EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS ABOUT TEACHING GRAMMAR: A COMPARATIVE STUDY BETWEEN NOVICE AND EXPERIENCED TEACHERS

Yıl 2018, Cilt: 28 Sayı: 1, 109 - 125, 07.06.2018

Okan Önalan

Öz

Teacher cognition
research has provided not only a deeper insight into the choices, decisions and
practices of language teachers, but also a more comprehensive insight into the
specific challenges teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL) face. In
this framework, studies on grammar teaching has made great contribution to our
understandings of how teachers teach grammar and of the cognitive framework
behind their instructional practices. Correspondingly, this study reports on
the EFL teachers’ beliefs about and their conceptualizations of grammar instruction
in teaching English and compares how novice and experienced teachers perceive
grammar instruction, examining whether there is a significant difference in
their perceptions. 70 Turkish EFL teachers who work at the Prep Class of state
university participated in the study. For the data collection purposes, a
five-point Likert scale questionnaire with 15 items was used. According to the
results, participant teachers indicated that they preferred direct grammar
teaching, where rules are presented explicitly prior to student production and
highlighted the necessity to learn grammar rules explicitly for effective use
of target language. In general, novice and experienced teachers showed no
significant difference. However, novice teachers had respectively stronger
tendency towards explicit and direct grammar teaching, especially in terms of
presentation of rules deductively. Experienced teachers were more flexible when
it comes to teaching grammar in that they reported occasional use of both
direct and indirect grammar elements in their teaching.

Anahtar Kelimeler

Teacher cognition, foreign language teachers, novice teachers, experienced teachers

Kaynakça

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