A case study of one teacher's pedagogical system for teaching listening

It is shortsighted to leave out the actual practitioners in understanding the highly situated and interpretive nature of teaching and learning. As teaching is grounded in local contexts, investigating the factors that play significant roles in teaching through a thorough understanding of how practitioners construct their own theory of actual practice is essential. Teacher self-reflection is one way to achieve this. Thus, listening to teacher’s voices in a non-judgmental way can reveal the connection between their thought processes and their actions. The purpose of this study was to investigate one teacher’s pedagogical system for teaching listening. In particular, the cognitive processes and structures of one teacher in teaching listening was central to this study to provide a thorough picture about teacher cognition and pedagogy. This study investigated the following research questions: 1- What is the teacher's pedagogical system for teaching listening? a) What are the teacher's stated beliefs and personal theories about teaching listening? b) What are the teacher's practices in teaching listening? c) How does the teacher interpret any inconsistencies between her stated beliefs and personal theory of teaching listening and her teaching practices? An ELT teacher from Anadolu University Foreign Languages Department (AUFLD) participated in this study. The participant teacher had six years of teaching experience. The research study was carried out at AUFLD. An initial interview was conducted with the participant teacher to have a general idea about her educational background, her views on L2 teaching, and on teaching listening in particular. The participant teacher was observed and videotaped for four two-hour sessions of teaching. After the observations, the observer and the participant teacher watched the recordings together. She made comments on her teaching and on the factors behind her instructional decisions in particular. The self-reflections, classroom observations, and the initial-interview formed the data of the study. The interviews were transcribed and the data were analysed under the conceptual categories that emerged from the interviews. Data were analysed in detail through micro-ethnographic procedures. The results of the study indicated that the participant teacher’s beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge (BAK) are interwoven and her network of BAK form the foundation of all her reflections and interpretations on her practices. The results also revealed that the participant teacher’s perspective on teaching listening shows similarity with explicitly developed models in literature. Because learners’ particular needs, environmental constraints, and institutional structure reshape the participant teacher’s pedagogical system in teaching listening, besides explicitly developed models in literature, her way of approaching teaching listening includes these factors. The results imply that various factors such as pedagogical and curricular issues play significant roles in shaping the participant teacher’s pedagogical system. Reconstructing explicitly developed models in the light of the factors such as pedagogical and curricular issues that influence teachers’ BAKs should be considered in order to minimize the gap between theory and practice. That is, teachers’ own theories of teaching and learning and practices should be examined thoroughly and included while developing models of teaching.