Senior High School English Teachers' Cognition Of Grammar Teaching

Senior high school teachers'cognition of grammar teaching was explored in the present survey. Based on the review of the literature, five hypotheses were proposed:(1) teachers have belief system about grammar teaching; (2) their individual differences have impact on their belief system about grammar teaching; (3) many factors contribute to their cognition; (4) there are consistencies as well as tensions between their cognition about grammar teaching and their practice in the classroom; (5) teachers'beliefs and common practice about grammar teaching differ from students'learning beliefs.To test the above hypotheses, the researcher studied 99 teachers and 212 students from five high schools in Shandong Province. Among those teachers,29 are from provincial-key schools and 70 are from ordinary schools. Their years of teaching is from one to 46 years. The participant students are from five intact classes. This study employed a mixed-method design, including questionnaires, interviews and classroom observation. 98 teachers and 212 students participated in the questionnaire survey, among whom 6 teachers accepted the email interview at the same time. There are three questionnaires:(1) Teachers'Beliefs Questionnaire, (2) Teachers'Common Practice Questionnaire, and (3) Students'Beliefs Questionnaire. The first one was adapted from the questionnaire designed by Andrews (2003) and the left two were formed by modifying the statements of the items of the first one. Besides, to have a deeper insight into the problem, the researcher conducted a case study.SPSS 11.5 was used to analyze the data from the questionnaires. It was found that:(1) The majority of the participant teachers value and have their own beliefs about grammar teaching. They accept the basic principles of communicative approaches while valuing the traditional grammar teaching methods; (2) Teachers'beliefs are affected by their individual differences, such as working contexts, years of teaching and grade they teach. The factor of gender makes no difference in this aspect; (3) The participant teachers draw their beliefs about grammar teaching from various sources and the most important ones are teaching experience and their own language learning experience; (4) The participant teachers' beliefs about grammar teaching are correlated significantly and positively with their common practice; however, their beliefs also differ from their classroom practice and teachers are more traditional in their practice; (5) Teachers'beliefs and common practice of grammar teaching on the whole diverge from students'beliefs about grammar learning. The findings from the case study were in line with what was found from questionnaires and interviews.Based on what was found in the study, implications for teacher education programs, teachers' self-development and context improvement for high schools were proposed.