Pruebas de hipótesis

Another theme that was prevalent throughout the data that helped me understand why Miss Ada used the textbook in the way she did in her class is that of students’ knowledge. As seen in section 5.3.1, Miss Ada’s mission is to provide guidance, mentoring, and support, and not only in English

language [Source: IR]. Miss Ada claims she takes into consideration students’ needs and motivation

when she plans her lessons. However, rather than using textbook recommendations on the teaching approach and on the time allocated for an activity, she uses her knowledge of students’ needs. This student-based approach in planning her lessons is consistent with Miss Ada’s classroom practices. During the interactive stage, as seen in section 5.3.2, the teacher made a number of decisions to promote students’ learning: 1) to meet her students’ needs, the teacher skipped two focus-on-accuracy activities and asked students to complete freer speaking activities in the

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classroom because they rarely practise English outside of the classroom [Source: IR]; 2) to increase the motivational level of her students, Miss Ada engaged her students in genuine speaking exchanges by asking them to ask each other(s) questions which answers they did not know in advance; 3) the teacher changed a textbook activity so that her students did not use any translation but have some L2 speaking practice instead.

Therefore, the data seem to indicate that Miss Ada’s perception of her students’ knowledge, motivation, and needs affected to a great degree her instructional decisions. This finding is in line with previous research, reviewed in section 2.6, suggesting that knowledge of students’ needs and motivation is a common factor that mediates teachers’ use of communication-based textbooks. Miss Ada, however, did not always take into consideration the learning expectations and preferences of her students. As emphasised in section 3.4, when it comes to the use of pair/group interactions in the classroom, Albanian students seem to share traditional beliefs about learning. Miss Ada is aware of this. During our formal and informal conversations, on several occasions, the teacher talked about her colleagues who claim that pair work does not meet the learning styles and preferences of local students. One of these extracts is shown in section 5.3.3.3 (see Miss Ada’s POI on page 160).

Despite being aware of the traditional learning habits Albanian learners feature, Miss also believes that her students actually like pair and group work, and that collaborative work is useful for them. As argued in section 2.3.1.1, inconsistency between beliefs is not unusual. Teachers may believe in something, but they may also believe in something else that pulls in a different direction. When there is tension among beliefs, important beliefs seem to dominate (Phipps and Borg, 2009). However, little is known as yet about the information processing factors that favour an “important” belief or prevent a “not important” belief from being selected as a decision outcome.

Miss Ada’s practices might help us to understand how teachers’ brain and behaviours work together. To the question “How appropriate is group work for your students?” Miss Ada gave the following answer:

You are a teacher yourself (pause) and you know perfectly that the students do in the classroom exactly what the teacher says. If you (pause) continually say “work in your pairs”, students easily get used to it. To the point that, even if I forget to say “pair work”, they will still work in their pairs, without me spelling it out (laughter) [Source: POI].

From the words Miss Ada used (i.e. continually say “work in your pairs”; the students do in the

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it can be easily identified Miss Ada’s view of teaching as a routine activity. As argued in section 5.3.3.1, the data from observation sessions and in-depth interviews confirm this view as the teacher, in the classes observed, repeated a number of behaviours that coincided with her “cognitive map” of teaching behaviours a teacher should display in a successful L2 class. Miss Ada’s teaching behaviours, including the use of pair work, seem to have been influenced to great degree by her previous learning experiences. As the teacher continually reported, she was exposed to a great number of pair and group activities as a student in Miss Elca’s classes. The teacher also claimed on several occasions that she has used pair/group work in her classes for so many years. As argued in section 2.2.2, according to the ability heuristic, frequently occurring events are easily brought to mind, and can trigger automatic responses during the decision-making process since habitual thinking processes can easily turn into a learned routine. Therefore, one might argue that Miss Ada’s decisions regarding the interaction patterns to follow in her classes are motivated by her own learning experiences as an L2 learner, and are likely to be classified as automatic decision- making processes.

Concluding, it might be the case that Miss Ada’s learning experiences as a student in Miss Elca’s classes have influenced to a great degree Miss Ada’s decisions regarding the interaction patterns to use in her classes.