䡲 This book provides a timely collation and thematic interpretation of 180 published studies into teacher cognition—thoughts, knowledge and beliefs—and the impact of this cognition on la
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The fi nal chapter, by the editors, summarizes the fi ndings across the chapters, reiterating that current U.S policy is shaped more by attitudes and ideology than by research and data The volume’s authors do not speak with one voice ideologically: Some seem to see biliteracy as a neces-sary tool to integrate immigrants into the U.S economy, whereas others see biliteracy as a tool for enabling learners to challenge a system which marginalizes them The book uses discourses that are palatable to policy
makers (with terms like evidence based ) as well as grounding arguments in
the discourses of equity, democracy, and social justice Some authors talk explicitly about “transformation,” whereas others are much more low-key (although in some cases the actual examples provided by the more low-key authors seem more powerful in promoting student agency than those who talk about transformation) I see this ideological range as an advan-tage: It enables the book to speak to several audiences, serving at once as
a tool that can be used in working to change policies and as a resource for practitioners
This volume makes a signifi cant contribution to a rich international literature about bilingual and multilingual literacies It lays the ground-work for future comparisons between biliteracy studies and policies in the United States and elsewhere Drawing on research from other coun-tries would only strengthen the arguments that these authors make, and show U.S policy to be the anomaly that it is
ELSA AUERBACH
University of Massachusetts
Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Teacher Cognition and Language Education: Research and Practice
Simon Borg London: Continuum, 2006 Pp 314
䡲 This book provides a timely collation and thematic interpretation of
180 published studies into teacher cognition—thoughts, knowledge and beliefs—and the impact of this cognition on language teachers’ class-room practices The work will be of interest to language teacher educa-tors and researchers in language teacher education and development Despite language teacher cognition being a relatively young area of enquiry, the work encompasses a study of the cognitions of both pre- and in-service teachers of English and modern foreign languages, as well as
an investigation into language teacher beliefs about grammar and liter-acy instruction After detailing what may be studied in terms of language teacher cognition, the book moves to evaluate how this cognition can be
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studied It describes a range of research methods and the studies in which
these have been implemented, outlining both the strengths and possible
pitfalls of the various methodological instruments
Borg fi rst provides the historical context for the origins and
develop-ment of this research fi eld within mainstream education The changing
perspective on teacher cognition from the 1970s, with its emphasis on
the observable behaviour of teachers, is shown to have given way to a
wider conceptualisation that teacher thinking plays an active role in
class-room decision making and is crucial to the process of understanding
teaching Understanding teacher cognition as a means of being better
able to understand what it is to be a language teacher is a fundamental
premise of the book
In chapter 2, Borg discusses the cognitions of preservice language
teachers, who make up much of the research cited in the book The
stud-ies examined reveal that previous language learning, occurrences in
teachers’ lives, tacit conceptions of teaching and learning, as well as early
classroom experiences play major roles in teachers’ cognitive
develop-ment The studies also seem to show that teacher training courses affect
new teachers in unique and individual ways Chapter 3 describes research
into the cognitions of in-service language teachers, both novice and
expe-rienced, and reveals the diffi culty of reaching neat conclusions However,
overall, the cited studies appear to indicate again the powerful infl uence
of the reality of context on teacher cognition The greater or lesser degree
to which professional development may contribute to the changing
cog-nitions of experienced teachers is also documented In chapters 4 and 5,
Borg discusses the collected data from studies into the cognitions of
teachers with regard to grammar teaching and literacy instruction,
respec-tively, and he comes to two main conclusions about these domains
Studies into teachers’ cognitions in grammar teaching seem to show that
their grammar teaching practices are determined by a complex
interac-tion between teachers’ understanding of pedagogy, their learners, their
educational backgrounds, and their teaching contexts In terms of
liter-acy instruction, however, although second language reading has attracted
much methodological interest, the limited studies into foreign language
teacher cognition about literacy do not appear to offer any substantive
focus, only a range of perspectives from which teacher cognition may be
further studied
The second half of the book moves from this interpretation of
differ-ent aspects of teacher cognition to an evaluation of the methodological
tools by which data might be collected The tools are divided into
self-report instruments (chapter 6), verbal commentaries (chapter 7),
obser-vational methods (chapter 8), and refl ective writing (chapter 9) Borg
discusses the advantages of easily collectable and processed data when
using instruments such as questionnaires and scenario rating techniques,
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although at the same time he recognises the limitations of such theoreti-cal data being used as a measure of actual practice He particularly focuses
on the semistructured interview, the most widely adopted tool in attempts
to elicit teacher beliefs, but warns of the diffi culties of questioning when trying to elicit these beliefs, which the teachers may hold subconsciously
He also describes less commonly used tools, such as repertory grid inter-views, along with their possible disadvantages, as well as the more widely used stimulated recall interviews, in which teachers watch a video or lis-ten to an audio tape of their teaching and comment
In terms of observational techniques, Borg highlights the complexity
of considerations such as the authenticity of the teaching practicum, the ethics of revealing the purpose of any research and the variety of ways in which data might be recorded However, although he acknowledges the superiority of observation as a tool for obtaining evidence of teacher beliefs in practice, Borg notes that this tool has the most potential for cre-ating concern among teachers In the section on different forms of refl ec-tive writing instruments, the author argues that teachers should be taught
to develop refl ective skills and appropriate protocols Moreover, in his concluding comments about the methodological choices available, Borg suggests that, because of the very different nature of data collected by the different approaches, each tool would have greater value if combined with the use of data collection from other sources
In the fi nal chapter (10), Borg returns to an ongoing theme of the book, the plethora of concepts and overlapping terminology in the research on language teacher cognition His solution is to develop a thematic classifi cation in order to provide a systematic conceptual, termi-nological, and methodological framework for any future studies on the topic The last chapter also offers a number of pathways for more research, for example, longitudinal studies into how cognition develops with expe-rience and a greater uptake of underused methodological tools to extract different data Not least of these suggestions is Borg’s plea for some col-laborative study into the relationship between language teacher cogni-tion and student learning
The work is meticulous, almost to a fault, and although a summary of each chapter is provided, some brief, more quickly accessible diagrammatic overview of, for example, the protocols, strengths, and challenges of differ-ent data collection strategies would have been useful for busy readers
In conclusion, this book is a well-written and valuable resource The empirical studies, which are referred to throughout, provide ideas for further reading about the cognition of pre- and in-service language teach-ers, specifi c domains of cognition, and the variety of methodological options for researchers’ consideration Borg also provides an important, ordered review of the existing body of work into language teacher cogni-tion (e.g., Bartels, 2005; Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, & Thwaite, 2001;
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Farrell & Lim, 2005; Freeman & Richards, 1996; Woods, 1996) What is
more, he sets a rigorous agenda for future work in this important fi eld
REFERENCES
Bartels, N (2005) (Ed.) Applied linguistics and language teacher education New York:
Springer
Breen, M P., Hird, B., Milton, M., Oliver, R., & Thwaite, A (2001) Making sense of
language teaching: Teachers’ principles and classroom practices Applied Linguistics,
22, 470–501
Farrell, T S C., & Lim, P C P (2005) Conceptions of grammar teaching: A case
study of teacher’s beliefs and classroom practices TESL-EJ, 9, 1–13
Freeman, D., & Richards, J C (Eds.) (1996) Teacher learning in language teaching
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press
Woods, D (1996) Teacher cognition in language teaching Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
PAMELA ABOSHIHA
Canterbury Christ Church University
Canterbury, England