International Journal of Language Studies
Volume 11, Number 1, January 2017, pp. 95-118
Exploring a novice Chinese EFL teacher’s writing beliefs and practices: A
systemic functional perspective
Xiaodong ZHANG, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China
This paper explores how the interpersonal constructs (i.e., appraisal
system, speech function) of Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) afford
the analysis of one novice Chinese English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL)
teacher’s writing beliefs and practices. Specifically, by analyzing the
Chinese EFL teacher’s writing belief discourse and teaching discourse
(obtained, respectively, through interviews and observations), the study
shows how the Chinese EFL teacher’s beliefs about the importance of
linguistic form and text flow in writing were mapped to his writing
instruction. The discourse analysis also demonstrates that the EFL
teacher’s writing-belief discourse and classroom discourse are both
contextually shaped by his schooling exposure and self-agency, while
his teaching practices were further conditioned by his students’ English
proficiency and shyness. The study concludes, that, firstly, the Chinese
EFL teacher’s writing practices arise (albeit indirectly) through his
beliefs, and that, secondly, SFL offers a useful framework for discursive
exploration of teachers’ beliefs and practices. The study suggests the
role of effective self-agency and teacher education in reshaping
teachers’ beliefs so that they can better act upon their beliefs when
offering writing instruction.
Key words: Chinese EFL Teachers; College Teachers; Writing Beliefs; Writing
Instruction; Systemic Functional Linguistics; Discourse Analysis
1. Introduction
According to China’s latest college English1 Curriculum Standards (CECR
henceforth), English teaching should support students’ knowledge of both
linguistic form and meaning so that they can use it in different social settings
(China Ministry of Education, 2007). This emphasis on English language use
reflects a broader effort of the Chinese government to foster language users
who have the skills to participate appropriately in various social contexts
across the globalized world (Chang, 2006). Take college English writing, for
example. The standards in the newest CECR dictate that, upon completion of
two years of compulsory college English learning, all non-English-major
students should have the following proficiency: “Students’ writing should
ISSN: 2157-4898; EISSN: 2157-4901
© 2017 IJLS; Printed in the USA by Lulu Press Inc.
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exhibit complete content, maximal clarity, and appropriate lexical word use
within a unified whole” (China Ministry of Education, 2007, [Author
translation]). This mandate makes it clear that Chinese non-English majors
are expected to demonstrate overall fluency, not only through the use of
appropriate forms, but also through the use of appropriate meanings,
including textual meaning.2
The implementation of the CECR’s writing standards relies heavily on
teachers’ instruction, as most college English students do not spend time
outside of class practicing English (Rao, 2006). Thus, the effective training of
English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers is very important. For college
English teachers in China, two types of teacher education are available: (1)
pre-service education, and (2) in-service education. During pre-service
teacher education, teachers spend most of their time learning the English
language itself; only a few programs integrate knowledge of linguistics and
foreign language education into their course offerings (Cai, 2013). In-service
teacher education takes place in short sessions as well as research-based
training, in addition to observations of veteran teachers in newer teachers’
own departments (Borg & Liu, 2013; Fu & Matoush, 2011; Rao & Lei, 2014).
Both of these types of education need to be improved; in their present form,
they lack intensity (e.g., in the short sessions of in-service teacher education)
and do not present teachers with useful pedagogical knowledge to take into
their classrooms (e.g., the exclusive emphasis on language learning in preservice teacher education). In short, the existing educational opportunities do
not successfully train teachers in effective English instruction (Borg & Liu,
2013).
Because of a lack of effective educational models, teachers ultimately rely on
their own beliefs to teach college English writing (You, 2004; Zeng & Murphy,
2007). Thus, an important first step in improving EFL teaching in China is to
explore the relationship between Chinese college teachers’ writing beliefs and
practices.
2. Background
A body of literature in the field of EFL has shown the close relationship
between teachers’ beliefs and practices (e.g., Lee, 2008, 2009; Li, 2013; Salimi,
Safarzadeh & Monfared, 2016; Yao & Gao, 2013; Zheng & Davidson, 2008).
According to these studies, teachers generally act upon their contextually
formed beliefs, such as those beliefs gained through their own school learning
experiences (Borg, 2006; Yang & Gao, 2013; Zeng & Murphy, 2007). However,
studies have also shown that EFL teaching practices are further conditioned
by the teaching context, yielding a possible mismatch between beliefs and
practices (Lee, 2008, 2009). For example, Lee (2008) showed that EFL
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
teachers teaching writing in Hong Kong focused on giving feedback on how to
correct grammatical errors rather than on content or organization. Lee
connected this practice to pressures from the Hong Kong composition grading
rubric, which awards high scores to those who have high grammatical
accuracy. Studies like this one suggest that contextual factors must be
considered when investigating how EFL teachers act upon their beliefs.
Given the pedagogical value of investigating the close relationship between
teachers’ beliefs and practices, it is surprising to see scant research on
Chinese tertiary EFL (e.g., Zeng & Murphy, 2007; Zheng, 2013), let alone
specifically on Chinese college writing (e.g., Yang & Gao, 2013). Among the
few studies that deal with this topic, Yang and Gao (2013), implementing
interviews and observations, investigated Chinese college EFL teachers’
beliefs about writing and instructional practices. Their study showed that
Chinese college teachers’ writing beliefs, although differing in emphasis (e.g.,
some teachers held strong beliefs about rhetorical structure, while others
favored language accuracy or discourse cohesion), were consistently mapped
to their practices. The study also found that several factors (e.g., teachers’
learning experience, collegial influences) contributed to differences in their
beliefs. The study suggested that teacher education programs should
intentionally shape teachers’ beliefs about effective writing and practices.
