Reconciling the evolving conceptualisations of language teacher cognition from an activity theory perspective

ABSTRACT

A review of literature suggested that language teacher cognition had been used interchangeably with teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, and examined as a static entity to map out the what aspect of teachers’ minds. More recently, it has evolved to be thought of as being interactive, dynamic, and situated. However, the relationship between the two different conceptualisations remains obscure in the field. This article engages in a discussion on the conceptualisation and analysis of teacher cognition in relation to teachers’ knowledge and beliefs from an activity theory perspective, drawing upon data collected from pedagogical reforms of introducing task-based language teaching for teaching Chinese as a second language. The study posits conceptualising teacher knowledge and beliefs as one element of the activity system, that is the teachers’ psychological tools, with teacher cognition towards pedagogies as the tool-object negotiation activity, which involves more complexity and dynamics. The study adds to the understanding of language teacher cognition, and offers conceptual and analytical insights for conducting future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Teacher cognition
• teachers’ knowledge and beliefs
• activity theory
• task-based language teaching (TBLT)
• Chinese as a second language (CSL)

Introduction

The field of second language education continues to evolve in conceptualising language teacher cognition and its role in second language education research. Earlier research has largely approached the concept of language teacher cognition as a static entity, and it has been used interchangeably with terms such as teachers’ knowledge and beliefs in many studies (e.g., Borg, 2003; Li & Zou, 2021; Oranje & Smith, 2018; Wesely et al., 2021; Woods, 1996). A more recent trend has conceptualised language teacher cognition as a dynamic and interactive thinking process (Borg, 2019; Feryok, 2010). However, a couple of important issues remain obscure in the field waiting for further investigation. For example, what is the relationship between the different conceptualisations of teacher cognition? Should the former understanding of teacher cognition be replaced by the recent one or do they supplement with each other?

In response to the above unsettled questions, the study presented here engages in a discussion on reconciling the evolving conceptualisations of language teacher cognition. Particularly, this article demonstrates the process and value of delineating the relationship between language teacher cognition in relation to teachers’ knowledge and beliefs from an activity theory perspective, drawing upon part of data from a published study (Peng & Pyper, 2021).¹ The data collected on the pedagogical reform of task-based language teaching (TBLT) from teachers’ perspectives is particularly insightful for the purpose of this study, because teacher cognition is believed to be a fundamental issue in the contested endeavour of introducing TBLT (East, 2017).

The evolving conceptualisations of language teacher cognition

Clark and Peterson’s (1986) work set the initial stage for teacher cognition research in general education (Li, 2019). They claimed that the process of teaching involves two major domains, namely teachers’ thought processes, and teachers’ actions and observable effects, asking for a shift of scholastic attention from instructional action to teachers’ minds. Woods’s (1996) study was one of the first to focus on language teacher cognition. Woods developed a beliefs-assumptions-knowledge (BAK) model for conceptualising teacher cognition, which reduced the separation between knowledge and beliefs (Li, 2019). Later, Borg (2003) gave a widely quoted definition of teacher cognition in the field of second language education: Teacher cognition refers to “what [emphasis added] teachers think, know and believe and the study of teacher cognition involves the study of the relationships of these mental constructs to what teachers do in the language teaching classroom” (p. 81). Borg’s definition of teacher cognition is similar to Woods’s in a way that they both attempted to reduce the separation between knowledge and beliefs and other associated constructs. Borg (2015) clarified that the reason why he did not intend to separate knowledge, beliefs and attitudes as many others did (e.g., Clandinin & Connelly, 1996; Elbaz, 1983; Shulman, 1987) was that efforts were not appearing to be particularly fruitful. He noted: “In the mind of the teachers, these constructs are not held or perceived distinctively” (p. 34). Additionally, attitudes are often understood as teachers’ beliefs about something (Pajares, 1992), allowing attitudes to be subsumed in this understanding of teacher cognition.

