Investigating Experienced ESL Teachers' Pedagogical Knowledge

Author(s): Elizabeth Gatbonton

Source: The Modern Language Journal, Vol. 83, No. 1, (Spring, 1999), pp. 35-50
Published by: Blackwell Publishing on behalf of the National Federation of Modern Language
Teachers Associations
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/330405
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Investigating Experienced ESL
Teachers' Pedagogical Knowledge
ELIZABETHGATBONTON
Concordia University
TESL Centre
1455 Blvd. de Maisonneuve Ouest
Montreal, Quebec
Canada H3G 1M8
Email: gatbonto@vax2. concordia. ca

This study investigated the hypothesis that it is possible to access the pattern of knowledge
about teaching and learning (pedagogical knowledge) that experienced teachers utilize while
they teach. This hypothesis was investigated through qualitative and quantitative analyses of
verbal protocols obtained from teachers who simultaneously watched videotaped segments of
themselves teaching and reported on thoughts they had as they taught these segments. Two
sets of experienced teachers (N=7) uniformly reported 20 to 21 categories of pedagogical
thoughts that they claimed were in their minds while teaching. Of these, 7 to 8 were reported
more frequently than others. The lists of predominant categories for both sets are headed by
thoughts concerned with managing both the language the students hear and the language
they produce (Language Management). Thoughts about students (Knowledge of Students),
thoughts about ensuring the smooth transition of activities in the classroom (Procedure
Check), and assessing student participation in and progress with the classroom tasks (Progress
Review) were also among those that featured highly on both sets of teachers' predominance
lists. In terms of an approach in analyzing the thought processes of ESL teachers, the study
suggests that a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods may be profitable.

INFORMATION ESSENTIALIN BROADENING
the theoretical base of programmes preparing
prospective teachers of English as a second lan-
guage (ESL) today comes primarily from studies
in second language acquisition (Ellis, 1994;
Ritchie & Bhatia, 1996), classroom processes
(Cazden, 1986; Chaudron, 1988;Johnson, 1995),
and classroom instruction (Lightbown & Spada,
1993; Long, 1983). All these studies together pre-
sent a picture of what teachers do in the class-
room. They show, among other things, how
teachers organize group work (e.g., Long & Por-
ter, 1985), what questions they ask (e.g., Long &
Sato, 1983; Spada & Lightbown, 1993), how they
manage input and student output (e.g., Krashen
& Terrell, 1983; Long, 1996; Swain, 1993, 1998;
Wesche, 1994), and how they deal with issues
regarding form-focused teaching (e.g., Doughty
The Modern LanguageJournal, 83, i, (1999)
0026-7902/99/35-50 $1.50/0
?1999 The Modern Language Journal
& Williams, 1998) and corrective feedback (e.g.,
Lightbown & Spada, 1990; Lyster & Ranta, 1996).
It is clear that these studies have contributed
greatly to the current understanding of the teach-
ing process, its procedures and methodologies
(see, for example, Larsen-Freeman, 1986, 1990;
Richards, 1998) and as a result have had an im-
pact on teacher training. For a fuller and more
complete understanding of the teaching process,
however, these studies of overt classroom behav-
iour need to be complemented with studies of the
pedagogical knowledge of teachers (Breen, 1991;
Freeman, 1996; Markee, 1997; Richards, 1998).
Pedagogical knowledge, or teachers' constructs
of the task of teaching (VanPatten, 1997), is de-
fined here as the teacher's accumulated knowl-
edge about the teaching act (e.g., its goals, proce-
dures, strategies) that serves as the basis for his or
her classroom behaviour and activities (Feinman-
Nemser & Flodden, 1986; Shulman, 1986, 1987).
Scholars in general education (Clark & Peter-
son, 1986; Grossman, 1992; Kagan, 1991; Shavel-
36
son & Stern, 1981) have studied the nature of
teachers' pedagogical knowledge by investigating
many facets of teacher thinking (Calderhead,
1991; Clark & Yinger, 1977; Elbaz, 1991) and be-
liefs (Guzkey & Passaro, 1994; Hollingsworth,
1989; Kagan, 1992; Reynolds, 1992). The under-
lying assumption of these studies is that when
teachers work to promote learning in the class-
room they are guided by mental acts that have
been shaped by the knowledge and beliefs about
teaching and learning that they have accumu-
lated through the years. Thus, if one can ascer-
tain what these thoughts are, one can gain in-
sights into the knowledge that lies behind them.
A number of studies of teacher cognition in the
general education field have focused on how
teachers construct their philosophies and theo-
ries of teaching (e.g., Clandinin & Connelly,
1987; Leinhardt, 1990) and how they understand
the teaching process (e.g., Peterson & Comeaux,
1987). Others have examined teachers' beliefs
about teaching, students, teachers, and the learn-
ing process, as well as their own efficacy in induc-
ing change in their students (e.g., Hollingsworth,
1989; Kagan & Tippins, 1991; Tamir, 1991). Oth-
ers still have examined their instructional
thoughts and actions and decision making in the
classroom (e.g., Fogarty, Wang, & Creek, 1983;
Magliaro & Borko, 1986). Changes in cognition
that occur with professional growth and practice
have also been examined (Bullough, 1991; Cal-
derhead, 1991; Clift, 1991).
Following the lead of their counterparts in the
field of general education, teachers and scholars
in the field of second language (L2) teaching have
also begun to examine ESL teachers' pedagogical
knowledge and beliefs (Breen, 1991; Cumming,
1993; Freeman & Richards; 1996; Johnson, 1994;
Richards, 1998; Richards & Nunan, 1990; Woods,
1996) . Here, the focal issues include the contents
of and sources of ESL teachers' conception of the
teaching task (e.g., Almarza, 1996), teachers' be-
liefs (e.g., Johnson, 1994; Woods, 1991), class-
room decision making (e.g., Binnie-Smith, 1996;
Johnson, 1992), and lesson planning strategies
(e.g., Woods, 1996). Breen (1991), for example,
conducted a study on 106 experienced ESL teach-
ers in order to determine the sources of their ex-
planations for why they or their colleagues used
certain techniques and procedures in the class-
room. He found seven categories of explanations,
of which learner- focused matters were among the
most frequently cited. Binnie-Smith (1996) exam-
ined the reports of 9 experienced ESL teachers in
order to understand the nature of their classroom
decisions. She found these teachers' decisions to
TheModernLanguageJournal 83 (1999)
be influenced heavily by their personal constructs
of L2 theory and their individual beliefs about
learning. In a longitudinal study of several experi-
enced ESL teachers in an academic setting, Woods
(1996) also identified similar factors affecting the
teachers' choices in planning and implementing
their lessons.
Other researchers have looked for insights into
ESL teachers' pedagogical knowledge by focusing
on preservice teachers. Using an instrument she
devised, Beliefs about Language Learning Inven-
tory (BALLI) and another devised by Savignon
(1976) and her colleagues, the Foreign Language
Attitude Survey (FLAS), Horwitz (1985) exam-
ined the beliefs of preservice teachers and found,
among other things, a strong sense of teacher
responsibility to motivate and help students learn
as well as strong disagreements about the best
methods of teaching. Focusing on another issue,
Johnson (1992) examined the antecedents of 6
preservice ESL teachers' interactive decisions and
found that they based their decisions primarily on
teacher-triggered student behaviours rather than
on student-initiated behaviours. Almarza (1996)
examined how 4 ESL preservice teachers' con-
cepts of teaching developed and whether they
could be modified by a course in teacher educa-
tion. The findings of her study indicate that such
concepts are shaped by teachers' past experiences
as students. These concepts can be modified
slightly by teacher training, but the influence of
their learning experiences on the shape of their
classroom behaviour remains profound.