These limited studies focused on experienced Chinese college English
teachers (i.e., those with five to ten years teaching experience); no research
has focused on novice3 Chinese EFL teachers and their writing instruction.
Given that novice Chinese EFL teachers have particularly little teaching
experience and no special training on writing instruction, adding to the
literature on this topic is imperative.
Similar to many other studies on teachers’ beliefs and practices (see
Basturkman, 2012 for a review; Borg, 2006), Yang and Gao’s (2013) study on
Chinese EFL teachers’ practices and beliefs is based on a thematic analysis of
observations and interviews. In response to this thematic analysis, Li (2013)
argued for the need for an alternative analysis of teachers’ “moment-tomoment” practices (p. 177); this is necessary, he contended, because of the
interactive nature of teachers’ activities in the classroom. To construct a
better picture of the relationship between teachers’ practices and their
beliefs, Li thus used discourse analysis4 (or, more specifically, conversation
analysis) to show the intricate interaction between teachers and students in
relation to teachers’ beliefs. Indeed, a nuanced discourse analysis of teachers’
instructional practices is able to capture both detailed classroom activities
and contextual explanations (Gibbons, 2006; Harman & Zhang, 2015; Lantolf
& Thorn, 2006), thus providing a deep insight into the way teachers act upon
their beliefs.
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Discourse analysis also offers an effective alternative to the interview-based
thematic analyses of verbal narration of teachers’ beliefs used in previous
studies (for a review, see Borg, 2006). While the definition of ‘belief’ is still the
subject of much controversy (Fives & Gills, 2015; see also Fives & Buehl, 2012
for a review), scholars (e.g., Borg, 2001; Kagan, 1992; Naspor, 1987; Pajares,
1992) agree that teachers’ beliefs are strongly related to their emotions.
Picking upon this emotive feature of belief, Borg (2001, p. 186) defined belief
as “a proposition which maybe consciously or unconsciously held, is
evaluative [italics mine] in that it is accepted as true by the individual, and is
therefore imbued with emotive commitment; further it serves as a guide to
thought and behavior.” That is, teachers’ beliefs are about their negotiation of
their own personal evaluative stance to teaching (e.g., writing instruction).
Given the interpersonal nature of teachers’ beliefs, scholars (e.g., Kalaja, 2003;
Lancaster, 2016) have suggested using discourse analysis as an alternative to
the interview-based thematic analysis of previous studies5 (see Borg, 2006 for
a review) in order to unearth how teachers’ belief discourse is shaped as a
meaning-making process at a “macrosociological level” (Talja, 1997, p. 2).
Among the few studies that have used discourse analysis of language users’
belief discourse, Kalaja (2003), for example, investigated Finnish high school
students’ beliefs about the role of an English proficiency test as part of their
college entrance examination. Through discourse analysis, Kalaja vigorously
demonstrated how linguistic resources constructed students’ belief
discourses while providing the contextual constraints that led to the
differences in their beliefs (e.g., students’ own language proficiency and the
difficulty of the test itself). The study suggests the value of using discourse
analysis to analyze the verbal narration of teachers’ beliefs, since the
construct of teachers’ beliefs acknowledges the presence and influence of
socio-cultural context (Mansour, 2009; Wan, Low, & Miao, 2011).
In sum, based on previous studies on English teachers’ beliefs and practices,
there are two gaps to be filled: (1) there is an obvious need to contribute to
the literature on novice Chinese college EFL teachers’ writing beliefs and
practices, and (2) there is an equal need to use discourse analysis in
investigating teachers’ beliefs and practices. The present study aims at filling
these gaps. It brings the discursive resources of Systemic Functional
Linguistics (SFL) to bear upon its exploration of a novice Chinese EFL
teacher’s writing beliefs and practices.
Systemic functional linguistics (SFL henceforth) (Halliday, 1978; Halliday &
Matthiessen, 2004; Martin & White, 2005) argues from a social semiotic
perspective that any discourse (e.g., a writing-belief discourse, a writinginstruction discourse) is a meaning-making process created by the making of
linguistic choices (i.e., words and grammar) in response to a particular
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
context. Specifically, SFL uses the context of culture (i.e., the meaning
potential provided by a larger community) and the context of the situational
variable tenor (i.e., social relationships, power, and solidarity) to explain
meaning-making in the interpersonal dimension. Meaning-making in the
interpersonal dimension includes an appraisal system (i.e., how we show our
evaluative stance toward the subject matter) and a speech function (i.e., how
we negotiate information or proposals among interlocutors). In what follows,
I will elaborate on both these constructs (appraisal system, speech function)
and demonstrate how the two, in combination, can be used to analyze
teachers’ beliefs and practices.
