18), Fang instructs the students regarding the time she wants them to spend on the task (lines 19–20). Here, she seems to be adopting a new role: activity organiser. This role transition is undoubtedly due to the influence of the present learning experience. When pre-service teachers receive input about different teaching methodologies and engage in critical thinking about the appropriate use of a particular pedagogy, they mainly focus on evaluating the role of themselves and the material they select, as well as the activities they design. However, roles shift according to tasks and teaching aims, but more importantly according to their experience. We already know negative teaching experience can significantly influence pre-service teachers’ knowledge conception and regarding teacher roles, negative experience or difficulties in classroom practice will make them revert to the most comfortable role they believe in: knowledge provider. The following reflection from Fang illustrates such a move. In Extract 7.12, we can see how Fang explains how she now believes more in a learner-centred pedagogy and has more expertise in selecting appropriate materials and tasks (lines 1–3). The positive reflection displays her confidence in becoming a teacher. She laughs here, an indicator of genuine satisfaction. This is, however, followed by a twist ‘BUT’. In the next line, she displays her preference: ‘I still think [control is good’. Perhaps because of the twist, the researcher seeks an explanation (line 5). Here, the overlap between Fang and the researcher suggests that her turn was projected as completion. Then after a short pause (line 6) and a hesitation (line 7), Fang offers an account of her own learning

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Extract 7.12

experience (lines 8–11) and compares it with her current learning experience (lines 12–15). This comparison leads to a justification for her earlier comment on her preferred pedagogical approach (line 1). Then she reveals her stance, claiming that the student-centred approach does not always work in practice (line 15). In line 16, the researcher shows surprise, but also raises a question, seeking an explanation, which Fang offers (lines 17–25). Clearly, in this case, the negative teaching experience has resulted in her reversion to the teacher-centred approach in practice, even though she still may believe in the learner-centred pedagogy. From the analysis, we can see pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teacher role can be influenced by the course they take, but more so by real-life practice. If student teachers do not see how a particular approach works in the context, they may very well revert to the more comfortable approach. For Fang, the most comfortable is that the teacher should take control, as the difficulties arising in classroom management made her

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nervous and caused her to doubt the newly established ideas of co-­ construction of meanings between students and the teacher, leading to her re-establishing her authority. What is also worth noting is that the analysis suggests that although Fang’s practice reverted, the reasons for that practice have changed. Given a different context, there is potentially massive scope for change.

Summary This chapter focuses on how pre-service teachers develop cognition during a teacher education programme. In a nutshell, we can say that cognition development for novice teachers is necessarily a process of knowledge development and understanding of their roles. What is discussed here does not support results from previous studies that pre-service teachers’ beliefs are deeply entrenched and remained unchanged during pre-service programmes (M. Borg, 2005; Nettle, 1998). On the contrary, the student teachers’ beliefs are not stable and were changed, shaped and developed at different stages of this teacher education programme. As data suggest, pre-service teachers have engaged with various types of development in their knowledge and conceptions. Consolidation, realisation, re-imagination or reconstruction, and the shifts they have experienced are mainly due to the experiences they have gained during the teacher education programme. In examining the changing beliefs of these trainee teachers, it is apparent that some of their beliefs are more stable and less influenced by context or external forces than others. These are beliefs about language and language learning, which were developed mainly through their early learning experiences and inherited from their previous teachers. There are also beliefs which are influenced by the teacher education course and shaped by context (both local and global), including beliefs about teaching, and beliefs about the relationship between teacher and learner. In challenging evidence that teacher education has little impact on teachers’ beliefs, this chapter illustrates that teacher education (including course structure, tutors and teaching practicum) can have a powerful influence on pre-service teacher development.

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However, the main question addressed in this chapter is how, if at all, the teacher education programmes influence the development of pre-­service teachers’ beliefs. The data presented here illustrates the learning-­to-­teach journey of Chinese teachers who experienced rote learning in their home country in a Western-based teacher education programme. The two different learning philosophies, namely the Chinese and Western way of learning and conceptions of learning, might contribute significantly to how these two teachers learn to become teachers in two ways. First, it seems that the students experienced changes (which might be clashes) between cultural values and educational systems. Second, these changes or new understandings facilitate their thinking as both language learners and teachers. The negotiation between their pre-existing values, understandings, beliefs and theories and the expected learning outcomes from teacher education programmes suggest that these pre-service teachers might undergo identity shifts when developing their beliefs about teaching and learning. These identity shifts and belief developments include confirmation/consolidation of pre-existing beliefs, realisation beyond pre-existing beliefs, re-imagination/reconstruction of pre-­existing beliefs, and shifts between beliefs.

Consolidation of Pre-Existing Beliefs The student teachers discussed here continually confirm and consolidate their pre-existing beliefs during the course. For example, they support the notion of the primacy of vocabulary and grammar, which was primarily derived from their previous learning experiences, influenced by their English teachers, textbooks and test systems. These beliefs were further confirmed through the teacher education course, and similar phenomena have been widely noted in the literature (e.g., Mattheoudakis, 2007; Peacock, 2001). Student teachers use a pre-existing belief system as a ­filter to make a judgement about the teacher education programme, and the confirmation of pre-existing beliefs acts as confirmation of them as ‘knowers’ of teaching and learning.

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Realisation Beyond the Existing Beliefs The two teachers to some extent developed their awareness of teaching approaches, the complexity of (linguistic, communicative, intercultural) competencies, and the importance of learners’ contribution to learning. Although realisation does not necessarily lead to definite changes, such realisation is an essential stage for any changes to take place at a later stage. The student teachers’ beliefs about language were expanded due to the course structure. Accepting new ideas into their pre-existing belief system is not just a process of knowledge acquisition, but an attitude towards being open and an opportunity to evaluate the pre-existing beliefs.

Re-imagination/Reconstruction of Pre-Existing Beliefs The student teachers’ beliefs about language teaching, particularly teaching methods, changed dramatically, as evidenced in their moment-by-­ moment interactions. Such a change may be because of the structure and content of the course, the ‘role model effect’ from course tutors, or the teaching practicum. The literature indicates that the cumulative effect of studying language and learning theories may not necessarily translate into effective teaching practices (Freeman & Johnson, 2004, 2005; Johnson, 2003). As evidenced in this chapter, student teachers highly value the courses, which were believed to have guided and informed their teaching methodology, particularly from a perspective of learning theories, to explain the strengths and weakness of competing methodology. In this learning process, the teachers constantly drew upon their experiences as learners to reflect and evaluate what they needed to learn to become a teacher effectively. This finding partly answers calls for more research in what pre-service teachers need to learn to become a teacher (Tarone & Allwright, 2005). Likewise, it is clear from the classroom interaction and reflections that micro teaching and teaching practice made a significant contribution towards shaping student teachers’ beliefs about methods. Research has suggested that the teaching practice is often undervalued in MA courses, but it is the only opportunity for student teachers to reflect upon their

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teaching in a learning community, and to try to make connections between theoretical coursework and practice. Critical reflection employed in the programme provides students with opportunities to evaluate their thinking processes before and after teaching to facilitate the teacher-­ learning process. This mirrors Richards’s (2008) claim that learning is ‘constructing knowledge and theory through participating in specific social contexts and engaging in particular types of activities and processes’ (p. 164).

Shifts between Different Understandings Contexts including social, educational and cultural values, school culture, the classroom as an organisation and learners as participants, have an important impact on beliefs development. The impact of these contexts are played out through learning and teaching. Both student teachers adjusted the boundary between the teacher and learners in alignment with sociocultural contexts to carry out the teaching tasks, suggesting that social values, relationships with students and the school culture made them reposition themselves. As a concluding remark, ZFM and ZAP present themselves as significant influential factors in shaping pre-service teachers’ beliefs. In this case, the context of the teaching practice and the course input are the main elements of ZFM, and local teachers, peers and tutors are identified as the critical aspects of ZAP. In order to facilitate effective teacher learning, both zones need to be considered.

References Akcan, S., & Tatar, S. (2010). An investigation of the nature of feedback given to student English teachers during their practice teaching experience. Teacher Development, 14(2), 153–172. Barduhn, S., & Johnson, J. (2009). Certification and professional qualifications. In A. Burns & J. C. Richards (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to second language teacher education (pp. 59–65). New York: Cambridge University Press.

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Borg, M. (2005). A case study of the development in pedagogic thinking of a pre-service teacher. TESL-EJ, 9, 1–30. Borg, S., Birello, M., Civera, I., & Zanatta, T. (2014). The impact of teacher education on pre-service primary English language teachers. London: British Council. Cabaroglu, N., & Roberts, J. (2000). Development in student teachers’ pre-­ existing beliefs during a 1-year PGCE programme. System, 28(3), 387–402. Cohen, D. K. (1988). Teaching practice: Plus ÇA change. Issues paper 88-3: 1–76. da Silva, M. (2005). Constructing the teaching process from inside out: How pre-service teachers make sense of their perceptions of the teaching of the four skills. TESL-EJ, 9(2), 1–19. Farrell, T. S. C. (2001). English language teacher socialisation during the practicum. Prospect, 16(1), 49–62. Firth, A., & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. Modern Language Journal, 81, 285–300. Freeman, D. (2002). The hidden side of the work: Teacher knowledge and learning to teach. Language Teaching, 35, 1–13. Freeman, D., & Johnson, K. (1998). Reconceptualizing the knowledge-base of language teacher education. TESOL Quarterly, 32, 397–417. Freeman, D., & Johnson, K.  E. (2004). Common misconceptions about the “quiet revolution”: A response to Yates and Muchisky. TESOL Quarterly, 38, 119–127. Freeman, D., & Johnson, K. E. (2005). Response to “language teacher learning and student language learning: Shaping the knowledge base”. In D. J. Tedick (Ed.), Language teacher education: International perspectives on research and practice (pp. 25–32). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum. Johnson, K. E. (1994). The emerging beliefs and instructional practices of preservice English as a second language teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education, 10(4), 439–452. Johnson, K. E. (1996). The vision versus the reality: The tensions of the TESOL practicum. In D. Freeman & J. C. Richards (Eds.), Teacher learning in language teaching (pp. 30–49). Johnson, K.  E. (2003). Response to “second language teacher education”. TESOL Matters, 12(2), 3–4. Johnson, K. E. (2009a). Second language teacher education: A sociocultural perspective. New York and London: Routledge. Kagan, D.  M. (1992). Professional growth among preservice and beginning teachers. Review of Educational Research, 62, 129–169.

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Kern, R.  G. (1995). Student’s and teachers beliefs about language learning. Foreign Language Annals, 28(1), 71–92. Laker, A., Laker, J., & Lea, S. (2008). Sources of support for pre-service teachers during school experience. Mentoring & Tutoring: Partnership in Learning, 16(2), 135–140. Lave, J., & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning. Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Li, L. (2017a). Social interaction and teacher cognition. Edinburgh University Press. Lortie, D. (1975). Schoolteacher: A sociological study. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press. Mattheoudakis, M. (2007). Tracking changes in pre-service EFL teacher beliefs in Greece: A longitudinal study. Teaching and Teacher Education, 23(8), 1272–1288. Miller, J. (2004). Social languages and schooling: The uptake of sociocultural perspectives in school. In M. Hawkins (Ed.), Language learning and teacher education (pp. 113–146). Clevedon: Multilingual Matters. Nettle, E. B. (1998). Stability and change in the beliefs of student teachers during practice teaching. Teaching and Teacher Education, 14(2), 193–204. Norton, B. (1997). Language, identity, and the ownership of English. TESOL Quarterly, 31(3), 409–429. Nunan, D. (1995). ATLAS: Learning-centered communication. Boston, MA: Heinle & Heinle. Peacock, M. (1999). Beliefs about language learning and their relationship to proficiency. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 9(2), 247–263. Peacock, M. (2001). Pre-service ESL teachers’ beliefs about second language learning: A longitudinal study. System, 29, 177–195. Rampton, B. (2006). Language in late modernity: Interaction in an urban school. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Richards, J. C. (2008). Second language teacher education today. RELC Journal, 39, 158–177. Richards, J. C., Ho, B., & Giblin, K. (1996). Learning how to teach in the RSA cert. In D.  Freeman & J.  C. Richards (Eds.), Teacher learning in language teaching (pp. 242–259). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ruohotie-Lyhty, M. (2011). Constructing practical knowledge of teaching: Eleven newly qualified language teachers’ discursive agency. The Language Learning Journal, 39(3), 365–379.

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Sendan, F., & Roberts, J. (1998). Orhan: A case study in the development of a student teachers’ personal theories. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 4, 229–244. Shields, R. (2003). The virtual. London: Routledge. Singh, G., & Richards, J.  C. (2006). Teaching and learning in the language teacher education course room: A critical sociocultural perspective. RELC Journal, 37(2), 149–175. Tarone, E., & Allwright, D. (2005). Language teacher-learning and student language learning: Shaping the knowledge base. In D. J. Tedick (Ed.), Second language teacher education: International perspectives (pp.  5–23). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Publishers. Taskin, C. S. (2006). Student teachers in the classroom: Their perceptions of teaching practice. Educational Studies, 32(4), 387–398. Warford, M. K., & Reeves, J. (2003). Falling into it: Novice TESOL teacher thinking. Teachers and Teaching, 9(1), 47–65. Yan, C., & He, C. (2010). Transforming the existing model of teaching practicum: A study of Chinese EFL student teachers’ perceptions. Journal of Education for Teaching, 36(1), 57–73.

8 Teacher Cognition and Identity

Introduction Teacher identity has become a keyword in teacher research in the twenty-­ first century (Coté, 2006). Without question, it is considered significantly connected with teacher cognition, given  the intertwined relationship between personal practical knowledge and teacher identity is well documented in the literature (Clandinin, Downey, & Huber, 2009; Sun, 2012). In fact, Miller (2009) highlights the relationship between cognition and identity, claiming that ‘thinking, knowing, believing, and doing are enacted in classroom contexts in a way that cannot be separated from identity formation. What teachers know and do is part of their identity work, which is continuously performed and transformed through interaction in classroom’ (p. 175). A similar view is proposed by Gray and Morton (2018), who argue that ‘researching and theorising language teacher thinking, cognition, beliefs and development cannot easily be undertaken without due consideration of language teacher identity’ (p. 3). This type of work emerged from teachers’ conceptions and views about themselves but has extended beyond their perceptions and views about their roles and functions. Researchers call for more research in © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_8

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teacher identity in order to fully understand teacher cognition (e.g., Gray & Morton, 2018; Li,  2017a). Situated in this context, the chapter is devoted to this topic to discuss the complexity of language teacher identity through analysis of classroom interaction, interviews, post-lesson reflections and team lesson-planning sessions.