The study reported here also focuses on ESL
teachers' pedagogical knowledge but from a
slightly different perspective. Whereas the above
studies examined teachers' pedagogical knowl-
edge as they related to one or two facets of
teacher behaviour such as decision making and
planning, this study aimed at discovering (a) what
patterns of pedagogical knowledge operate when
experienced ESL teachers teach and (b) whether
there is consistency among teachers in their use
of these patterns.
METHOD
ResearchQuestions
The specific questions asked were the follow-
ing: Can we access the set of pedagogical
thoughts (henceforth PTs) that experienced
teachers have while they teach? Of these
thoughts, do certain ones predominate? Is there
consistency among teachers in the patterns of
their reported PTs?What domains of pedagogical
ElizabethGatbonton
knowledge can be inferred from the reported
PTs? These questions were investigated using
data from two sets of experienced teachers who
were videotaped teaching ESL courses to adult
learners a year apart.
TheESL Courses
Both ESL courses were organized specifically
for this study. However, they were similar in con-
tent and duration to courses offered at local com-
munity centres. The first course (Course I) was
taught by a team of three experienced teachers to
three groups of adult learners. The second
course (Course II) was taught a year later by a
team of four experienced teachers (and four nov-
ice teachers whose data will not be reported
here1) to four groups of adult learners. Because
there were unequal numbers of teachers involved
in the two courses, there were differences be-
tween them in terms of the length of the lessons
and the duration of the courses. These differ-
ences were, however, irrelevant to this study and
are therefore not discussed further.
Teachers
The experienced teachers for Course I were all
female; for Course II, two were female and two
were male. At the time of the study six of the
seven participating teachers were teaching at a
local continuing education program. One was
teaching at a university level ESL program. Six
had completed a Master's degree in Applied Lin-
guistics and one was working on his degree. Each
reported having about 10 years teaching experi-
ence, at least 5 of which were in communicative
language teaching.
The Students
The three groups of ESL students in Course I
and the four groups in Course II were low inter-
mediate level, adult immigrants and refugees
from Europe, Middle East, and Asia. Two or three
were French Canadians from Quebec.
TeachingMaterials
To rule out any confounding variables arising
from unequal familiarity with the materials, the
teachers used unfamiliar modules from a text-
book unpublished at the time (Gatbonton,
1994). Each module began with one major (or a
series of smaller) generic communication activi-
ties (e.g., role plays, games) suitable for any level
37
learner. This was followed by a series of form-
focused fluency-oriented and accuracy-oriented
activities highlighting utterances collected from
the communication phase of the lesson. Prior to
teaching, the teachers were briefed on the text-
book's approach (Gatbonton & Segalowitz,
1988), but they were encouraged to modify and
adapt the materials to suit their teaching styles,
student needs, and time allotted per lesson.
Data Collection
The teachers' lessons were videotaped. At some
time during the course each teacher was asked to
view 1 hour of his or her video recorded lessons.
Ideally, the teachers should have viewed each
videotaped lesson right after teaching it, but it
was often not possible to schedule this because
some had teaching commitments in regular pro-
grams. For one or two teachers, the delay in view-
ing time ranged from a few days to 3 weeks long.
One teacher, interviewed after several weeks, ex-
pressed concern before viewing the video that
she might have forgotten what happened. Never-
theless, the moment she saw the lesson, she
seemed to have no problems talking about it.
While viewing, the teachers were asked to rec-
ollect aloud (into an ongoing tape recorder)
what they were thinking while teaching the par-
ticular segment being viewed. Their verbal recol-
lections of the first hour of a 1 1/2- or 2-hour
module provided the Verbal Recall Data in this
study.
Data Analysis
Each teacher's taped recollections were tran-
scribed verbatim and then subjected to qualita-
tive (content) analysis aimed at identifying the
categories of pedagogical ideas involved. Later,
the frequency of occurrence of the categories
were noted and subjected to appropriate statisti-
cal tests.
QualitativeAnalysis
The qualitative analysis of the data proceeded
in two stages. In Stage 1, the Course I teachers'
data (n=3) were analyzed jointly by the re-
searcher (R) and a paid research assistant (RA).
In Stage 2, which took place one year later, the
Course II teachers' data (n=4) were analyzed by
R and a paid consultant (C) who joined the team
for this purpose. The qualitative analyses of both
sets of data, whether by R and RA or by R and C,
proceeded along the steps originally agreed upon
38
by R and RA the year before. This procedure
consisted of five steps:2 segmentation and label-
ling, categorization, category definition, data se-
lection, and abstracting pedagogical knowledge
domains suggested by the categories. The con-
sultant familiarized herself with the early analyti-
cal procedure by reviewing the analyses of the
first set of data.
Segmentationand Labelling.The two researchers
(R and RA, and later, R and C) firstjointly exam-
ined a transcribed segment of one teacher's ver-
bal recall interview in order to come to an agree-
ment about the units of analysis and labels to be
used. For illustrative purposes, a small portion of
this practice segment is presented below:
1Okay,that'swhereI wasgoing withit. 21 mean, first
of all, I think you always have to brainstorm before
you start something thematically like this. 3Youjust
have to sort of get them into a ... .4we were talking
about weekends. "Whatdo you do on a weekend. You
go out for lunch and you go to dinner." 5But also in
the back of my mind I was pushing "theatre dance"
and that, 6because I thought, those were some of the
things that they might remember when they're plan-
ning there. 7Because I didn't want them to just do
something mundane. I really pushed for interesting
stuff.
This step allowed the researchers to arrive at a
preliminary system for segmenting the transcripts
into small units of instructional thoughts; for ex-
ample, Must Brainstorm (2); Were Discussing
Weekend (4); Was Pushing Specific Vocabulary
(5); Speculated if Specific Vocabulary is Pushed,
Students (Ss) Might Use Vocabulary During Plan-
ning (6); Didn't Want Ss to do Mundane Activi-
ties or Pushed for Interesting Stuff (7). The
thought unit in the first statement (1) and the
second unit in the third statement (3) were la-
belled Unclear for obvious reasons.
Once consensus was reached on a suitable seg-
menting and labelling system, the researchers in-
dependently applied the system to the entire set
of data from that same teacher. Later, they went
the areas of
over each other's work, checking
agreement between their analyses. Discrepancies
in segmenting teachers' utterances into relevant
thought units (e.g., Is Statement 4 above made up
of one or three units?) were resolved with further
discussions and collaborative practice. Consensus
on how to label the thought units took longer to
reach especially in cases where the meaning of
the statement was not too readily evident or
where there were alternative ways of saying the
same thing (e.g., Statement 6 above was labelled
in the two analyses as Unclear, and Ss Will Re-
TheModernLanguageJournal 83 (1999)
member Statements in Future). However, inten-
sive discussions of possible ways of capturing this
statement led to a mutually approved choice of
the label used above. After reaching a consensus
about most of the discrepancies emerging from
this first teacher's data, R and RA/C applied the
same process to the other teachers' data. This
process yielded numerous other thought units
such as: Student (S) is Problem ("He's a prob-
lem"), Identify S ("That's Alexei"), Will Provide
Vocabulary ("If a certain amount of time goes
past and they're not providing, then I will give
them to them"), and S Improved ("She got better.
She really took off at one point").
