Is Teaching Culture-Bound? A Cross-Cultural Study on the Beliefs of ELT Teachers

Abstract

ELT teacher education has traditionally been based on the development of a repertoire of teaching skills, acquired through methodology courses at ELT Departments, observing experienced teachers and practice-teaching in a controlled setting as in micro-teaching or peer-teaching. However, the programs focusing on such kind of teacher training seem to be overlooking the nature of teacher learning process which should be viewed as a form of socialization into the professional thinking. According to Richards (Beyond training. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1998) the teaching process is a thinking process shaping decision making reflected into the teaching itself. By the same token, novice teachers and student teachers should be equipped with not only the knowledge about the subject matter, instruction, and context, but also the repertoire of `mental scripts and behavioural routines’ (Berliner Exploring teachers’ thinking. Cassell, London, pp. 60–83, 1987, p. 72) moulding the teacher beliefs about language teaching, learner, and teacher. Borg (Teacher cognition and language education. Continuum Research and Practice, London, 2006, p. 275) draws our attention to the impact of contextual (and cultural) factors on the novice teachers’ cognitions. Neglecting them results in partial and flawed characterization of teachers and teaching.

In this particular study, we aimed at comparing Polish and Turkish novice and student teacher beliefs on language teaching, learner, and teacher considering the variables such as culture, year of experience and educational system. Additionally, we intended to examine images generated by novice teachers in different educational and cultural settings (a closer look would be given to similar studies) in order to determine the extent to which the beliefs reflect teachers’ awareness of professional practice (or lack of it) or the impact of cultural variables.