On Efl Teachers' Beliefs About Teaching Methods From The Perspective Of Postmethod

Teachers'beliefs and their teaching behaviors are interactive, and teachers'any adoption of teaching methods is largely hidden behind their beliefs. EFL Teachers at different stages of growth have specific doubts and problems when they use teaching methods. Let's make a general survey of the research on EFL teachers'development, most of which aim at the differences between novice and expert teachers. And expert teachers'specific characters are used in teacher education. Undoubtedly, the kind of research has less certainty of the specific teaching problems in the novice teachers'classrooms. This thesis integrates both theoretical research and practical case study to explore the research program"English teachers'beliefs about teaching methods from the perspective of postmethod".As to the theoretical research, the author first introduces the necessity of research on beliefs about teaching methods, and reviews the oversea and domestic research on beliefs about teaching methods. Then, starting with the origin and changes of methods in language teaching method era, the notions of method and postmethod are explained. Next, postmethod theory is analyzed from the aspects of postmethod condition, postmethod pedagogy and the framework of microstrategies. And postmethod is not a teaching method but a kind of pedagogy. At last, the author discusses the similarities and differences between method and postmethod by contrastive analysis, and puts forwards that postmethod is the inheritance, transcendence and development of method.As to the case study, this thesis adopts some qualitative research methods such as classroom observation and in-depth interviews to investigate the novice teachers'beliefs about methods and their actual use of teaching methods with the guidance of the postmethod theory. Research aims: novice teachers'views on method, the ways the novice teachers use teaching methods in the classrooms, and the postmethod beliefs the novice teachers have. Research subjects: two novice EFL teachers are randomly selected from three municipal key junior middle schools in Chengdu respectively. Procedures of data collection and analysis: post-class interviews take place directly after videotaping each subject's a whole unit, and the statements of each interview are recorded and fully transcribed afterwards, then the consistency of two novice teachers'actual use of methods and beliefs about (post)method are analyzed and summarized. After the data analysis, the findings reveal that the novice teachers lack the knowledge of methodology, the beliefs concerning postmethod are weak, they are greatly influenced by examination-oriented education, and there is a discrepancy between teaching behaviors and teacher beliefs.On the basis of the research findings, the paper discusses the implications for EFL teaching and teacher education in the light of the postmethod theory, attempting to help the novice teachers initially meditate their own beliefs about methods in their teaching practice, thus, to a certain extent, providing some thoughts for the development of teachers and the construction of the teacher staff. On the one hand, teachers can utilize the ten macrostrategies in their classrooms consciously, making teaching shift from unconsciousness to consciousness. Meanwhile, they can summarize and implement certain teaching strategies which are suitable to certain particular situations. On the other hand, teachers need to have some teaching experience and some knowledge about methodologies as the prerequisites of implementing postmethod theory; meanwhile, education researchers can help teachers to construct appropriate teacher beliefs about methods in many ways during teacher training.