Teachers' Expectations For Junior High School Students: An Empirical Study Of The Influence Of English Academic Self-concept

Teacher expectancy has been paid much attention by teachers and researchers for years, asprevious researches find that appropriate teacher expectations could adjust students’self-evaluation and promote their academic developments. A great number of researches homeand abroad mainly focus on the effects of teacher expectations on students’ academicachievements and behaviors, but only a few researches have discussed the effects of teacherexpectations on students’ attributes (such as academic motivation and academic self-concept).Therefore, an empirical study of the relationship between teacher expectations and students’English academic self-concept has been conducted in this research.The purpose of this study is to find out how the teacher conveys her expectations to studentsby classroom questioning and what effects teacher expectations have on students’ Englishacademic self-concept. In order to get elaborate information, the study was focused on threestudents of grade two in a junior middle school by the methods of interview, classroomobservation and questionnaires. Qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis are combined toanalyze the data. It was founded that (1) the English teacher conveyed her expectations tostudents by twelve kinds of behaviors: praising, smiling/eye contacting, affirming/correcting,asking questions, giving reasons for praise, proximity (closing up to students), delving, providingindividual help, touching, using paralanguage appropriately, courtesy and latency in the part ofclassroom questioning.(2) The first seven kinds of the teacher’s expectancy behaviors hadsignificant effects on students, and verbal behaviors were more than nonverbal behaviors.(3)After teacher expectation training, the English teacher’s expectations were greatly improved andstudents’ English academic self-concept is also highly improved, the improvement of teacherexpectations could enhance students’ English academic self-concept in three aspects: thedeepening of their cognition of English learning, the improvement of self-evaluation of theirclassroom behaviors and the increasing of their emotional experience of English learning.(4)Students’ English academic self-concept was positively related to teacher’s expectations.Based on these findings, it is concluded that (1) in the part of classroom questioning,teachers’ expectancy behaviors could enhance students’ English academic self-concept by verbalbehaviors and verbal behaviors; verbal behaviors include praising, affirming/correcting, askingquestions, giving reasons for praise, delving, providing individual help, using paralanguageappropriately and courtesy, and nonverbal behaviors include smiling/eye contacting, proximity, touching and latency. Seven kinds of the teacher’s expectancy behaviors have had significanteffects on students, including praising, smiling/eye contacting, affirming/correcting, askingquestions, giving reasons for praise, proximity and delving.(2) Students’ English academicself-concept is positively related to teacher’s expectations; the improvement of teacherexpectations could improve students’ English academic self-concept in three aspects: thedeepening of their cognition of English learning, the improvement of self-evaluation of theirclassroom behaviors and the increasing of their emotional experience of English learning.This research could provide some pedagogical implications and reference for Englishteachers when they choose their expectancy behaviors in order to maximize the positive effectsof teacher expectations and to facilitate students’ learning. The findings of this study also providevalid and reliable information for the research of effects of teacher expectations and students’academic self-concept.