Categorization.After the teacher's thought units
have been identified, the researchers organized
these units into categories based on shared
themes. Thus, all thought units describing stu-
dent personality characteristics (e.g., S is Prob-
lem, S is Nice), ability (e.g., S is Good, Ss are
Beginners), and needs (e.g., Ss Need Explana-
tions) were categorized as Know S-personality,
Know S-ability,Know S-needs, respectively. Later,
all these small student-focused categories were
themselves further merged into a larger category
(e.g., Knowledge of Students). Reports about
how students reacted (e.g., Ss Were Embar-
rassed) and behaved (e.g., S Wrote Everything)
were categorized as Note Student Reaction and
Note Student Behaviour, respectively. Later, these
two mini-categories were collapsed into a larger
one called Note Student Behaviour & Reaction.
Thought units dealing with language the students
were exposed to (e.g., Will Provide Vocabulary)
were initially categorized as Input and units deal-
ing with the language the students produced
(e.g., T Corrected Error) were classified as Out-
put. Later, both Input and Output thoughts were
placed under a larger category, Language Man-
agement. This procedure of combining and re-
combining the reported thoughts resulted in the
compilation of the following shorter list of peda-
gogical categories: Affective, Beliefs, Compre-
hensibility, Content, Decisions, Group Work, Ir-
relevant, Knowledge of Students, Language
Management, Level Check, Note Student Behav-
iour & Reactions, Past Experience, Planned Acts,
Post-active, Problem Check, Probe Prior Knowl-
edge, Procedure Check, Progress Review,
Prompted Comments, Self Critique, Self Reflec-
tion, Time Check, and Unclear.
Defining the Categories.Once the final categories
were identified, their definitions were tightened
so that they would encompass only certain
thought units and not others. Thus, Affective was
ElizabethGatbonton
defined to include only the teachers' reported
feelings towards the students and the lesson (e.g.,
"I got a lot of satisfaction with Andre" or "You
could see I was starting to get impatient") and
their reported attempts to create a positive inter-
personal relationship in the classroom ("And I
thought, 'I don't want to cut her off because she
may never speak again"'). Defined thus, it ex-
cluded teachers' claimed failings and shortcom-
ings ("I couldn't remember any of my exam-
ples"), because these were included in Self
Critique. Self Critique was, in turn, distinguished
from Self Reflection which referred only to teach-
ers' comments on their personalities (e.g., "Itend
to be thorough") abilities, likes, and strengths.
Planned Acts referred to comments about
whether a particular move or activitywas planned
or not planned. These were differentiated from
Decisions which included only the teachers' re-
ports on choices they made while teaching and
their stated or implied reasons for their choices.
Data Selection.Since the aim of the study was to
examine the pedagogical information the teach-
ers utilized while teaching, it was imperative to
limit the data only to reported thoughts about
matters (a) that were clearly instructional, (b)
that were spontaneously offered by the teachers,
and (c) that occurred during the act of teaching.
Therefore, all comments that clearly did not fit
these criteria were eliminated. These included
comments such as "I have never been recorded
before" (Irrelevant), comments comparing this
lesson to another (Postactive), comments elicited
through the researchers' leading prompts
(Prompted comments), and comments whose
meanings were not clear (Unclear comments).
Of the data remaining, some contained cues
indicating that the thoughts definitely occurred
during the lesson. For example, in the comment
"In the back of my mind, I was pushing 'theatre
dance,"' the italicized items remove any doubt
that the teacher was reporting a thought rather
than a behaviour. Her use of the past verb form
in "waspushing" indicates that she was reporting
a thought that occurred not at the time of viewing
but at some past time, that is, during the lesson.
Others, however, contained cues indicating that
the thoughts occurred while the teachers were
viewing the video. Examples of these cues are
"now" and the present tense of the verbs in the
italicized words in ". . . I realize now and I know he
is very demandingand I gave, I gave that to him. I
let him be." Other comments were nonspecific
about when the thoughts occurred, for example,
"Youalways have to brainstorm. ..." Others such
39
as "I'm getting them to interview each other"
describe behaviour rather than a thought (com-
pare this, for instance, with "So I thought to my-
self I would give them a set of questions on the
board."). For the analyses below, all these data
were included as long as it could be argued that
they reflected knowledge likely to have been used
during the teaching act. Thus, although in the
video viewing comment cited above, the teacher
reported realizing only while viewing how she was
behaving with one student, it was evident that her
knowledge of the student's demanding character
was operative during the lesson and determined
to some extent what she did with him ("I let him
be"). Similarly, although the teacher did not
clearly state that she was thinking about brain-
storming, her statement implies that she had con-
ducted this activity. If she conducted the activity,
it could be argued that she would have conducted
it with some pedagogical thought - of its bene-
fits, for example.
Deriving the Domains of Knowledgefrom the
ThoughtCategories.The last step in the qualitative
analysis involved summarizing the domains of
pedagogical knowledge that could be inferred
from the teachers' reported thoughts. To accom-
plish this summary, the researchers examined
closely again the different thought units classed
under each category and abstracted clusters of
pedagogical references that they contained. For
example, a few thought units classed under Lan-
guage Management (e.g., Felt I Had to Supply
Language, Would Give Language if Ss Didn't,
Was Pushing Specific Vocabulary) were found to
share a common concern with supplying input or
exposing the learners to input. Later, these sets of
common concerns were reclassified into whether
they dealt with matters related to the central task
of teaching (in the above examples, teaching lan-
guage), creating a learning environment, or
charting students' progress, and so on.
QuantitativeAnalysis
While the qualitative analysis made it possible
to categorize the data systematically, a quantita-
tive analysis of the resulting categories was
needed to determine if statistically reliable pat-
terns had emerged. For this reason, a count was
taken of how frequently the categories (e.g.,
Knowledge of Students, Language Management,
etc.) occurred in each of the Course I and Course
II teachers' reports and in the reports of Course
I teachers as a group and the reports of Course II
teachers as a group. These frequency figures
40
made it possible to determine (a) how the re-
ported thought categories ranked in frequency of
occurrence in the teachers' reports and (b)
whether there were consistent patterns in these
rankings across teachers.
RESULTS
The results of the analysis conducted on the
Course I and Course II teachers' data are re-
ported separately first. This is followed by a re-
port on the comparisons made between the two
groups. The domains of pedagogical knowledge
inferred from the reported categories of both sets
of teachers are summarized last. The decision to
report separate analyses for the Course I and
Course II teachers was taken to allow a discussion
of how the teachers within each group compared
to one another in the kinds of pedagogical
thoughts they reported.
TheModernLanguageJournal 83 (1999)
Quantityof PedagogicalThoughtsReported.Table
1 shows that the 3 Course I teachers reported a
total of 627 instructional thoughts during their
1-hour lesson. This represents an average of
about 209 instructional thoughts per hour or 3.48
per minute of teaching time. Given that these
figures represent only what the teachers actually
reported (there most likely were many thoughts
not reported), it is clear that instructional
thoughts were quite pervasive during the lessons.
This result is, of course, not surprising. It makes
sense that the teachers would be continually
thinking PTs while engaged in teaching. What is
of greater interest is the fact that all the instruc-
tional thoughts reported by the teachers could be
reduced to a definable set of categories. Table 1
shows 20 such categories. All but two of these are
represented by the occurrence of at least one
thought unit in each teacher's protocol. The ex-
ceptions are represented by a thought unit in at
least two of the teachers' protocols.

