Teachers' classroom practice : emic interpretations of teaching English in Belize's secondary schools

This study was designed to gather the meaning-perspectives and interpretations teachers gave to their language teaching practice using their voice and the voice of learners. The complex and paradoxical language situation in Creole-speaking communities like Belize has been well documented by researchers and linguists including Craig (1978), Roberts (1994), Robertson (1997), and Young (1995). There are a number of education reports on the English language teaching situation at the primary school level in Belize; however, very little attention has been given to English language teaching at the secondary level. In this study, the teachers' practice was examined using Clandinin's (1985), Elbaz's (1983), and Jarvis's (1999) definitions of teachers' knowledge. Nespor's (1987), Pajares' (1992) and Richards and Lockhart's (1996) articles and research on teachers' beliefs served as theoretical support on the role and importance of beliefs in teachers' practice. The language teaching strategies offered by Kumaravadivelu (1994), and those recommended for bidialectal communities by Corson (1997), Craig (1978), Robertson (1995), Rubinstein (1977), Sato (1989), and Young (1995) were used to compare the strategies found in the data.Two secondary school teachers and two students participated in the study. Data were gathered using short teacher questionnaires, teachers' lesson plans, pre-observation and follow-up interviews with teachers, audio-taped and video-taped class observations, stimulated recall sessions with teachers and students, and the researcher's field notes and reflective journal. The analysis of data produced four themes: (a) teachers' English language practice, (b) teachers' knowledge about their practice, (c) teachers' pedagogical beliefs, and (d) the learners' voice: the other perspective.The study's findings suggest that the teachers' personal, practical, and situated knowledge resides in their practice. A practice informed by their pedagogical beliefs, and reflected in the choice of English language teaching strategies developed from a complex fusion of pedagogical beliefs, learner needs, and the sociolinguistic context. The findings did not support the view that English language teachers are ill-prepared for the bidialectal situations in Creole communities, nor were the teachers poor models of English. This study will contribute to the understanding of English language teaching in Belize's secondary schools.Department of Educational StudiesThesis (D. Ed.