Abstract:

This case study examines whether teachers’ theoretical orientation toward reading and teaching reading fits their classroom practices. The connection between theories and beliefs plays an important part in guiding teachers’ practice; however, little work has been done on in-service teachers’ beliefs and practices in specific contexts, particularly an English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) university context. The selected participants were two EFL lecturers from a university in Northeast China teaching College English. Data collection occurred in two phases. First, a survey of ten open-ended questions, modified from the Burke Reading Interview (BRI), was used to solicit participants’ beliefs. Second, 90 minutes of classroom observation and a post-study interview provided more information about teacher practices and beliefs and the relationship between the two. While multiple theoretical orientations have been revealed through the existing literature, only two of them were revealed through the survey in this current study. The two theoretical orientations as a dual belief system were: behaviorism (a theory of learning holding that all behaviors are acquired through conditioning) and cognitivism (which is focused on the internal processes and connections that take place during learning). Both participants espoused a dual reading belief system in their surveys, and then applied their beliefs consistently to their actual practice in the classroom. Findings reveal consistency between what they stated in the survey and how they actually taught in the classroom.

Keywords:

case study, EFL, teacher beliefs, actual practices, behaviorism, cognitivism, reading instruction, dual belief systems.