| Language awareness（LA）is one of the major concerns in language education.LA is closely related to engagement with language（EWL）.On the one hand,LA can give rise to EWL in classroom teaching.On the other hand,EWL may further strengthen LA.In the case of teachers,teacher language awareness（TLA）has a potential impact on students’ language learning effectiveness.Since the classroom is the main context for senior high school students to learn English which is characterized by explicit teaching,teachers need to be equipped with LA and EWL strategies in the teaching process to direct students’ attention to language issues.Investigating teacher’s EWL in classroom is of great significance for English teaching in Chinese EFL high school.This research adopted a case study methodology to capture the complex action,perception and interpretation of the participants.Three EFL high school teachers with different teaching experiences from a suburban school in Shanghai were selected as the research participants to investigate their implementation of EWL.The data were collected twice with an interval of six months,which altogether involved 46 hours of video-recorded classroom observation and two rounds of interviews.This study seeks to address the following three research questions:（1）What EWL strategies do the teachers employ,and how do they apply them in teaching?（2）What are the critical differences of teaching practices between experienced and novice teachers in terms of EWL?（3）In what ways（if any）do the teacher’s EWL practice evolve over time?Why do the changes occur?The study utilized the qualitative data analysis software ATLAS.ti（version 8.4）to transcribe and code the data.The analytical frameworks including Learning Environment（Van den Broek et al.,2019）and Languaging（Swain,2006）were employed to analyze the classroom teaching practices.The analysis of the interview data was based on grounded theory（Glaser ＆ Strauss,1967）,which went through open coding,axial coding and selective coding.The research results are as follows: 12 EWL strategies emerge from the inductive analysis of the video-taped lessons,among which the most frequently used ones are blackboard writing,Chinese explanation and recast.However,the two experienced teachers exhibit a wider and more flexible types of EWL strategies in classroom teaching than the novice one.By contrast,the novice teacher lacks the ability to negotiate with students about a particular language form in classroom interactions and implements limited EWL strategies.Secondly,the three teachers all employ student-centered and languaging present（S-P）teaching practice,but the experienced teachers show a higher frequency of this combined category.By comparing three teachers’ pedagogical practices and interviews,they show different characteristics in terms of language proficiency,knowledge of learners,subject-matter knowledge and pedagogical knowledge.It is also found that the type of instructional context may play a part in influencing the type of EWL strategies and the frequency of teaching practice.In addition,this paper provides a possible explanation for some changes regarding the practice,the attitude and awareness of implementing EWL over time from the perspectives of teacher training,teaching experience and examination stress.The research findings enrich the study of EWL in the Chinese EFL context.In addition,this present study contributes to developing teachers’ LA and facilitating the improvement of EWL strategies and their professional knowledge.The implications on teaching training,English teaching and English teachers and limitations of the current study as well as suggestions for future research are also discussed at the end of the thesis. |