Based on the above-mentioned understanding of language teacher cognition, two trends have been witnessed in research. One is that teacher cognition has often been used as an interchangeable term with teachers’ knowledge and beliefs with little separation between the two in many studies (e.g., Borg, 2003; Liu & Ren, 2021, Oranje & Smitch, 2018; Wesely et al., 2021; Woods, 1996). Yet another trend is that the major tasks have been to “identify the kinds of beliefs that teachers have about a particular issue” (Borg, 2019, p. 2), and to further examine the relationship, correspondence or not, between teacher cognition and teachers’ practices (for a review, see Basturkmen, 2012). The fact that these studies often aimed to uncover the what aspects of teachers’ minds led Borg to categorise them as the “descriptive mapping” of teachers’ minds (2019, p. 441).

Following the earlier definition and the associated two trends of research, the field is now experiencing a shifting conceptualisation of language teacher cognition. More recently, Borg (2019) reformulated teacher cognition research as the study of “teachers’ minds and emotions and the role these play in the process of becoming, being and developing as a teacher” (p. 20). Compared to the previous definition, this recent conceptualisation suggests two major changes. Firstly, it acknowledges that teacher cognition is more than knowledge and beliefs (including attitudes), but involves more complex human aspects such as emotions, motivations, commitment, and identity. Similar to Borg (2019), Kubanyiova and Feryok (2015) acknowledged the multiple aspects of language teacher cognition and suggested taking a bottom-up approach, as opposed to a pre-defined way, to let the conceptual scope of language teacher cognition emerge through the research process. Secondly, the new definition alludes to an ongoing and interactive process underlying language teacher cognition, which contrasts with the “descriptive mapping” (p. 441) of what teachers think, believe and know. While the research line of descriptive mapping has been appreciated for enabling us to understand specific content areas and curriculum domains from the teachers’ perspectives (Kubanyiova & Foryork, 2015), Borg claimed that it was of limited value. For Borg (2019), the limitation of simply identifying the kinds of knowledge and beliefs that teachers have about a particular curricular or pedagogical issue leads to a lack of understanding of how the knowledge and beliefs develop and how they interact bilaterally with what teachers do.

Having revisited the earlier and evolved conceptualisations of language teacher cognition, a key question remains unclear regarding the relationship between the two orientations of conceptualising and examining language teacher cognition: Are these two conceptualisations mutually exclusive, meaning that a study can only adopt one orientation, or do they complement each other? It is the author’s belief that understanding the complex and dynamic nature of language teacher cognition needs to be grounded in a descriptive mapping of what teachers think and believe. Therefore, this article attempts to reconcile the two by applying activity system analysis to an empirical dataset. By doing so, this article aims to advance the field’s understanding about language teaching cognition in relationship to teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, both conceptually and methodologically.

Activity theory for studying teacher cognition

Cross (2010) was among the first to propose adopting activity theory (Engeström, 1987; Leont’ev, 1981; Vygotsky, 1978) as a unifying framework to study language teacher cognition. Some features of the activity theory he endorsed included the theory’s socio-cultural orientation of understanding human cognition, its inclusiveness of historicity, and its accommodation for tensions (Cross, 2010).

First, the socio-cultural orientation of activity theory to human cognition is evidenced by the theory’s inclusion of a system of mediators. Developing from a Vygotsky (1978, 1986) perspective of human cognition, Leont’ev (1981) and Engeström (1987) suggested that human thinking is a social and cultural activity that is systemic in nature, thus developing activity theory. According to activity theory, various elements at individual and collective levels of a system, known as mediators, interact with each other simultaneously to shape human cognition. Including mediators creates a systemic conceptualisation that represents a real-world and complex environment, and thus, a holistic unit of analysis is needed. From activity theory emerged activity system analysis (Engeström, 1987; Yamagata-Lynch, 2010) that was proposed to examine the thinking process. Figure 1, as graphically depicted by Engeström, outlines a single activity system and its mediating elements.

Figure 1. A basic model of the second-generation activity system (Engeström, 1987).

Second, activity system theory and analysis contain the results of all the previous activity systems that have influenced it, thus incorporating historicity (Cole & Engeström, 1993). Each element within an activity brings its own history to the current system, allowing the researcher to trace the historical formation of the teaching activity, such as where teachers come from, how the pedagogical tools have developed over time, and how the work of the community has been historically shared.

