Use the following outline structure as you move through the assignment: Thoughts regarding the examination of language teaching beliefs (a few sentences) 1. I believe that… a.Specify and summarize SLA
The impact of in-service teacher education on languageteachers’ beliefsSimon Borg*
School of Education, University of Leeds, Leeds LS2 9JT, UK
Received 15 January 2011; accepted 25 May 2011
Abstract
This qualitative longitudinal study examines the impact of an intensive eight-week in-service teacher education programme in
the UK on the beliefs of six English language teachers. Drawing on a substantial database of semi-structured interviews, coursework
and tutor feedback, the study suggests that the programme had a considerable, if variable, impact on the teachers’ beliefs. The
course allowed teachers to think more explicitly about, become aware of, and articulate their beliefs, to extend and consolidate
beliefs they were initially eand sometimes tacitly epositively disposed to, and to focus on ways of developing classroom practices
which re ected their beliefs. Teachers also experienced shifts in prior beliefs they held about aspects of language teaching and
learning. Nonetheless, despite this evidence of impact, the data also suggest that the in-service course studied here could have
engaged teachers in a more productive and sustained examination of their beliefs. Several factors relevant to such engagement are
analyzed and recommendations for enhancing the impact of in-service teacher education on language teachers’ beliefs are made.
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Teachers’ beliefs; Language teacher education; In-service; Delta
1. Introduction
It is widely recognized that teacher education is more likely to impact on what teachers do if it also impacts on their
beliefs (e.g. Feiman-Nemser and Remillard, 1996; Phipps and Borg, 2007; Wideen et al., 1998 ). There has, however,
been surprisingly little research into the extent to which teacher education, particularly in in-service contexts, does
actually impact in some way on the beliefs of participating teachers. This paper explores this issue in the context of an
in-service course for language teachers.
1.1. Literature review
Beliefs have been de ned from a range of psychological and philosophical perspectives (see, for example, Abelson,
1979; Nespor, 1987; Pajares, 1992; Woolfolk Hoy et al., 2006 ). This work suggests that beliefs are propositions
individuals consider to be true and which are often tacit, have a strong evaluative and affective component, provide
* Tel.: þ44 113 343 4552; fax: þ44 113 343 4541.
E-mail address: [email protected] .
0346-251X/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi: 10.1016/j.system.2011.07.009
Available online at www.sciencedirect.com
System 39 (2011) 370 e380 www.elsevier.com/locate/system a basis for action, and are resistant to change. In the context of language teacher education, beliefs are seen to be a key
element in teacher learning and have become an important focus for research. It has even been suggested that beliefs
“may be the clearest measure of a teacher’s professional growth” (Kagan, 1992, p. 85).
1.1.1. Studies of belief impact in language teacher education Most of the research available on the impact of teacher education on language teachers’ beliefs has been conducted
in pre-service contexts, and this work has produced mixed ndings. Studies such as Borg (2005), Peacock (2001),
Urmston (2003) andPennington and Urmston (1998) report stability in the pre- and post-course beliefs of student
teachers. In contrast, Cabaroglu and Roberts (2000), Clarke (2008), MacDonald et al. (2001), Mattheoudakis (2007)
and Busch (2010) all provide evidence of change in student teachers’ beliefs during language teacher education. Other
studies ( Liu and Fisher, 2006; Murray, 2003; Richards et al., 1996 ) report that belief change was promoted by pre-
service language teacher education in variable ways across individuals and areas of belief. Moving on to the context for this study, the volume of research examining the impact of teacher education on in-
service language teachers’ beliefs is limited. Studies which have reported evidence of such impact are Freeman
(1993), Scott and Rodgers (1995) , andLamie (2004) . For example, Scott and Rodgers (1995) compared teachers’
conceptions of writing using a pre- and post-course survey and found that initially 58.5% of the beliefs expressed were
aligned with the principles and practices promoted on the course, compared to 89% afterwards. This was interpreted as
evidence of positive impact. In contrast, Lamb (1995)andPhipps (2007, 2010) report less positive conclusions in their
analyses of the impact of in-service teacher education on language teachers’ beliefs. For example, Phipps (2007)used
qualitative measures to examine the impact of four months of an 18-month course on the beliefs about grammar
teaching of a teacher of English in Turkey. While acknowledging the overall positive impact of the programme, he
concluded that, during the period of the study, “there were few tangible changes to existing beliefs. Instead many
existing beliefs were con rmed, deepened and strengthened” (p. 13).
