Adviser: Dr.

Yu, Ming-chung

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A Taiwanese Teachers Tensions between Grammar Teaching Beliefs and Practices

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Name: Lin, Shan-chi

July, 2015

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A Taiwanese Teachers Tensions between Grammar Teaching Beliefs and Practices

A Master Thesis
Submitted to
Department of English,

National Chengchi University

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In Partial Fulfillment
of the Requirements for the Degree of
Master of Arts

by
Lin, Shan-chi
July, 2015

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To Prof. Yu, Ming-chung

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Acknowledgments
The fact of finishing my thesis is still like a dream to me. Being an in-service
teacher during day time, I was too tired to do anything after work. During the most
depressing period, I always thought that I had so many things to do that I would never
have time and energy to complete my thesis. However, with the encouragement and
support of friends and teachers, I started working on the last few chapters. Finally, I
made it.

listened to my worries and problems
about thesis. Prof. Yu showed me the world of
My greatest gratitude goes to my advisor, Prof. Yu Ming-chung, who always

thesis writing with his great patience. Without his instruction, I would never have
known about the principles and components of an ideal thesis. The second person that

I want to thank is my dearest husband. Thesis writing was a long-lasting battle, and I

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couldnt have done it without my husbands support. He knew well what it was like to

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be stuck in the middle of the thesis. Whenever I had difficulty analyzing the data,

having a talk with him always inspired my thinking. I also want to thank Claire, my

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best partner in NCCU TESOL program. No matter how many times I told her the idea
of giving up, she still believed I would finish it. I really thank her for being there with
me for such a long time.
The process of completing a thesis indeed gave me lots of inspiration. Having
been through the feeling of self-denial, depress, indifferent and all the other negative
emotions, I finally faced my own fear and decided to overcame it. More importantly,
once I started to face it, everything seemed to be not that difficult as I imagined. For
me, it was not the graduate degree that excited me the most. It was the feeling of
surpassing the old me that created the most joy.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Dedication ..................................................................................................................... iii
Acknowledgments......................................................................................................... iv
Table of contents ............................................................................................................ v
Chinese abstract .......................................................................................................... viii
English Abstract ............................................................................................................ ix

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION ........................................................................ 1

1.2 Tensions between grammar teaching beliefs and practices ..................................... 1

1.1 Teachers belief systems .......................................................................................... 1

1.3 Motivation and significance of this study ................................................................ 3

CHAPTER TWO: LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................... 5

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2.1 Teachers beliefs in education ................................................................................. 5

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2.1.1 Nature and characteristics of teachers beliefs .............................................. 5

2.1.2 Factors that influence teachers beliefs and practices ................................... 8

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2.1.3 The relationship between
and practices ........................... 11
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2.1.3.1 Convergence between beliefs and practices............................................. 11
2.1.3.2 Tensions between beliefs and practices ................................................... 12
2.2 Review of grammar teaching research ................................................................... 14
2.2.1 The role of grammar in second language acquisition ................................. 14
2.2.2 Approaches to grammar teaching................................................................ 15
2.2.3 The use of grammatical terminology in language teaching ........................ 17
2.2.4 Grammar teaching in Taiwan ...................................................................... 17
2.3 Empirical evidence on tensions in grammar teaching ........................................... 19
2.4 Rationale of the present study and research questions........................................... 21
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CHAPTER THREE: METHODOLOGY ............................................................... 23

3.1 Design of this study ............................................................................................... 23
3.2 Participant .............................................................................................................. 23
3.2.1 Selection of the setting and participant ....................................................... 24
3.2.2 Background of the participant ..................................................................... 25
3.3 Data collection ....................................................................................................... 26
3.3.1 Interviews .................................................................................................... 27
3.3.2 Observation ................................................................................................. 30

3.4 Procedures .............................................................................................................. 32

3.3.3 Documents .................................................................................................. 31

3.5 Data analysis .......................................................................................................... 32