Finally, in the activity system, all the elements are in constant interaction with each other, and systemic tensions may emerge during this interaction. Systemic tensions exist not only within one activity system, between or within its constituent elements, but also with neighbouring activity systems (Engeström, 1987). Through identifying these tensions and observing how teachers react to them, researchers can gain insight into teacher cognition situated in a complex professional world (Peng & Pyper, 2021).

Following Cross’s (2010) proposal and moving beyond, the author believes that applying the activity theory perspective has the potential to resolve the identified issue of delineating the relationship between the different conceptualisations of language teacher cognition. In particular, the study adopted the third generation of activity theory (Engeström, 1987) which expanded the unit of analysis from a single activity system as depicted in Figure 1, to a minimum of two interrelating systems. In the case of this study, since teachers’ past experiences play a powerful role in shaping their current instruction (Peng & Xiong, 2021), their historical activity was included as a neighbouring activity in the analysis in addition to scrutinising the central activity system of teachers’ instruction.

The empirical study

In line with the trend in different educational systems around the world (Carless, 2004; Chen & Wright, 2017; East, 2012; Nguyen, 2014), TBLT (Ellis, 2003; Long, 2015) has been advocated by CSL pedagogical experts in China (Ma, 2000, 2002; Wu, 2006) and featured in a series of CSL curriculum documents (Hanban, 2002, 2008, 2014). Despite the advocacy in official documents, language teacher cognition is believed to be a central issue in this pedagogical reform (East, 2017). Therefore, how CSL teachers negotiate and make decisions about teaching methods in the context of TBLT pedagogical reform could serve as a window to scrutinise the nature of teacher cognition. In particular, this study was guided by the following two questions:

1. What is the nature of teacher cognition about teaching methods for this group of teachers?

2. How does activity system analysis give insight into, and support understanding of, teacher cognition?

This article drew upon data from a larger research project on CSL teachers’ experiences with TBLT in the Chinese university setting (Peng & Pyper, 2021). Upon obtaining ethics clearance from the researcher’s institution at the time, data were collected from eight teachers with teaching experiences ranging from less than a year to 17 years, teaching at beginner, intermediate, and advanced levels. Through semi-structured interviews and classroom observations, the data captured the teachers’ educational and professional background, teaching practice, and understanding about CSL teaching in general and about TBLT in particular. Considering the primary purpose of this article is to offer a conceptual and analytical approach to understanding language teacher cognition in relation to teachers’ knowledge and beliefs, the methodological information on the institutional context, teacher participants, and data collection are provided in a rather brief manner. Readers are referred to Peng and Pyper (2021) for more detailed information.

To operationalise activity system analysis to the empirical data, the first step of data analysis was to map out the teachers’ instructional activity through deductive analysis by identifying and substantialising the pre-determined codes in the activity system. This step was realised by asking a series of questions to define each element, as shown in Figure 1. Since the teaching method of TBLT was the focus of this study, the second step was to identify the mediation that has shaped TBLT as a tool for this group of teachers. The third step was to integrate the interactions in the activity system and generate story line for explicating teachers’ decision-making process on what teaching methods to adopt, and how to implement them. The findings resulting from each step of analysis are presented in the following section.

An activity theory perspective on the study

Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs of TBLT as a psychological tool

As a result of the first-step analysis, teachers’ instructional activity system was constructed (see Figure 2). In the system, the teachers under examination are the subjects; therefore, the activity was constructed from their perspectives. The central activity represented teachers’ day-to-day instruction, with each element examined in detail; the neighbouring activity (i.e., teachers’ historical activity) was treated as a whole unit, with a focus on the relationship between the neighbouring activity and the central activity.

Figure 2. The teachers’ instructional activity system.

