Introduction
This scene takes place in an office between two teachers in a Chinese secondary school where they have a chat about teaching writing classes.
(See the transcription conventions)
A number of things can be observed from this exchange, but here I would like to specifically emphasise the value of interaction in understanding teacher cognition. Examining the exchange, we can clearly see Lu’s understanding about giving feedback to students’ writing in an efficient way and the affordances of using a technological tool in achieving that. Her idea becomes visible through her chat with her colleague Rui, and more specifically, through the interactional work they do.
Lu shares her recent pedagogical practice (lines 1–2), which is followed by an acknowledgement receipt from Rui (line 3)—the rising tone displays Rui’s interest in hearing more about the innovation. Lu carries on her turn to provide reasons for her decision (lines 4–7, 9–10), with a brief agreement from Rui (lines 8 and 11). The understanding of affordance of technology may also have a discursive explanation when we look at the way Lu interacts with her colleague Rui through a conversation analysis (CA) construct, an adjacency pair. Between lines 1 and 11, Lu provides information whereas Rui shows acknowledgement, encouragement and agreement. Rui’s turns are brief and short, but follow Lu’s closely and sometimes overlap with Lu’s utterance (e.g., line 8), suggesting that she is in a position of receiving information and assisting with the development of Lu’s idea. It is important to note that the smiley voices in lines 10 and 11 suggest that the teachers are building a shared knowledge and co-constructing the meaning that it is difficult to read students’ writing sometimes.
As the conversation continues, Lu declares that this is indeed a new practice (lines 12–13), but she is interrupted by Rui this time, who asks for students’ responses. On the one hand, Rui demonstrates her interest in learning how students react to the innovation; on the other, Rui asks the question to evaluate the possibility of adopting this method, as suggested later (line 19). Rui’s question put Lu in a position of evaluating the acceptance of the method by students. She does provide a positive comment, voting for confidence in students’ ability to adapt (lines 15–16). The positive confirmation in line 17 suggests that Rui confirms the use of Word in writing as a good practice, and potentially one to adopt in her own practice. At this point, Lu makes a suggestion to encourage Rui to use the similar approach (line 18), and Rui accepts (line 19).
This is typical everyday talk that teachers have, and such talk gives insights into the decisions teachers make, reflections they have and plans they develop. The value of everyday talk in understanding everyday discursive practice is highlighted by Edwards and Potter (1992):
What we find in everyday talk is … a rich seam of concern about truth and error, mind and reality, memory and perception, knowledge and inference … people casually and routinely construct formulations of such things (perception, knowledge, inference and so on) as part of everyday discursive practice (Edwards & Potter, 1992, p. 17)
Teacher cognition is a complex concept which has been studied from various perspectives, and a strong theme across different disciplines and research paradigms is to understand what constitutes ‘cognition’ and to argue its importance for effective pedagogy and teacher development. By observing what teachers do and say in their professional context, we are able to make sense of what they think and how that thinking is displayed in their practice. From the example given earlier, we can see that ‘the relation of thought to word is not a thing but a process …. In that process, the relation of thought to word undergoes changes that themselves may be regarded as development in the functional sense’. (Vygotsky, 1986, p. 218). From Rui’s responses, we can see she is developing an idea of using Word in her writing class as a result of interacting with her colleague Lu. Her position moves from the very beginning as someone who is receiving information about Lu’s experience (line 3), to a teacher who recognises the affordances of the ‘track changes’ function of Word in teaching writing (line 8) and a colleague who shares the knowledge about students (line 11), to someone who is interested in adopting this in her class (thus demonstrating interest in learning about students’ experience) (line 14), to a peer who provides positive evaluation on the practice (line 17) and finally to a teacher who is going to change her practice (line 19). The pedagogical idea that Rui develops here is a result of interaction with her colleague but is shown in the language that she uses. So her thinking and language are working together.
What I illustrate here are the key points central to the arguments of the book: there is interrelatedness between language and cognition, and cognition is developed in and through social interaction. In my view, the concept of cognition is ‘cognition-in-interaction’, which is different from individually held mental states. Cognition-in-interaction is a special kind of psychological reality—not the one defined by the mental state or process, but by the participants orienting practically in an ongoing interaction. That is, ‘cognition is socially and publically displayed understanding, knowing, positioning, conceptualising and stance-taking’ (Li, 2017a, p. 56). It is fluid and changing, existing in situ and shaped by the understanding of the distributed cognition in prior turns-at-talk, and shapes the development of the next turn (ibid).