Defining Teacher Identity In general, as proposed by Norton (2013, p. 45), identity is ‘how a person understands his or her relationship to the world, how that relationship is structured across time and space, and how the person understands possibilities for the future’. It is worth noting that related terms such as ‘subjectivity’, ‘self ’ and ‘self-consciousness’ were already well-established in a range of disciplines such as sociology, psychology and philosophy (Block, 2007). In terms of researching language teacher identity, Barkhuizen (2016b) emphasised the multiple and fluid nature of the concept by defining language teachers as those who are ‘in social interaction with teacher educators, learners, other teachers, administrators, and the broader community, and material interaction with spaces, places, and objects in classrooms and institutions’ (p. 659). Block (2015) specifically points out language teacher identity, suggesting that ‘such an identity may be defined in terms of how individuals, who both self-position and are positioned by others as teachers, affiliate to different aspects of teaching in their lives’ (p. 13). In this point of view, language teachers’ identity is closely related to fellow teachers and students, as well as to those with whom they engage in their professional contexts. In the past decade, there has been a growing interest in researching language teacher identity (e.g., Barkhuizen, 2010; Block, 2015; Clarke, 2008; De Costa & Norton, 2017; Duff & Uchida, 1997; Kamhi-Stein, 2013; Kanno & Stuart, 2011; Mayer, 1999; Nagatomo, 2012; Richards, 2006; Varghese, Morgan, Johnson, & Johnson, 2005; Varghese, Motha, Park, Reeves, & Trent, 2016) and second language teacher identity (Block, 2005, 2007; Bucholtz & Hall, 2005; Norton, 2000, 2013; Pavlenko, 2003). The concept of identity can be and has been researched within a different theoretical framework. From a poststructuralist perspective, it is a fluid

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process of ongoing struggle between different subject positions the person takes in a variety of social sites, which are structured by rules, values and power (Norton, 1995, 2000). The ongoing struggle in producing subjectivity in various social sites highlights the profound influence of the other (and contexts) on self-representation and the nature of identity as diverse, contradictory, dynamic and multiple. Identities are also seen as changeable over time and space in this sense: characteristics such as values and priorities, responsibilities and investment are strongly associated with the context and situations the person is in. To some extent, the poststructuralist view shares similarities with the sociocultural perspective. According to SCT, the self is a social construct, which means one negotiates one’s positioning and sense of identity within macro and micro environments. This negotiation happens in and through interaction among perceptions, participation and actions. This process is ongoing in one’s environment through the broader political, social, educational and cultural lenses (van Lier, 2004). Identity is situated and multiple in nature; researchers have investigated different concepts related to identity. In what follows, I will present a few critical and relevant concepts in researching teacher identity.

Investment Drawing on a theoretical concept by Bourdieu (1977), Norton (1995, 2000) proposed the notion of ‘investment’ in place of that of motivation to encompass the sense of ongoing negotiation between the language learner and the social world. The notion of ‘investment’ shows how people can invest in the target language or not, in order to acquire a greater range of material and symbolic resources, which may enhance one’s ‘cultural capital’, and as a result one’s actual identity. For Norton and researchers in this tradition, identity is how a person understands their relationship to the world, how that identity is constructed across time and space, and how the individual understands possibilities for the future. In the language-learning context, a language user’s identity is multiple rather than unitary, and is a site of struggle and can change. Those who are valued in one site may be marginalised in another, and it is argued that each time a person interacts in the target language, they are engaged in identity con-

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struction and negotiation over that identity. The concept of investment in the target language in order to accrue cultural and symbolic capital is an enticing one. Drawing on Bourdieu, de Mejia (2002) explains: Language may be seen as a symbolic resource which can receive different values depending on the market. The possession of symbolic resources, such as a certain highly valued type of linguistic skills, cultural knowledge and specialised skills, help to gain access to valuable social, educational and material resources. These resources, which constitute symbolic capital, in turn, acquire a value of their own and become sources of power and prestige in their own right. (p. 36)

It is widely accepted that during the identity negotiation, teachers encounter struggles, which may lead to ‘renewed relationships, new forms of professional engagement, and new understandings’, or, ‘disengagement or lack of legitimisation’ (Edwards & Burns, 2016, p.  735). Struggles, therefore, are one significant part of identity construction and negotiation. In this chapter, ‘struggles’ are analysed to reflect the multidimensional aspects of teacher identity. One area associated with struggles is the strand of teachers’ linguistic identity, which is very often conceptualised and differentiated as native and non-native speaker teachers (Moussu & Llurda, 2008; Reis, 2011). Norton’s (2013) concept of investment has been highlighted in the identity literature, and Darvin and Norton (2015) claim, ‘investment indexes issues of identity and imagined futures’ for teachers because it might lead to increases in cultural capital and social power; for example, in Tsui’s (2007) study, the teacher was able to ‘claim ownership of meanings’ of CLT-related methods. However, Barkhuizen (2016a, 2016b) suggested it is more appropriate to use ‘investing’ to reflect the continuous and fluid process of making efforts.

Imagined Communities Wenger proposes three significant elements of belonging: engagement, imagination and alignment. Engagement is ‘active involvement in mutual

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processes of negotiation of meaning’, imagination is about ‘creating images of the world and seeing connections through time and space by extrapolating from our own experience’, and alignment refers to the process of ‘coordinating our energy and activities in order to fit within broader structures and contribute to broader enterprises’ (Wenger, 1998, pp.173–174). Related to the idea of ‘investment’ is the theoretical concept of imagined communities, drawn on by Wenger (1998), and Kanno and Norton (2003). These refer to groups of people not immediately tangible and accessible with whom we connect with through the power of the imagination. In contrast, other communities can be felt concretely and directly, such as neighbourhood, work and educational institutions. Wenger (1998) has argued that imagination—a process of expanding ourselves by transcending time and space and creating new images of the world and ourselves—is another source of community. Imagination plays an essential role in the formation of the self in which new images are constituted. Wenger (1998) explains: Through imagination, we can locate ourselves in the world and history and include in our identities other meanings, other possibilities, other perspectives. It is through imagination that we recognise our own experience as reflecting broader patterns, connections, and configurations. […] By taking us into the past and carrying us into the future, it can recast the present and show it as holding unsuspected possibilities. (p. 178)

Kanno and Norton (2003) examine this process in more detail hoping to show how learners’ affiliation with imagined communities might affect learning trajectories. These communities, in their words, include future relationships that exist only in the learner’s imagination as well as affiliations—such as nationhood or transnational communities— that extend beyond local sets of relationships. We suggest that these ­communities are no less real than the ones in which learners have daily engagement and might even have a stronger impact on their current actions and investment. (p. 242)

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Linguistic Identity It is widely recognised in the field that the rich linguistic background that non-native speaker teachers obtain is undervalued and unrecognised in the TESOL profession (Ellis, 2002, 2004, 2013). Linguistic identity is argued to be an essential and key part to understanding TESOL teachers for various reasons (Ellis, 2016). First, every non-native teacher has experience of learning a foreign language (very often English), and in most cases, they learnt in the same way as their students do. This suggests that teachers’ identities constitute potential pedagogical resources. Second, these teachers’ experiences of being an L2 learner, an L2 user and a late bilingual should become rich resources for both students and teachers to enhance learning and teaching (Ortega, 2014). Third, Firth and Wagner (1997) criticised the narrow view of identity in second language acquisition to claim that the categorisations of native-speaker and non-native speaker applied exogenously in researching teachers do not capture the multiple dimensions of identity which exist in any person. Finally, as acknowledged by various researchers, non-native teachers’ experience is unrecognised in many contexts, and brings teachers’ linguistic identity to the centre of teacher cognition research, highlighting its importance in understanding what teachers do in their professional context can empower these teachers to become ‘autonomous language learning designers’ for their students. On that note, Ellis (2016) suggests teachers’ languaged lives—the language-learning and language-using experience—should be a legitimate research agenda since it is still under-researched. Considering teachers’ linguistic identity, Motha, Jain, and Tecle (2012) propose using the term ‘translinguistic identity’ as a more appropriate concept to focus on the ‘considerable linguistic and pedagogical resources that translinguistic identity offers English language teachers’ (p. 15). They claim that ‘teachers who have undergone the cognitively complex process of developing proficiency in an additional language … [which] … creates new understandings and processes … and allows teachers to draw on a broader range of concepts and interpretive frames than are available to monolingual teachers’ (ibid). Linguistic identity is associated with the subject matter; therefore, it is closely related to teachers’ subject knowledge.

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Agency and Conceptual Self Strongly related to the concept of identity is the notion of ‘agency’ (Tsui, 2007), and according to Duff (2012), it concerns people’s ability to make choices and decisions. They understand when and how to take control, and regulate themselves in action to achieve their goals. Such ability enables teachers to develop some sense of identity and resist others in their professional contexts. Teachers’ agency can also be linked to activities they design and engage with in order to modify professional interactions or to act in new and creative ways (Lai, Li, & Gong, 2016). It can also mean resistance to the external norms or regulations, which conflict with professional commitments (McAlpine, Amundsen, & Turner, 2014; Toom, Pyhältö, & Rust, 2015; Vähäsantanen, 2015). The notion of the conceptual self is also relevant as it takes an ecological view to look at how one views one’s self in the environment, both socially and culturally. Drawing on Leung’s 2005 work on ‘objectification and reification of curriculum knowledge’, research has focused on the exploration of teachers’ identity positionings and pedagogical alignments (e.g., Clarke & Morgan, 2011; Miller, 2014). This line of research takes a constructivist and ecological perspective to view teachers and learners as ‘active meaning makers, contributing to the social and linguistic knowledge that is acquired and potentially transformed through classroom practices—a key dimension/capacity in fostering agency and social justice initiatives in LTI work’ (Morgan, 2016, p. 714; Clarke & Morgan, 2011; Reagan, 2004; van Lier, 2004).

Emotion In the identity shift, emotions play a significant role because when teachers interact with others, they have to manage their own and others’ emotional states—for example, those of students, parents and colleagues. In this process, some negative and positive experiences teachers may encounter will lead them to have different attitudes towards their professional work and interactions with students and colleagues. Specifically, Kubanyiova (2012) has emphasised that affective factors, such as motiva-

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tion, could influence teachers’ conceptual changes, as well as their identity. That is one of the reasons why emotion is a central issue in teacher cognition and identity, and many similar claims have been made about the multidimensional role of emotions in teacher development and their daily work (Bullough, Knowles, & Grow, 1992; Dang, 2013; Zembylas, 2003, 2005, 2007; Kubanyiova, 2012; Golombek & Doran, 2014).

Important Factors Influencing Professional Identity Formation The Social and Dialogic Nature Varghese et al. (2005) propose the importance of the social and dialogic nature of identity and the need to focus on both ‘identity-in-practice’ and ‘identity-in-discourse’. In this sense, identity is a product of social practice and is a social matter, while ‘identity-in-discourse’ emphasises that ‘identity is constructed, maintained and negotiated to a significant extent through language and discourse’ (p. 23). Teacher identity does not just come out of nothing but occurs concerning global and local discourse that shapes the meanings of the teacher as a professional and classroom practice. As Beauchamp and Thomas (2011) point out, ‘[A] teacher’s experience can  therefore be not only  one of active construction of  an identity, but also one  of an imposed identity stemming from societal or cultural conceptions of teachers’ (p. 7). The way language teachers use language in their professional contexts reflects the dialogical and representational possible self. As Olsen (2011) suggests, identity arises from language as ‘any self is defined, made, and continually remade by participation in language and language practices’ (p. 262). A representational view sees identity as represented by language use, thus when teachers conduct professional work, the language they use and how it is used in instruction could be a window into their professional identities and possible selves. That is, the interactional work that teachers engage in via their professional contexts displays their thinking, their actions and their individual and collective images of being professionals.

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The Significance of Context It is worth noting the importance of broader politics in which teachers’ work and professional identities are negotiated (Morgan, 2016). Edwards and Burns (2016) echo Tsui’s (2007) work when claiming that language teacher identity is a dynamic, multifaceted, negotiated and co-­constructed process in which identity is highly individual, but also developed within and shaped by socio-professional institutional environments. This claim not only acknowledges the ‘individual’ nature of being a teacher but also highlights the significance of the institutional contexts that shape what teachers think they are professionally. That is, teachers’ conceptions and understanding of professionalism and professional practice are situated within a broader context and what goes on in this context shapes their understanding of who they are and what they do. It is important to highlight the role of social context in which identity is formed and located, as Hall (1992) points out, ‘identity is formed in the “interaction” between self and society’ (p. 276). In this sense, identities are plural and dynamic. As Gray and Morton (2018) argue, identities emerge, are constructed or performed in social interaction, and are sensitive to context and relational. From that perspective, ‘[T]he self is seen as the product of the social conditions in and under which it has developed’ (Block, 2007). This means that individuals are usually categorised based on their ‘social class, religion, education, family, peer groups and so on’, but their identities are also ‘shaped and formed by their culture, modes of behaviour and artefacts of a particular group’ (p. 12).

The Role of the Learning Experience Varghese et al., (2016) argue that one important proposition of teacher identity is ‘that who teachers are and what they bring with them, individually and collectively, matters in what and how they teach and thus, to students, families, communities, and institutions’ (p. 548). One aspect we need to consider is the teachers’ own learning experience of a foreign language. Although teachers might not be able to remember their learning experience, as it would have been well before they had actually trained,

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there is ample evidence to suggest that prior learning experiences shape teachers’ identity. In that sense, Ellis (2016) stresses this view, claiming previous good or bad language learning experiences contribute to a teacher’s professional identity … teachers will only be able to develop teaching beliefs based on a rational consideration of the options if these hidden imprints are brought to the fore—that is, talked about, written about, and critically reflected upon. (p. 601)

 onstructing Language Teachers’ Professional C Identities When teachers conceptualise and conduct their professional work, they construct multiple identities which constantly shift across both space and time (Beijaard, Meijer, & Verloop, 2004; Miller, 2009). That is, when teachers engage in different pedagogical tasks, in different interactional situations, they position themselves differently. In what follows, I will discuss key themes of identity which emerged from data regarding both in-service and pre-service teachers. In particular, I will focus on the different aspects of professional identity that teachers develop in their professional contexts, which include developing practical (effective) knowledge, investment, emotions, imagined identities and practised identities, and language-related identity.

Developing Practical Knowledge As Britzman (1991) argues, ‘learning to teach is not a mere matter of applying decontextualised skills or of mirroring predetermined images; it is a time when one’s past, present, and future are set in dynamic tension. Learning to teach—like teaching itself—is always the process of becoming: a time of formation and transformation of scrutiny into what one is doing, and who one can become’ (p. 8). To many teachers, developing a professional identity is an ongoing process of developing a professional knowledge-base. In particular, many teachers consider their career goal is

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to be knowledgeable in the subject matter—for example, knowing the rules and having a deep knowledge of vocabulary, pedagogical knowledge, especially the skill of being able to explain the subject knowledge well. This is especially true for pre-service teachers who are in the process of becoming and being, as Britzman (2003) argues. Learning to teach is thus consequently a process of understanding of ‘who I am’ and identity development (Clarke, 2008), rather than just the learning of subject knowledge and pedagogical skills. Extract 8.1 is an illustrative extract for a student teacher developing effective pedagogy in his teaching practice. We can see here that the teacher, Liang, positions himself as someone developing and negotiating his principles of teaching through monitoring students’ work. In this extract, Liang has set up students in pair work to discuss the items he has given them. From his gestures in lines 1–2, we can see he is very sensitive to a possible problem in the unfolding discussion. As soon as he identifies the ‘trouble source’, he turns back to the students and gives feedback, which entails ‘telling’ (line 3). Here, we can see he positions himself as someone who knows the acceptable ways to do things. Even though the students are engaged in the task (lines 4–7), he interrupts with a detailed instruction (lines 8–9). It is in this detailed instruction that he displays teaching authority, as shown in the following lines when students stop discussing to follow his instruction. Here, we can see an effective pedagogical technique for this student teacher is to correct learner behaviour and provide a timely evaluation if necessary (line 3). Extract 8.1

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Extract 8.2 is another example from Liang’s micro-teaching session which displays his understanding of effective pedagogy. In this session, he was revising the ‘past tense’ with students and in the following extract, Liang is doing some interactional work with the class to revise the knowledge and set up the activities. In Extract 8.2, the teacher is helping students revise grammar from the previous lesson by telling them when to use these two different tenses. It seems that his focus here is to enforce the linguistic knowledge through practice. The idea of doing repeated exercises to enable students to master the rule seems strong. This teacher displays a strong identity of a knowledge provider who considers himself a knowledge source. This is illustrated in the two extended turns and a very brief student contribution. Indeed, students are only allowed to acknowledge the receipt of the message (line 9). The latched turns between Liang’s first extended turn and student acknowledgement suggests that he is not prepared to give out turns. In the two extended turns, he first summarises what was learnt in the previous week (lines 1–3), and then helps the students to revise the rules by providing explicit explanation (lines 4–8). The second extended turn of the teacher spans over nine lines, including making Extract 8.2

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a ‘pre-­announcement’ (Terasaki, 2005) to communicate with the students regarding his teaching plan (lines 10–12), explaining the material that they are working with (lines 13–15) and setting up the task (lines 16–18). Because pre-service teachers are always engaged in building up their subject and pedagogical knowledge, learning to teach is a journey to transform oneself from a learner to the knower or teacher. The authority presented in this teacher’s interactional work suggests that developing practical knowledge that works for an individual trainee perhaps is a key feature of the process of learning to teach.