In constructing the teachers’ instructional activity system, TBLT was placed as a pedagogical tool in the activity system, along with assessment and material tools. On top of this classification based on usage, TBLT, as understood and believed by the teachers in their minds, was psychologically oriented, thus constituting a psychological tool. In Vygotskian theory, instruments such as hoes and plates are one type of tool, i.e., physical tools. Language, signs, various systems of accounting, diagrams and maps are another type of tool, i.e., psychological tools. While physical tools are tended to be outwards directed towards mastering nature, psychological tools are inwards directed towards regulating human cognition. Both physical tools and psychological tools are embedded in human culture, and they both mediate human actions. The data suggested that teachers’ own knowledge and beliefs about TBLT were often divergent from pedagogical experts’ definitions and discourses. When making pedagogical decisions, teachers were not evaluating the pedagogical tool of TBLT as it was defined and understood in the literature, but as a pedagogical tool in their own minds.

Most teachers understood TBLT as a means for practicing target language structures in a scenario-based context, which was in contrast to using tasks as a central organising principle in teaching, with all other classroom work arranged around the completion of tasks (Ellis, 2003). Among the participants, Wang commented that language structure was the axis of her teaching, and when it was perceived as possible, she would incorporate tasks: “I do tasks in certain lessons, usually the one that includes grammatical points that can be easily practiced through some tasks.” For Zheng, one of the obstacles for her to applying tasks routinely in teaching was the lack of teachers’ resource books that compiles tasks with corresponding language points: “I imagine that types of references would allow me to do more TBLT in class.”

For teachers such as Wu and Zheng, TBLT was a pedagogical tool that undervalues the accuracy of language use but highlight fluency. One of the reasons that Zheng cited for her to refuse to rely too much on TBLT was: “I am against the idea that accuracy does not matter as long as communication is achieved. Those learners cannot reach a higher proficiency level; they may end up remaining there forever.” On the contrary, attention to grammar was not seen as optional by pedagogical experts of TBLT, but as essential to ensure “noticing,” a requisite for acquisition to take place when using TBLT (Ellis, 2009).

Another identified belief that was clearly different from the literature included seeing TBLT as only applicable to teaching oral skills. Jiang who was teaching a writing course expressed her concern about overusing tasks in class, which she thought might end up diverting the class’s attention from writing skills to oral skills. Thus, she commented: “You won’t see many tasks in my class because I am teaching a writing course.”

The social origins of TBLT as a pedagogical/psychological tool

Teachers’ knowledge and beliefs about TBLT in relation to other language teaching methods were shaped by a number of social and historical mediators in the activity system, which were referred to as the social origins of teachers’ pedagogical tools. These social origins were identified as a result of the second step of data analysis, including teachers’ historical activity, the community, and material tools, indicated by bold lines in Figure 2.

Teachers’ historical activity

Firstly, how teachers had been taught Chinese and English at school had informed their current attitudes towards different pedagogical approaches. Remembering limited in-class interactions (for both Chinese and English classes) and the general ineffectiveness of developing oral and aural skills (for English), teachers expressed a motivation to depart from the way they were taught and embraced some of the fundamental ideas of TBLT as they understood. Han stated that “our students came here to study Chinese, and their goal is to use this language, not to pass exams. The old way does not work for them.” However, Zheng believed those mechanical training in the past enabled her to use the language accurately. She attributed the inaccurate use of the Chinese language among Chinese youngsters to the recent educational reforms that undervalued the important but tedious training in basic knowledge and skills. Zheng’s appreciation of past learning work was evident when she clearly emphasised teaching grammatical rules and criticised TBLT for neglecting the focus on grammatical accuracy.

Secondly, it was found that most of the teachers had limited opportunities for learning about second language teaching, especially during their pre-service education. Zheng stated that she was the first student in her university to enrol in the master’s programme focusing on teaching CSL more than a decade ago. However, faculty members’ expertise fell mostly in Chinese linguistics; therefore, she stated: “There was little training for me in the field of second language teaching except for a few general theories.” Although pre-service education programmes for CSL teachers have expanded considerably in the recent decade, the story of Shen who had recently completed her coursework in a master’s programme was still very similar to Zheng’s. In-service training has given teachers more opportunities to expand learning. Among the eight teachers, Zheng was the most knowledgeable about TBLT, and much of her knowledge came from an external training opportunity in which TBLT was introduced by an American professor. Her articulation of a distinction between weak and strong forms of TBLT (Ellis, 2003) was not mentioned by any other participants.