Without going into further detail, I would like to discuss language teacher cognition research briefly as an introduction to the book, before discussing the theoretical positions I take in researching teacher cognition.
A Brief Review of Language Teacher Cognition
Language teacher cognition has contributed significantly to our understanding of teacher education. As Johnson (2006, p. 236) has rightly pointed out, ‘[M]any factors have advanced the field’s understanding of L2 teachers’ work, but none is more significant than the emergence of a substantial body of research now referred to as teacher cognition’. Despite the different theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches that researchers take, the consensus is that the impact of teacher cognition not only sheds light on the issues in developing effectiveness pedagogy and improving student learning but also promotes understandings of classroom instruction at a micro-level, as well as contributing to teacher learning (Li, 2017a).
Research in the last 30 years or so in language teacher cognition has been prolific, and this level of interest confirms that the field has changed from a relatively new and undeveloped area into an important and well-researched field of inquiry (Li, 2017a). The focus includes all aspects of teachers’ lives, including the study of teachers’ beliefs, interactive decisions, teacher knowledge and conceptions, teacher identity and emotions, and so on. Typical work includes investigations of the ‘match’ between learners’ and teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Cohen & Fass, 2001; Kern, 1995; Peacock, 1999), beliefs about subject matters such as grammar and grammar teaching, and literacy (e.g., Andrews, 2003, 2006, 2007; Çapan, 2014; Svalberg & Askham, 2014; Watson, 2015), changes in teachers’ beliefs (e.g., Li, 2012; Mattheoudakis, 2007; Peacock, 2001), the influence of beliefs on teachers’ classroom behaviour and the convergence of practice and beliefs (e.g., Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, & Thwaite, 2001; Farrell & Lim, 2005; See Basturkmen, 2012 for a review) and the influence of beliefs on both pre-service and in-service teacher education programmes (Borg, Birello, Civera & Zanatta, 2014; Busch, 2010; Lamb, 1995). In recent years, new lines of inquiry have been added to the profile of research in teacher cognition, which is particularly significant in understanding the nature of teacher thinking and its relationship to teachers’ practical work. For example, with the development of technology, there is abundant research concerning pedagogical beliefs and the uptake of technology in classrooms (Li, 2014; Öz, 2015; Van Praag & Sanchez, 2015; Yusop, 2015). Many scholars and researchers are starting to pay attention to the role of pedagogical knowledge and beliefs in understanding the affordances of technology integration in language learning, because there is strong evidence to suggest the direct link between these two (e.g., Li, 2008). Equally, teacher cognition about early year education, in particular at the primary level, has developed into a new area due to the widely implemented educational policy of teaching English from early years in many countries and areas (e.g., China, Saudi Arabia, South Korea and Bahrain) (e.g., Büyükkarci, 2014; Gaitas & Alves Martins, 2014; Lemon & Garvis, 2015; Ottley et al., 2015). In recent years, with the global movement, multilingual and multicultural awareness has also become an emerging area in second language learning. As a result, there is a growing interest in teaching professionals’ conceptions, perceptions and beliefs about multilingualism and multilingual pedagogy (Cross, 2011; Griva & Chostelidou, 2012; Haukås, 2015).
This book builds on previous work on the sociocultural perspective of teacher education (Johnson, 2009), the discursive psychological perspective of language teacher cognition (Li, 2017a), and the value of social interaction to explore in-depth several key areas of teacher cognition through ‘applied’ CA (ten Have, 2007). By bringing all these important areas together, this book aims to shed light on the nature of teacher cognition being a socially shared understanding, and the significance of contexts in which it emerges. The motive for the book is mainly to theorise and analyse teachers’ thinking, believing, being and doing in their professional contexts through the lens of social interaction and Vygotsky’s theory of mental development.
The ‘Social’ and ‘Discursive’ Turn of Teacher Cognition
At the outset, it is important to highlight teacher cognition as being ‘social’ and ‘discursive’. I will briefly discuss the position this book takes and how sociocultural theory (SCT), discursive psychology (DP) and conversation analysis (CA) can be utilised in addressing the social and discursive turn of teacher cognition. Sociocultural theory highlights the sociolinguistic experience that one has in the process of intellectual deve...