CHAPTER FOUR: RESULTS ................................................................................. 37

4.1 Core and peripheral beliefs in grammar teaching .................................................. 37

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4.1.1 Janes core beliefs in teaching..................................................................... 38

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4.1.1.1 Teaching in general .................................................................................. 38

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4.1.1.2 Teachers role in teaching ........................................................................ 39

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4.1.1.3 Students role in learning ......................................................................... 42

4.1.2 Janes peripheral beliefs .............................................................................. 44
4.1.2.1 Janes perceived significance of English ................................................. 44
4.1.2.2 The role of grammar in junior high school .............................................. 47
4.2 Grammar teaching practice .................................................................................... 49
4.2.1 Proportion of grammar instruction.............................................................. 49
4.2.1.1 Teaching sequence within one unit .......................................................... 49
4.2.1.2 Procedure of grammar teaching ............................................................... 50
4.2.1.3 Frequency of grammar work .................................................................... 51
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4.2.2 The use of grammatical terminology .......................................................... 55

4.3 Tensions between grammar teaching beliefs and practices ................................... 58
4.3.1 Extracurricular teaching resources .............................................................. 58
4.3.2 The proportion of grammar instruction ....................................................... 59
4.3.3 The use of grammatical terminology .......................................................... 60

CHAPTER FIVE: DISCUSSION............................................................................. 63

5.1 Core beliefs ............................................................................................................ 63
5.2 Peripheral beliefs ................................................................................................... 68

5.3 Classroom practices ............................................................................................... 69

5.4 Tensions between beliefs and practices ................................................................. 71

CHAPTER SIX: CONCLUSION ............................................................................. 77

6.1 Summary ................................................................................................................ 77

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6.2 Pedagogical Implications ....................................................................................... 78

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6.3 Limitations ............................................................................................................. 79

6.4 Suggestions for future studies ................................................................................ 79

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References .................................................................................................................... 81
Appendix 1: Interview and observation consent form ................................................. 89
Appendix 2: Semi-structured interview protocol ......................................................... 90

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Green (1971) core belief peripheral belief

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core beliefs peripheral beliefs

core beliefs peripheral
beliefs core beliefs
peripheral beliefs
Phipps and Borg (2009)

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Abstract
The purpose of this qualitative study was to investigate the tensions between an
English teachers grammar teaching beliefs and practices. The participant was an
experienced junior high school English teacher who had her own principles in
grammar teaching and English education. Greens (1971) distinction of core beliefs
and peripheral beliefs was adopted as the framework to analyze the participants
grammar teaching beliefs. Data were collected from multiple sources such as

documents such as the teachers teaching notes and test paper. By using initial coding

semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, stimulated recall interviews, and

themes of the participants grammar teaching tensions.

and second level coding, these data were carefully examined to obtain the most salient

The findings revealed three most significant tensions between the participants

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grammar teaching beliefs and practices: tension on the use of extracurricular teaching

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resources, on the proportion of grammar instruction, and on the use of grammatical

terminology. The participants tensions were mainly due to the inharmonious

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relationship between core beliefs
The former were more
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related to teaching philosophy in general, and the latter were more related to English
teaching itself. In other words, the tensions between participants beliefs and
practices were actually the gaps between knowledge transmission perspective and
ideal English teaching principles. Based on the findings of this study, some
suggestions and pedagogical implications were raised for future research as well as
English education field in Taiwan.

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CHAPTER ONE
INTRODUCTION
In the field of education, what teachers think and do has drawn the attention of
many researchers. It has been well-recognized that teachers beliefs, knowledge,
attitude and assumptions all have strong impact on their actual teaching practice
(Basturkmen, 2012; Borg, 2003; Farahian, 2011; Pearson, 1985; Phipps & Borg, 2009;
Woods, 1996). Being the major decision makers in the classroom, teachers have the
power to decide what and how to teach. As Pearson (1985) suggests, understanding
the belief systems of teachers, including how beliefs interact with one another (e.g.,

when they are implemented
(p.143). It is therefore essential to explore the rationale
favorably and unfavorably), may enhance the working of technical innovations

behind teachers instructional decisions.