Investment As discussed previously, investment is a crucial feature of teacher identity development, which represents the commitment and devotion that individuals give to their profession. In Extract 8.3, a teacher Han is talking about her active professional development with her colleague Kay in the video-based post-session reflection. Han’s investment underlines the importance of being knowledgeable as a teacher who engages in a self-organised professional activity. Her investment is demonstrated in her reflection on the time and money she spends on extra professional development activities (lines 1, 9, 13 and 20), and her feelings towards this (lines 6, 11 and 22). In this conversation, Han reflects on the efforts she has made in her profession since she became a teacher (lines 1–2), which resonates with her colleague Kay. Kay’s response not only shows her agreement with Han but also confirms feelings of the importance of ‘learning on the job’ (lines 1–3). In this conversation, Han also outlines her motivation for investment (lines 4–6). The immediate professional needs displayed in her claims that ‘I’ve never taught writing’ positions her as an inexperienced teacher. This is almost true for both pre-service and in-service teachers— that learning is essential to address professional needs and requirements. Clearly, Han’s expression of her needs (line 6) and her organised professional learning activity generates interest from Kay, who seeks further information. From Kay’s response later, we see she is interested because she views it as a relevant activity for her professional needs (line 21). The online writing course and conversation classes (lines 12–13) suggest that

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these address Han’s practical professional needs but also are areas that Han identifies as her weak points. As we can see, she is making more effort in improving her teaching and making a pedagogical decision since she discusses her classroom ideas with her private conversation tutor as well as improving her subject knowledge (line 17). Reflecting on her learning experience, Han shows satisfaction and positive attitudes towards the extra activities she has engaged in in her spare time, as evidenced from her evaluative comments (lines 15–16), even if the investment is enormous in terms of time and money (lines 9–10, 18 and 20). Clearly her investment is worthwhile as evidenced by her positive comments (line 22), which in fact convince Kay to take a similar course (lines 25–26). As we can see from the co-construction between these two teachers, investment is a significant issue in their professional lives, which is closely related to their professional competence and confidence. Of course, for Han, investment refers to time and money, as well as commitment.

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However, for others, investment also means, for example, doing a degree in order to gain a teaching position. Extract 8.4 from May and her classmate from their lesson-planning session with their tutor is an example of such. In Extract 8.4, May articulates the importance of doing a Master’s degree for her career. From her point of view, the investment of doing so will open doors for finding a job in an excellent secondary school. The link between studying for a degree and a job makes the investment valuable, and Jane, her classmate, comments that it sounds very competitive. In talking about her situation (lines 6–8), May elaborates on the difficulty of getting a teaching post in her city, positioning herself as a potentially vulnerable member of the imagined community. This position helps Mei to normalise the link between the Master’s degree and a teaching post. Jane shows sympathy (line 12), and displays understanding of the difficulty. In lines 13–14, Mei displays lack of confidence and vulnerability. The investment made by May and students in a similar situation, therefore, is a necessary one because it is considered a means to gain access to the imagined community. So for pre-service teachers, gaining subject and pedagogical knowledge in the process of learning to teach not only gives them an opportunity to develop expertise but is a means to become a legitimate member of the imagined community. In this process, multiple identities are developed, including knowledge, status and investment. During this process, inevitably, there are emotions involved, which is discussed in the next section. Extract 8.4

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Emotion Emotion is closely related to identity. When a teacher interacts with others, they have to manage the emotional states of those who interact with them, and their own. It is one vital aspect of identity, which shows one’s frustration, motivation, engagement and satisfaction. Emotion is embedded in all types of identities that teachers have and display, especially when teachers are faced with controversial issues or unexpected events. In what follows, I will illustrate this with Extract 8.5 and Extract 8.6. In the first extract, the teacher, Yun, is interviewed for her opinions about a school-wide initiative regarding using iPad in teaching. Cleary Yun shows her stance-taking in this short exchange: she is not satisfied with the initiative and voices her reason: they (the teachers) are not using any creative ideas. The discourse she engages in provides a channel to display complex emotion. In other words, her emotion emerges in the exchange with the researcher. In lines 1–7, Yun, first of all, shows her understanding about the bias from the management team (lines 1–2), although her body language suggests otherwise (line 3). Then she reasons what the bias is: the teachers are ‘incompetent’ (lines 4–7). Clearly, Yun positions herself as someone who has a strong opinion about the bias they have received from the management team, and she Extract 8.5

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takes that as a reason for what she claims as a solution (lines 14–15). It is this being afraid of being biased that makes Yun and her colleagues not wish to take the risk (line 16); here we can see Yun’s situated identity as a teacher frustrated and unsatisfied with this particular initiative, but equally as a teacher who demonstrates efforts to understand the situation (line 2). We can also see she places herself in a position of ‘other’ concerning the other teachers, as she refers to the teachers as ‘they’ instead of ‘we’ (lines 6–7). In fact, when the researcher acknowledges the receipt of her message (line 8), Yun provides a legitimate reason for her colleagues not to engage in the initiative  (lines 9–11). Here she does some ‘defensive work’ to argue for a course for the teachers’ actions. Interestingly, after the researcher shows agreement (line 11) by gesture and language, Yun shifts the footing to include herself in the group (lines 14–16). We can see clearly that for Yun, there are identity shifts—from someone who sees the situation and argues for the teacher, to someone who is part of the group. The identity shifts here are perhaps a result of communication. In particular, the acknowledgement and agreement received from the researcher makes Yun safe to reposition herself. In a different situation, a pre-service teacher displays a ‘struggling’ status in her lesson plan. Extract 8.6 is taken from Sue’s conversation with her tutor while planning a lesson. In this extract, Sue labels herself as someone struggling (lines 1–2). After a long pause, which could be interpreted as a transition place or a space for her to construct her ideas of ‘struggling’,  she elaborates what she means by ‘struggle’ by giving an example (lines 4–8). The struggle identified is a common one, since learning to teach is essentially a journey whereby pre-service teachers are switching between positions, as the tutor acknowledges (line 9). Here, the tutor positions herself as someone who understands the situation and indexes an experienced teacher identity. With more explanation from the student teacher (lines 10–12), she shifts herself to a different domain in an imagined community. The tutor now shifts to an even higher level of authority by making the point that they will discuss her lesson plan (line 13). In doing so, the tutor indexes a possible experienced practitioner who is willing to support the student teacher in finding a solution.

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Student teachers experience problems or difficulties, which might generate more negative emotions. However, these issues are also possible opportunities for them to take control and make an active decision if they can exercise agency.

Agency to Exercise the Power of an Active Participant Student teachers presuppose an identity to develop an effective practitioner (Gray & Morton, 2018). Some students in this process engage actively on a teacher education course to potentially develop a set of useful ‘organising principles’ in their professional lives. Extract 8.7 is an illustrative example, when Ni actively exercises her agency in a lesson-­ planning session. By asking a methodological question about teaching grammar in general in lines 1–2, Ni brings about a subtle shift in identity positioning. In a lesson-planning session, the tutor usually takes the situated position of ‘expert’ who offers advice and guides the structure of the ‘learning event’, whereas the students are generally positioned as the novice. However, in this extract, Ni, the situated novice, switches her positioning to control the focus of the learning event. At this point, the tutor first provides a vague answer (line 3), which in fact displays his expertise in the topic, as the following reasons he offers suggest that he holds knowledge of different approaches (lines 4–5). Here, the tutor is orienting to a situated identity of an expert, and Ni is positioned as a listener and the novice.

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Extract 8.7

Interestingly, Pan, another student, actively takes the turn to provide a concrete suggestion based on her practical work (lines 6–8). Her contribution is significant at different levels. First, she demonstrates agency in this lesson-planning session and puts herself in an equal position as the tutor when she takes the turn from the tutor to provide Ni with a more specific suggestion. Second, she displays her knowledge and orients to the positioning of a legitimate member of the community when she talks from her personal experience (line 8). Third, her detailed example and suggestion puts the tutor in a position of being challenged, as his response is not considered useful by Pan, hence her contribution (lines 6–8). At this point, the tutor offers a positive evaluation (line 9), which is followed by a more concrete suggestion that was expected by Ni earlier  (lines 10–11). Again, this suggestion is not considered useful by Pan, and she challenges the tutor (lines 12–13) with a smiley voice, which is used here to reduce the potential embarrassment caused by the ‘challenge from a student’. Pan’s challenge is followed by a statement of the purpose of the discussion: ‘we are trying to get some creative ideas’ (line 13). This challenge and ‘staying on task talk’ again takes the tutor away from the positioning of ‘expert’ and an equal discussant. By shifting the footing in line 13, Pan takes on the discourse identity of commentator and evaluator, and a situated identity of actively-engaged and thoughtful peer, and perhaps a ‘temporary expert’ (Li, 2017a).

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Imagined Identities and Practised Identities Imagined identity is a common theme that has emerged from pre-service teachers’ practice and thinking. When student teachers engage in learning to teach activities, they imagine and align their practice in order to become a legitimate member of the imagined community. However, imagination, according to Wenger (1998), ‘requires the ability to disengage—to move back and look at our engagement through the eyes of an outsider’ (p. 185). For pre-service teachers, when they learn how to teach, the learning experience ‘transforms’ who they are and what they can do, and ‘it is in that formation of an identity that learning can become a source of meaningfulness and personal and social energy’ (ibid., p. 215). In Extract 8.8, Liang displays his beliefs about teaching and learning English. In doing so, he imagines himself as a teacher in the professional community. This is especially true when he comments on the teacher’s roles and the learning methods when he refers to his own experience and makes sense of who he is professionally. He believes knowledge transmission is necessary and rote learning is a good strategy. He also expresses the critical role a teacher plays in this process. As seen in lines 10–14, the teacher should play a dominant role, leading the learning process and providing effective instruction. In Extract 8.8, Liang’s point of view unfolds in a conversation with the researcher. Extract 8.8

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When asked to articulate his beliefs about teachers (lines 1 and 3–4), Liang first expresses lack of confidence about the focus of the topic (line 5), but after a hesitation marker and a brief pause, he gives his opinion about the role a teacher plays (lines 6–7). Here, Liang not only describes what a teacher is but also what a teacher does: ‘control everything’. Now, it is clear that Liang does have a clear conception of the role of a teacher, unlike his claim in the earlier turn (line 5). This is followed by a clarification request from the researcher regarding Liang’s claim of ‘control everything’ (lines 8–9). He provides an affirmative response and elaborates the idea over the next few lines (lines 10–14). Clearly, the teacher should play a dominant role, controlling the class, directing what is learnt and effectively answering students’ questions. As such, he assigns the teacher a different role: knowledge source and authority. This perhaps is to do with the local view and cultural norm of teaching and learning when the belief of ‘practice makes perfect’ is endorsed by society.

Language-related Identity Different from other subject teachers, language teachers possess strong language-related identity. As explained by Pennington and Richards (2016), ‘[A] person’s identity as a language teacher relates to the person’s language background and language proficiency. Teaching language requires not only specific knowledge about the language being taught but also specific skills for communicating effectively with students who have limited proficiency in that language’ (p. 11). Among the language identities, non-native speaker is relevant here from teachers’ perspectives (Park, 2012), although the concept has been problematised heavily in the literature. In fact, it is a relevant idea because the non-native speaker identity is used by the teachers as a tool in their struggle. So, instead of seeing it as problematic, we can try to understand the concept from a positive angle. For example, Hu (2005) and Moussu and Llurda (2008), point out that one of the advantages of non-native speaker teachers is that they can empathetically apprehend students’ needs and difficulties.

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Non-Native-Speakerhood One of the worries that non-native speaker teachers constantly have concerns linguistic competence and ability, in particular with pronunciation and colloquial English (Beckett & Stiefvater, 2009). The command of the target language significantly affects teachers’ self-image and confidence as well as teaching behaviour (Shin, 2008). Because of perceived imperfect English, language teachers need to continuously invest in improving their English (ibid.). In Extract 8.9, we can see the teacher is in fear of her learner’s judgement and is insecure about being a teacher. In this extract, Jin and Lu are co-constructing their identities of non-­ native speakers and the worries associated with being so. In lines 25–27, Jin clearly states her fear and worry due to potential problems in pronunciation. Lu acknowledges that and feels likewise. Here, we can see two teachers who consciously label themselves as incompetent language users and are afraid of being judged or misunderstood by others. The anxiety comes out strongly when Jin identifies where the problem lies: the speed of spoken language of other teachers she works with (lines 29–30). Instead of seeing herself as one of the group members, Jin considers herself as someone who needs approval from the group because she is unsure about her grammar, and worries that her expressions are not clear and accurate enough to be understood. Hence, she is ‘always nervous’. We can Extract 8.9

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see clearly Jin’s struggle as a non-native speaker, and this struggle affects her confidence as a language teacher and user, which in turn will have a negative impact on her professional work. In this short exchange, she positions herself as a non-native English speaker with a deficit, who needs to improve her pronunciation and grammar. In a way, she admires her colleague Lu who works with other non-native speakers. The ‘otherness’ here to some extent represents membership for Jin. Lu, on the other hand, has different opinions—it is also challenging to work with other non-native speakers. Her frustration lies in the fact that they do not understand each other very well because of the differing accents (lines 34–37). The critical view of accent suggests that she has had a negative experience with speaking to non-native speakers, even if she herself is one of them. In this extract, Lu presents herself as someone who ‘suffers’ from non-native speakerness, whereas Jin suffers from being the only non-­ native speaker in her group. Both of them struggle in the situation, and the linguistic identity they possess as a non-native speaker puts them in a situated identity of vulnerable and anxious participants of a group. Related to this issue, Pavlenko (2003, p. 257) identifies the problem: ‘[O]ne powerful discourse that informs preservice and in-service teachers’ views of themselves and of their students is that of standard language and native speakerness. In the case of English education, this discourse portrays standard English as the only legitimate form of the language and monolingual native speakers—who are also implicitly White and middle-­ class—as its only legitimate speakers and “owners”’. In Extract 8.10, one teacher is sharing her concerns about the threat she feels from a student. In this extract, Tang describes her worry about a Chinese girl who has just returned from America, whom she identifies as a potential issue. In line 55, she initiates the turn to introduce the issue. The acknowledgement token in line 56 from Yang suggests she is an active listener. At this point, Tang states the girl’s special status, as someone who is return from America (line 57). In Yang’s response, she shows interest, as indicated by a surprise token ‘wow’ and an unfinished comment (line 58). Yang’s reaction suggests that having a student from abroad is rather unusual. Then interestingly, Tang overlaps Yang’s utterance, identifying the girl’s racial and linguistic identity (lines 59–60). Recognising the girl’s language background, Yang shows understanding that it is difficult for Tang to

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teach the girl whom should be considered a native speaker (lines 61–62, and 67). Here, we can see the precise trajectory of the non-native speakerness is shown in their discourse. For one thing, both of them are in agreement that it is difficult for a non-native speaker teacher to teach a native speaker learner. For another, in Tang’s opinion, the girl is not supposed to be in her class (lines 63–65). By discriminating against the learner, the teachers index strong linguistic identity as non-native speakers, who are devalued from a language-­ learning perspective. The lack of confidence is also displayed in Tang’s articulation of her understanding of the girl’s role and state. To this end, Yang offers a solution to positively use the advantage of the learner’s experience (lines 68–69). From this convention, Tang and Yang (the teachers) co-constructed an ideology that a ‘native speaker’ in class could be a potential issue which brings a threat to them. In doing so, they position themselves as inferior to the student linguistically (Li, 2017a).