1
Clearly, variations in the nature of the language teacher education programmes examined and in the research
approaches adopted in different studies will account, at least partly, for the inconsistent conclusions emerging here.
What is evident, though, is that our understandings of the impact of language teacher education on practising teachers’
beliefs remain incipient and the issue merits much additional empirical attention. In response to this gap, the key
research question that is addressed here is: To what extent did an in-service language teacher education programme
impact on participants’ beliefs about language teaching and learning? Given the concern here with impact rather than
with any particular substantive area (e.g. beliefs about grammar teaching), the range of beliefs to be studied was not
limited in any a priori manner.
2. Materials and methods
2.1. Context and participants
The context for the study was a full-time Delta (Diploma in English language teaching to adults) taught over eight
weeks at a training centre in the UK. The Delta is an internationally recognized advanced course for practising
teachers and consists of three modules. Of particular relevance here is Module 2 eDeveloping Professional Practice e
which has as one of its aims to “develop candidates’ beliefs about teaching”.
2On the full-time Delta, candidates
receive 120 contact hours and teach 10 lessons to adults (half of these are observed and assessed). Candidates are
expected to spend around 300 h on reading, research and assignment writing (e.g. preparing detailed lesson plans,
writing lesson evaluations, developing a re ective professional development portfolio, writing background essays).
Signi cantly revised in 2008, the Delta seeks to re ect contemporary views of good practice in language teacher
education (see Zeronis, 2007for a discussion of the development and design of the course).
Six Delta candidates agreed to take part in this study (of a total of 12 who were registered on the course when
volunteers were sought via a preliminary questionnaire). All six were female, British and worked in private language
1Kubanyiova (2006) andRichards et al. (2001) also comment on relationships between in-service teacher education and teachers’ beliefs,
without, however, providing speci c analyses of these relationships.
2See http://www.cambridgeesol.org/exams/teaching-awards/delta.html for full details of the course. 371
S. Borg / System 39 (2011) 370
e380 teaching organizations.Table 1summarizes the more variable characteristics of the sample (referred to throughout
here as T1 eT6). The researcher was not associated in any way with the institution running the course.
2.2. Data collection and analysis The data reported here come from a larger study examining the various types of impact that in-service teacher
education has. The study was qualitative and longitudinal. The teachers rst completed a preliminary questionnaire
which asked about their background, reasons for joining the course, and what they hoped to learn. Six audio recorded
semi-structured interviews (see Kvale and Brinkmann, 2008for a discussion of qualitative interviews) each lasting on
average 40 min and distributed across the course were then conducted with each teacher. The rst two interviews were
conducted face to face at the training centre while the remaining four interviews were conducted by telephone.
Another source of data was the substantial volume of Delta coursework teachers completed (e.g. lesson plans, essays,
re ective writing) and the written feedback tutors provided on this work. Table 2summarizes the chronology of
interviews and assignments in the study. Data were analyzed qualitatively (see, for example, Newby, 2010, pp. 459e460 for a discussion of the process of
qualitative data analysis). There were two levels of analysis ecyclical and summative. Cyclical analysis took place
throughout the study and alternated with each phase of data collection. Thus, the rst interview schedule was based on
an analysis of teachers’ responses to the preliminary questionnaires, while all subsequent interview schedules were
informed by an analysis of the previous interview and the most recent coursework and tutor feedback. Thus, for
example, in preparing Interview 3, I reviewed the transcript of interview 2 for evidence relevant to an understanding of
teachers’ beliefs (e.g. statements in which beliefs were articulated or re ective comments about beliefs). T2, for
instance, said in Interview 2 that her beliefs had not been challenged in Weeks 1 e2 of the course, so this issue became
part of the schedule for Interview 3. Prior to Interview 3 I also reviewed all coursework and tutor feedback that had
become available since the last interview and similarly analyzed these sources for evidence of teachers’ beliefs or
teachers’ re ections on their beliefs. To take another example from T2, in her Re ection and Action Stage 2 assignment
she wrote that “planning should be from the aims backwards, i.e. student and aims focused”. This assertion then became
one of the issues discussed in Interview 3. Appendix 1is an example of the outcome of these cyclical analytical
processes, with questions and issues in interview schedules very often linked directly to evidence from earlier phases of