The appraisal system concerns speakers’ evaluative stance, which aligns well
with the construct of teachers’ belief discourse. The system includes three
subcategories: attitude, engagement, and graduation, each of which has its
own linguistic manifestation (Martin & White, 2005). In particular, attitude
includes affect, judgment, and appreciation. Affect is concerned with our
emotions, and is typically realized through lexical words such as happy or
scared. Judgment concerns the evaluation of our behaviors and is realized
through lexical words such as should or tenacious. Appreciation deals with the
evaluation of things and is realized through lexical words such as important
or worthy. Another subcategory of the appraisal system is engagement, which
is concerned with the way we make propositions; within the SFL system,
propositions can be monoglossic (bare assertions, such as English writing is
hard to teach) or heteroglossic (assertions that interact dialogically with
potential readers, such as I believe English writing is hard to teach). The third
subsystem of the appraisal system, graduation, is concerned with the
sharpening or weakening of our engagement or affect, and is realized through
such lexical resources as really or kind of. In other words, by identifying
lexical resources in teachers’ belief discourse and exploring how these lexical
resources are informed by context, the appraisal system can powerfully
analyze teachers’ evaluative, contextually embedded belief discourses.
Also on the interpersonal plane, speech function is concerned with how we
exchange information or services, illustrating how language speakers (e.g.,
teachers) interact with their interlocutors (e.g., students). Speech function
also interacts with the construct of teachers’ teaching practices, which include
initiating speech functions and responding speech functions (Eggins & Slade,
1997). Initiating speech functions include: (1) Offer (e.g., Shall I write the
sentence on board?); (2) Command (e.g., Tell me the meaning of the word.); (3)
Statement (e.g., Writing needs to be fluent.); (4) Question (e.g., Why do you
write this way?). These initiating speech functions usually have a congruent
linguistic realization in terms of grammatical mood, which (in English) is
dictated by the arrangement of the subject and verb in the clause: declarative
mood (subject > verb order) is used for statements, interrogative mood
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(auxiliary verb > subject order) for offers or questions, and imperative mood
(no subject) for commands.
Responding speech functions respond to initiating exchanges in two ways: (a)
support, or (b) confront. The supporting function is realized by a clause in
positive declarative mood; the confronting function is realized by a clause in
negative declarative mood; both functions can be realized by a minor clause
(i.e., a clause without a subject, verb, or both). For instance, for an offer, one
could respond in the form of acceptance (e.g., yes) or rejection (e.g., no,
thanks). For the command, one could respond in the form of compliance (e.g.,
sure, no problem) or refusal (e.g., I won’t). For a statement, one could respond
in the form of an acknowledgement (e.g., yes, it does) or contradiction (e.g., no,
it does not). Lastly, for a question, one could respond in the form of an answer
(e.g., Because I like it) or a disclaimer (e.g., I do not know). However, to further
differentiate speech functions, paralinguistic features (e.g., intonation) also
need to be taken into account (Eggins & Slade, 1997). For example, a
domineering teacher might use a declarative, instead of an interrogative, to
achieve a command. Thus, by providing a framework to analyze mood types
as well as paralinguistic features, the speech function construct offers an
appropriate tool to investigate teachers’ classroom discourse, enabling us to
explore how teachers actually act upon their beliefs.
In sum, teachers’ beliefs and practices are both discursive and interpersonal.
An SFL-based perspective on writing teachers’ beliefs and practices is well
justified for a discourse analysis because of the emphasis of SFL on the link
among context, linguistic realization, and the interpersonal dimension. To
contribute to the literature on novice Chinese EFL teachers’ beliefs, practices,
and analytic tools, this single case study focuses on one college EFL teacher
and attempts to answer the following three research questions:
1. How are the Chinese EFL teacher’s writing beliefs manifested
linguistically through appraisal resources in his verbal narration?
2. How does the Chinese EFL teacher enact writing instruction through
speech functions?
3. What are the contextual factors that constrain (or fail to constrain) the
Chinese EFL teacher’s teaching beliefs or practices?
3. Method
A qualitative case study approach was adopted for the current study, as this
type of study is particularly suitable for research that probes ‘what’ or ‘how’
questions and enables researchers to construct an in-depth understanding of
a particular phenomenon in a particular context (Yin, 2014). The current
study aims at understanding novice Chinese college EFL teachers’ writing
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
beliefs and practices, while also showing the analytic power of SFL. Since the
study has no intention of making any universal generalizations, qualitative
methodology is appropriate and justifiable for this study.
3.1. Participants7
Gui University, located in the north of Mainland China, is a publically
chartered university maintained by Gui City. Gui University features science
education in particular. The English courses offered at Gui University do not
include a specific course on writing. Instead, writing is offered in a college
English course, which also includes reading, listening, and speaking. Most of
the curricular time for the English course is spent on reading, with writing
instruction typically occurring at the end of each unit of reading materials in
the textbook. The English teacher for the English course at Gui University
during this study was Tong. Having graduated with his Master’s degree in June
2011, at the outset of this study, Tong was three months away from teaching
his first college English course for non-English-major students. The students
in his class were ranked at low proficiency level on the placement test they
took as part of their enrollment. By the time the research was completed,
Tong was a novice EFL teacher who had been teaching for less than five years.
