Contributions of a genre-based teacher education course to second language writing teachers’ cognitions

ABSTRACT

Purpose

While research on language teacher cognition is increasingly developing, the scope of research on writing teachers’ cognition is still limited, particularly on how teacher education influences their cognitions. The present study moves along this line of inquiry and investigates the impact of a teacher education course on second language teachers’ cognitions of argumentative writing.

Design

A teacher education course was initially designed to negotiate the central issues in genre-based instruction (GBI) focusing on argumentative writing, followed by the teachers’ argumentative writing instruction. Data were collected at three junctures of time before, during, and after both the teacher education course and the teachers’ writing instruction, from semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, stimulated recalls, and reflective journals.

Findings

The findings indicated that the teachers navigated through three lines of development: Enhanced awareness and a more professional authorial identity, enhanced pedagogical content knowledge, and developing GBI-featuring mental representations.

Value

The study concludes with implications for reducing the gap between teacher education programs and teachers’ subsequent writing instruction, especially helping the teachers develop and retain a professional language for representing their practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Second language writing
• genre-based instruction
• argumentative writing
• writing teacher education
• writing teacher cognition

Disclosure statement

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

Notes

1 It should be mentioned that the teacher education course preceded the teachers’ writing classes, which focused on argumentative writing.

2 Although we had the data regarding the teachers’ written texts during the TEP, we have not reported these data due to space limitations.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Mostafa Nazari

Mostafa Nazari is a PhD candidate of Applied Linguistics at Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran. His area of interest is Second Language Teacher Education and he has published in Computer Assisted Language Learning, RELC Journal, European Journal of Teacher Education, Journal of Teacher Education, etc.

Parastoo Alizadeh Oghyanous

Parastoo Alizadeh Oghyanous is a PhD candidate of Applied Linguistics at Kharazmi University, Tehran, Iran. Her areas of interest are teacher education and psychology of language learning/teaching. She has published in Cogent Education, Language-Related Research, etc.