CourseI Teachers'PedagogicalThoughts Dominant GroupPedagogical Thoughts.Analysis

Table 1 below presents the categories of PTs
reported by the Course I teachers. This table
shows the frequency of occurrence of each cate-
gory in each teacher's report and in the reports
of all 3 Course I teachers combined.
of the total number of pedagogical thoughts re-
ported by the 3 teachers combined (Column "All
Teachers") revealed a clear pattern of thought
category predominance. Language Management
(18%), Knowledge of Students (14%), Note Stu-
dent Reaction & Behaviour (10%), Decisions

TABLE1
Frequency (and Percentage) of Course I Teachers' Reported PedagogicalThoughts
Teacher 1 Teacher 2 Teacher 3 All Teachers
1. Language Management 40 (17%) 1 47 (19%) 1 29 (18%) 1 116 (18%) 1
2. Knowledgeof Students 27 (12%) 2 38 (15%) 2 21 (14%) 2 86 (14%) 2
3. Note Behaviour 23 (9%) 3 22 (9%) 3 9 (12%) 3 54 (10%) 3
4. Decisions 17 (7%) 4 17 ( 7%) 5 8 (5%) 5 42 (7%) 4
5. ProgressReview 6 ( 3%) 19 ( 8%) 4 14 (9%) 4 39 (6%) 5
6. Procedure Check 8 ( 3%) 22 ( 9%) 3 6 (4%) 36( 6%) 5
7. Beliefs 17 ( 7%) 4 6 (2%) 14 (9%) 4 37 (6%) 5
8. Affective 13 (6%) 5 18 ( 7%) 5 5 ( 3%) 36 (6%) 5
9. Self Reflection 22 (9%) 3 2 (<1%) 8 (5%) 5 32 (5%)
10. Content 11 (5%) 11 (4%) 2 ( 1%) 24 (4%)
11. Time Check 11 (5%) 4 (2%) 6 (4%) 21 (3%)
12. Problem Check 4 (2%) 10 ( 4%) 7 (5%) 5 21 (3%)
13. Self Critique 7 (3%) 8 ( 3%) 5 ( 3%) 20 (3%)
14. Past Experience 11 (5%) 1 (<1%) 1 (<1%) 13 (3%)
15. Planned Acts 3 ( 1%) 7 ( 3%) 1 (<1%) 11 (2%)
16. Group Work 9 (4%) 3 ( 1%) 1 (<1%) 13 (2%)
17. Name Check 0 (0%) 5 (2%) 4 ( 3%) 9 (1%)
18. Comprehensibility 3 ( 1%) 3 ( 1%) 3 ( 2%) 9 (1%)
19. Probe Knowledge 1 (<1%) 4 ( 2%) 0 (0%) 5 (<1%)
20. Level Check 1 (<1%) 1 (<1%) 1 (<1%) 3 (<1%)
Total 234 248 145 627
Note.Superscriptsindicate the simple ranksof the teachers'dominant PT categories (not the tie-adjustedranks
used in the Spearman CorrelationTests). Percentages may not all add to 100%due to rounding.
ElizabethGatbonton 41

(7%), and Affective, Beliefs, Procedure Check,
and Progress Review (tied at 6%) were among the
top most frequently reported categories. These
eight categories, henceforth Dominant Group
Pedagogical Thoughts (DGPTs), accounted for
66% of all the spontaneously reported instruc-
tional thoughts in the study.
Examination of the instructional thoughts of
each teacher shows that five to seven of these
DGPTs were also among the most frequently
mentioned by the individual teachers. For exam-
ple, Language Management, Knowledge of Stu-
dents, and Note Student Behaviour & Reaction,
the three most widely reported DGPTs, retain top
positions in each teacher's reports; other DGPTs
were ranked differently on individual teacher's
lists. For example, Progress Review, fifth on the
group list, was fourth on T2's and T3's list. Proce-
dure Check, also first on the group list, was third
on T2's. Some DGPTs were missing from certain
individual teacher's lists (e.g., Progress Review,
Procedure Check from T1 's list, Beliefs from T2's,
and Affective and Procedure Check from T3's),
while non-DGPTs made it on to these lists (e.g.,
Self Reflection for TI and Problem Check in T3).
Intercorrelationsamong the CourseI Teachers.To
test for consistency in the patterning of the PTs
across teachers, the rankings of the 20 thought
categories by each teacher were submitted to a
Spearman Rank Correlation test. The analysis re-
vealed significant interteacher correlations (TI &
T2, rs=.51, p < .01; Ti & T3, rS=.71, p < .01; and
T2 & T3, r, =.71, p < .01). These results indicate
that, although there were clear interteacher dif-
ferences (shared variance ranged from 26% to
52%), the teachers were nonetheless significantly
similar to one another in the dominance rank-
ings of their reported PTs.
CourseII Teachers'PedagogicalThoughts
Table 2 presents the results of the analysis on
the Course II experienced teachers' data. This
analysis yielded 21 categories of PTs for this set of
teachers, one category more than yielded in the
Course I analysis. The added category was Aid
Comprehension, found in three of the four
teachers' protocols but with a frequency of only
3% or less.
Quantityof PedagogicalThoughtsReported.Table
2 shows a total of 907 PTs reported by the four
Course II teachers. This represents an average of
227 PTs per hour or 3.77 per minute. This rate of
approximately three to four PTs per minute is

TABLE2
Frequency (and Percentage) of Course II Teachers' Rep)ortedPedagogical Thoughts
Teacher 1 Teacher 2 Teacher 3 Teacher 4 All Teachers
1. Language Management 65 (22%) 51 (23%) 40 (24%) 1 42 (19%) 1 198 (22%) 1
2. Procedure Check 31 (10%) 2 26 (12%)2 24 (15%) 2 14 (6%) 95 (11%) 2
3. ProgressReview 31 (10%) 2 14 (6%) 5 16 (10%) 3 29 (13%) 2 90 (10%) 3
4. Beliefs 47 (15%) 3 2 (<1%) 11 (7%) 4 11 (5%) 71 (8%) 4
5. Knowledge of Students 29 (10%) 2 7 (3%) 9 ( 5%) 5 16 ( 7%) 5 61 (7%) 5
6. Decisions 11 (4%) 5 24 (11%) 3 12 (7%) 4 6 ( 3%) 53 (6%) 6
7. Affective 12 (4%) 5 15 (7%) 4 8 (5%) 5 23 (10%) 3 58 (6%) 6
8. Time Check 14 (5%) 4 6 (3%) 5 (3%) 6 ( 3%) 31 (3%)
9. Note Behaviour 7 (2%) 3 (1%) 12 (7%)4 12 (4%) 34 (3%)
10. Self Critique 3 (1%) 6 (3%) 0 (0%) 20(9%) 4 29 (3%)
11. Level Check 12(4%)5 9 (4%) 2 (1%) 4 (2%) 27 (3%)
12. Content Check 2 (<1%) 10 (5%) 4 (2%) 7 ( 3%) 23 (3%)
13. Self Reflection 5 (2%) 8 (4%) 2 (1%) 14 ( 6%) 29 (3%)
14. Problem Check 2 (<1%) 12 (6%) 5 6 (4%) 0 (0%) 20 (2%)
15. Planned Acts 6(2%) 4 (2%) 3 (2%) 4 (2%) 17 (2%)
16. Past Experiences 5 (2%) 6 ( 3%) 5 ( 3%) 3 ( 1%) 19 (2%)
17. Group Work 10 (3%) 2 (<1%) 1 (<1%) 4 (2%) 17 (2%)
18. Comprehensibility 3 (1%) 6 (3%) 0 (0%) 6 (3%) 15 (2%)
19. Aid Comprehension 4(1%) 6(3%) 0(0%) 1 (<1%) 11 (1%)
20. Name Check 0(0%) 0 (0%) 4(2%) 3 ( 1%) 6 (<1%)
21. Probe Knowledge 1 (<1%)1% ) ) 0 (0%) 0 (0%) 2 (<1%)
Total 2300 218 164 225 907
Note.Superscriptsindicate simple ranksof the dominant PT categories (not the tie-adjustedranksused in the
Spearman Correlation Tests). Percentages may not add to 100% due to rounding.