Tong studied English to obtain his Bachelor’s degree and translation to obtain
his Master’s degree. As an undergraduate student majoring in English, Tong
studied core courses such as reading, writing, listening, and speaking to
enhance his own knowledge of the English language. During Tong’s graduate
program, he took master’s level courses on translation theory and practice. In
other words, over the course of his education career as a pre-service teacher,
Tong did not take any pedagogical courses that linked his English knowledge
with linguistic theories on how to teach writing effectively. In this
background, Tong was similar to many other Chinese EFL teachers (cf., Fu &
Matoush, 2011; You, 2004). Also like many other college English teachers in
China, Tong did not receive any in-service professional development on how
to teach writing, due to the limited in-service education models in China (cf.,
Zheng, 2013; You, 2004). Thus—again, like other novice Chinese English
teachers—Tong relied on his own beliefs to teach writing. Tong’s
representativeness of the larger population of novice Chinese EFL teachers
made him a good participant for the current study, which focused on his
writing beliefs and practices.
3.2. Data
Informed by SFL (Halliday, 1978; Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004), data were
collected from the following sources:
(1) Over one-and-a-half months of in-class observations, including audio
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recordings of Tong’s writing instruction as well as field notes of
observation: While I tried to be nonintrusive in Tong’s classroom, to
ensure data reliability, I also interviewed Tong’s students about Tong’s
teaching style before engaging in direct classroom observation.
Fortunately, students’ interviews convinced me that my role in this
classroom did not affect Tong’s teaching style.
(2) Interviews with Tong, which had two purposes: (a) One was to elicit
Tong’s beliefs about writing instruction. I worked to make him feel
comfortable and encouraged him to expand on the narration of his beliefs
using a variety of strategies, such as giving him breaks or asking him to
provide examples. Several verbal fragments were combined in this study
to form the discourse on his writing belief; (b) in addition, as Mansour
(2009) contended, any investigation of teachers’ beliefs and practices is
meaningless when taken out of socio-cultural context. To this end, in our
interviews, I asked Tong to reflect on factors that influenced or shaped
his teaching beliefs and practices.
4. Analysis
The first phase of my data analysis sought to answer research question #1
(i.e., How did Tong manifest his beliefs on English writing through appraisal
resources?). Following data condensation through a broad thematic analysis
(cf., Gibbons, 2006), an appraisal analysis was conducted on the teacher’s
belief discourse (cf., Martin & White, 2005). A sample analysis is shown in the
following discourse extract:
1. In addition, grammar and vocabulary are also very important. 2.
Teachers should remind students of the accuracy of grammar and
diversity of vocabulary in writing.
As shown above, I coded each clause and identified lexical resources that
indicated the teacher’s evaluative stance (i.e., his beliefs); in the above
excerpt, these would include judgment (should), appreciation (important,
accuracy, and diversity) and graduation (very). Based on the identification of
these linguistic resources, I then presented an in-depth analysis of the
teacher’s writing belief discourse.
To answer the second research question (i.e., How does Tong enact his writing
practices in the classroom?), I explored the different speech functions that
Tong used with his students (e.g., question, confirmation, command) to
mediate their learning of writing in class (cf., Eggins & Slade, 1997). As with
research question (1), to facilitate discourse analysis of Tong’s classroom
discourse and condense data, I conducted a broad thematic analysis (cf.,
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
Gibbons, 2006). Table 1 provides a sample analysis of Tong’s writing
instruction practices.
Table 1
A Sample Analysis of Teacher-Student Talk
Speaker
Tong
Students
Move
1.= what has happened ↓
2. I will do this way ↓
3. look at what I did,
4. I used “for example” to support this
topic. ↓
5. Are you clear? ↑
1. Yes ↓
Mood type
Declarative
Declarative
Imperative
Declarative
Speech function
Contradiction
Statement
Command
Statement
Interrogative Question
------Answer
As shown in Table 1 above, I coded each linguistic move (utterance) made in
English by Tong and his students and identified the mood types of each clause
in each move. I then assessed the function of each clause, making use of
paralinguistic transcription as additional evidence (see Appendix A for
transcription conventions). Chinese utterances were coded in the same way
(cf., Li, 2007). Elliptical clauses, such as clause 1 (yes) in the student’s move,
were not coded for mood type, since mood can only be realized through the
relative placement of subject and verb (Halliday & Mattiessen, 2004). The
speech functions of elliptical clauses were thus labeled exclusively on the
basis of paralinguistic information. Based on linguistic and paralinguistic
coding, I then analyzed Tong’s teaching patterns and compared them with his
beliefs.
Recall that the two interpersonal constructs (i.e., belief discourse, and
classroom discourse), as meaning-making processes, examined in this study
are shaped by the contextual variable tenor as well as the context of culture
(cf., Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004). Therefore, to answer research question #3
(i.e., What are the contextual factors that constrain Tong’s teaching beliefs or
practices?), I coded cues indicating cultural context and situational variables
(tenor), used this context to identify themes in Tong’s reflections, explaining
Tong’s belief discourse and classroom discourse.
5. Results
5.1. Tong’s beliefs about writing instruction
An appraisal analysis of Tong’s verbal narration of his beliefs about writing
instruction revealed an overall positive evaluative stance toward teaching
writing with the goal of helping students achieve form accuracy (i.e.,
vocabulary, structure). At the same time, Tong’s beliefs about writing
instruction were manifested by his positive evaluative stance toward the role
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of textual meaning (ways of organizing fluent flows of information) in writing.
In other words, Tong’s beliefs about writing teaching existed on a complex
continuum, with two seemingly contradictory strands of beliefs intertwined
together (cf., Thompson, 1992). This is shown in the following illustrative
discourse segment in Table 2:
Table 2
Tong’s Belief Discourse about Writing Instruction
Lexico-grammar
1. I think it is very important to help students know the
structure of an essay.