data collection. There was thus a very strong interplay between data collection and analysis throughout the study,
supporting Richards’ (2003, p. 268) claim that in qualitative research analysis is “neither a distinct stage nor a discrete
process”. The process followed here also meant that each interview was highly responsive and personalized. In addition
to extracting interview themes from the data, there were a number of core issues that I explored in the interviews
throughout the study; for the purposes of this paper two themes of relevance were the extent to which the teachers felt the
course (a) enabled them to examine their beliefs and (b) had impacted on their beliefs in some way. Analysis was also summative, both for each teacher and for the whole group. That is, on completion of the
eldwork the on-going analyses for each teacher were reviewed chronologically for recurrent themes or patterns
relevant to an understanding of the impact of the course on the teacher’s beliefs. A list of themes evident in each case
was drawn up and a cross-case comparison of these was facilitated through the use of a grid in which themes were
listed and cross-referenced to each individual case, using a Uor to indicate whether a theme was present or absent;
displaying the data in this manner highlighted those themes which recurred across teachers and those which were
isolated instances. For example, this analysis showed that in ve of the six cases the teachers noted at some point
during the study that they felt their initial beliefs had remained intact during the course.
Table 1
Participant pro les.
Teachers Years in ELT Quali cations Current position
T1 4 BA, CELTA Director of Studies (DOS)
T2 10 BA, CELTA Senior Teacher
T3 5 BA, Cert. TESOL Teacher
T4 2 BA, CELTA DOS
T5 4 BA, PGCE, CELTA Assistant DOS/Teacher
T6 7 BA, PGCE, CELTA Senior Teacher
372
S. Borg /System 39 (2011) 370
e380 Other features of the analysis which characterized this work were extensive reference to contextualized extracts of
primary data to support claims (e.g. quotations from the teachers and their work), and respondent validation (but see
Silverman, 2001 for a critical perspective on asking participants to verify researchers’ interpretations). Collectively,
the rigorous analytical procedures outlined here enhance the trustworthiness of the ndings presented below. In terms of key ethical concerns in educational research (see, for example, Denscombe, 2002), voluntary informed
consent was obtained from all participants, they had the right to withdraw from the study at any time, and their
anonymity was protected together with the con dentiality of the data.
3. Findings
I will now present ndings relevant to the impact of the Delta on the beliefs of the six teachers. It is important to
stress that I am not seeking to characterize the Delta course generally ethe insights provided here are based on the
study of one particular implementation of the course and of the experience of six (successful) teachers on it. The issues
highlighted, though, are, I would argue, of broad relevance to language teacher educators.
3.1. Teacher 1
In the rst re ective assignment on the course teachers were encouraged to write about their beliefs. T1 found this
challenging:
I think prior to doing the course, I hadn’t really re ected a lot on what my beliefs were .I found that quite
hard, because I felt like I was supposed to say some special word or use some terminology, and say, oh, ‘I
believe in this theory’ .it wasn’t immediately obvious to me what my beliefs were (TI:I2
3).
At the end of the course, though, she declared that “the course teaches you to actually know what you believe
about teaching” (TI:I5) and felt that this new-found awareness was one of the most positive outcomes of the course
for her:
Table 2
Chronology of data collection.
Course weeks Data collection
25.08.09 Pre-course questionnaires
Wk1 28.09.09 Start of course
Interview 1
Wk2 05.10.09 Diagnostic assignment
Re ection and action stage 2
Interview 2
Wk3 12.10.09 Language & skills assignment 1
Wk4 19.10.09 Language & skills assignment 2
Wk5 26.10.09 Interview 3
Re ection and action stage 3
Experimental practice assignment
Wk6 02.11.09 Language & skills assignment 3
Wk7 09.11.09 Interview 4
Re ection and action stage 4
Wk8 16.11.09 Language & skills assignment 4
End of course
Interview 5
02.12.09 Module 1 exam
07.12.09 Extended assignment deadline
21.01.10 Interview 6
3Data cited in this paper carry the following codes: T1, T2, etc.¼individual teachers; I1, I2, etc ¼ rst, second, etc. interview; FB ¼tutor
feedback; R&A2 e4¼ re ective assignments; CSFB ¼teacher feedback on their narratives; PCT ¼pre-course task. Ellipsis ( .) in transcripts
indicates that (because of space and relevance) text has been omitted. 373
S. Borg / System 39 (2011) 370
e380 I think it all comes down to understanding what you believe, and it sounds really stupid, like you don’t know
what you believe, but yeah I think when you do your rst lot of training and then you’re out in schools teaching
for the rst few years and you don’t really pick up theory books very often, you don’t really understand the
principles and the reasons behind half the things you’re doing.I wanted to nd out the methodology that was
behind everything that I was doing .And for that reason alone it’s been brilliant (T1:I5).
