Teacher cognition in EFL teaching: A study of non-native English- speaking teachers of English for Arabic-speaking students in Egypt with a particular focus on vocabulary

Starting in the 1990s (Borg, 2003; Burns et al., 2015), studies on language teacher cognition and its role in language teaching and learning drew more on the cognitivist paradigm to investigate teachers’ mental processes and actions while paying less attention to the role of affect and sociocultural factors and their influence on cognition (Burns et al., 2015; Li, 2020). Besides, studies attempting to investigate the influence of social contexts focused more on the school or the classroom context rather than the wider sociocultural/sociohistorical milieus. There is also paucity in LTC research regarding NNESTs. This study implemented and integrated the concepts of language-game (Wittgenstein, 1953), perezhivanie (Vygotsky, 1994/1935) and habitus (Bourdieu, 1977) to explore NNESTs’ cognitions in teaching EFL in general and English vocabulary in particular while focusing on their past and present as both EFL learners and teachers. The study participants were in-service EFL teachers in public schools in Egypt. The data were collected in four phases using questionnaires (including open and closed questions), Q sorts, semi-structured interviews, and classroom observations. Quantitative data were analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics (including exploratory factor analysis), and data from Q sorts were analysed using Q factor analysis. Qualitative data from the questionnaire were analysed using content analysis, while interview and observation data were analysed using thematic analysis. The findings revealed the role of language-games (or socially regulated use of language) in framing teachers’ concepts and convictions regarding several aspects of learning and teaching. They also revealed how lived experiences (perezhivaniya) and socially constructed emotions form an integral part of teachers’ cognitions, and how, together with socially structured dispositions (habitus), they influence their perceptions and practices as NNESTs. The findings also suggested how teachers’ cognitions about power relations based on sociocultural and sociohistorical factors are in interplay with their practices in language teaching. Whether in teaching English or its vocabulary, the findings showed that the teachers’ prior learning experiences with their sociohistorical dimensions along with current multi-layered contextual factors influenced teachers’ cognitions in several ways that would defy simplistic comparisons looking for alignment between their cognitions and their practices