2. For example, I think a teacher should teach how to
write introduction, body part, and conclusion.
3. Especially for body part, it is different from Chinese.
Appraisal resources
Graduation: Force
Attitude: Appreciation
Engagement: Expansion
Attitude: Judgment
Graduation: Force
Attitude: Appreciation
4. We have to teach students first to write a topic
Attitude: Judgment
sentence and then use different ways to expand on the Attitude: Appreciation
topic sentence
5. In addition, grammar and vocabulary are also very
Attitude: Appreciation
important.
6. Teachers should remind students of accuracy of
Attitude: Judgment
grammar and diversity of vocabulary in writing.
Attitude: Appreciation
Attitude: Appreciation
7. When I grading CET tests[College English Band Test], I Attitude: Judgment
do not give high scores to students who have simple
Attitude: Judgment
grammatical mistakes, such as no plural form, tense
mistakes.
8. If they always use simple words, they also won’t get a
Attitude: Judgment
high score.
9. In addition, writing should be fluent.
Attitude: Judgment
10. For example, teachers should teach students how to Attitude: Judgment
use conjunctive words, or synonyms to make a fluent
writing.
As shown in Table 2, Tong manifested his predominant belief about the
importance of linguistic forms (i.e., the role of vocabulary and grammar in
writing) mainly through attitudinal resources. Tong particularly highlighted
teachers’ obligation to teach students how to write with the appropriate
structure, words, and grammar by using judgment resources (should, have to:
clauses #2, #4, and #6). He also elaborated on his strong belief in teaching
appropriate linguistic forms through appreciation resources (different,
accuracy, diversity and important: clauses #3, #4, #5 and #6) and judgment
resources (e.g., simple grammatical mistakes in clause #7; simple words in
clause #8). That is, in the capacity of a test rater, Tong further emphasized his
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
belief that a good teacher should teach students to change words/
grammatical structures appropriately in their writing in order to produce
good prose.
Yet in the same discourse segment, Tong also demonstrated his peripheral
belief about teaching fluency or textual meaning. He articulated this belief
primarily through the use of attitudinal resources, especially appreciation
(e.g., fluent in clause #9) and judgment (should in clause #10). The relatively
few appraisal resources directed toward this belief in the discourse segment
illustrated Tong’s attitude that it was a teacher’s responsibility to help
students construct cohesive pieces of writing by showing them the linguistic
resources necessary to do so. Note, however, that this belief was clearly
peripheral for Tong: the excerpt shown above was the only discourse
fragment I could elicit from Tong concerning how to teach meaningfully, even
though I used many approaches to extract his potential beliefs when
conducting data collection.
5.2. Contextual factors contributing to Tong’s writing beliefs
Thematic coding of the context of culture and the variable tenor in Tong’s
interview segments revealed that Tong’s beliefs about writing instruction
were shaped by complex contextual factors: Tong’s personal learning
experiences (at the cultural level) and Tong’s solidarity with himself (at the
situational level). His belief about teaching linguistic forms and testing skills
was shaped by his learning experiences, while his belief about teaching
textual meaning was shaped by his own agency in improving students’
written literacy. In other words, complex contextual factors explained Tong’s
seemingly contradictory belief discourses.
5.2.1 Personal learning experiences
Through his personal learning experiences, Tong acquired his understanding
of pedagogical strategies for teaching writing and the purpose of teaching
writing, as shown in the following discourse fragment:
I do not know other methods of teaching writing. My ideas of teaching
writing come from my English teachers in high school and college . . . .
From them, I realized that teaching writing is to teach structure,
grammar, and testing skills . . . . No one else has taught me to teach
writing in different ways . . . .
As shown in the above interview segment, because of a lack of effective
teacher education models in China (cf., Fu & Matoush, 2012; Rao & Lei, 2014),
Tong has limited resources for conceptualizing writing instruction. Indeed,
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pre-service and in-service education for English teachers in China does not
present teachers with useful pedagogical knowledge to take into their
classrooms; recall, as discussed above, the almost exclusive emphasis on
language learning in pre-service teacher education and the emphasis of
theoretical research in in-service education (cf., Cai, 2013). Tong’s beliefs
about writing instruction were thus dominantly shaped, culturally, by his own
long-term in-class learning experience (cf., Lortie, 1975). In particular, due to
his exposure to the grammar-translation method for almost ten years from
middle school to university like many other teachers (cf., Rao & Lei, 2014),
Tong could not help but doggedly believe that the ultimate goal of teaching
language was to help students perfect their testing skills; this belief was
clearly manifested by the appraisal resources he used in his belief discourse.
5.2.2 Tong’s solidarity with himself
Tong’s self-agency was a key contextual source in reshaping his beliefs
(Farrell, 2013; Gebhard, 1996). During the two-and-a-half years of teaching
he completed prior to this study, Tong enthusiastically made efforts to
identify students’ writing challenges (i.e., lack of cohesion), and relied on
himself to address them. It was during his process of self-exploration—and by
witnessing the positive performance of his previous students in their ongoing
studies—that Tong formed his beliefs about teaching textual meaning as part
of his writing instruction. This is shown in the following interview fragment:
I also analyzed my previous students’ writing problems. When I found
they have fluency problem . . . . I started to think about the problem. I
read some articles from [systemic] functional linguistics in the past year
when I was a translation major student, and used knowledge [textual
function] from it [systemic functional linguistics] to help my students
learn how to make a fluent text using cohesive ties through reading and
writing . . . . I found it very helpful for students’ improvement through my
last semester teaching. It makes me think teaching the cohesive ties
should be my part of my writing instruction.