1.1 Teachers belief systems

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It has been widely acknowledged that beliefs often exist in systems rather than

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in isolation. Scholars analyze belief systems from many different perspectives. Some

considered beliefs as different categories that interact with one another (Borg, 1998b;

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Burns, 1992). Borg (1998b), for example, contended that the belief system worked as
a network of interacting and potentially conflicting beliefs about a wide variety of
issues related not only to L2 teaching but also to teaching and learning in general
(p.28). Other researchers explain belief systems with the concept of core beliefs and
peripheral beliefs (Green, 1971; Rokeach, 1968). The greatest distinction between the
two belief systems lies on their psychological intensity. Core beliefs are the ones that
carry the strongest intensity and are prone to trigger actions. Peripheral beliefs are
weaker in psychological strength and are therefore less likely to generate behaviors.
1.2 Tensions between grammar teaching beliefs and practices
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Within numerous aspects of language education, one important issue influenced

by teachers beliefs is grammar teaching (Borg, 2001). In Chinese learning context
where English teaching has long been dominated with teacher-centered,
textbook-oriented grammar translation method (Chen & Tsai, 2012), grammar
instructions often occupy a great portion of teachers classroom practices. Although
Taiwanese English teachers may have acknowledged the importance of
communicative language teaching since its incorporation into textbooks in 1994, in
reality, many of them are still in favor of the traditional teaching methods because of

2004). This shows that teachers stated beliefs do not always coincide with their

practical concerns such as time limit and exams (Chung, 2008; Hsu, 2006; Lai,

actual practices.

The differences between teachers beliefs and practices have long been a

commonly discussed issue. Phipps & Borg (2009) found that many studies described

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the gap between teachers beliefs and practices as unfavorable by using terms like

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divergence (Huang, 2010), inconsistency (Basturkmen, 2004) and mismatches (Lee,

2009). Under such perspectives, the gap between beliefs and practices became

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negative and should be corrected. InCorder to analyze theseUdifferences more
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positively, Phipps and Borg (2009) adopted Greens (1971) distinction on

core/peripheral beliefs and found that teachers inconsistency were quite consistent
with their core beliefs. This kind of understanding allows us to view teachers
inconsistency as a natural phenomenon originating from ones differences between
core and peripheral beliefs, not as something abnormal. Therefore, Phipps and Borg
(2009) argued that exploring teachers tensions from the perspective of
core/peripheral beliefs is a more positive way to view the differences between
beliefs and practices. The positive recognition of tensions may both generate more
complicated understandings about teaching and serve as a driving force that
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facilitates teachers professional development.

In Taiwan, some efforts have been made to explore teachers grammar teaching
beliefs, instructional practices and the relationship between them. However, only
about half of them adopted qualitative approach, a measure that is suggested by
researchers for the study of teachers beliefs (for example, Pajares, 1992; Phipps &
Borg, 2009). Even fewer studies explored teachers beliefs from the perspective of
core and peripheral beliefs. This reveals an urgent need to conduct studies of this
kind to gain comprehensive understanding about the components of Taiwanese

English teachers core beliefs, peripheral beliefs, as well as the tensions on grammar
teaching.

1.3 Motivation and significance of this study

Therefore, the goals of this study are (1) to find out what comprises an English

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teachers core beliefs and peripheral beliefs in grammar teaching, (2) to investigate

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tensions between a teachers grammar teaching beliefs and practices under junior high
school context, and (3) to identify factors behind tensions and portray them in detail.

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Cbeliefs
Exploring the content of core
beliefs may allow us to view
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beliefs from a different perspective. Learning the components of tensions as well as

the reasons behind them also contribute to the field of English teaching in advancing
our understanding of the complex relationships between teachers beliefs and
practices (Phipps & Borg, 2009).

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