Another important source of teachers’ historical activity that shaped teachers’ beliefs towards teaching methods was their own teaching experiences. Teaching at an American university as a sojourn instructor, Zheng had negative experiences with TBLT. The university where she had worked for two years adopted a task-based syllabus, which was in sharp contrast with the structural syllabi she was familiar with. Therefore, Zheng experienced confusion and dissatisfaction with the textbook. She clearly expressed a favourable attitude towards a structural teaching approach over TBLT.

Collegial interaction in the community

The idea that there is no best method was mentioned and shared by a number of experienced teachers. For example, Wu stated: “I am not really interested in any teaching methods, because I do not believe in the existence of the best method.” The shared conception of no-best-method does not mean equal status among all kinds of teaching methods. The dominant status of the traditional approach spread itself from experienced teachers to novice teachers through personal interactions.

The new teacher Shen described how she had found an effective procedure of teaching different elements of language sequentially, which was actually the traditional approach, after interacting with and observing more experienced teachers:

After one year of teaching, I found that there seemed to be a pattern for teaching all courses. I feel that every lesson starts with pronunciations, pronunciation of new words. Then you teach the texts, again with the new words. It is like a pattern. You don’t have to always follow it, but in your mind, you know it’s something you need to teach.

Material tools

Teachers navigated the idea of TBLT and tasks from how they were presented in the commonly adopted textbooks as a material tool. In the textbooks, “tasks” are placed towards the end of each lesson for practicing the linguistic structures, which was exactly how teachers perceived TBLT, that is as a way of practicing the words and grammar taught upfront in somewhat meaningful scenarios. Wang commented that language structure was the axis of the syllabus both in the textbook and in her teaching, and when it was perceived as possible, tasks were attached to the lessons.

While the differences between communicative activities and tasks were elaborated in the academic literature (Ellis, 2009), this difference was not reflected in the textbook examples. Similarly, teachers’ understanding of what constituted tasks fell into a wider scope than how tasks are conceptualised in the literature. When teachers were asked at post-observation interviews to self-identify the tasks used in class, they usually pointed to the meaning integrated activities adopted from their textbooks. In the textbook that Yang used for her oral course, a section named classroom activities and tasks (课堂活动与任务) was included in each unit. In this section, for example, students were asked to conduct an oral presentation on the topic of honesty, trying to use the given words and phrases as much as possible. It was precisely this oral presentation adapted from the textbook that Yang singled out as an example of tasks in her class.

Teacher cognition towards TBLT as a tool-object negotiation process

This third step of activity system analysis captured teachers’ thought process of evaluating and choosing from different teaching methods to reach their multiple objectives of the activity. Such a goal-directed process is indicated by the bold triangle (subject-tool-object) in Figure 3. However, applying TBLT or the traditional structural approach alone created tensions between the pedagogical tool and the objectives, as indicated by the lightning-shaped arrow in the figure, particularly between TBLT and student learning, and between TBLT and curriculum objectives. Thus, teachers were found to be constantly juggling between TBLT and the traditional structural approach and adjusting the weight in the classroom implementation to serve the competing demands of the objectives simultaneously.

Figure 3. Teacher cognition of TBLT as an activity system.

The lightning-shaped arrows indicate tensions.

Negotiating pedagogical tools for student learning

For teachers, successful learning first required students to build a good foundation of accurate grammatical commands. Since TBLT was believed as ineffective for grammar instruction, Wu and Zheng questioned how they could ensure learners’ language accuracy if they relied too much on TBLT. Thus, for these teachers, TBLT alone was not beneficial for students to build a good foundation when learning Chinese; instead, the traditional structural approach still had a major role to play in ensuring that students build a solid foundation in grammar.

Besides grammatical accuracy, teachers perceived that developing communication skills was another key aspect of successful learning. In order to develop communication skills, students’ active engagement in classroom interaction was regarded as a pre-condition. However, the reality differed from their expectations, as Wu confessed, “It turns out that I, as the teacher, keep talking and talking … Students are very quiet and very cautious.” Similar challenges for engaging students were also mentioned by several others such as Jiang, Yang and Zhou. Thinking of TBTL as a more interactive approach to teaching, teachers’ decisions to apply TBLT were motivated by its potential for remedying students’ lack of engagement in class.