As this excerpt shows, Tong exerted his own agency to better support his
students’ written literacy, even though he continued to hold a predominant
belief about the importance of linguistic form in writing instruction. After a
year of self-studying SFL—particularly its textual function and its realization
of cohesive ties in constructing writing fluency (Halliday & Matthiessen,
2004)—he was able to integrate what he had learned into his actual writing
instruction, beginning with the students he taught one semester prior to the
students included in this study. Having felt and seen the positive effect on his
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
Table 3
Teacher-Student Talk in the Process of Writing Instruction
Speaker
Move
Mood type
Function
Tong
1.当你决定了你的观点，下面就要写主题
句和支撑句. ↓ [When you have decided
on your point of view, write a topic
sentence and supporting sentences]
2.Look at the first topic sentence here
↓(reading extensively can broad our
horizon)
3.How can we use supporting sentences
to argue for this?↑
4.We can use many ways↓, right?↑
Declarative
Statement
Imperative
Command
Interrogative
Question
Declarative
Question
5.Do remember what we learned?↑
Interrogative
Question
Students
Silence ( .)
--
(Disclaimer)
Tong
--
Answer
--
Answer
Tong
6.(sigh)( .)比如列举法 ↑ [for example,
illustration ]
=7.举例法，(. ) 因果关系法，比较, ( .)对
照法↓ [illustration, cause-effect,
comparison, and contrast]
8.Good.
--
Acknowledgement
Interrogative
Command
Students
9.Can someone do it for this first topic
sentence?↑
Silence ( .)
--
Rejection
Tong
10.For example (.)
--
Answer
Student
11.for example, (. ) it can help us learn
( . )what happens in the past. ↓
Declarative
Answer
Tong
12.= what happened in the past↓
13.I will do this way ↓
14.look at what I did (pointing to his
teaching notes)
15.I also used ‘for example’ to support
this topic. ↓
16.Are you clear? ↑
17.Yes
18.also look at (.) this short paragraph,
19.我使用了reading extensively俩次. ↓[I
have used ‘reading extensively’ twice. ]
20.这就是我们以前说的， 重复词作可以
让段落更流畅。↓[ This is what I have
said before; repeating words makes a
paragraph coherent ]
21.Grammar, words, (. ) and organization
is key to a good paragraph.↓
Declarative
Declarative
Declarative
Contradiction
Statement
Command
Declarative
Statement
Interrogative
-Declarative
Declarative
Question
Answer
Command
Statement
Declarative
Statement
Declarative
Statement
Students
Students
Tong
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students’ written literacy development, Tong began to believe in the
important role of teaching textual meaning as part of the process of writing
instruction. In other words, because of his own agency in enacting such a
practice and the positive effects it had on students’ writing performance (cf.,
Richards, Gallo & Renandya, 2001), Tong formed a new belief that writing
teachers should focus on cohesive ties and their role in achieving textual
meaning.
5.3 Tong’s writing instruction in class
An SFL-based speech-function analysis shows how Tong acted upon his
beliefs in his teaching: He mediated his students’ understanding of linguistic
forms as well as their knowledge of the use of grammatical and lexical cues
to construct the textual flow of an essay. However, Tong’s beliefs also met
with challenges in the classroom, as shown by Tong’s frustration from time to
time. Thus, while Tong enacted his beliefs in the classroom, a nuanced
discourse analysis of Tong’s teaching practices shows that this effort was not
smooth.
The discourse segment shown in Table 3 (above) is excerpted from a lesson
about the benefits of reading. The sample writing Tong used in class during
this lesson was characterized by a topic sentence (i.e., “Reading can
extensively broaden our horizons.”) and used cohesive devices (e.g., for
example) to elaborate on the topic. Using the sample text, Tong first briefly
reviewed with his students the point of an introduction (putting forth a
writer’s point of view) and conclusion (summarizing the writer’s arguments).
For the rest of the lesson, Tong devoted himself to explaining how to write
essay body paragraphs. An illustrative discourse segment is shown in Table 3
(above).
As illustrated in the excerpt above, Tong made a significant effort to mediate
his students’ understanding of writing by focusing on linguistic form and
textual meaning. It was clearly not easy for Tong to enact his beliefs
mechanically or simplistically. Instead, in Tong’s classroom, ongoing
interactions with his students made it very challenging for Tong to enact his
beliefs. The challenges Tong faced in the classroom were reflected in the
speech functions he used. Consider, for example, his dominant use of
questions to engage his students, or his use of Chinese to facilitate his
students’ participation: faced with his students’ silence, Tong tried to prompt
them to use appropriate lexical words (e.g., for example) to start supporting
sentences for the topic sentence Reading extensively can broad our horizons
(clause #3, #4, and #5). At the same time, we can see examples of Tong acting
straightforwardly upon his beliefs in the classroom, for example when he
corrected students’ mistakes in grammar (clause #12, #13, and #14) or
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
highlighted the value of lexical cohesion (e.g., the repetitive use of reading
extensively) in the text (clauses #18, #19, and #20). Overall, a speech function
analysis reveals that Tong had to work hard to enact his writing beliefs in the
classroom.