Multilingual Identities Canagarajah (2007) talks about multilingual identities associated with non-native language teachers. In learning and teaching a second language, Swain and Lapkin (2005) describe the L1 as one of ‘most formi-

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dable cognitive resources’ because it contributes to ‘the cognitive mechanisms of acquiring an L2’ (p. 181). Therefore translanguaging now has become a useful tool for the teachers who share the same L1 as the students in order to engage the class and facilitate learning. Extract 8.11 illustrates such a perspective. In this extract, the teacher is practising ‘past tense’ with students. In line 15, the teacher poses a first pair part question, requesting a grammatical sentence from Li, who produces something intelligible (line 17). At this point, the teacher encourages the student to speak louder and not to be shy (line 18). Here, the teacher reveals a strong identity as a questioner and a teacher, someone who asks a question and demands an Extract 8.11

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answer from a nominated participant. She also performs the role of ­facilitator to encourage the class.  The short pause (line 19) serves as a transition place, but the turn is not taken by the student. In line 20, the teacher provides the learner with a second chance by allowing him to answer the question in his L1, which the student does (line 21). As shown in line 22, the teacher first provides positive feedback, and then follows up with a question, this time asking for a phrase to be said in English. The translanguaging practice here suggests the flexibility of the teacher but more importantly, the learning opportunity that she has created for this particular student. The question in line 22 shifts the teacher’s identity to an expert, who provides scaffolded help. After a short pause in line 23, the student provides the correct answer (line 24), to which the teacher provides a positive response (line 25). After a micro pause, the teacher comments in English first and then Chinese (lines 25–27). The comments in lines 25–28 seem to be off-task, but the teacher now shifts her attention to create a space for the student to engage in the conversation. This is then followed by another question in line 29. Clearly, the teacher has broken the question into smaller chunks to help the student to construct the sentence step by step. We can see a strong language teacher identity from her design of the task and her plan to get the student to construct the sentence. Again, the turn is not taken by Li. After a short pause, students  together provide the expected answer, and the teacher turns to Li to ask for the phrase. As shown in line 33, Li produces the phrase with no difficulty. This time, the teacher uses the L1 to interact, asking him to translate the sentence which is the appropriate second pair part to her original question in line 15. The student provides an immediate answer in line 35, and the teacher reformulates the answer to make it relevant to everyone. It is clear that the translanguaging practice (lines 22, 32 and 34) allows the student to successfully complete the task, which he would not have been able to do otherwise.

Language Learner Extract 8.12 is taken from an interview with Linda at the beginning of her teacher training course, when she was asked about her background

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and prior learning experience. As we can see from the data, her view about the importance of English as a system derives from her English learning experience. The view of English as a system emerges through her articulation of her learning experience. In lines 1–2, the researcher asks Linda about her learning experience by changing from requesting information about a time to potentially asking Linda to tell a story. This request puts Linda in a different position, and she takes up the turn and starts to provide a relevant second turn—first something about her year of school and place of learning English (lines 3–4), and then after a brief pause, she mentions her age (line 5), of course with a slight uncertainty evidenced by the rising tone ↑ and a longish pause (line 6). This is followed up by her declaration of insufficient knowledge with a ‘smiley tone’ (line 7), which can be interpreted as uncertainty (Li, 2017a). In line 8, Linda reformulates her response to provide a definite answer. This rather long turn to address the first question posed by the researcher indicates that Linda is trying to recall her first learning experiences, and this memory is later used to compare her current learning (lines 10–11), which is triggered by the researcher’s second question. As we see, in line 9, after briefly acknowledging Linda’s responses, the researcher then asks the second question, this time Extract 8.12

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requesting that Linda evaluates her learning experience. She provides a second pair part this time with a hesitation marker ‘um’, which is quite common to accompany the less positive evaluation (Li, 2017a). After a short pause, Linda first provides a less positive assessment ‘not really’ and then compares her learning experiences (lines 10–11). As I have mentioned earlier, it is interesting to see Linda comparing her earlier learning experience of English as a foreign language with her present learning experience as a teacher, because this comparison suggests that she still considers herself an English language learner. This is quite common for many non-native speaker student teachers because they are still in the language-learning experience (Warford & Reeves, 2003). Linda provides further explanation or justification for her negative assessment after a longish pause (2.2 seconds in line 11). The false start here may indicate that she is thinking carefully so as not to generalise her own opinion. She restarts the statement in line 12 to evaluate her learning experience, and after a longish pause (1.4 seconds in line 12), describes what they did then to learn English. The two relatively longish pauses in lines 11 and 12 clearly show that she is constructing her ideas about the subject through her learning experience which has not existed consciously previously. The pauses function as space for her to either rehearse her reasons, or space to engage in critical analysis for her evaluation (Li, 2012). We can see Linda has managed not only to articulate her learning experience but also to evaluate it with justifications. As shown in lines 12–14, she not only makes a clear judgement of her English learning experience but also justifies what she means by ‘boring’. As her example suggests, it is the teaching that is boring because learning English means memorising rules and making sentences (lines 13–14). Despite the interruption from the researcher (line 15), Linda manages to hold the floor and provides a summary using her pedagogical knowledge as a teacher candidate (lines 16–17). Here, she demonstrates an ability to link a particular practice to teaching methodology, while she is also able to talk through her learning experience by referring to different resources, such as age, learning space, learning methods and comparison of her view of English now and then, as well as providing a reflective evaluation. She labels the teaching methods that she experienced as grammar translation (lines 16–17), and this exercise not only shows her metalinguistic knowl-

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edge but also a switch to a different role: teacher. Clearly what Linda articulates in the interview shows the significance of her learning experience on her conception of the language and its learning. The impact of Linda’s experience is vital here as it provides a fundamental basis which shapes her perspective.

Summary Identity is relational, which means that ‘who teachers are’ is about their relationship with the environment they are in. In this environment, we are not only talking about the macro and meso culture, but also the micro culture in which they socialise with their students. What teachers bring to this process thus becomes very important. However, we also know that, traditionally and globally, good learners are depicted as those who can master their subject knowledge quickly and reproduce it when they are required to do so (Singh & Richards, 2006). As Johnson (2001) claims, teacher identity is socially constructed, and is influenced by the ideologies and beliefs that teachers bring to their professional experience. From the sociocultural perspective, the place where the teacher-learner learns and practices is a rich environment which unfolds over time, as ‘events and processes interact, and shape the way participants think, feel and act’ (Singh & Richards, 2006, p. 151). It is important to acknowledge that the non-native-speakerhood is interpreted as something negative by many EFL teachers because they may not demonstrate sufficient linguistic and subject knowledge. This might exert a strong impact on teachers’ confidence and image, as Murdoch (1994) has claimed that for non-native teachers, ‘language proficiency will always represent the bedrock of their professional confidence’ (p. 254). This will also influence the way they manage teaching, materials and access to language resources (Farrell & Richards, 2007). Indeed, as Tsui (2003) suggests, subject knowledge influences how teachers use textbooks: the less proficient the teachers are, the more prescriptive they are. Thus, the target language proficiency is an important factor for becoming a teacher. Hargreaves (2000, 2005) warns that a failure to establish such relationships may make teachers prone to experience emotional misun-

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derstanding. However, because newly qualified teachers very often feel challenged and subject to comparison with other teachers, they also demonstrate the importance of establishing authority in the classroom. On the other hand, teachers need to realise the bilingual and multilingual advantages that they bring to the classroom. This is one effective way to empower language teachers. It is also worth noting the continuous investment that they may make in order to develop practical knowledge and become a member of an imagined community. Since identity formation involves both participation and non-participation, it is important to pay attention to teachers’ engagement, imagination and alignment in their professional contexts. As such, investment becomes a conceptual tool and notion that serve as a mode to understand what and who they are.

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Duff, P. A. (2012). Identity, agency, and second language acquisition. In S. M. Gass & A. Mackey (Eds.), The Routledge handbook of second language acquisition (pp. 410–426). Abingdon: Routledge. Edwards, E., & Burns, A. (2016). Language teacher-researcher identity negotiation: An ecological perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 50(3), 735–745. Ellis, E. M. (2004). The invisible multilingual teacher. International Journal of Multilingualism, 1(2), 90–108. Ellis, E. M. (2013). The TESOL teacher as plurilingual: An Australian perspective. TESOL Quarterly, 47(3), 446–471. Ellis, E.  M. (2016). “I may be a native speaker but I’m not monolingual”: Reimagining All teachers’ linguistic identities in TESOL. TESOL Quarterly, 50, 597–630. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesq.314 Ellis, L. (2002). Teaching from experience: A new perspective on the non-native teacher in adult ESL. Australian Review of Applied Linguistics, 25(1), 70–107. Farrell, T. S. C., & Richards, J. (2007). Teachers’ language proficiency. In T. S. Farrell (Ed.), Reflective language teaching: From research to practice (pp. 55–66). London: Continuum. Firth, A., & Wagner, J. (1997). On discourse, communication, and (some) fundamental concepts in SLA research. Modern Language Journal, 81, 285–300. Golombek, P. R., & Doran, M. (2014). Unifying cognition, emotion, and activity in language teacher professional development. Teaching and Teacher Education, 39, 102–111. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2014.01.002 Gray, J., & Morton, T. (2018). Social interaction and teacher identity. Edinburgh University Press. Hall, S. (1992). The question of cultural identity. In S.  Hall, D.  Held, & T.  McGrew (Eds.), Modernity and its futures (pp.  274–316). Cambridge: Polity Press and Blackwell and The Open University. Hargreaves, A. (2000). Four ages of professionalism and professional learning. Teachers and Teaching: Theory and Practice, 6(2), 151–182. Hargreaves, A. (2005). Educational change takes ages: Life, career and generational factors in teachers’ emotional responses to educational change. Teaching and Teacher Education, 21, 967–983. Hu, G. (2005). ‘CLT is best for China’—An untenable absolutist claim. ELT Journal, 59(1), 65–68. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/cci009 Johnson, K. (2001). An introduction to foreign language learning and teaching. Pearson Education. Kamhi-Stein, L. D. (Ed.). (2013). Narrating their lives: Examining English language teachers’ professional identities within the classroom. Ann Arbor, MI: University of Michigan Press.

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Kanno, Y., & Norton, B. (2003). Imagined communities and educational possibilities: Introduction. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(4), 241–249. Kanno, Y., & Stuart, C. (2011). Learning to become a second language teacher: Identities-in-practice. The Modern Language Journal, 95(2), 236–252. Kubanyiova, M. (2012). Teacher development in action: Understanding language teachers’ conceptual change. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan. Lai, C., Li, Z., & Gong, Y. (2016). Teacher agency and professional learning in cross-cultural teaching contexts: Accounts of Chinese teachers from international schools in Hong Kong. Teaching and Teacher Education, 54, 12–21. Leung, C. (2005). Convivial communication: Recontextualizing communicative competence. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15, 199–144. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1473-4192.2005.00084.x Li, L. (2012). Belief construction and development: Two tales of non-native English speaking student teachers in a TESOL programme. Novitas-ROYAL (Research on Youth and Language), 6(1), 33–58. Li, L. (2017a). Social interaction and teacher cognition. Edinburgh University Press. Mayer, D. (1999). Building teaching identities: Implications for pre-service teacher education. Paper presented to the Australian Association for Research in Education. McAlpine, L., Amundsen, C., & Turner, G. (2014). Identity-trajectory: Reframing early career academic experience. British Educational Research Journal, 40(6), 952–969. Miller, E.  R. (2014). The language of adult immigrants: Agency in the making. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Miller, J. (2009). Teacher identity. In A.  Burns & J.  C. Richards (Eds.), The Cambridge guide to second language teacher education (pp.  172–181). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Morgan, B. (2016). Language teacher identity and the domestication of dissent: An exploratory account. TESOL Quarterly, 50(3), 708–734. Motha, S., Jain, R., & Tecle, T. (2012). Translinguistic identity-as-pedagogy: Implications for language teacher education. International Journal of Innovation in English Language Teaching and Research, 1(1), 13–28. Moussu, L., & Llurda, E. (2008). Non-native English-speaking English language teachers: History and research. Language Teaching, 41(3), 315–348. Murdoch, G. (1994). Language development provision in teacher training curricula. ELT Journal, 48, 253–259. Nagatomo, D. (2012). Exploring Japanese University English teachers’ professional identity. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

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Norton, B. (2000). Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Norton, B. (2013). Identity and language learning: Extending the conversation (2nd ed.). Bristol: Multilingual Matters. Norton Pierce, B. (1995). Social identity, investment, and language learning. TESOL Quarterly, 29(1), 9–31. Olsen, B. (2011). ‘I am large, I contain multitudes’: Teacher identity as a useful frame for research, practice, and diversity in teacher education. In A. Ball & C.  Tyson (Eds.), Studying diversity in teacher education (pp.  267–273). Washington, DC: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers. Ortega, L. (2014). Ways forward for a bi/multilingual turn in SLA. In S. May (Ed.), The multilingual turn: Implications for SLA, TESOL and bilingual education (pp. 32–53). New York: Routledge. Park, G. (2012). ‘I am never afraid of being recognized as an NNES’: One teacher’s journey in claiming and embracing her nonnative-speaker identity. TESOL Quarterly, 46(1), 127–151. Pavlenko, A. (2003). ‘I never knew I was a bilingual’: Reimagining teacher identities in TESOL. Journal of Language, Identity, and Education, 2(4), 251–268. Pennington, M., & Richards, J. C. (2016). Teacher identity in language teaching: Integrating personal, contextual, and professional factors. RELC Journal, 47(1), 5–23. Reagan, T. (2004). Objectification, positivism and language studies: A reconsideration. Critical Inquiry in Language Studies, 1(1), 41–60. Reis, D. S. (2011). Non-native English-speaking teachers (NNESTs) and professional legitimacy: A sociocultural theoretical perspective on identity transformation. International Journal of Sociology of Language, 208, 139–160. Richards, K. (2006). ‘Being the teacher’: Identity and classroom conversation. Applied Linguistics, 27, 51–77. Shin, S. J. (2008). Preparing non-native English-speaking ESL teachers. Teacher Development, 12(1), 57–65. Singh, G., & Richards, J.  C. (2006). Teaching and learning in the language teacher education course room: A critical sociocultural perspective. RELC Journal, 37(2), 149–175. Sun, D. (2012). “Everything goes smoothly”: A case study of an immigrant Chinese language teacher’s personal practical knowledge. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28(5), 760–767. Swain, M., & Lapkin, S. (2005). The evolving sociopolitical context of immersion education in Canada: Some implications for program development. International Journal of Applied Linguistics, 15(2), 169–186.