42
similar to the rate found for the Course I
teachers.
Dominant GroupPedagogicalThoughts.From the
data shown in the column marked "AllTeachers,"
it is clear that Language Management (22%) was
once again the most frequently reported. This
was followed by Procedure Check (11%), Prog-
ress Review (10%), Beliefs (8%), and Knowledge
of Students (7%). Two categories, Decisions and
Affective (6%), both fell above the natural break
between the seventh (6%) and the eighth (2%)
rankings and were thus included in this list.
These seven DGPTs accounted for 70% of the
reported data.
As was the case with the Course I teachers, most
of the DGPTs in the Course II teachers' group
data were also predominant in the individual
teachers' data. Only Beliefs, Decisions, and
Knowledge of Students were the DGPTs missing
from certain individual teacher's data, while
Level Check, Note Student Behaviour & Reac-
tions, and Self Critique were non-DGPTs found in
some teachers' data. Thoughts classified under
the Language Management category again
headed the predominance list for all teachers.
There were interteacher differences in the way
the other DGPTswere ranked in individual teach-
ers' data.
Correlationsamong the CourseII Teachers.To test
for consistency in the patterning of the frequen-
cies of the PTs across teachers, the rankings of the
21 thought categories were also submitted to a
Spearman Rank Correlation test. The results
showed significant intercorrelations among the
teachers (TI & T2, rs=.42, p < .05; Tl & T3,
rs=.71, p < .01; T1 & T4, rS=.68;p < .01; T2 & T3,
rs=.52, p < .01; T2 & T4, rs=.48; p < .05; and T3
& T4, rs=.54, p < .01). These significant correla-
tions show once again that, although there were
interteacher differences among the teachers (the
shared variances ranged from 18% to 50%), they
nevertheless were similar to one another in the
frequency rankings of their PTs.
CourseI and CourseII TeachersCompared
It has already been pointed out that Course I
and Course II teachers were similar to each other
in terms of the number and kinds of pedagogical
thoughts they reported and in terms of the rates
of occurrence of these thoughts in their reports.
An additional Spearman Rank Correlation test,
conducted to see whether the 20 categories com-
mon to both groups were ranked similarly, pro-
vided further confirmation of this similarity. The
TheModernLanguageJournal 83 (1999)
test results indicated positive significant correla-
tion between the two groups (rs=.85, p < .01).
Finally, the list of predominant categories con-
tained more or less the same items for each
group, although their rank orderings within each
list may have varied slightly.
Domains of KnowledgeInferredfrom the Teachers'
ReportedThoughts
The main hypothesis of this study was that one
could infer from teachers' reported thoughts the
pedagogical knowledge guiding their teaching.
Before discussing the results of the qualitative
and quantitative analyses above, the results of the
analysis identifying the domains of pedagogical
knowledge utilized by the teachers when teaching
is first briefly discussed. This analysis yielded the
following general domains of pedagogical knowl-
edge: (a) knowledge of how to manage specific
language items so students can learn them (Han-
dling Language Items), (b) knowledge about stu-
dents and what they bring into the classroom
(Factoring in Student Contributions), (c) knowl-
edge about the goals and subject matter of teach-
ing (Determining the Contents of Teaching), (d)
knowledge about techniques and procedures (Fa-
cilitating the Instructional Flow), (e) knowledge
about appropriate student-teacher relationships
(Building Rapport), and (f) knowledge about
evaluating student task involvement and progress
during the lessons (Monitoring Student Prog-
ress). Overall, it seems that knowledge about han-
dling language was the most frequently consulted
by all the teachers combined. The Appendix lists
these six knowledge domains, the data sources
from which each domain was inferred, and a sum-
mary of the teachers' teaching thoughts reported
in each domain. These domains are each dis-
cussed in turn.
Handling Language Items. The teachers' Lan-
guage Management comments revealed their
awareness of the need to provide specific lan-
guage items to the students ("Ifelt I had to supply
the language"). They also conveyed a sense of
how much to give ("I'm thinking this is too
much") and when to give ("If a certain amount of
time goes past and they're not producing them, I
will give them to them"). Finally, they imparted
an awareness that providing input alone is not
sufficient. It has to be highlighted and fine tuned,
it has to be written on the board and modelled
("I'm putting the sentences on the board as mod-
els"), it has to be made available to all ("itwasjust
put there for everybody to have access to"), and
ElizabethGatbonton
illustrated with examples ("Ijust wanted to again,
to give as many examples as I could"), to mention
a few.
A great deal of the language management re-
ports revealed the teachers' preoccupation with
handling the language produced by the learners.
Their reported teaching acts ranged from noting
that the students talked ("He would answer when
he was called"), to eliciting from and coaxing
language out of the students ("I was trying to
elicit from them: 'the side,' 'in the middle"'), to
writing these on the board ("... she gave me that,
so I wrote it on the board. "), to correcting
and rephrasing utterances (". . she said 'They
went to go to a movie' and I rephrased it, 'They
went"'), and to drilling them ("We drilled them.
They did it in pairs").
Factoring in Students' Contributions.The teach-
ers' comments classified under Knowledge of Stu-
dents, Note Student Reaction & Behaviour, Level
Check, Probe, Affective, and many aspects of Be-
liefs and Decisions revealed their sensitivity to
what students bring with them to the classroom.
For example, students bring with them their per-
sonalities ("He was a big baby"), abilities ("This
guy is so weak"), needs ("They would need cer-
tain forms"), attitudes and reactions ("He feels
more comfortable with the rules"), backgrounds
("I mean he did have a job in his country"), and
individual learning styles ("And they're used to
learning facts"). Their comments also reflected
knowledge of learner diversity ("It seemed to me
that some of the smarter ones would have it") and
what accommodations are made to this diversity
("I wouldn't have asked somebody who wasn't as
strong as she"). Other comments also suggested
that they drew upon their accumulated knowl-
edge about students in their teaching ("Of
course, with George in the classroom, I felt like I
was back teaching high school").
Determiningthe Contentsof Teaching.The teach-
ers' Content comments revealed their awareness
of keeping the goals of the lesson in constant
view. These goals include the development of ac-
curacy ("I was concerned about the . . . accuracy
that they had to develop"), teaching certain
grammatical points ("I think it's good for them to
know that not all irregular verbs change" or "I
wanted to get the past [tense] introduced"), and
useful utterances ("Again, this is all good, useful
language anyway"). The Content thoughts also
suggested what activities were expected to be
used (e.g., role play, question and answer activi-
ties, drills).