Particularly fundamental to T1’s understanding of her beliefs, as indicated above, was acquiring the theoretical
knowledge which provided her with a rationale for her practices. Without this knowledge, she felt she had practices but
no explanation for them:
you can have all these things like, ‘oh I hate using the course book or, oh I never do this part of the course book
because I think it’s rubbish’ or whatever, and you don’t really realise when you’re pre-Delta that that’s a belief
that you have about it. You just think, ‘oh that’s just what I do, you know?’ .And it’s quite embarrassing
when you rst start because you think, ‘I’ve no idea, I don’t know why I’ve been doing that. I’ve just been told
to do that’ and so, yeah, it’s quite nice to be able to get to the end of the course and go, ‘I get why I do that
now. I understand why that makes sense’ (TI:I5).
T1 gave such a prominent role to theory in talking about her beliefs on the course that there was a sense in which
external theory lled the gaps in her understanding and becamethe beliefs she felt she lacked an awareness of. In
contrast, for example, internal sources of insight such as her educational biography played no role in the examination
of her beliefs. In an interview, though, she suggested that her early teaching experience with young learners in China
had “patterned me to do things in a certain way, when I just transferred it to adults” (TI:I5). Exploring this experience
would have contributed to a deeper understanding of her beliefs and practices. I return to this point in the practical
recommendations at the end of the paper.
3.2. Teacher 2
In an early re ective assignment T2 wrote that “I believe students learn best when they are motivated. Instrumental
motivation .is key but I also feel that it is the language teacher’s job to foster affective factors” (T2:R&A2). At the
end of course, she did not feel these initial beliefs had been reshaped:
I don’t know that my beliefs have necessarily changed. I’m a lot more aware of theories, of terminology, of
what I’m doing, but I still believe that motivation is important, that having a good rapport with your students is
important, none of that’s changed .When we looked at what we believed at the beginning [of the course], we
were all quite super cial and we never really delved into it and I think all that’s happened is that the things we
do in the classroom, have now just got more theory behind it .so really it’s your practice, not necessarily
your beliefs that’s changed (T2:I5).
Deeper knowledge of language teaching theory had thus shaped developments in her practice, without, however,
implying any signi cant change in her basic beliefs. One explanation she offered for this was that her existing
practices and those promoted on the course were reasonably well-aligned; in her words, “there’s been nothing that I’ve
thought oh, I did that, you know, black and they’re saying that you’ve got to do it white, there’s nothing like that”
(T2:I2). Another explanation, noted above, was that apart from a brief ‘super cial’ discussion of beliefs at the start of
the Delta there was no deep or sustained examination of the issue on the course. The intensity of the course also
hindered, she felt, the detailed examination of beliefs:
I had lots of quite strong beliefs about rapport building, motivation and student-centred learning but which
perhaps I didn’t know how to put into words and that we never really had a chance to examine these beliefs on
the course eit was too intense to have much time to stop and think (T2:CSFB).
Despite feeling her beliefs had remained stable, if somewhat tacit, T2 did acknowledge that some development in
her beliefs occurred. Around the mid-point of the course she compared this development to the growth of a seed
(which in this case referred to her entry beliefs):
I don’t think it’s so much that they’re [my beliefs] being challenged, I think they’re just being added to .my
reading’s adding to it and my teaching practice is adding to it and watching my peers is adding to it and, so
374 S. Borg /System 39 (2011) 370
e380 they’re just growing I think, that would be a better way of describing it.perhaps it was all probably there but
maybe just the seed and now it’s, now they’re growing (T2:I3).
