The Investigation Of The Influences Of EFL Teachers' Pedagogical Principles On Their Decision-making

Teaching is a complex process which can be conceptualized in a number of different ways. Traditionally, language teaching has been described in the process-product paradigm, by which researchers try to explore the effects that teachers' actions and behaviors exert on learners' learning outcomes. This kind of description neglects the truth that teaching is essentially a cognitive process in which teachers, as rational decision-makers, make numerous decisions. In language teaching classes, these decisions are reflected in the sequence of activities, which are superficial and observable, while the underlying teachers' beliefs are intangible. Clark and Peterson (1986) identify three categories of teachers' thinking processes: (1) teachers' theories and beliefs; (2) teachers' planning or preactive decision-making; and (3) teachers' interactive thoughts and decisions.Theorists have argued that underlying any teaching approach there must be a ... consistent set of principles guiding activities and techniques and a correlative set of assumptions about the nature of language and the nature of teaching and learning a second language. Based on this assumption and adopting Clark and Peterson's categorization of teachers' thinking processes as the framework, this case study investigated the stated decision-making and the pedagogical principles of five EFL teachers in a college. The purpose of study was to explore teacher conceptions during the detailed lesson planning, complementation of the decisions and teachers' evaluations for their teaching. In particular, it tried to answer two questions: (1) How do EFL teachers approach instructional decisions? (2) In what ways do teachers' pedagogical principles influence their decision-making?The general methodology of case study was employed. The basic tenet in the investigation was to elicit the teachers' own voices in the form of qualitative research. By this approach, attempts were made to search the teachers' own descriptions and interpretations for the decisions they made and the underlying pedagogical principles. Specifically, the study drew on various techniques including questionnaire-based interviews, non-participant classroom observations, pre- and post-lesson interviews and video-stimulated recall sessions, and elicited retrospections. Interviews were conducted both before and following the classroom observations.Through the investigation, the answers to the two research questions can be generated as follows: (1) Teachers make instructional decisions based on their considerations in terms of the nature of language, language teaching and learning and the roles teachers and learners are supposed to play, the teachers' perceptions of what means to be a good language teacher etc.; (2) Teachers' pedagogical principles act as determiners and guidance in the types of decisions that teachers make before, during and after the lessons. These decisions are generally consistent with the underlying pedagogical principles deriving from the teachers' beliefs about language teaching and learning.What has been revealed in this study provides some useful implications for teacher development which is of vital importance for the improvement of L2 teaching. The focus on subjective accounts of the principles underlying decision-making processes offers an important perspective on what teaching is and how people acquire the capacity to teach, which may offer a useful perspective and a beneficial model for reflection and retrospection for pre-service and in-service teachers in the form of journal accounts and case studies of how teachers form plans, how they transform the plans while teaching.The limitations are also discussed in this thesis and it is hoped that these limitations can shed light on the perspectives for further exploration.