43
Facilitating the InstructionalFlow. Content com-
ments about starting activities, reviewing past les-
sons, pushing the students to go on ("I'm trying
to get them going"), directing the students to-
wards their intended goals ('"Justgetting them to
do exactly what I'd asked them to do"), managing
time ("Do I have enough time? Is it worth it?"),
anticipating future activities ("I wanted to get be-
yond . . . because this comes up again"), and
recapping activities (" ... just recapping informa-
tion . . . teacher cantering to a ... for one or two
people, you know") all indicated a sense of how
the lesson must proceed. Familiaritywith certain
techniques and procedures was also evident in
their comments about brainstorming ("You al-
ways have to brainstorm"), explaining (I'm going
through the questions, just basically to explain
what they mean"), demonstrating ("Well, I
wanted to show them things"), distributing turns
('"Youwant to get a different person to answer"),
and conducting group activities ("Iwasjust trying
to put them face to face"). Some Decision com-
ments also revealed time management concerns
(" . . . I'm just thinking should I stop them now,
should I give them another thirty seconds, a
minute, you know?"). Self critique comments
("Yeah,yeah I think they were, they were, as far as
... I didn't have control over everything that was
happening in class") also indicated awareness of
procedural matters because they showed an
awareness of the need to take control of the class-
room.
Building Rapport.The teachers' Affective com-
ments revealed both their awareness of the need
to make contact with and have a good rapport
with students ("I was trying to develop some kind
of communication with them") and also their
need to ensure student comfort ("It'sto get them
comfortable to talk with each other"), to protect
them from embarrassment (" . . . but the first
meeting you don't want people to immediately
get embarrassed"), and to reinforce and encour-
age them to go on ("So I start with something
they can do and ease them . . . into something").
Knowledge about desirable classroom atmos-
phere was also expressed in Beliefs comments
("Putting them at ease is important." "I find if
they're comfortable with the person they're work-
ing with, they're speaking better English") and
Decision comments ("and, you know, I thought I
should cut her off because she's, but I thought I
can't, you know"). Finally, certain Past Experi-
ence and Self Reflection comments indicated
awareness of the appropriate relationship be-
tween the teachers and the students ("Alot of my
44
teaching is through the rapport that I build up
with my students").
MonitoringStudentProgress.The teachers' com-
ments under Progress Review, Comprehensibility
Check, and Problem Check revealed their preoc-
cupation with monitoring student progress. One
aspect of monitoring involved checking whether
students understood the instructions ("So now
basically I am just walking around going from
pair to pair to see if one, that they are doing it
right"). Other aspects involved anticipating po-
tential difficulties ("I figured . . . it would be hard
for them to pull [ideas] out of nowhere") and
taking steps to minimize these difficulties ("I had
to get that out of the way in order to free up every
. . . for them to go on"). They also involved ensur-
ing that students are on task ("Now, . . . they're
doing the activity, they're okay"), noting their
difficulties and failures ("She was lost in the last
one") and recording their successes (". . . you
know it was slow going but it worked").
DISCUSSION
The VerbalRecallProcedure
Despite concerns some have raised regarding
the subjectivity and lack of standard procedure
associated with verbal recall as a tool for analyzing
teachers' thoughts (Clark & Peterson, 1986;
Davis, 1995), it was used in this study because it is
still one of only a few instruments available for
probing teachers' knowledge (Ericson & Simon,
1987; Freeman & Richards, 1996; Matsumoto,
1994). To minimize the subjectivityof the analytic
procedure, measures were taken to: (a) ensure
that at least two persons conducted the content
analysis, (b) build into the analytical procedure a
training phase in which the analysts could learn
to achieve consensus on how to proceed, (c)
adopt a cross-checking system for reducing dis-
crepancies, and finally (d) use objective guide
posts from the protocol itself to refine the catego-
ries (e.g., using specific phrasal clues and using
verb tenses to differentiate between thoughts oc-
curring during and after teaching).
Categorization
While this procedure could no doubt be re-
fined further, it did allow 20 to 21 pedagogical
categories to emerge from the data. Confidence
in the stability of these categories springs from
the fact that each was confirmed by thought units
from most, if not all, of the seven teachers stud-
TheModernLanguageJournal 83 (1999)
ied. The same set of 20 to 21 categories also
emerged from the verbal protocols of two sets of
teachers even if they taught different groups a
year apart. For both groups, virtually the same
subset of 7 to 8 categories emerged as the most
frequently reported. Finally, from their recol-
lected thoughts it was possible to identify at least
six domains of pedagogical knowledge that the
teachers may have internalized and refer to while
teaching.
Significanceof the Similaritiesand Differences
What significance may there be in the similarity
of the two sets of teachers' data? Does this sup-
port the view that there is a particular pedagogi-
cal culture acquired by ESL teachers as their ex-
periences deepen? Teacher education is based on
the assumption that such a culture exists (Fein-
man-Nemser & Flodden, 1986) and that it is as-
pects of this culture that are transmitted to pro-
spective teachers during training. The results of
the present study suggest that one such culture
may be shared by experienced ESL teachers. The
issue, however, needs to be explored further with
larger and more varied groups of ESL teachers.
Only seven teachers participated in this study and
their results should be verified with a larger
number of teachers before firm generalizations
can be derived from them. In future studies, one
could address the following questions: Would the
same PTs and patterns of PTs emerge from the
protocols of other populations of experienced
teachers? How would the factors of student char-
acteristics, the textbook used, and teacher charac-
teristics such as gender, personality, and training
affect the outcomes?
TheDominant ThoughtCategories
At first glance, the fact that Language Manage-
ment topped the teachers' pedagogical concerns
may appear trivial. As language teachers, it might
be readily assumed that their main concern
would, of course, be fine tuning language. How-
ever, this assumption is not alwaysnecessarily cor-
rect. Many teachers who subscribe to the notion
that comprehensible input alone suffices to pro-
mote language acquisition may not agree on fo-
cusing on anything but creating genuine commu-
nication. They may find that directly focusing on
specific language elements distracts from this aim
(Krashen & Terrell, 1983). Thus, these teachers
may be less concerned with promoting the acqui-
sition of specific language items than ensuring
that genuine communication occurs (i.e., making
ElizabethGatbonton
sure that the activities start and end well and
encouraging students to participate in the activi-
ties).
An examination of the thought units in the
Appendix suggests a preoccupation with explicit
attention to language. Some examples suggesting
this concern are: Call Ss Attention to Correct
Form of Verbs ("It wasn't correct so I wanted to
tell them what the difference was"), Correct Er-
rors ("Ronda asked, 'Wear clothes?' and I said
'Wore clothes'), and Echo Correct Forms ("But
here I've decided not to, so I just change it and
repeat. What's that called, echoing?"). Further
examination also suggests that although there is
interest in focusing on specific language ele-
ments, there is also concern for creating compre-
hensible input. Many of the reported thought
units were focused on creating situations for lan-
guage to be used (Encourage Negotiations to
Produce Language), for contextualizing lan-
guage (Seize Right Context to Give Input, Con-
textualize Utterances), for ensuring the use of
meaningful language (Sustain Conversations),
and for ensuring that students get their message
across (Check Whether Ss Get Message Across).
On the whole, the teachers' reported thought
units in the Language Management category in-
dicate a combined concern for both communica-
tion and the promotion of specific language ele-
ments. The intriguing questions raised by these
results include the following: Why did the teach-
ers have this combined concern? Why were they
so preoccupied with language management?
Were their language learning and teacher train-
ing experiences responsible for this concern?
What implicit theories did they possess about lan-
guage acquisition that could explain the pre-
dominance of language management? Did their
orientations, background experiences, and teach-
ing contexts influence the pattern of PTs they
utilized while teaching?