While trying out TBLT, some teachers such as Zhou experienced possible changes instantly. She was happy to observe how engaged her students were during the completion of a task asking students to survey their fellow students’ daily routines: “Everybody was actively looking for people to exchange information. I said, ‘time for a break,’ but they were still trying to keep the conversation going to finish completing their survey forms.” Zhou’s personal experience of success motivated her ongoing use of TBLT. Alternatively, unpleasant experiences made teachers try to avoid employing it in their teaching. Jiang tried tasks with the initial intention of engaging her students actively in their learning. However, she encountered even more classroom silence when trying to have her adult students perform an acting task in roles of a butterfly and caterpillar. Such lack of success was often due to a host of factors such as inexperience in choosing the appropriate topic for adults and designing tasks. Given her unsatisfactory and frustrating experience, Jiang clearly stated that she would rather return to the old way – following the textbook – which she felt was much safer.

Continuing with the issue of student participation, a concern that some teachers had regarding TBLT came from the assessment policy at the institution. Assessment at the school largely relied on mid-term and final written tests, constituting 30% and 50% of the total grades respectively, and leaving only 20% for performance assessment. As a contrast, Wu recalled his sojourn teaching experience at an American university where students needed to participate actively for the greater portion of grades that were allocated for classroom participation. Considering the contrast between the performance-based nature of TBLT and a mere 20% of grades for performance assessment, Wu stated that he was not confident that students would actively engage in tasks.

Negotiating pedagogical tools for curriculum implementation

Teachers negotiated on what pedagogical tools to adopt in relation to specific language skills and syllabus orientations, in an attempt to ensure a good implementation of the institutional curriculum.

The programme structure at this institution specified the comprehensive course as the primary core subject course and other skill-based courses playing supporting roles. Under such a programme structure, teachers were thus sensitive to the perceived applicable scope of TBLT for certain language skills. Zheng, who was responsible for the comprehensive course believed that she had barely enough class time to present new language points followed by some mechanical exercises. Thus, she believed it was the responsibility of the teacher of the Speaking and Listening course to give students opportunities to produce the language more freely, possibly through TBLT. Despite Jiang admitting that she sometimes used tasks to activate and engage her students, she did not see tasks as particularly applicable to her teaching, because “after all, I am teaching a writing course.”

Textbooks served as de facto course syllabi at this institution. A structural syllabus was thus created because structural textbooks were chosen and adopted. Covering a certain range of textbook content was considered compulsory for teachers because it was how the institution ensured that students taking various courses were at a consistent level of proficiency. Wu and Zheng noted that doing tasks in class was sometimes contradictory to finishing the textbook content, because they reasoned that task as an add-on to the content of the structural syllabus necessitates extra time.

Negotiating pedagogical tools for professional learning

The analysis captured that one’s personal instructional purposes also had a role to play in shaping teachers’ choice of using certain pedagogies. Several teachers regarded professional growth as one of the goals of their current teaching endeavours. The three novice teachers, who were also master’s students, hoped to accumulate teaching experience and improve their teaching skills. Yang and Zhou, who had been teaching for five years and were either in the process of doctoral study or preparing for it, talked about continuously improving their teaching skills and the reciprocal relationship between teaching and academic inquiry. These teachers generally showed greater interest in TBLT as an alternative approach to teaching and were more open to testing different pedagogical choices. Zhou recently attended an external training and brought back a new textbook which was based on TBLT: “The textbook writer introduced us to TBLT. I think it is very useful both for my academic study and my classroom teaching.” She would sometimes refer to the book for task ideas. Zhou expressed her interest in learning about new developments in the profession and trying things out when it felt appropriate.