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9 Teacher Cognition and Teacher Education

Introduction This chapter builds on the analyses in the previous chapters to discuss key themes regarding teacher cognition, the implications of teacher cognition in teacher education and development and developing effective pedagogy. The crucial first message of this chapter is that teacher cognition is a process of social construction and negotiation. It is displayed in the social interaction in teachers’ professional contexts, and is cognition-in-interaction (Li, 2017a). It is a multifaceted and multidimensional c­ oncept which plays a significant role in teachers’ professional lives, through aspects such as teacher knowledge, teacher learning, identity formation and emotion. Each of these aspects of teacher cognition is equally important and has a specific focus on their professional lives, yet they need to be considered together if we want to understand and develop future teachers. The second key message is that the aim of language teacher learning is not to develop ‘best’ teachers but to ‘empower’ individual teachers by understanding their practice in ‘live’ contexts. The sociocultural view of teacher cognition expands the concept from considering teachers as individual meaning-makers to participants who engage in historical cultural © The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8_9

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practice with others. It is also important to realise that teacher learning is an ongoing process and a process of achieving understanding through a dialectical relationship with significant others. Teachers cross boundaries in this process both at the physical and mental level. It is therefore critical to recognise that teacher learning is a continuous process which is situated within broad sociocultural contexts and is an outcome of social interaction. On that front, it is crucial to enable teachers themselves to realise that reflection plays a significant role in their own development and can be further explored as a useful personal tool. The other key message is that teacher cognition can be utilised to understand effective pedagogy in any local context. Effective pedagogy will lead to better student achievement, since there is evidence to show that teachers have the most impact here. For example, Goddard, Hoy, and Hoy (2000) found that collective teacher efficacy was positively associated with differences between schools in student-level achievement in both reading and mathematics. Baumert et  al. (2010) investigated the significance of teachers’ content knowledge and pedagogical content knowledge for high-quality instruction and student progress in secondary-level mathematics. In their study, the multilevel structural equation models revealed a substantial positive effect of pedagogical content knowledge on students’ learning gains that was mediated by the provision of cognitive activation and individual learning support. As such, teacher cognition is a new perspective with which to engage teachers in developing appropriate methodology in their contexts, thereby improving student gains.

Teacher Education and Teacher Development This book, framed within Vygotskyan sociocultural approaches to teacher cognition, aims at reconceptualising the thinking about teacher learning and development, their professional lives in practice as well as their identities and emotions. In what follows, I will discuss critical issues emerging from this book regarding teachers and their professional lives, with a particular focus on teacher learning, knowledge, identity and emotions.

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Teacher Learning Teaching learning is a complex system rather than an event, made complex by the environment in which the teacher works, the educational system, curriculum and school culture, and whom the teacher works with—the students, colleagues, subject leaders and the school management team—as well as parents. It is also very individual, meaning that every teacher has their own needs and background, learn most of the time differently and use the prior knowledge as a method to appropriate the new knowledge. Thus, in order to facilitate teacher learning, cultural knowledge, problems, routines and context, as well as teachers’ pre-existing knowledge and needs, all must be taken into consideration. From a sociocultural perspective, learning is ‘inherently situated in a social, interactional, cultural, institutional and historical context’ (Wertsch, 1991, p. 85; Cole & Wertsch, 1996). As argued throughout the book, higher human mental functions such as learning and thinking are social. Vygotsky (1981) emphasises that ‘(E)ven where we turn to mental (e.g., internal) processes, their nature remains quasi-social. In their private sphere, human beings retain the function of social interactions’ (p. 164). This message suggests that teacher learning is an interactive process, where knowledge and understanding is developed through collaboration with others. Cognition is socially mediated or influenced by others in social interaction; thus, it is socially-shared cognition. Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs are shaped by various features of the sociocultural and educational contexts, and teacher learning is a process of meaning negotiation with these contexts, such as socio-educational ethos (Kennedy & Kennedy, 1998), the institutional culture (Holliday, 1994) and teacher education (Richards & Pennington, 1998).

The Sociocultural View of Teacher Learning It is clear from the previous chapters that understandings about teacher learning, development and identity formation have undergone a significant transformation. Sociocultural theory of teacher learning (Golombek, 2017) suggests that teachers are active meaning-makers that construct

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their cognition, knowledge and identity in practice. In that sense, theories such as situated learning (Lave & Wenger, 1991) or communities of practice (Wenger, 1998) can be seen as a part of a ‘practice turn’, relevant to teacher learning. Vygotsky’s (1986) well-known distinction between scientific and spontaneous concepts are important to recognise in teacher learning. Spontaneous concepts are everyday concepts that relate to day-to-day experiences, whereas scientific concepts originate in formal learning environments that are often abstract and formal systems of symbols which require conscious and deliberate thinking and action. In the data presented in the book, we can see teachers use everyday language (i.e., spontaneous concepts) to describe and comprehend what learning and teaching mean in their contexts, while they display a lack of a subject metalanguage (i.e., scientific concepts), including theories and research within the field of second language learning. It is therefore vital to create a dialogue or link between spontaneous concepts and scientific concepts. Raising the awareness of teachers regarding their thinking and practice is perhaps the most effective way to replace everyday concepts with scientific ones. In this regard, situated learning that blends the scientific discourse in the teacher learning context with the experiential discourse of local contexts would be useful. Situated learning could be achieved through empowering teachers to engage in critical reflection on teaching practice through a dialogic approach—for example, dialogic mediation and peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991). This approach enables teachers to consider the macro and microstructures of the local context, and in this dialogic process, they are not passive knowledge receivers, but active participants who co-construct their learning experience. With guided participation, teachers (including student teachers) are able to develop metalanguage of their academic subject and of teacher learning itself. In a similar vein, Li (2017a) proposes collaborative dialogic reflective practice (CDRP) when teachers learn together through dialogues in a trusting and supportive environment. Such ‘dialogic practice’ is one of the forms of participation, which centres around conversations with other teachers focusing on issues regarding teaching and learning during which teachers examine their own beliefs and practices and engage in col-

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laborative planning, problem solving and decision-making. CDRP gives teachers opportunities to analyse and engage in high-leverage practices such as providing feedback and scaffolding. This kind of work enables engagement in critical reflection on their practice, and the integration of theory into practice rather than a disconnection between the two (Grossman, Hammerness, & McDonald, 2009). More importantly, it provides the participants with opportunities to engage in a closer understanding of what they display in their understanding through interacting with others. Li (2017a) also points out the high value of peers in CDRP because collaboration promotes insights and possibilities for innovative practice (Kiely & Davis, 2010), and provides a space for teachers to share good practice. As pointed out by Singh and Richards (2006), good teaching is a private matter, as teachers normally do not make it public unless they are required to. In this case, good practice can be isolated only through deliberate sharing within a community and when such practice can be made available to become shared knowledge; engaging in a CDRP provides teachers with an opportunity to develop good ‘common knowledge’, which could further enable individual teachers to appropriate the knowledge into their personal learning system. Vygotsky’s notion of ZPD and mediation have implications for teacher learning, primarily through collaboration. Johnson (2009a) identifies four possibilities for collaborative teacher development: collaboration with fellow teachers, between teachers and university-based researchers, with students, and with others involved in teaching and learning— administrators, parents, supervisors and so on. When teachers engage in collaborative talk, they develop and acquire a new form of thinking (Vygotsky, 1978). As shown in the literature, when teachers develop a deliberate reflection, with support from their community, they develop expertise (Li, 2017a). Communities of practice focuses on the social nature of teacher learning and the need for teachers to participate in a professional community and reflect with peers who share a similar concern, passion and aim to learn how to do better through interaction (Wenger, 2009). For teachers who engage in a community of practice, learning is the experience of becoming a member of the community (Wenger, 1998, p.  5). In this sense, recognition and support from the community as well as engaging

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in critical reflections are equally important. In participating in a peer dialogue, teachers can ‘actively construct knowledge by interpreting events on the basis of existing knowledge, beliefs, and dispositions’ (Uhlenbeck, Verloop, & Beijard, 2002, p.  243). Teacher learning is, therefore, an ongoing interactive, reflective and experiential process in which interaction with peers and others, and negotiation in the community are important features. In this process, teachers do not just reconstruct their knowledge but develop a capacity of ‘knowing’, a process of inquiry (Boyles, 2006). When teachers work together to solve problems, create ‘joint enterprise’ or conduct ‘mutual engagement’ using shared means or ‘shared repertoire’, they learn how to learn (Wenger, 1998). It is important to note that the community is not a permanent organisation, it may exist for a particular activity or aim. That is, members can switch communities according to their aims and needs, as in this practice, intention and purpose are key. For example, a teacher can discuss a particular issue with fellow teachers to discover possible solutions and methods. During this discussion, they are willing to enter into mutual engagement in order to address the issue. Once the problem is resolved, and solutions are found, the community might not continue. Equally, it can develop as a result of the participation of members, especially when new insights and development arise when members cross boundaries (Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002)—for example, when pre-service teachers go to local schools to conduct teaching practice. In that respect, Tsui and Law (2007) claim that crossing boundaries for teachers might be seen as ‘a source of deep learning’ (p. 1290). Johnson and Golombek (2003) argue that sociocultural theory has a great value to teacher educators because they can ‘see important aspects of the cognitive processes at work in teacher learning … how teachers come to know; how different concepts and functions in teachers’ consciousness develop; and how this internal activity transforms teachers’ understandings of themselves as teachers, of their students, and of the activities of teaching’ (p.  735). Throughout the book, we see teachers conceptualise their understandings through interactions in their professional contexts, and it is these moments that we need to pay detailed attention to so that we can make the learning opportunities observable for the teachers.

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Focus on Student-Teacher Learning In terms of pre-service teachers learning to teach, researchers in SLTE have already taken teacher cognition as a source of experientially based professional ‘know how’ which serves as a focus for both initial teacher education and reflective practice (Farrell, 2013; Freeman & Richards, 1996). Warford (2011) suggests educating student teachers within the zone of proximal teacher development, which he defines as ‘the distance between what teaching candidates can do on their own without assistance from more capable others’ (p. 253). I have also discussed and highlighted the relevant concepts such as ZFM and ZPA in teacher learning (see Chaps. 2 and 7 respectively). Specifically, the significance of the environment and context, and the activities that student teachers engage in via teacher education programmes, are critical. When teachers have fewer environment constraints and supportive activities which facilitate them to acquire new skills, they ought to be able to develop professional knowledge and ability of knowing. Here, I would like to focus on the ZCD (zone of collaborative development), when student teachers are able to work with their tutors as well as peers to reflect on, compare, justify and challenge each other in a safe and collaborative environment. For example, a lesson planning conference might serve as a good base for such collaborative development. When student teachers engage in problemoriented talk with their tutor and peers, they do not seek a simple s­ olution. Rather, through the dialogue, they transform what the others can offer them as they ‘appropriate it’ (Lantolf, 2000b). In a collaborative dialogic process, student teachers can use their social and cultural background as essential tools and settings to discuss how their prior knowledge and beliefs can be applied in their future work. The collaborative dialogic process can also help the teachers realise and develop new knowledge for that particular setting. Teacher learning thus is ‘a continual, mutually mediating process of appropriation and social action, where practitioners take on the cultural practices that are valued in the social situations of their development—whether these settings are schools or universities—and employ them in turn to shape that social situation’ (Ellis, Edwards, & Smagorinsky, 2010, p.  4). From this

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­ erspective, raising teachers’ awareness should be considered an essential p part of a teacher education programme, where students acquire scientific terms and establish their understandings together as active agents of their learning-to-teach processes to provide the groundwork for continuous self-development (Vélez-Rendón, 2002, p. 463). Given a significant part of teacher education programmes focuses on developing students’ subject and pedagogical knowledge (Johnson, 2009a; Walsh, 2011), it is even more important to raise student teachers’ awareness of conceptualising their learning as an ongoing collaborative dialogic process. Again, in developing pre-service teachers and raising their awareness, it is vital to understand the role of context (at both institutional and sociocultural levels) in shaping what teachers believe, think and do in their professional practice. This is especially true when there seems to be a gap between the knowledge and skills that teachers have acquired in a decontextualised learning environment, and the practical realities that teachers face in the classroom. For example, in this book, I have presented student teachers who come from an EFL context study in an English-speaking country which has different educational values and beliefs. If practical elements such as the target teaching environment, language policy, testing system and broader societal attitudes towards learning English are not addressed, it is deemed to be difficult for these learners to return to their own contexts to apply the teaching methods and techniques they have developed. Therefore, it is important for a language teacher education programme to take into consideration where the student teachers might come from and where they are going after the programme, so that their knowledge and methods are not developed in a vacuum. This direction is in line with Johnson’s (2009a) proposal, which argues the importance of taking into account the social, political, economic and cultural histories that are located in the contexts where second language tutors teach and learn. She proposes ‘located’ teacher education which takes into account local constraints, and suggests that ‘“[L]ocate” L2 teacher education begins by recognizing why L2 teachers do what they do in the social, historical, and cultural contexts in which they work. It continues to coconstruct with L2 teachers locally appropriate responses to their professional development needs’ (p.  115). Recognising teachers’ thinking in their contexts can be realised through researching teacher cognition, and

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by looking more closely at this process, teachers come to the understanding of how and why macro structure, such as curriculum, policy and testing, impact on their classroom practices. Similarly, ‘located’ teacher education focuses on navigating and sustaining teacher expertise in their professional contexts, which in turn shapes the development of teacher cognition. We also need to acknowledge the significant influence of contextual factors on teacher development. As the data suggest in this book, student teachers’ beliefs are not stable, and they may shift throughout the course. Student teachers may hold different beliefs at different stages, and various factors contribute to ‘belief shifts’. As evidenced in this book, teacher education programmes have a visible impact on the development of student-teacher cognition. The impact can be understood from two perspectives. First, it is what is involved in the teacher education programme, such as environment, course contents, supervision styles, relationships between student teachers, as well as their teaching experience (formal or informal) that shape the development of their cognition. It is therefore impossible to say what elements have more impact on teachers. Second, such an impact might not remain stable as the immediate context keeps affecting development of cognition. It is therefore natural to see constant shifts in teachers’ understanding, conceptions and practice. Equally, the impact might not be visible to an external observer, as any visible impact takes time to take place. As evidenced in the literature and this book, the culture of schooling into which novice teachers are socialised limits the effect of teacher preparation courses, and it is therefore vital to link a teacher education programme with the local schools where novice teachers may engage in classroom practice. By reducing the gap between what is being offered in a teacher education programme and what a real-life teaching context demands, novice teachers may have a more positive experience/development. A related issue to this is the need to take account of student teachers’ prior learning experiences and pre-existing knowledge. It should never be a teacher education programme’s intention to correct student teachers’ beliefs and understandings, instead, empowering them to be able to appropriate what they have and integrate what they learn into the local context is surely more important. In particular, one of the most critical aspects of

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student-teacher development should be about helping them to make better decisions, especially when conflicting images are produced in a teacher education programme. That is, how teachers select, filter and interpret the new knowledge to fit into their mental structures and practical work is an important agenda for teacher education. From this perspective, the purpose of teacher education should be to create a space and synergy between student teachers and teacher educators so that they can engage in analysing cultural and historical practices and use mediational tools to understand how the practices and tools can inform decisions in different settings.