Sourcesof Teachers'PedagogicalKnowledge
The predominance of concerns with student-
related matters, methodological issues, monitor-
ing student progress, and building rapport con-
firms similar findings reported in the general
education literature. Clark & Peterson's (1986)
review paper also lists these same issues as among
the salient ones for teachers in areas other than
language. One striking difference between the
results of the present study and those from re-
search on content teachers, however, is the ab-
sence of concern about classroom management
issues in the present teachers' reports. Classroom
45
management usually is a major concern. Its ab-
sence in the present investigation, nonetheless, is
easy to explain. Adult students are generally
highly motivated and need no coaxing to concen-
trate on their lessons; the students in the present
study were no exception.
The KnowledgeDomains and TeacherEducation
The pedagogical knowledge deduced from the
teachers' verbal recollections reflected many of
the pedagogical points stressed in teacher educa-
tion. This is evident from examining the contents
of articles, books, and manuals on ESL teacher
training and teaching (Harmer, 1991; Larsen-
Freeman, 1986; Omaggio, 1986). More often
than not, these textbooks contain chapters dedi-
cated to methodological or procedural issues, to
exposing students to good quality input, to im-
proving student output, and to evaluating and
monitoring student progress. On the basis of this
finding, can one assume that teacher education
must be the source of the pedagogical knowledge
here? Recent studies on the origins of teachers'
conceptions of the task of teaching, however, sug-
gest other possibilities. Studies conducted in the
field of general education (Calderhead, 1991;
Morine-Dershimer, 1989, 1991) and in second
language teaching (Almarza, 1996) attest to the
strong effects on teachers' views of pedagogy as
having been shaped by their own teachers (Fein-
man-Nemser & Flodden, 1986). For example, us-
ing a variety of methods including interviews, ob-
servations, and analysis of teacher journals and
lesson plans, Almarza (1996) determined that be-
haviour (e.g., lesson planning, lesson presenta-
tion) was very much influenced by, among other
things, the kind of learning experiences teachers
received through their lives. It would be interest-
ing to see if there would be strong correlations
between patterns of pedagogical knowledge - as
determined by the techniques employed in the
present study - and certain aspects of language
learning experiences, teaching backgrounds, and
teacher training experiences.
ExperiencedVersusNovice Teachers
The study reported here focused on experi-
enced teachers. Understanding what experi-
enced teachers do is interesting in its own right.
However, it would also be interesting to find out
whether the same pattern of results would be
obtained with novice teachers. A study comparing
novice and experienced teachers would allow the
following questions to be investigated: If one as-
46
sumes that novice and experienced teachers oc-
cupy different stages in a continuum depicting
the development of expertise,3 would novice-
experienced differences reveal something about
the nature of this continuum? Can teacher train-
ing influence the direction and rate of the devel-
opment of expertise, and, if so, how? Using the
procedures employed here, a study focusing on
novice teachers at two or more early stages of
experience can be conducted to find out whether
and where changes occur in their pedagogical
knowledge. Later, intervention studies examin-
ing whether and how such changes can be facili-
tated by teacher training can then be conducted.
It would also be interesting to investigate the
relation between teachers' pedagogical thoughts
and classroom behaviour. If teachers refer con-
stantly to certain ideas about pedagogy as they
teach, how are these thoughts translated into be-
haviour? Would modifying the instructional
thoughts be sufficient to induce a change in be-
haviour? Data for studies on this issue can come
from the videotaped lessons of the teachers par-
ticipating here. Such recordings can be exam-
ined for patterns of behaviour that are correlated
to the teachers' reported pedagogical thoughts,
with the predominance patterns obtained in this
study serving as a point of departure.
Finally, the analytical procedure employed in
the present study involved both qualitative and
quantitative analyses. The qualitative analysis,
conducted without any preconceived notion as to
what would be found, yielded the thought catego-
ries whose later quantification revealed the pat-
terns of instructional thoughts that underlie the
teaching process. These results indicate that such
a two-pronged approach, already employed suc-
cessfully in the field of general education (Clark
& Peterson, 1986), can be successfully applied to
the study of teacher cognition in ESL and holds
productive potential for future studies on a range
of related issues.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This research was supported by an FRDP grant from
Concordia University. I would like to thank everyone
who helped make the project possible: the teachers, the
ESL students, and various colleagues. In particular, I
wish to thank Doina Lecca for helping design and carry
out the content analysis, Lisa Hitch and Ahlem Ammar
for their help in designing the framework of the analy-
sis, and the members of the TESL Centre-McGill re-
search group for their useful suggestions at different
stages of the project. I wish to give special thanks to Patsy
Lightbown, Leila Ranta,Jack Upshur, and Joanna White
The Modern Language Journal 83 (1999)
for their useful comments on earlier versions of this
paper and to Norman Segalowitz for his editorial and
statistical assistance. Enquiries should be addressed to:
TESL Centre, Concordia University, 1455 de Maison-
neuve, Montreal, Quebec, Canada H3G 1M8. Email:
gatbonto@vax2.concordia.ca
NOTES
1 For the present investigation, only the data of the
experienced teachers in Course II are discussed here.
The results of the comparison between novice and expe-
rienced teachers are reported elsewhere (Gatbonton,
1998).
2 An anonymous reviewer suggested that another im-
portant step in the qualitative analysis would have been
to see whether the participating experienced teachers
concurred with the researchers' categorization of the
data. This excellent suggestion will be taken into ac-
count in future studies.
3 Note here that experience and expertise are not
being equated.
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Morine-Dershimer, G. (1991). Learning to think like a APPENDIX
teacher. Teaching& TeacherEducation,7, 159-168. Domains of Teachers' Pedagogical Knowledge
Omaggio, A. C. (1986). Teachinglanguagein context.Bos- Deduced from the Reported Categories
ton, MA: Heinle.
Peterson, P.L., & Comeaux, M.A. (1987). Teachers' sche-
mata for classroom events: The mental scaffolding Domain:Handling Language Items
of teachers' thinking during classroom instruction. Sources:Beliefs, Comprehensibility, Decisions, Language
Teaching& TeacherEducation, 3, 319-331. Management
Reynolds, A. (1992). What is competent beginning SpecificExamplesof PedagogicalKnowledge
teaching? A review of the literature. Reviewof Edu-
1. Call Ss' attention to correct form of verbs
cationalResearch,62, 1-35.
2. Check that Ss know vocabulary
Richards, J. C. (1998). Beyondtraining.New York:Cam-
3. Explain differences between terms
bridge University Press.
4. Explain vocabulary
Richards, J. C., & Nunan, D. (Eds.). (1990). Secondlan-
5. Give alternative forms
guage teachereducation.New York:Cambridge Uni-
6. Give alternative ways of saying things
versity Press.
7. Give examples
Ritchie, W., & Bhatia, T. K. (1996). Handbookof second
8. Go over language
languageacquisition.New York:Academic Press. 9. Highlight specific utterances
Savignon, S. (1976). On the other side of the desk: A 10. Illustrate vocabulary
look at teacher attitude and motivation in second-
11. Make sure Ss write utterances
language learning. CanadianModernLanguageRe- 12. Make sure right amount is covered
view, 32, 295-304. 13. Model utterances
Shavelson, R., & Stern, P. (1981). Research on teachers' 14. Monitor words Ss didn't know
pedagogical judgments, decisions, and behaviour. 15. Prompt
Reviewof EducationalResearch,54, 455-498.
16. Push specific vocabulary
Shulman, L. S. (1986). Knowledge growth in teaching. 17. Sustain practice
EducationalResearcher, 15, 4-21. 18. Tell Ss what to write
Shulman, L. S. (1987). Knowledge and teaching: Foun- 19. Write utterances on board
dations of the new reform. Harvard Educational Provoke input
20.
