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UPSI Digital Repository (UDRep)
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| Abstract : Universiti Pendidikan Sultan Idris |
| The global spread of English has led many classrooms in the post-colonial contexts that teach English as a second and foreign language to pursue monolingual ideologies and to hire expatriate monolingual teachers. Monolingual teachers are posited to pursue more efficient teaching styles and classroom practices than the local teachers. However, there is very little evidence to support this claim. The few studies that have to date investigated teaching styles either did not focus on the teachers' beliefs or their classroom practices and they did not systematically compared different types of teachers in the same context. Although teachers' ideologies are deemed to be influential in shaping their classroom practices, not many studies have examined teachers' ideologies and its interconnection in classroom practices. Using ethnography multiple case studies design, this study investigates two types of teachers' classroom practices and ideologies. It particularly seeks to understand whether, as suggested, the local multilingual and expatriate monolingual teachers pursue different teaching styles. It is specifically concerned with exploring these teachers' actual teaching styles and rationalizations of their practices, with a view to explore how their teaching styles promote interactivity among EFL learners. Based on observation and audio-video recordings data, it explores the teachers' questioning patterns in order to determine their teaching styles. Meanwhile, the interview data gathered from the teachers' attempts to gain an insight into their rationalizations about classroom practices. The interview data from the learners investigates their language learning beliefs and perspectives on the teachers' classroom practices effectiveness. The qualitative and quantitative analyses performed on the three types of data highlights important findings. The analyses from the teachers' classroom observation and recordings indicated that both types of teachers pursue the same teaching styles. They generally employed the teacher-centred teaching style. However, there were variations in their repair strategy and turn allocations, while the interview conducted with the teachers revealed that they have different pedagogical ideologies for various underlying reasons. The analyses of the teachers' classroom interactional practices and their ideologies showed that although the teachers were aware of their rationalizations, they were observed not to efficiently practice it in their classroom lessons, several points of difference between ideologies and practices existed. The interview data from the learners indicated that they have different beliefs than some of the teachers with regard to certain aspects of ELT practice, such as the ways turns are allocated and how corrective repair is performed. This study provides insights into teaching and learning ideologies and actual practices of EFL teachers in the Malaysian context. In particular the findings of this study argue that the existing stereotypes about the monolingual teachers' teaching styles cannot be upheld, since there were no significant differences between teaching approaches of the two different types of teachers. The study suggests that factors such as gender, nature of training and the proficiency level of students have a much greater influence on teaching practices. |
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