The Role of Reflection Reflection is a significant part of teacher education (Freeman, 2002; Li, 2017a; Mann & Walsh, 2013; McKay, 2002; Schön, 1995). When teachers reflect on their experience as practitioners and teacher learners, they produce a rich source of information on how their community view their work and how they use the principles they have developed to guide such work. Such information is referred to as ‘narrative knowledging’ (Barkhuizen, 2016a). Motha, Jain, and Tecle (2012) state that ‘an important and oft-overlooked element of teacher education is support for teacher candidates’ understandings of how social identities and life histories form the foundation of teaching identities and beliefs, and therefore practice’ (p. 23). Thus, it is legitimate to ask teachers to engage in selfreflection about their linguistic identities in professional development activities, and how these linguistic identities can be used for pedagogical purposes (Bailey, 1996; Motha et al., 2012; Pavlenko, 2003). Based on the data included in this book, I would like to argue when linguistic identity is concerned that it is the language experience that is most significant. The positivity and negativity in language experience contributes to how they construct and utilise their linguistic identity. Ellis (2016) argues, ‘experience may count for nothing professionally if it is not reflected upon’ (p. 625). Similarly, I have argued that reflection needs to be integrated into teachers’ professional lives if they are to grow and develop. The same can be said about understanding who teachers are in their professional contexts and at different transitional points of their

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professional lives when they change settings. When talking about their learning experiences of a foreign language, teachers’ awareness and identity of being a language learner, user and teacher become clear to themselves. Thus, it might be possible for them to utilise their own experiences in educating their students. As I have pointed out earlier, reflection can be practised in a collaborative dialogic way with the course tutor, peers, as well as local school mentors. It is also useful for student teachers to form a habit of engaging in an inner reflection in learning (Li & Wegerif, 2014). Such reflective practice is culturally embodied in their daily life; thus, it is more appropriate to transfer the pre-existing cultural practice into the new setting (e.g., teacher education programmes).

The Value of CA-for-TC We already know the significant value of CA in the study of language learning (e.g., Markee 2000; Brouwer & Wagner, 2004), and the dynamics and structure of the classroom (e.g., Seedhouse, 2004; Sert, 2015). I would suggest that CA has significant value in understanding and improving pedagogy (see Wong & Waring, 2010) and teacher learning (see Li, 2017a). In particular, I argue that CA has a significant value for researching teacher cognition: CA-for-TC (conversation analysis for teacher cognition). As highlighted at the beginning of the book, teacher cognition is defined as ‘cognition-in-interaction’ from DP perspective. It is teachers’ understanding, knowing, conceptualising, stance-taking, being and feeling in a specific context. It signifies the importance of social interaction and contexts in the development of intersubjectivity. As demonstrated throughout the book, CA has merit in enabling us to uncover not only what teachers’ cognitions are, but also how the cognitions are publically displayed, socially-mediated and shared. It is through the talk-in-interaction that we can gain insights into the issues like: How do teachers develop cognitions in interaction? How do teachers make good decisions about pedagogy? How do teachers learn and develop self with multiple identities? And how do teachers use tools to mediate their thinking? Therefore, CA has a great value in teacher learning and development. It is assumed that a teacher who follows the planned lesson rigidly or ignores

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the interactional dynamic of the development of a lesson is less likely to address learners’ needs. Teachers can also take a closer review of their interactions with students in order to give students more space and opportunities for participation. This could be done by looking at how they deal with unexpected events in the classroom and how they maximise learning opportunities by engaging in a detailed analysis of interactional structures. In this sense, CA can be utilised as a mediational tool, examining and discussing with peers (and tutors) will enable a teacher to reflect how the design of a particular activity may address the pedagogical goal, and whether the activity is successful in creating a space for learners to participate. Any events or incidents identified by the teachers, therefore, can be considered and developed as a growth point related to the ZPD. Thus, teachers can become more conscious of what teaching and learning means, what pedagogical positions they have taken, how effective their instructions and feedback are and why and how they can make interactive decisions. Of course, there are other types of method to engage teachers in collaborative dialogic reflection, but the role of detailed analysis of moment-by-moment thinking and knowing is critical. As argued by Seedhouse (2008), many of the complexities and subtleties of professional discourse may not always be evident during observation or video, but can be better revealed by fine-grained CA.

Identity and Emotion From a sociocultural perspective, teacher learning is understood as increasing participation in socially organised practices in which they develop themselves as professionals. In this sense, teacher learning is closely associated with teacher identity development. Duff and Uchida (1997) presented key elements in understanding teacher identity, suggesting ‘language teachers and students in any setting naturally represent a wide array of social and cultural roles and identities’ (p. 451). It is a truism that language teachers display the ongoing construction and deconstruction of ‘who they are’ in the social space. The school and classrooms are examples of social space where teachers construct their professional identity through interaction with their colleagues,

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students, materials, educational policies and curriculum. Identity emerges from and in practice, but identity also affects the ways teachers understand and act upon issues and opportunities they encounter in practice. In the process of making decisions, understanding situational and sociocultural constraints and possibilities, they develop themselves as professionals as individuals-acting-in-context (Pennington & Richards, 2016). Researching teacher identity has become a significant part of teacher education, informing individual teachers’ professional growth independently and critically. Focusing on teacher identity formation when exploring teacher cognition enables teachers not only to better understand their thinking and actions in actual contexts, but also offers them a way to realise possible selves in their professional contexts and the connections between self and contextual factors. It is through understanding their thinking, beliefs and behaviours that teachers can reach ‘deep considerations of the self concerning educational contexts’ (Beauchamp & Thomas, 2011, pp. 185–186). The psychological self-image in ‘becoming and being’ a teacher is a social process taking place in an institutional setting where the professional context shapes and is shaped by teachers’ positioning and agency. Teachers need to understand that identity is a complex and multiple individual and social phenomenon, which has an impact on pedagogy and instructional practice. In this regard, Miller (2009) calls for more research on teacher identity, focusing on the nature of identity, and identity and pedagogy. Here, I would like to focus on pre-service teacher identity development specifically. For many international students, engaging within a TESOL programme is a ‘complex, locally situated process that involves dynamic negotiation of expertise and identity’ (Morita, 2000, p. 303). The data suggest that belief development of novice teachers is a true reflection of their identity shifts. Many students come from a ‘knowledge-transmission’ tradition and attend Western-based TESOL programmes during which they shift their identities across cultures. These shifts, mirrored by their belief development, need to be given more consideration in future research, not only to understand NNS teacher trainees but also to develop TESOL programmes which are more relevant for this cohort who intend to return to their home countries to teach the language. Therefore, the

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design of TESOL programmes should be expanded to focus on the processes of teaching and teacher learning and the relevance of the modules to international contexts. The over-emphasised linguistic components in teacher education programmes should not predominate but serve as a tool to inform the nature of teaching, learning and being a teacher. The traditional ‘knowledge-transmission’ delivery approach should be replaced with ‘knowledge construction’ modes as language education is socially and culturally constituted (Miller, 2004). However, there is no fixed model to develop pre-service teachers; teacher education programmes need to realise the need to build a community where student teachers develop on their initiatives. Here, I would like to echo what Johnson (2009a) recommends, that teacher learning should focus on teacher knowing, rather than teacher knowledge development. As such, novice teachers will be able to see their growth point and engage in deliberate practice to enhance their knowing (Li, 2017a). Of course, developing teachers’ beliefs is not merely to create professional language teachers, but a process of leading student teachers to negotiate and construct meanings and professional identities in communities when crossing boundaries.

Non-Native-Speakerhood As discussed in Chap. 8, one particular issue that is relevant to EFL teachers is the non-native speaker identity and the role of subject knowledge. Even though Todd and Pojanapunya (2009) suggest that teachers’ professionalism, such as their dedication to students and their ability to manage to learn, is more important than native-speakerhood. Non-native teachers experience conflicts and challenges in defining themselves with regards to the role of a knowledge provider in becoming language teachers. It is in many EFL contexts that teachers feel that they have responsibilities in providing students with sufficient language knowledge and input on the one hand, while, on the other, helping them to acquire interactional skills. Although these two areas are not necessarily in conflict with each other, for many non-native English-speaking teachers, it is a challenge to strike a balance. In that respect, Pavlenko (2003) provides a good example of the current debate of native/non-native speaker dichotomy. She has suggested that TESOL programmes which expose their students to

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academic content on bilingualism, multilingualism and the concept of multicompetence (Cook, 1992) will enable novice teachers to re-imagine their ‘non-native’ speaker identities and ‘to construe themselves and their future students as legitimate L2 users rather than as failed native speakers of the target language (Pavlenko, 2003, p. 251).

Translanguaging Practice As evidenced in the book, teachers engage with translanguaging pedagogy. ‘Translanguaging’, is ‘the process of making meaning, shaping experiences and gaining understanding and knowledge through the use of two languages’ (Baker, 2011, p. 288). As evidenced in the data (Chaps. 4, 5, 6, 7 and 8) and literature, language is no longer only a system of sounds and words. Rather, it is considered as social practice (Johnson, 2009a) and such a view is termed ‘languaging’ (Volosinov, 1973), which refers to the language practices, interactions and how we understand the world through language (Canagarajah, 2007; Juffermans, 2011; Møller & Jørgensen, 2009). Indeed, this view is also shared by sociolinguistic researchers, who claim that languages have ‘moved away from a view of languages as separate, bounded entities to a view of communication in which language users employ whatever linguistic features are at their disposal to achieve their communicative aims as best they can’ (Blackledge & Creese, 2015, p.  21). Against this background, it is important for teachers to realise the affordances of the L1 and the role of translanguing practices in classrooms. On the one hand, the translanguaging practice provides teachers with an opportunity to holistically engage students when they receive language input and produce output in an interactive dialogue (Lewis, Jones, & Baker, 2012; Blackledge & Creese, 2010). On the other, García and Li Wei (2014) argue that a translanguaging pedagogy would help to create flexibility and enable bilingual students to utilise their entire linguistic repertoire, including ‘feeling, experience, history, memory, subjectivity, and culture’ (Li Wei, 2017, p. 17). Translanguaging practices can be utilised in various ways, such as a pedagogical scaffolding tool (Extract 4.2), a method for encouraging ­student participation and interaction (Extract 5.2, 8.11), a mediational tool for content learning (Extract 4.4), a way to improve students’

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l­earning strategy (Extract 4.1) and a space to engage in error correction (Extract 4.3). For many bilingual or multilingual teachers, even when they engage in translanguaging practices, they do not recognise the mediational role of translanguing to help their learners to achieve communicative purposes. Because translanguaging is viewed as a discourse practice and focuses on the natural, observable communicative practices of bilinguals (García, 2009a, 2009b), it is essential for teachers to realise the affordances of translanguaging pedagogy, especially when content is focused (Chap. 4). This concept is also closely tied to teachers’ language identity and experience. So if teachers can see the flexibility that translanguaging practices can offer in language learning, it could aid learners to gain a resourceful mediational tool to develop higher mental understandings. In a related aspect, the flexibility and mediational function of translanguaging may enable teachers to engage students in a social and creative learning environment. In that respect, Creese and Blackledge (2010) argue that flexible bilingualism provides teachers with resourceful teaching ‘to make links for classroom participants between the social, cultural, community; and linguistic domains of their lives’ (p. 112). So my point here is that if teachers are consciously aware of the multiple affordances of translanguaging practices, they might be able to give the control of learning back to learners. That is to say, teachers can ‘involve students in the lesson, to offer clarifications, to reinforce, manage, extend and ask questions’ (García & Li Wei, 2014, p. 104), and they might be able to exploit the whole range of linguistic repertoire they have in facilitating learning, which further adds to their pedagogical knowledge and confidence.

Emotion Closely related to teacher cognition development is emotion. From a sociocultural perspective, learning is a process that one makes sense of through constructing meaning in interaction, and emotion is a crucial part of this sense-making process. Emotion, for Vygotsky, is central to how we engage in the world, as he argues that thought must be viewed ‘as a meaningless epiphenomenon’ without emotion (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 10). In the context of teacher education, Van Huizen, van Oers, and Wubbels (2005) and Edwards (2009) highlight the role of student-

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teacher emotions as critical points for learning. I concur with them and strongly advocate taking into consideration teachers’ emotional experiences as a lens through which we might understand professional identities as well as resources for learning and development. As suggested in the data, teachers face challenges in their work, and they experience identity conflicts and struggle at intrapersonal, interpersonal and contextual levels. Citing Vasilyuk (1991), Edwards (2010) argues that ‘coping with change is not simply a behavioural response, but also involves an affectively charged and relatively slow process of working through contradictions or “crises” and gaining new forms of mental equilibrium which enable functioning’ (p. 66). That is, struggling or making changes in a setting is more than a response to a stimulus. It is an emotional experience and engagement. As such, we need to consider teachers’ emotional experience in teacher learning and professional identity construction. What motivates them, what makes them satisfied, what struggles they experience and what challenges they face all contribute to how they see themselves as professionals making sense of the environment where they live. If teachers can use their emotional experience positively, it can enable them to develop within the ZPD. To this end, teacher education should be able to provide trainees with an opportunity to develop themselves as resourceful teachers who can recognise how tools, artefacts and experiences can strengthen their impact on their professional growth. It is critical to understand that resources here are not limited to material artefacts, but knowledge embedded in them, and experience, emotion and support they gain, can be potential tools and artefacts. Here, I would like to argue the importance of colleagues and peers in making the best of emotional resources. When they are supported by colleagues and peers who have a shared language and common knowledge, teachers are given space to develop collaboration and collegiality, which further contributes to the concrete construction of a community. Examples of such can include an informal chat about knowledge/strategies that teachers are using to teach a concept or to cope with a difficulty/challenge, or merely an active experience-sharing moment when teachers discuss confusion/motivation/ issues/rewards in their professional lives. Research suggests that prior negative experience in practicum can have detrimental effects on teacher learning. Moodie (2016) provides evidence

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that prior L2 learning is important for understanding beliefs, practices and development of language teachers. In his study, nearly all trainees had negative learning experiences prior to their training. Golombek and Doran (2014) suggest that novice teachers are in a vulnerable position, facing teaching and other challenging issues around classroom practice for the first time. Therefore, in order to assist learning and tackling of emotional responses that teachers might have, teacher educators need to consider emotion as a valuable resource, rather than as a source of incompetence, to be incorporated into each teacher’s professional development (p. 110). Again, significant others in teaching practice such as local mentors, peers and students are useful learning resources that student teachers need to have access to in order to cope with emotional constraints (Li, 2017a). In particular, course tutors should play an active role in guiding students through their emotional experiences. It is true that gaining subject and pedagogical knowledge has always been a focus of a teacher education programme, but maybe it is time for us to revisit the way we educate student teachers and put their emotional needs at the core of the learning. Given the significant influence of teacher education programmes and the lived experience of teachers on the construction of their identity, it is vital for us to think about and reflect on what kind of teacher learning is initiated and enabled which might help teachers to become and develop as professionals. In particular, it is essential to think about the process of how the individuals engage in finding the meaning of becoming a teacher in their local contexts. As Danielewicz (2001, p. 113) pointed out, teacher development is part of the process of ‘transformative reimagining of the self ’. Perhaps it is more important to raise teachers’ awareness of finding the meaning of being a teacher in this process, rather than seeing it as an opportunity to overcome the deficiency.

Pedagogy I would concur with Kumaravadivelu (2006) that appropriate methodology should ensure continuity and congruity with local knowledge, and we need not only understand but also develop pedagogy in the teachers’

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local contexts. Studying teacher cognition provides such opportunities to examine the context and the pedagogy together from the teachers’ perspectives, which is important for achieving effective pedagogy as they are the decision-makers in their own classrooms. That is, by investigating teacher cognition, we can gain insights into the underlying principles of teaching, including planning the lesson procedure and designing activities, and how materials may be evaluated and chosen. As such, we can help teachers to link their principles to the teaching practices and objectives, and thus raise awareness about appropriate teaching methodology for their local context.