5.4. Additional contextual factors influencing Tong’s writing practices
As seen above, Tong acted upon his writing beliefs in the process of writing
instruction. This means that Tong’s actual teaching practices, as a discursive
construct, were indirectly informed by the same contextual factors that
shaped Tong’s own writing beliefs (i.e., his past learning and scholastic
experience and his solidarity with himself). Indeed, Tong himself reported the
same contextual constraints on his actual teaching (Interview with Tong).
Since these two contextual factors were presented in the previous section, this
section only presents additional contextual factors emerging from data
analysis and discusses the relationship between these factors and the
obstacles Tong encountered when acting upon his beliefs in the classroom.
The students’ proficiency and shyness are situational factors that further
constrained Tong’s otherwise-smooth enactment of his writing beliefs in his
actual teaching. That is, while Tong tried to mediate his students’ knowledge
of linguistic form and textual meaning during his writing instruction, his
students’ proficiency and shyness made this attempt much more difficult and
made him adjust his teaching strategies from time to time, as shown in the
following interview fragment:
Their English is not good, and sometimes I feel I am talking to myself. But
I tried very hard to teach writing. I speak Chinese time to time to make
sure they understand what I am talking about . . . I feel I have so much to
say in my mind, but I then do not want to say in front of my students . . .
and my students do not talk too much. I had to force them to participate
in writing instruction process . . . .
The above excerpt shows Tong’s desire to enact his beliefs about writing in an
English medium. However, his students’ proficiency presented an obstacle for
the implementation of this practice. Speaking English all the time was
impossible while ensuring his students’ comprehension. To better facilitate
his students’ understanding, Tong had to switch to Chinese from time to time
(Lu, 2014). In addition, as show in the same excerpt, the students’ shyness
impacted Tong’s ability to teach the class; his students were not accustomed
to openly expressing their ideas (Liu & Jackson, 2008). Because of this, the
interactions (or lack thereof) with his students posed extra trouble for the
implementation of Tong’s beliefs. Thus, we can see that when Tong set out to
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act on his writing beliefs, he was constrained by his students’ proficiency and
shyness. Tong was thus frustrated but he acted on his beliefs nonetheless.
6. Discussion
This study explored a novice EFL teacher’s writing beliefs and practices and
showed how SFL theory can facilitate such an exploration. The study was
guided by three research questions: (1) How does Tong exemplify his beliefs
through appraisal resources? (2) How does speech function analysis assist in
revealing teachers’ actual practices in the classroom? (3) What are the
contextual factors that shape Tong’s belief discourse and classroom discourse
as meaning processes, if at all? In the following paragraphs, I will discuss the
study’s findings in relation to these three research questions.
First, the study shows that Tong’s writing beliefs were characterized by
complex strands within a belief category; it is also clear that these beliefs
influenced Tong’s decision making in class. In formal terms, an appraisal
analysis shows that while Tong held a primary belief about the importance of
teaching linguistic forms in the process of writing, he also held a peripheral
belief about the importance of teaching textual meaning. Likewise, a speech
function analysis shows that Tong flexibly engaged his students in noticing the
role of linguistic form and textual meaning in the process of writing
instruction, even though he was often faced with no response from his
students.
In presenting these findings, the study supports previous research showing
that teachers act upon their beliefs that have a complex category (cf., Fives &
Gills, 2015; Mansour, 2009; Thompson, 1992; Yang & Gao, 2013). However,
because it adopted a “moment-to-moment” SFL-based discourse analysis of
the teacher’s practices (cf., Li, 2013, p. 177), the study was also uniquely able
to show that it was not easy for Tong to act upon his beliefs in the classroom.
In addition, the study is one of very few to use discourse analysis, thus
revealing how linguistic resources construct teachers’ belief discourse at the
“macrosociologic level” (Talja, p. 2), or how teachers “have conceptualized
their roles” (Lancaster, 2016, p. 122). Future studies could expand on the
work done here by adopting SFL-based discourse analysis to explore the
nuanced relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practices.
Second, the SFL-based analysis in this study, from a social-semiotic
perspective, also provides helpful contextual explanations for teachers’ belief
discourse and teaching practices—which, as Mansour (2009) noted, have
often been ignored in previous research. By relying on content analysis to
code interpersonal factors and cultural constraints in Tong’s interview
segments, the study demonstrates clearly how Tong’s beliefs and practices, as
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
meaning-making processes, were influenced by learning experiences on the
cultural level, echoing findings in a good number of previous studies (e.g.,
Lortie, 1975; Pajares, 1992; Zeng & Murphy, 2007; Zheng & Davison, 2008).
At the same, this study, among few other studies (e.g., Farrell, 2013), also
reveals how self-agency as a situational factor reshapes teachers’ beliefs and
practices (such as Tong’s self-exploration of meaningful teaching practices).
Most importantly, the study also pinpoints students’ low language proficiency
and unwillingness to participate as crucial interpersonal factors that posed
obstacles to Tong’s ultimate fulfillment of his beliefs in the classroom.
As we can see from this discussion, an SFL-based analysis, coupled with
content analysis, offers insightful contextual explanations for teachers’ belief
discourse and classroom discourse. The success of this method suggests that
future studies could fruitfully use an SFL approach to investigate teachers’
beliefs and practices, and pay particular attention to such interpersonal
factors as teachers’ solidarity with themselves and their students.