Final reflections

Based on the empirical data in the context of TBLT pedagogical reform, this section reflects on the theoretical implications of adopting an activity theory perspective to examine language teacher cognition. Firstly, the dynamic and situated nature of language teacher cognition is highlighted and showcased from the activity system perspective. Specifically, the study suggests that language teacher cognition about teaching methods is essentially a contextualised negotiation process of choosing from and utilising the appropriate pedagogical tools to reach teachers’ multiple objectives. The tensions identified between tools and objects were particularly important because they gave rise to teachers’ constant (re-)negotiation and (re-)adjustment of balancing the potentials and limitations associated with the pedagogical tools available. Jiang’s example was a case in point. Since she believed TBLT was only applicable for oral skills, she did not rely on it for it would create challenges for her to meet the curriculum objective of a writing course. However, she chose to design and implement tasks occasionally for their interactive nature as she felt that students’ more active participation was needed to ensure the objective of student learning. Understanding such a central tension suggests the opportunities for better supporting teachers’ professional learning of TBLT, known as expansive learning by Engeström (1987). That is to say, understanding teachers’ experienced tensions of reaching their multiple objectives creates opportunities to better introduce TBLT to teachers: After identifying teachers’ pedagogical challenges (such as engaging students especially in a writing class as identified in Jiang’s example), teachers can be guided to see how tasks as a new tool have the potential to address their daily challenges, which would give teachers ownership over their own teaching and the new tool, and lead the teachers to really appreciate the new tool’s value to them (Peng & Pyper, 2021). In sum, in addition to Cross’s (2010) proposal which appreciated activity system analysis for gaining a genetic understanding of teacher cognition (i.e., historicity), this study highlights using activity system analysis to understand the dynamic and process-oriented nature of teacher cognition as goal-directed thinking and negotiation.

Secondly, the study posits integrating the concepts of teacher cognition and teachers’ knowledge and beliefs through activity system analysis. Although this study supports the more recent conceptualisation of teacher cognition of a more complex and dynamic nature (Borg, 2019; Feryok, 2010; Kubanyiova and Foryork, 2015), it does not intend to dismiss the earlier orientation of the descriptive mapping of teachers minds on certain aspects of their professional lives. In this study, while teacher cognition towards pedagogies is shown as an activity of tool-object negotiation, teacher knowledge and beliefs are conceptualised as one constituent element of the activity, taking up the role of the psychological tool (Vygotsky, 1986). That is to say, the pedagogical tools in a certain context are psychologically oriented, as understood and believed by a particular group of teachers. In fact, it is based on uncovering the teachers’ pedagogical tools and their social origins that the researchers were given the opportunities to further unpack the whole picture of teachers’ cognitive process of tool-object negotiation.

Finally, concerning the issue of terminology, Kubanyiova and Foryork (2015) suggested using a term that is broader in scope to replace teacher cognition for conceptual expansion, and intentionality was proposed as a candidate. Taking an opposite direction, the study suggests keeping the term teacher cognition to refer to its later conceptualisation but narrowing the earlier descriptive orientation of studying teachers’ minds to be labelled as teachers’ knowledge and beliefs. The advantage of doing so is to both achieve the purpose of making a distinction between the two conceptualisations, and at the same time, to keep them to the existing terminologies that have been commonly used in the field.

To conclude, situated in the TBLT reform in a CSL context, the study demonstrates the method and value of adopting activity theory as a conceptual and analytical framework to delineate teacher cognition towards teaching methods as an active and interactive thought process, in which teachers negotiate proper pedagogical tools to meet and balance their teaching objectives. Additionally, the study also demonstrates that teachers’ knowledge and beliefs constitute only one element of the activity of teacher cognition. In fact, teachers’ knowledge and beliefs can be understood as taking up the role of pedagogical tools that are psychologically oriented in nature, being mediated by a series of social origins in a situated context.

Finally, it is important to acknowledge that the approach taken in this article is closely situated in the case of TBLT pedagogical reform. Its applicability for researching teacher cognition towards other educational endeavours, such as issues of assessment and teaching materials, needs to be tested and refined by future research.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Yue Peng

Yue Peng (Ph.D., Queen’s University) is Assistant Professor in Chinese Language Education at the Chinese University of Hong Kong.

Notes

1. The previous study focused on a pedagogical analysis of and discussion on introducing task-based language teaching for teaching Chinese as a second language.