Belief development in T2’s case, then, was one of growth ei.e. consolidation and extension of issues she was
positively disposed to but which she had not necessarily previously explored in depth. This process was supported by
reading, teaching and observing peers; one mechanism on the Delta for exploring beliefs which she did not bene t
much from, though, was re ective writing, which she described as “a complete waste of time and effort” (T2:I5). In
responding to her written re ections, tutors did encourage her to re ect more deeply, as in this example focusing on
her dif culties in teaching pronunciation:
It sounds like an area .that is not part of your normal classroom routine/ritual. By investigating why this is
the case (perhaps by critically examining some of your experiences as a language learner and/or your beliefs in
this area) you may be better placed to assign an appropriate action to take in your action plan (T2:R&A3 FB).
There was, though, little evidence of such engagement with beliefs (or with her educational history) in T2’s self-
evaluations and re ections on the course.
3.3. Teacher 3
T3 felt that before the course she was not even sure that she had beliefs about language teaching: “I don’t really
know what I would have de ned my beliefs as being before I came, I don’t know if I would have said I had beliefs
about ELT .I’d never consciously considered them” (T3:I2). The course was thus the rst time she had been
encouraged to articulate her beliefs and in an early piece of re ective writing she noted that
My own experiences as a language learner .have led me to believe that stimulating intrinsic motivation is
vital in producing long term linguistic development in a learner .I also believe that appropriate error
correction and feedback are essential to retaining learner motivation (T3:R&A2).
The Delta thus gave T3 opportunities to become aware that she actually had beliefs and to articulate what these
were. Thus she spoke of progressing from “maybe not even really thinking about them [i.e. beliefs] to having them”
(T3:I2). Through this process she did not nd that her beliefs were being challenged in any signi cant way. One
explanation for this lack of challenge was that she felt that the beliefs she became aware of on the course were well-
aligned with the ideas it promoted; for example, T3 believed in the need for lessons “to be focused on what they (i.e.
learners) can take away” (T3:I3), a key principle emphasized on the Delta. Like T2, T3 was not positive about written re ections, noting that “I maybe don’t nd them the most useful way of
evaluation” (T3:I3) and adding later that “the principle behind it’s good, but the actual writing of it is maybe not very
necessary” (T3:I5). Thus it was not surprising that tutor feedback on her re ections encouraged her to explore her
beliefs in more detail. For example, with respect to recurring problems with teacher talking time and clarity of
instructions, a tutor wrote: “Is the problem approach/technique or perhaps even a re ection of a deep seated belief
about learning/teaching?” (T3:R&A3 FB). Nonetheless, at the end of the course, T3 felt she was better able to articulate her beliefs and that she was more
aware of them:
Yeah de nitely, I can use long words and things, it’s very exciting, yeah I wouldn’t have been as articulate on
my beliefs at all at the beginning .But yeah, I de nitely, I know what I believe and why I believe it (T3:I5).
3.4. Teacher 4
T4 entered the course with strong beliefs about the importance of learner-centredness, and early in the course did
not feel these beliefs were being challenged in any way. “I didn’t really have any way out beliefs that aren’t ok” (T4:I2)
was how she felt in the rst two weeks; she was also nding that many of her existing beliefs re ected ideas being
promoted on the course:
I think that we have been very much encouraged to look at meaning .and making language memorable .
those are things that I believed in but I wasn’t necessarily practising .Putting it into practice and applying
what I believe in is my challenge (T4:I2).
375
S. Borg / System 39 (2011) 370
e380 Thus it was the enactment of her beliefs in practice which she saw as a key challenge for her.
Towards the mid-point of the Delta, she reiterated the view that “I think my beliefs are still the same, to be honest. I
don’t think that I’ve changed my beliefs” (T4:I3). She did not feel this lack of change was in any way negative:
I think there’s been plenty of opportunity for re ection and opportunity for the beliefs to change and I’m open
to it, but my main core beliefs haven’t changed, but what has changed is the way that I’m able to implement
them because it was ironic that the very rst R&A [re ective assignment] it was, ‘I believe in student cen-
tredness’, I believe in it and I do believe in it, but I just haven’t been able to do it (T4:I4).