Finally, while previous findings have underlined the role of effective inservice teacher education in reshaping novice teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Borg &
Liu, 2013), this study shows that teacher education (for the case study
subject, Tong) did not yield much pedagogical improvement, due to the
limited availability of professional development opportunities for educators
in China. Rather than relying on his previous education, Tong took the
initiative to reflect on his own teaching practices, based on his students’ work,
and actually changed his practices. This dynamic process in turn reshaped his
beliefs. Tong’s agency was manifested both in his emergent belief in the
importance of fostering an awareness of writing meaningfully and his actual
practice of teaching textual meaning.
This finding suggests that teachers can successfully harness their own powers
to reshape their beliefs through reflection and action research (Farrell, 2015;
Lipka & Brinthaupt, 1999; Salmani Nodoushan, 2009). In particular, in order
to counteract the effect of the grammar-translation teaching-and-learning
method that is popular in English-language teaching contexts, English
language teachers’ self-development might be assisted by exposure to a
linguistic theory (e.g., SFL) that emphasizes both linguistic form and meaning
(cf., Gebhard, Chen & Gunawan, 2014), for example by teaching students how
to create an authorial voice or represent insider and outsider experiences in
academic writing (Fang, Schleppegrell & Cox, 2006; Gonzalez, 2016;
Schleppegrell, 2000; Zuppa & Rezzano,2016). Effective, long-term selfdevelopment can serve to change English language teachers’ beliefs in the
grammar-translation method and better support them in meeting national
curricular standards during their actual teaching.
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7. Conclusion
This study is not without limitations. While I tried to elicit all of Tong’s beliefs
as thoroughly as possible and conducted a broad thematic analysis before
carrying out my discourse analysis, it is possible that Tong did not share all of
his beliefs with me, or that he did not enact all of his beliefs in the classroom
(cf., Janqueira & Payant, 2015); furthermore, Tong himself, as a non-native
speaker of English, might have had trouble using English to express his
beliefs. In addition, like any other qualitative case study, this study cannot be
used to make any universal generalizations (cf., Yin, 2014). Despite these
limitations, the current exploratory case study on a novice Chinese EFL
teacher’s beliefs and practices makes the following contributions:
First, it contributes to the literature on novice English teachers’ beliefs and
teaching practices. Specifically, this study, through an SFL-informed analysis,
shows how one Chinese EFL teacher puts his beliefs on teaching writing into
practice; his beliefs on the important of linguistic form and textual meaning
were shaped by his own prior learning experiences and self-agency (cf.,
Richards, Gallo & Renandya, 2001; Rubie-Davies, 2015). However, this study
also illuminates that Tong’s journey of acting upon his beliefs was not a
smooth one, due to his students’ shyness and level of language proficiency (as
additional contextual factors in the actual classroom).
Second, this study contributes to the set of analytic methods used to reveal
teachers’ beliefs and practices. In particular, the study shows that SFL can be
a helpful tool in revealing the nuanced connection between teachers’ beliefs
and practices. Indeed, from the perspective of SFL, this study has answered
the call in previous studies to direct more attention to investigating teachers’
beliefs and practices in an in-depth way (e.g., Li, 2013) and incorporating
contextual explanations at the same time (e.g., Wan, Low & Miao, 2011). By
connecting the interpersonal function (i.e., appraisal system, speech function)
to linguistic realizations and contextual explanations, the study has
powerfully illustrated how the study participant Tong vigorously acted upon
his beliefs.
Notes:
1. College English is a course for non-English-major students in China.
2. Textual meaning can be realized through lexical and grammatical resources
(e.g., synonym, conjunction) (Halliday & Hason, 1976).
3. “Novice teachers,” for the purposes of this study, refers to those who have less
than five years’ experience (Kim & Roth, 2011).
4. Discourse in this paper refers to any language-based socio-cultural activities
(Eggins & Slade, 1997).
5. In the rest of this paper, I use the term ‘the verbal narration of teaching beliefs’
International Journal of Language Studies, 11(1), 95-118
interchangeably with ‘belief discourse’.
6. In the rest of paper, I use the term ‘classroom discourse’ interchangeably with
‘teaching practices’.
7. All names of places and participants are pseudonyms.
The Author
Xiaodong Zhang (Email: [email protected]) is a lecturer at School of
English and International Studies, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China.
He holds a PhD degree in Linguistics from University of Georgia, USA. His
research interests include systemic functional linguistics, second language
writing, and teacher education.
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Appendix A: Transcription conventions
Students
=
(.)
↑
↓
words in bold
[ Italicized ]
not a specific student was identified
latching (Tong and his students talked at the same time)
pause of speech
rising intonation
falling intonation
speech emphasis
English translation of participants’ Chinese utterances
Appendix B: Interview Questions
1. Can you tell me about your English education background?
2. Can you also tell me about the requirements of the latest college English curriculum? What is its main content?
3. What do you think of your students?
4. In your opinion, what are your experiences of learning in terms of writing
instruction?
5. What do you think of yourself as a teacher?
6. What do you think are the crucial features that good English learners
should know for writing?
7. How do you think writing should be taught?
8. What are the factors that influence your teaching beliefs/classroom
performance?
9. As I found when observing your class, you taught the textual meaning,
what prompted you to do so?