The Role of Teacher Talk Teachers need to recognise that language development is not smooth and linear but is dynamic, uneven and ‘revolutionary’ (Vygotsky, 1987). Teachers should provide mediation within learners’ ZPD (Nassaji & Swain, 2000). Because teachers have a specific agenda for each activity, sometimes they unconsciously ignore the opportunities for communication and participation for their learners. This might cause confusion and frustration for the class. Hall (1992) argues that although talk in language classrooms is often ‘comprehensible’, it is frequently not ‘meaningful’ because it is not sensitive to ‘talk-as-discursive-practice’ and as a result, such talk is not likely to have a robust ‘development perspective’ (p. 56). In analysing teacher cognition, we see that sometimes teachers are creating space for learners to engage in real-life talk, whereas other times they restrict students’ contributions by glossing over students’ input or closing down the space for learner engagement. It is obvious from the data that sometimes teachers do not have such intentions, so through analysing teacher talk and what they think, it might be possible to help them to re-evaluate the functions of their language and, more importantly, perhaps improve interactional work with students. A specific area for teachers to look at is the role of teacher talk. For example, in the previous chapters, we can see when teachers focus on developing communication skills, fluency is more important and teacher talk functions mainly as a facilitating and organising tool, whereas when teachers’ agenda is on

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the linguistic knowledge, we can see teacher talk is used as input and resource for learning (e.g., in Chap. 4). In the latter case, accuracy might be more important than fluency. Therefore, teachers need to have a clear idea of the role of their own language in developing their language knowledge and awareness.

The Role of Macro Context Context emerges as a significant factor contributing to the development of teacher cognition, especially at the macro level. At least two areas of teacher cognition are developed as a result of teachers’ understanding and appropriation of educational policy and a new curriculum, namely developing students’ thinking skills and creativity, and the use of technology to facilitate learning. In this sense, policy and curriculum are considered as artefacts that teachers use to mediate their pedagogical thinking.

Thinking Skills and Creativity There is a strong connection between higher level thinking and language. In classrooms, although virtually all teachers believe that they teach for thinking, Sternberg and Martin (1988) have suggested ‘relatively little of the teaching that goes on in the classroom directly encourages higherorder thinking’ (p. 560). Sternberg (2004) has further suggested that students all over the world are taught to ‘recall and recognise’ information (p. 68). One major source of failure of teaching thinking relates to teaching styles. It is widely acknowledged that the most frequently-used classroom method of enhancing thinking is questioning, and Sternberg and Martin (1988) concluded that ‘lecture-based’ or ‘fact-based’ questioning approaches do not facilitate thinking. Such questioning is very common across subject areas, and the typical structure is IR (E/F), involving teacher initiation (I), learner response (R) and an optional evaluation or feedback (E/F) by the teacher (Sinclair & Coulthard, 1975). For many researchers, the IRF exchanges, which mainly facilitate students’ retrieval of information rather than constructing knowledge, do not provide evi-

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dence of improving students’ comprehension and reconstruction of subject knowledge. However, as previously discussed, developing thinking skills has become an important agenda of teaching and learning in a number of countries due to the reformed curriculum (e.g., China, Thailand and Mexico). In this case, we can see the significant influence of policy on teachers’ awareness, cognition and teaching behaviour. It is possible that a new understanding is being developed due to the changes in the local contexts. Research suggests that playfulness in language learning is a valuable space where students can develop mentally—playing with language includes ‘playing with words, phrases, sound and extensive use of double entendre’ (Sullivan, 2000, p. 126). When engaging in playful utterances, it is possible to have a whole-class conversation. To develop a whole-class conversation, teachers need to design the activity with the principle of focusing on group participation rather than individual participation. Li (2011) observes that in foreign language classrooms where thinking skills are promoted there is a ‘silence’ feature, and she calls for teachers to reconsider silence from students and resist the temptation to ‘fill the silence’, or give out the answers.

The Role of Technology Clearly, in this dataset, teachers display their knowledge, conceptions and use of technological tools in engaging in activities. By looking at the roles of technology in the activities, we can infer how teachers conceptualise teaching and learning. That is, technology is used as a real-life artefact to mediate their thinking about teaching. We can see that teachers do use technologies in innovative ways rather than just for informative purposes, and different technological tools are used to address different pedagogical goals. In summary, technology plays different roles in learning. For example, it can be used as 1. a tool to create a context where language is used for real-life purposes or more interaction;

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2. a mediational tool to enhance understanding of a linguistic term or a concept; 3. an authentic resource; 4. a workspace for students to conduct learning or a platform that holds learning materials; 5. a tutor that provides feedback and gives instruction; 6. an affective tool to motivate and engage students; and 7. an organisational tool. Here, I also want to return to my earlier point: the role of interaction and the value of CA. We can see that if teachers want to maximise the affordances of technology, they need to consider its function in line with the pedagogical purpose of that moment—this, in turn, can only be judged by considering the interaction that takes place at a given point in time. There is, then, a pressing need for further research which looks at the complex relationship between language, interaction, technology and learning. In particular, we need closer understandings of how technology mediates learning, and how teachers use technological tools to mediate their thinking. Conversation analysis can provide a detailed account of how technology is used on a moment-by-moment basis, thereby improving teachers’ pedagogical knowledge and decisions. Decision-making in adopting technology is far more complex and involves various influencing factors. The extracts presented in the book imply that there are three issues about teachers’ beliefs worth considering in integrating technology. First, it is important to examine teachers’ beliefs about technology use concerning the context in which they work. Rather than trying to impose ideas of technology integration, teachers’ understandings of its usefulness in their daily teaching needs to be understood and taken into consideration. Again, in this book, I have demonstrated how we can understand teachers’ beliefs about the functions of technology through their actions in classrooms. Second, it is important to develop their ability to evaluate resources and think critically about the usefulness (or the role) of technology in their classroom in order to facilitate full exploration of its efficacy and to develop their technology-­ enhanced pedagogy. That is, teachers should be encouraged to ask the

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question: ‘what do I want to achieve by using technology and what is the best way to achieve my pedagogical goal?’ Third, it is important to raise awareness of the potential shifts in teachers’ roles in technology-­integrated classrooms so that they can shift their thinking from an exam-oriented approach to a skill-based one.

Interactive Decisions Teachers make decisions all the time, and a good decision is one which contributes to successful learning. I have argued that a detailed study of teachers’ interactive decision-making is useful in understanding effective instruction, hence promoting learning (see Chap. 5). The moment-by-­ moment analysis of teachers’ decision-making in this book suggests that learner attributes—including their needs, understanding, involvement, perception, knowledge and behaviour—account for a large portion of a teacher’s decision-making. By examining why and how teachers make interactive decisions, it is possible to develop more effective pedagogy and teacher learning. As illustrated in the book, interactive decisions are made in a range of situations, prompted by a number of reasons, and made in various ways. From a teacher’s perspective, a focus on interactive decisions through the use of, for example, CA, provides opportunities for reflection and professional development. By examining why and how teachers make interactive decisions, we can gain possible insights into how the complex systems of teaching and learning interact in achieving pedagogical goals, and how to teach and to understand what teaching is about (Harmer, 2003; Li, 2017a). If we examine the understandings and positions displayed in discourse, it is possible to raise teachers’ awareness of their own roles and the pedagogical assumptions they have by studying the interactive decisions teachers make. Studying interactive decisions can also help teachers to evaluate their teaching. For example, because teachers give their pedagogical goals priority in teaching, it is, therefore, crucial to consider the pedagogical goal of each activity and predict the potential unexpected contributions and knowledge which may emerge from learners. Equally, by examining the interactional strategies a teacher has adopted in making

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classroom decisions, they can become aware of the kinds of actions they might take for the creation of learning opportunities. For this reason, perhaps teacher education can also develop teacher knowledge by placing a strong emphasis on understanding the context and the influence of the local context on teachers’ decision-making. Trainee teachers would thus not only understand the nature of interactive decisions and possible strategies they might use in creating better opportunities for learners but also become more pro-active in planning lessons.

Teacher Knowledge Teacher knowledge is an important area of teacher cognition, which includes different domains, such as subject, pedagogical knowledge and contextual knowledge. In EFL contexts, subject knowledge is t­ raditionally considered as linguistic knowledge, although Li (2017a) argues that the subject (e.g., English) can be considered from four different perspectives, namely language as a system, as discourse, as ideology and as social practice. Language teachers place a strong emphasis on language form and rules, and the ultimate goal of learning is to work out how words produce meaningful sentences. This is partially due to the local context in which they teach English, partially due to the heavy emphasis on linguistic knowledge in language teacher education programmes. It is well evidenced in the data (e.g., Chaps. 4 and 7) that both in-service and preservice teachers put emphasis on the language system, and the efforts that they make to develop their own and students’ linguistic knowledge are significant. Although teachers need to have knowledge of the underlying systems of the language that enables them to teach effectively (Thornbury, 1997), researchers propose that it is vital for teacher education programmes to integrate the focus on language systems with their practical applications (Bigelow & Ranney, 2005, p. 196). In fact, the majority of teacher education programmes are designed with these principles in mind, but it is difficult for (student) teachers to develop flexibility and expertise in spotting opportunities for focusing on language content and improving ability to recognise how and in what ways the textbook contents need to be supplemented (e.g., Andrews, 2007).

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Language Awareness With the development of English as a lingua franca, it is more important to see language as social practice (Johnson, 2009a; Li, 2017a). On that ground, perhaps it is more important for language teacher education programmes to develop language teachers’ awareness which is based on the principles that language should be seen within its sociocultural dimension, that is, ‘how people actually use language’ (Arndt, Harvey, & Nuttall, 2000, p. 1). To go one step further, language teachers nowadays need critical language awareness (CLA), which according to Arndt et al. (2000) ‘entails, as part of a general sensitivity to language—the particular understanding of how underlying ideology, beliefs, and attitudes are encoded in text; how socio-historical contexts and socio-cognitive ­processes are inevitably bound up together in the production and interpretation of text’ (p. 218). Thus, viewing language as social practice and moving away from developing the linguistic knowledge of language teachers is critical. For language teacher education to embrace a language as social practice perspective, the focus needs to be shifted to developing teachers’ ability to guide students not only to use the language appropriately in different situations but also, more importantly, to develop an explicit awareness of the social and pragmatic norms which underlie the appropriate use of the language. Carter’s (2004) definition of language awareness is still relevant in designing teacher learning components regarding the breadth of the concerns encompassed by language awareness. From Carter’s perspective, language awareness involves awareness of the properties of language, creativity and playfulness in language use, and the double meanings of language in contexts. This is in line with some teachers’ practice in encouraging students to play with words, developing higher-order thinking skills and working together. On a different aspect, Carter highlights the relationship between language and culture and the importance of raising teachers’ awareness of this connection. Language and culture do not independently exist; they are intertwined. Therefore, when teaching a language, teachers need to be aware of the cultural representations, and equally how language is used to develop cultural practice. If teachers were

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not to receive explicit input about language and culture from a teacher education programme, it might be difficult for them to develop such awareness, and even more challenging to engage in such a practice. Thus, a teacher education programme designed under a sociocultural perspective would need to think about language forms, meanings, contextual and cultural elements, as well as opportunities for teachers to make sense of the close relationship between language and ideology. The second type of knowledge is pedagogical knowledge, which focuses on teaching methods, activities, technical design of materials, as well as classroom interaction. Activity lies at the heart of the pedagogical decisions that teachers make, in relation to their pedagogical goals. What we can see from the extracts in this book is that teachers design activities broadly to address their pedagogical goals, but often make interactive decisions concerning activity sequences and difficulty level. Although the research suggests that subject knowledge is considered as the prerequisite for effective teaching, the role of pedagogical knowledge is as equally important as the subject knowledge (Li, 2017a), because an adequate level of knowledge does not guarantee good teaching practice (Bartels, 2005; Johnson, 2009b). However, pedagogical knowledge is also very personal and closely related to teachers’ own learning experience and practical knowledge they develop on the job. This point makes teachers’ informal learning (e.g., peer dialogues and reflections) even more important. Li (2017a) argues that there have existed differences in knowledge between expert and novice teachers, claiming that the former are able to demonstrate integrated knowledge of the subject, pedagogy and context, whereas novice teachers consider them as separate elements of their practice; so, it is crucial for teachers to be able to think more about the connection between subject knowledge and pedagogy, and contextualise it. Contextual knowledge is a vital knowledge domain that teachers demonstrate in the dataset. It is important to notice that they demonstrate critical and sufficient local knowledge about students and the environment (e.g., technology availability) in instructions. It is critical to note that subject or disciplinary knowledge (e.g., technology knowledge) cannot be separated from the general pedagogical content knowledge (e.g., English language teaching). They are not two different sets of knowledge, but are complementary and may inform each other.

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Technology Competence and Confidence Teacher knowledge development is a personal practical knowledge accumulation process; thus a context-related and practice-oriented approach should be encouraged among all teachers to develop their knowledge, even at very early stages of pre-service teacher education (e.g., Balaman & Sert, 2017). Acknowledging the importance of the contextual and personal aspect of knowledge development, Kumaravadivelu (2012) reviewed different concepts of teacher knowledge and proposed that for teacher preparation, we should aim for types of knowledge which are manageable and meaningful. With regards to knowledge about using technology in teaching, Kessler (2006) pointed out that a common approach in current language teacher education programmes is to concentrate on digital literacy and as such, teachers still find it difficult to integrate technology into their practice to address their pedagogical and professional needs (Li, 2017b). Regarding integrating technology, it is important to focus on developing teacher knowledge about technology, because teachers act as change agents and there is ample evidence to urge for the preparation and education of pre-service and in-service language teachers to develop technology competence and confidence. Hubbard (2008) points out that one reason for the problem of teacher education in technology use is the lack of established methodology and insufficient infrastructure. Thus, the ‘experiential learning’ cycle where students can practise what theory says in real-life contexts is a useful and effective path. Mishra and Koehler (2006) proposed Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK), emphasising (1) the dynamic relationships between content, pedagogy and technology for teachers, and (2) successful integration of technology in teaching and in developing their own knowledge and competence in the technology integration (Koehler, Mishra, & Yahya, 2007; Mishra & Koehler, 2006). The core part of TPACK, therefore, is to know about integrating appropriate pedagogy and technology into English learning materials and language teaching by considering the role of language in real-life communication (e.g., Liu & Kleinsasser, 2015; Hong, 2010; Hubbard, 2008; Hubbard & Levy, 2006).