There was, evidence, though, of ways in which the course was impacting on her beliefs. For example, in her pre-
course task T4 described herself as “a very con dent and competent English teacher” (T4:PCT), but she was forced to
review this assessment when feedback on her second teaching assignment indicated that although she was seen to be
effective at creating opportunities for interaction in her lessons, too much of this interaction still centred on her. Her
reaction was:
That’s interesting, that was how I felt before, and now I’ve revisited how I feel and I guess my con dence has
been knocked a little bit, by knowing how it could be better and what I was doing was not the best way that it
could be (T4:I3).
In this case then, she was reassessing her self-ef cacy beliefs. There was also evidence of revisions in her beliefs
about the relationship between eliciting and learner-centredness:
I always thought from CELTA that if you elicit and you’re asking the students for the answers, that’s a good
thing, but really that can actually be quite teacher-centred. If you’re the one standing there asking everything
all the time and just getting one word answers from them, it’s not really very student centred at all .I guess
that is a change in belief isn’t it? (T4:I4).
Overall, therefore, in this case there was perhaps a tension between the degree of belief change recognized by the
teacher and that which actually occurred.
3.5. Teacher 5
For T5, articulating her beliefs was a novel experience and her initial attempts to do so were largely descriptions of
practice, a point noted in tutor feedback on her early re ective writing:
You outline your practices but your beliefs are not always explicitly stated. Understanding your beliefs and
connecting these to wider theory will put you in a better position to re ect on your practice (T5:R&A2 FB).
This remained an issue for T5 throughout the course. In terms of her teaching, though, a key developmental theme
in T5’s work was the need for her to create more opportunities for student-centred work and by the end of the second
week she already felt her beliefs in these areas were developing:
I feel now maybe I was helping the students too much and .I suppose I was thinking in terms of my
responsibility to teach them I suppose rather than in terms of helping, enabling their learning .I think I’m too
teacher-centred and I’m learning how that may be holding them back in some ways (T5:I2).
Supported by tutor feedback on her teaching, she continued to review her beliefs about her role: “I think before I
used to feel that I needed to tell them things all the time. That my job was to tell them things but now I realise that
actually they can, you can get a lot from them”. (T5:I3). Two-thirds into the course she felt that “a lot of my practices have changed. But I think my beliefs are still, haven’t
been challenged, my fundamental beliefs haven’t been challenged” (T5:I4). This seemed at odds with some of the very
clear shifts she had made in the way she conceived of her work, though she explained that her comments referred
speci cally to core beliefs she held at the start of the course “about the importance of fostering friendly atmospheres in the
classroom. And presenting things in a realistic context .everything that we’ve learned has only con rmed that” (T5:I4).
At the same time, her re ective writing continued to be characterized by limited reference to her beliefs, a point
recurrently noted in tutor feedback. I ask her whether there was any particular reason why she did not examine her
beliefs more closely:
376 S. Borg /System 39 (2011) 370
e380 Well it’s interesting you say that actually because on the last day of the course.we were actually speaking
about this .on the rst day we were asked to write our beliefs, we had to write these on these big pieces of
paper on the wall, and I think more or less all of us, instead of write what we thought of as being our beliefs
[what we wrote] was actually our practices. But I think we all found it quite dif cult to distinguish, most of us
said, perhaps we didn’t really have such strong beliefs about teaching, we have things that we do and we think
things .but we hadn’t really given much thought about the beliefs that underlie that. .we’d all put things
like .for our beliefs, things like ‘I always write down vocabulary on the board’ and things like that, which
isn’t actually, there might be a belief behind that but it isn’t a belief in itself .It’s a practice .I think that
only really twigged for us right at the end (T5:I5).
It was only late in the Delta that the distinction between beliefs and practices became clear for T5, and thus it is
hardly surprising that explicit discussions of her beliefs were absent from the re ective documents she wrote
throughout course. At the end of the course, though, T5 was positive and articulate about its impact on her beliefs:
I think it’s actually made me realise what my beliefs are .I still probably have the same beliefs in the
importance of affective factors and creating an environment where students can work together and help each
other .I’m also believing more and more now in the importance of getting students to process things for
themselves rather than just being told .I think probably to do with my role as a teacher .I felt it was my job
I think before to just give them the knowledge, whereas now I think I see my role differently. To help them to
discover for themselves more (T5:I5).
3.6. Teacher 6
T6 was able to articulate her beliefs in detail early in the course:I strongly believe that there are many affective factors which assist learners in acquiring language successfully.