Review,57, 1-22. 21. Make sure Ss listen to English
Spada, N., & Lightbown, P. (1993). Instruction and the 22. Provide or supply language
development of questions in L2 classrooms. Stud- 23. Give input at right time
ies in SecondLanguageAcquisition,15, 205-224. 24. Call Ss' attention to language
Swain, M. (1993). The output hypothesis: Just speaking 25. Create situations for language to be elicited
and writing aren't enough. CanadianModernLan- 26. Contextualize utterances
guage Review,50, 158-164. 27. Make input available to all
Swain, M. (1998). Focus on form through conscious 28. Monitor amount of input
reflection. In C. Doughty & J. Williams (Eds.), 29. Seize right context to give input
Focus onform in classroomsecondlanguageacquisition
(pp. 64-81). New York: Cambridge University Sources:Beliefs, Decisions, Language Management
Press. SpecificExamplesof PedagogicalKnowledge
Tamir, P. (1991). Professional and personal knowledge
of teachers and teacher educators. Teaching & 1. Correct errors
TeacherEducation,7, 263-268. 2. Do choral work
VanPatten, B. (1997). How language teaching is con- 3. Drill
Elizabeth Gatbonton 49

4. Echo correct forms 11. Note Ss' classroom behaviour (e.g., writing, help-
5. Elicit forms Ss are supposed to use ing others, listening)
6. Explain answers Ss should give 12. Note Ss' attendance patterns
7. Find another way to get at it 13. Note Ss' attitudes
8. Give Ss chance to practice 14. Probe Ss' prior knowledge
9. Give Ss chance to use full utterances
10. Get Ss to say something, to say more, and to say Domain:Determining the Contents of Teaching
things correctly Sources:Content Check
11. Get them to repeat SpecificExamplesof PedagogicalKnowledge
12. Help Ss produce utterances
13. Help Ss find alternative expressions 1. Check what must be covered
14. Listen to see if Ss can use language 2. Explain grammatical structures (e.g., get the past
15. Maximize amount introduced)
16. Observe what Ss do with language 3. Explain rules of thumb (e.g., meaning usually sig-
17. Prompt nalled at the end of words)
18. Provide practice 4. Get Ss to think about topics (e.g., accidents, re-
19. Pull definitions from Ss quest, leisure activities)
20. Push Ss to use language 5. Give useful information (e.g., about leisure)
21. Recast or rephrase sentences 6. Keep goals in mind (e.g., promote accuracy)
22. Recycle language 7. Introduce grammatical categories (e.g., preposi-
23. Rework vocabulary tions)
24. Show differences between terms 8. Promote ability to use vocabulary
25. Tell Ss to use different words
26. Wait for Ss to give language Domain:Facilitating the Instructional Flow
27. Write utterances on board Sources:.
Beliefs, Decisions, Group Work, Past Experi-
28. Elicit language from Ss ence, Procedure Check, Time Check
29. Encourage negotiations to produce language SpecificExamplesof PedagogicalKnowledge
30. Acknowledge what Ss could do
1. Brainstorm (e.g., weekend activities)
31. Ask Ss questions to get desired information
2. Conduct classroom activities (interview, interaction
32. Brainstorm to see what Ss can do
33. Check whether Ss get message across activity, role play, discussion, draw family tree,
34. Give Ss something to talk about grammar activity, and question and answer activi-
35. Provoke Ss to speak (e.g., pair Ss so they talk) ties)
3. Deal with difficulties and problems
36. Suggest topic
4. Anticipate problems (e.g., Ss will lose interest, Ss
37. Sustain conversation
will not understand)
38. Use pictures to see what Ss come up with
5. Judge difficulty level of activities (easy, not easy)
6. Demonstrate activities
Domain:Factoring in Students' Contributions 7. Distribute turns
Sources:Affective Beliefs, Know Ss' Level, Check, Note 8. Explain issues
Ss' Behaviour & Reactions 9. Get Ss into the topic
SpecificExamplesof PedagogicalKnowledge 10. Give instructions
11. Listen to Ss
1. Check what Ss can do 12. Look ahead (e.g., prepare for an upcoming activ-
2. Check Ss' levels ity)
3. Decide if task is appropriate to level 13. Make decisions (e.g., choose between two options,
4. Know Ss' abilities, attitudes (e.g., towards class- choose one option)
mates, group work), interests (e.g., classical music), 14. Model an activity
and feelings (e.g., feels comfortable with rules) 15. Monitor timing (e.g., check duration, note dura-
5. Know Ss' language backgrounds, learning styles, tion, terminate on time, apportion time, adjust
motivations and needs, personal backgrounds pace, judge appropriateness of timing, postpone
(e.g., past jobs), personalities, and expected entry activities)
levels 16. Organize group work (form groups or pair work,
6. Know Ss' prior knowledge or lack thereof switch groups, help group get started)
7. Know what Ss want (e.g., rules) 17. Monitor group work
8. Match teaching behaviour to Ss' levels (e.g., de- 18. Present topic
mand more from strong students, elicit or provide 19. Recap/wrap-up activities
depending on level, use stronger students to dem- 20. Repeat
onstrate) 21. Review
9. Predict or note Ss reactions (e.g., get defensive, be 22. Set the scene
cooperative) 23. Start activity
10. Note Ss' interest in what's going on 24. Teacher centre
50 The Modern Language Journal 83 (1999)

25. Use visual aids (e.g., use blackboard, use charts,
simplify task),
26. Wait for Ss to answer
Domain:Building Rapport in the Classroom
Sources:Affective Beliefs, Decisions, Past Experiences,
Self-Reflection
SpecificExamplesof PedagogicalKnowledge
1. Build self-esteem by acknowledging what Ss can
do
2. Check if Ss are comfortable with language
3. Develop trust
4. Do something to get Ss used to sound of voice
5. Don't discourage Ss
6. Don't embarrass Ss
7. Don't shut up Ss
8. Establish good rapport with Ss
9. Form good relationships with Ss
10. Establish a relaxed atmosphere
11. Get Ss into the spirit of the thing
12. Get Ss to feel comfortable talking with one an-
other
13. Give Ss something challenging
14. Give lots of positive reinforcement
15. Let Ss know you recognize their ability
16. Make contact
17. Personalize the lessons (e.g., draw examples from
own life)
18. Push interesting stuff
19. Reassure Ss
20. Start with something easy
Domain:Monitoring Student Progress
Sources:Comprehensibility Check, Progress Review,
Problem Check
SpecificExamplesof PedagogicalKnowledge
1. Check if Ss on task (e.g., move around and see,
listen to how they are getting through)
2. Make sure activity goes well
3. Make sure Ss are on task
4. Make sure Ss start right
5. Measure interest
6. Note change in Ss (e.g., Ss got better)
7. Note difficulties
8. Note how Ss doing tasks (e.g., easily, with difficulty)
9. Note if Ss are finished with task
10. Note if Ss are on or off task (e.g., Ss are doing it; Ss
writing instead of talking)
11. Note if Ss understand task
12. Note Ss failure in doing task
13. Note Ss involvement in task (e.g., they are getting
into it?)
14. Note Ss' success in doing task (e.g., activityworked,
Ss got it)
15. React to how Ss are doing tasks (e.g., be happy, not
happy, concerned)
16. See if Ss are ready to do task
17. Watch whether grouping works

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