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Final Remarks This book has set out to examine teacher cognition through the lens of a sociocultural perspective. By exemplifying and scrutinising the critical ideas in sociocultural theory and their implications for teacher cognition, the book has added significant value to the existing research on studying teacher education and development. The book argues the case for using sociocultural theory to understand teachers’ conception of teaching and learning, interactive decision-making, the use of technology, as well as teacher learning and identity. In particular, it highlights the value of the social interaction and contexts in the development of conceptualisation and knowledge. In this regard, I would like to emphasise that: • cognition is a process of social activity which is facilitated by social interaction with peers and self; it is an action of interaction with others and talk is such a medium of action; • cognition is displayed and developed situationally in institutional interaction, where cognition-in-interaction is subject to the fingerprint of the institutional structure; • teacher cognition is a multifaceted and multidimensional concept which involves identity construction and emotional experience; • ‘applied’ CA is a methodological tool that can be utilised to make the connection between language, cognition, artefacts and activities possible at a micro-genetic level; • the understanding of cultural and historical practices and meditational tools that teachers possess and engage with is crucial in their higher mental development; and • teacher learning is a continual and mutually mediating process of appropriation and social action (Edwards, 2010), and teacher development is an ongoing boundary-crossing activity in which teachers develop sense-making. ZFM, ZPA and ZCD focus on different aspects of teachers’ proximal development. Depending on the theoretical perspective one takes, cognition can be viewed and researched through different lenses. What this book demon-

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strates is not only a way to understand how teachers construct understanding, conceptualising, knowing and believing, but also who they are and how they feel in their professional contexts. However, I would argue that it is, in particular, a critical lens given the significance of social activities and artefacts in the development of cognition. I also argue that a sociocultural approach to teacher learning and education is transformative if the key is to understand and empower teachers to engage in ongoing professional development. Equally, the sociocultural perspective on teacher learning enables the field of L2 teacher education to ‘move beyond simple descriptions of teacher learning’ as experiences, and ‘trace the inherent complexity of those experiences and make visible what those experiences ultimately lead to’ (Johnson & Golombek, 2003, p. 735). To conclude, I have proposed that teacher cognition can be treated as a springboard for teachers to develop and grow professionally. On an ­individual level, I suggest they examine their interactional work with significant others in order to understand their motives and struggles, knowledge and understanding, in making decisions. By examining the interactional work in greater detail, teachers are able to identify their relative positions in the ZPD. On a group level, I suggest teachers conduct CDRP in which they use scaffolded help from each other in a dialogic space. I have also suggested that teachers need to consider this as an opportunity to develop a community of practice in which they share similar concerns. Emotional experience and identity construction is a key component in the development of cognition and cannot be treated as a separate aspect of teachers’ lives. On that note, further research needs to be done to understand the interplay between cognition, emotion and identity. I also would like to highlight the role of the macro context on teachers’ understanding and practice. Teachers’ decision-making is by and large influenced by the macro contextual factors such as policy and curriculum, the environment where they work (see Chaps. 4 and 6), and people they interact with in their professional lives. Take technology integration into teaching as an example, in a society where collective culture is highly valued, the top-down policy might be considered a positive factor that helps teachers to engage in innovation in practice (Li, 2008); therefore, having support and encouragement from senior leaders (or significant

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others) seems to be key to the success of teacher learning. Here, I also want to emphasise the influence of teacher education programmes on teacher learning, which might need to build in CDRP as a way of learning to teach. Further research along these lines will be encouraging and illuminating, given the importance of teacher education on developing teachers’ knowledge and skills in effective pedagogy. As a final word, teacher cognition is a significant part of teacher education research, and it is multifaceted and multidimensional. Given the significance of sociocultural theory in learning and higher mental development, it is expected that more work in this area will be conducted.

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Index

A

Affordances, 2–3, 5, 156, 168, 171, 291 Agency, 247, 258–259, 289 Applied CA, 5, 12, 52, 60, 66, 137–138, 304 Appropriation, 20, 32–33, 36, 39, 54, 283, 296, 304 Artefacts, 6, 35, 40, 42, 170–171, 209, 249, 293, 296, 304–305 Attitudes, 19, 21, 26, 29–30, 40, 165–166, 207, 235, 247, 301 B

Beliefs, 4–6, 9–11, 13, 19–21, 24–33, 51–52, 55–57, 105, 202–206, 211–212, 214–215, 232–236, 260–261, 282–286, 298 pre-existing, 38, 219, 234–235

Beliefs and knowledge, 29, 203, 211 Believing, 6, 8–10, 241, 305 C

CA perspective, 95, 100, 103, 108, 110–111, 116, 122, 127, 178, 182, 186, 194, 215, 225, 227 Classroom discourse, 8, 62, 71, 75–76, 104, 136 Classroom interaction, 12, 21, 29, 54, 56, 67, 70, 75–77, 87, 139, 166, 205, 235, 242, 302 Cognition, 3–4, 6–9, 11, 22–23, 29–31, 33–34, 40–42, 44, 51–53, 55, 65, 241, 279–280, 287, 304–305 development of, 34, 41, 52, 205, 223, 233, 285, 305 distributed, 4, 9, 30–31, 64

© The Author(s) 2020 L. Li, Language Teacher Cognition, https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-51134-8

347

348 Index

Cognition-in-interaction, 4, 7, 30, 51, 60, 277, 287, 304 Cognitive development, 35, 37–38, 53, 170 Collaborative dialogic reflection, 288 Collaborative dialogic reflective practice (CDRP), 280–281, 306 Communities, imagined, 223, 244–245, 255, 257, 260, 270 Competence professional, 254 technological, 195 Conceptualising, 4, 6, 8–9, 30, 44, 284, 287, 305 Confidence, 2, 195, 207, 220, 231, 254–255, 261–264, 269, 292, 303 Content knowledge, 206–207, 278 Contexts, 7–8, 24, 26–27, 31–33, 38–40, 55, 180–181, 223–224, 232–233, 236, 242–243, 277–280, 283–285, 295–298, 300–302 institutional, 7, 27, 38, 204, 249 interactional, 68 micro, 27, 31–32, 53, 64, 90–91, 131, 136, 160 sociocultural, 32, 42, 208, 218, 236, 278 Contextual factors, 27, 207, 285, 289, 305 Conversation analysis (CA), 2, 6–11, 30, 51–52, 61–61, 63–67, 69, 73, 78, 80–81, 287–288, 298–299 Counter-question (CQ), 146, 177, 218 CQ strategy, 149–150, 177

Creativity, 123, 126, 130, 167, 296, 301 Cultural knowledge, 117, 120–121, 161, 244, 279 insufficient, 160 Cultural values, 234, 236 Culture, 27, 32–33, 38, 42, 53, 87, 123, 195, 204, 208, 220, 285, 289, 291, 301–302 D

Decision-making, 9, 11–12, 23, 25, 27–28, 52, 55, 59, 79, 135–136, 138, 159, 205, 298–300, 305 Dialogue, 43, 51, 53, 58, 119–120, 126–127, 176, 178, 184, 209, 224–125, 230, 280, 283 Discursive psychology (DP), 6, 8, 29–31, 51–52, 137 Dispreferred contributions, 12, 137, 140, 143–144, 147 DP perspective, 29–31, 287 E

Emotions, 20, 247–248, 250, 255–256, 272, 277–278, 288, 292–294, 305 Experience, emotional, 293, 304–305 Expert, 38, 43, 53, 69, 79, 207, 210, 258–259, 266, 302 Expertise, 136, 159–160, 203, 207–209, 228, 231, 255, 258, 281, 289, 300

 Index  F

Feedback, 95, 98–101, 103, 107, 111, 113, 142–143, 172, 177, 186–187, 223, 225, 228, 296, 298 G

Gestures, 36, 60, 77, 79–80, 103, 129, 177, 251, 257 Growth point, 37–38, 209, 288, 290 I

Identity, 6, 8, 13, 23, 241–251, 253, 255–261, 263, 265, 267, 269–275, 278, 280, 287–289, 304–306 imagined, 250, 260 multilingual, 264 multiple, 250, 255, 287 negotiating, 43 non-native speaker, 261–262, 290–291 sense of, 243, 247 situated, 257–259, 263 social, 286 translinguistic, 246 Identity and emotions, 278, 288 Identity construction, 243–244, 304–305 Identity formation, 241, 270, 277, 279 Identity-in-discourse, 248 Identity-in-practice, 248 Identity positionings, 247, 258 Identity shifts, 234, 247, 257, 270, 289 Ideologies, 8, 10, 26, 211–212, 264, 269, 300, 302

349

Images, 23, 36, 170–171, 177–178, 203, 205, 269, 286 Imagination, 126, 244–245, 260, 270 Individualised feedback, 168, 172, 186 Institutional interactions, 7–8, 67–68, 71, 304 Insufficient knowledge, 12, 116, 121, 138, 153, 155, 161, 267 claim of, 121, 140, 185 Interactional competence, 104, 219 Interactional resources, 36, 53, 69, 77, 189, 193 Interactional strategies, 44, 76, 139, 147–148, 159–161, 178, 214, 225, 299 Interactive decisions, 4, 7, 12, 135–140, 142–144, 146, 151, 156, 159, 161, 288, 299–300, 302 Investment, 214, 243–245, 250, 253–255, 270 K

Knowing, 4, 6, 8–9, 30, 42, 44, 55, 79, 81, 160, 241, 251, 282–283, 287–288, 290 Knowledge, 3, 11–13, 24–29, 31, 40–43, 51–55, 68–69, 89, 148–149, 161, 205–206, 208–212, 278–282, 299–300, 302–306 background, 41, 138, 185 contextual, 160, 300, 302 disciplinary, 160, 212, 302 local, 294, 302 metalinguistic, 36, 268 pre-existing, 209, 279, 285 shared, 2, 191, 215, 281

350 Index

Knowledge and understanding, 25, 33, 126, 130, 219, 279, 305 Knowledge construction, 53, 87, 89 Knowledge provider, 161, 229–231, 252, 290 Knowledge source, 153, 161, 185, 195, 252, 261 L

Language awareness, 206, 301 Language development, 34, 36, 113, 295 Language identities, 261, 292 Language knowledge, 112, 218, 290, 296 Language learning, content-­ integrated, 90, 111 Language-related identity, 250, 261 Language teacher identity, 241–242, 249 Language use, 123, 169, 178, 248, 301 Learner contributions, unexpected, 137, 154, 160 Learner participation, 77, 88, 158, 161, 215 Learning collaborative, 38, 87, 171 rote, 87–88, 216, 229, 234, 260 situated, 79, 280 Learning environments, 32, 171, 173, 208, 218 Learning event, 94, 187, 258 Learning experience, 24, 31, 101, 166, 213–214, 221, 249, 254, 260, 267–269, 280, 302 prior, 38, 217, 250, 267, 285

Learning opportunities, 101, 103, 120, 129, 136, 155–156, 159, 266, 282, 288 emerging, 140, 156 potential, 12, 138, 160 Learning strategies, 117, 129, 182, 292 Linguistic identities, 244, 246, 263, 286 Linguistic knowledge, 54, 56, 90, 93, 95, 99, 101, 104, 168–169, 214, 216–118, 223, 247, 296, 300–301 Local contexts, 32, 55, 89, 91, 278, 280, 285, 294–295, 297, 300 M

Meaning negotiation, 6, 75, 117, 171–172, 279 Mediation, 11, 20, 35–39, 42, 50, 281, 295 Mediational tool, 93–94, 142, 170, 181, 184–185, 288, 291, 298 Medium, 8, 30, 40, 65, 76, 112, 190, 304 Mental development, 6, 10 Metalanguage, 56–57, 280 Motivation, 20, 30, 88, 117, 153, 173, 243, 247, 253, 256 Multilingualism, 5, 291 N

Negative experience, 205, 209, 231, 263 Negotiation, 69, 88, 117, 171, 209, 230, 234, 243–245, 277, 282

 Index 

Novice teachers, 139, 148, 204, 207, 233, 285, 289–291, 294, 302 O

Online decisions, 135–136, 160 P

Participation, 62–63, 68, 77, 79, 117, 150, 152–153, 156, 159, 171–172, 208–209, 243, 248, 280, 282 Pedagogical beliefs, 5, 22, 195, 203, 224 Pedagogical goals, 7, 55, 65, 77, 91, 130–131, 136–137, 154, 159–160, 175, 194, 288, 297, 299, 302 Pedagogical knowledge, 5, 12, 187, 195, 210–211, 222–223, 251, 253, 255, 284, 292, 294, 298, 300, 302 Pedagogical thinking, 9, 13, 24, 166, 296 Pedagogy appropriate, 303 communication-oriented, 105 innovative, 23 learner-centred, 231–232 technology-enhanced, 298 translanguaging, 291–292 Personal practical knowledge, 24, 41, 79, 89, 204, 241 Perspectives, 3, 6, 9, 25–27, 29, 40–41, 43, 53–54, 89, 130, 156, 245, 249, 269–270, 284–286 cognitive, 25–26, 28, 41, 185 discursive psychological, 5–7, 25 epistemological, 20, 31

351

Positive feedback, 98, 115, 121, 177, 180, 184, 187, 191, 220, 227, 266 Practical knowledge, 41, 89, 270, 302 Practice communities of, 280–281 community of, 209, 222, 281, 305 cultural, 120, 283, 301 deliberate, 290 historical, 286, 304 pedagogical, 2, 38 sociocultural, 193 Pre-service teachers, 10, 13, 203–205, 207, 210–212, 219, 222–223, 228–236, 250–251, 253, 255, 257, 260, 282, 290 Professional development, 9, 20, 24, 32, 187, 189–190, 284, 294, 299 Professional identities, 9, 13, 248–250, 288, 290, 293 Professional knowledge, 6, 105, 190, 204, 283 Professional learning, 175, 187, 190–191, 194, 204, 223 R

Reflective practice, 21, 25, 38, 283, 287 Repair, 64, 69, 73–74, 100 Repair work, 95, 111, 116, 127, 225 S

Scaffolding, 53, 209, 281 School culture, 27, 207, 236, 279

352 Index

Social interaction, 4–9, 32, 34, 41, 51–53, 63, 65, 76, 78, 81, 209, 242, 249, 277–279, 304 Sociocultural, 20, 32–33, 52, 277, 279 Sociocultural perspective, 5, 8, 11, 31–33, 40–41, 44, 51–53, 126, 138, 269, 279, 288, 292, 302, 304–305 Sociocultural Theory (SCT), 6, 8, 10–11, 20, 31–37, 39–42, 117, 170, 208, 243, 279, 282, 304 Student participation, 62, 75, 95, 99–100, 116, 122, 156, 178, 181, 216, 227–228, 291 Subject knowledge, 112–113, 187, 189, 195, 221–222, 246, 251, 254, 269, 290, 297, 300, 302 T

Talk-in-interaction, 7, 51, 63, 65–66, 69, 79, 81, 287 Teacher cognition, 3–13, 19–28, 30–33, 35–37, 39, 41–44, 51–55, 75, 81, 87–91, 174, 241–242, 277–278, 295–296, 304–306 Teacher development, 3, 10, 87, 205, 248, 278, 285, 294, 304 collaborative, 281 pre-service, 203, 205, 207, 210, 233 Teacher identity, 4, 7, 241–242, 244, 248–249, 257, 269, 289 Teacher knowledge, 4, 89, 161, 277, 300, 303

Teacher learning, 6, 9, 21, 24, 38, 42–44, 203, 205, 207–208, 211, 277–283, 288, 290, 293–294, 304–306 sociocultural perspective of, 209 Teacher’s beliefs, 101, 116 Teachers, non-native speaker, 244, 246, 261–262, 264 Teacher thinking, 5, 26 Technological tools, 2, 36, 166–167, 174, 191, 194, 297–298 use of, 194, 297 Technology affordances of, 166, 169, 298 role of, 166, 188–189, 191, 194, 297 use of, 170, 173 Technology competence, 303 Technology integration, 5, 298, 303, 305 Technology use, 165–166, 168, 174–175, 188, 191, 296, 298, 303 Thinking, 34, 36–39, 42, 78–79, 105, 110, 122–123, 127, 234, 241, 278–281, 284, 287, 289, 296–299 deliberate, 280 divergent, 123 epistemic, 77 higher-order, 296 possibility, 127 Thinking skills, 123, 127, 296–297 creative, 88, 178 Translanguaging, 265, 291–292 Turn construction units (TCUs), 69–71, 100

 Index 

353

U

Z

Understanding displayed, 4, 9, 30–31 interactive, 41 mutual, 7, 64, 72 shared, 6, 64, 130, 171, 178, 181, 214 Unexpected contributions, 140, 142–143, 146, 148, 155

Zone of Free Movement (ZFM), 38, 203–204, 223, 236, 304 Zone of Promoted Action (ZPA), 38, 203–204, 223, 304 Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD), 11, 20, 35, 37–38, 209, 281, 288, 293, 295, 305