These factors include learner comfort and freedom to experiment in the classroom, con dence in the teacher
. It is important that topics are used which students can relate to and can be personalised .I am a great
believer in student interaction and learner autonomy (T6:R&A2).
She did not feel, though, that in the rst part of the course that there was suf cient discussion in class about beliefs:
We haven’t so much been asked about our beliefs very much, although in our re ection and action [i.e.
re ective writing] we do talk about what’s important to us and our teaching beliefs .but not so much in an
open discussion (T6:I2).
Feedback on her teaching, in contrast, was helping her review her beliefs, for example in relation to when in the
lesson to give students production activities:
before this course, I always thought, ‘oh it [production] comes at the end’ .but actually what I’ve realised is
that that turns on its head and the language analysis can come after and that gives them a chance to improvise
and try it out rst .and I think I’ve realised that that works much better .the shape of my lesson has
completely changed because of that (T6:I4).
Half way through the course she was still waiting for opportunities to talk about beliefs during the training sessions: there’s not really been any opportunity to, it’s not as getting to the nitty gritty as I thought it would be .Yo u
don’t really get a chance to throw an idea out and have it challenged as it were. So yeah, that’s something that
hasn’t happened as yet (T6:I3).
She was aware, though, of how her views were being shaped by teaching practice and the feedback she received on
it. In particular, she had developed strong beliefs about
utilising the students’ knowledge, existing knowledge, a bit more as a base, and as a foundation of a lesson,
rather than going in and teaching I think. I think that’s the thing that’s standing out at the moment (T6:I3).
At the end of the course, T6’s view on the extent to which it had impacted on her beliefs was
377
S. Borg / System 39 (2011) 370
e380 my belief has been reassured. I think.it hasn’t had a huge impact on me, that side, I think .because I don’t
actually feel that that was a huge part of the course .very early on I thought it would be. I thought it would
be quite gritty. I thought it would be quite discursive when it came to different people’s beliefs .But it wasn’t
particularly (T6:I5).
4. Discussion Judgements about the impact of teacher education depend on how ‘impact’ is operationalized. If impact implies
a deep and radical reversal in beliefs, then we would conclude that the Delta did not have a signi cant impact on the
beliefs of the six teachers. However, if we interpret impact more broadly to encompass a range of developmental
processes then the impact of the Delta on the teachers’ beliefs, though variable, was considerable. T1, T3, and T5 all
progressed from an initial stage of limited awareness of their beliefs to feeling quite strongly that they were aware of
and could articulate key beliefs underpinning their work. In the other three cases, evidence of impact was less
compelling (and less recognized by the teachers) but nonetheless evident; T6 felt her beliefs were largely reassured but
acknowledged a new belief in the value of basing lessons on students’ existing knowledge and a change in her belief
about when ‘production’ activities should occur in lessons; T4 acknowledged changes in her beliefs about her own
ability as a teacher and in her understandings of the extent to which elicitation by the teacher was a student-centred
practice; and T2, who was the teacher who least of all recognized any impact of the Delta on her beliefs, did admit to
an improved ability to articulate her views. Overall, then, the results of this study add to existing evidence about the potential for teacher education to impact
on the beliefs of in-service language teachers (see Section 1.1), although direct comparisons across studies are
problematic given the diverse contexts studied and the research methods used. Phipps’ (2007, 2010)focus on a part-
time Delta makes his work very relevant to this study and his nding that teachers became more aware of and
strengthened their beliefs rather than changing them has parallels here. There is also evidence here which resonates
with the ndings of Cabaroglu and Roberts (2000) regarding the different ways in which change in beliefs can be
conceptualized. Thus, as we have seen, through teacher education teachers’ beliefs can be strengthened and
extended; they can be made more apparent to teachers and assume a form that can be verbalized; teachers can learn
how to put their beliefs into practice and also develop links between their beliefs and theory. Teacher education can
of course also be the source of new beliefs for teachers. There was evidence of all these forms of impact in this study,
and it was clear that the Delta provided a range of opportunities eparticularly through teaching practice, tutor
feedback on teaching and coursework, reading, and re ective writing ethat contributed in variable ways in
impacting on teachers’ beliefs. At the same time it must be acknowledged that at various points in the study several of the teachers claimed that
they did not feel that the Delta was impacting signi cantly on their beliefs. In some cases these views persisted till
the end of the course. Several factors may have led teachers to feel that their beliefs were not being engaged; one may
be that they equated impact with radical change, and in that sense, as already noted, there was limited evidence of
impact here. Another reason was that they perceived an alignment between their current beliefs and practices and
those being promoted on the course. Borg (2005)highlighted such alignment as a reason why a student teacher did
not experience signi cant changes in her beliefs during an intensive four-week teacher education programme. Some
teachers also felt that while the course allowed them to think about their beliefs, it did not force teachers to confront
and challenge them. For example, there were limited opportunities for teachers to talk to each other about their
beliefs. Additionally, some teachers rejected the use of re ective writing and this too may have shaped their views
about the overall impact the course had on their beliefs (for other perspectives on the challenges of promoting
productive teacher re ections, including in assessed contexts, see A’Dhahab, 2009; Gunn, 2010; Hobbs, 2007).
5. Conclusion The Delta course studied here was positively oriented to the examination of teachers’ beliefs and there was clear
evidence that the course had considerable, if variable, impact on the beliefs of the teachers studied. At the same
time, however, there was also potential for the teach ers to be engaged in a more sustained and productive
examination of their beliefs, and to conclude this paper I list eight recommendations for how this might be
378 S. Borg /System 39 (2011) 370
e380 achieved. I am not suggesting that these features were wholly absent from the Delta studied, nor that they are
typically absent from Delta courses generally; based on the data presented here, though, I do feel that greater
attention to these issues can increase the likelihood that in-service teacher education will impact on language
teachers’ beliefs:1. Acknowledge that examining their beliefs may be a novel experience for teachers and provide appropriate support as necessary.
2. Assist teachers in clarifying their understandings of what beliefs are (i.e. how they are distinct from practices and from theoretical knowledge).
3. Ensure that teachers understand why they are being encouraged to examine their beliefs.
4. Make re ection on beliefs a central social teacher learning process by providing communal opportunities ee.g.
in-class discussions efor teachers to talk about their beliefs.
5. Supplement feedback advising teachers that they need to examine their beliefs in greater depth with concrete examples of how this can be achieved.
6. Encourage ‘Biographically responsive’ ( Reeves, 2009, p. 121) re ective practices through which teachers can
understand the formative in uence of past educational and professional experiences on their current beliefs.
7. Assess teachers’ attitudes to re ective writing and consider if necessary whether alternative mechanisms (e.g. graphical, oral, photographic) for articulating re ections can be made available for teachers to select from.
8. Provide teachers not only with opportunities to make their beliefs explicit but also with space to question and doubt those beliefs and “powerful alternative conceptions” ( Woolfolk Hoy et al., 2006, p. 728) to consider.
While also valuable in pre-service contexts, such considerations are particularly important in in-service contexts,
where teachers typically bring to the course previous training, substantial classroom experience, and deep-rooted
beliefs about many aspects of their work.
Acknowledgements
This research was funded by Cambridge ESOL. I am grateful for their support and for the co-operation of the
training centre and the participating teachers throughout the study.
Appendix 1. Interview schedule extract
Teacher 2 eInterview 3
1. Areas for development in your Re ection and Action Stage 2:
- language presentation via inductive guided discovery (Personal aims & R&E, DA)
- responding naturally to students’ comments and needs (aims for LSA1 & LSA2)
- tighter planning and realistic timings (R&A2, LSA2)
- pronunciation
- clari cation stage still needs work (LSA1 R&E)
How are you getting on with these? 2. Reading
- Interview 2 eyou were surprised by your interest in theoretical issues estill the case?
- How’s the ‘backbone’ coming along? [The teacher used the ‘backbone’ metaphor in an earlier interview to refer
to her learning.]
- Have you continued to read in the past two weeks?
- What kind of material are you reading?
- What are you learning from your reading?
- What use are you putting the reading to?
- How does reading in uence your understanding of your teaching?
3. Beliefs
379
S. Borg / System 39 (2011) 370
e380 - Interview 2ebeliefs not strongly challenged in Weeks 1 e2.
- Have you been required to focus much on your beliefs in the past two weeks?
- Are you aware of any beliefs you hold now about effective ways of teaching and learning English that you did not
have before the course?
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