Exploring Chinese higher vocational college teachers' perceptions of critical reading and teaching critical reading in English
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Date
06/06/2022Embargo end date
06/06/2023Author
Xu, Jing
Metadata
Abstract
This thesis reports on an exploration of Chinese higher vocational college
teachers’ perceptions of critical reading and teaching critical reading in English.
Previous studies have suggested that language teachers’ experience as
learners can inform their perceptions of teaching and learning (Borg, 2003,
2006, 2011, 2018, 2019, 2020). There is also evidence to show an interaction
between language teacher perception and practice (Barnard & Burns, 2012;
Fives & Gill, 2015; Phipps & Borg, 2009; Zheng & Borg, 2014), and prior
research points to contextual factors which can determine to what extent
language teachers’ perceptions are congruent with their own classroom
practices (Borg, 2012; Hos & Kekec, 2014). Informed by past research and
based on my own experiences as an English language teacher and a teacher
learner, this qualitative study contributes to the existing body of literature on
English as a foreign language teacher education by exploring (a) Chinese
higher vocational college teachers’ perceptions of reading and teaching
reading in English, (b) their perceptions of critical reading and teaching critical
reading in English, and (c) how they perceived their perceptions of critical
reading influenced their own classroom practices.
A sociocultural approach was adopted to understand Chinese higher
vocational college teachers’ mind in this study. Aligned with the sociocultural
lens, a constructivist-interpretivist view of knowing was employed to explore
these teachers’ perceptions through a variety of methods, including
questionnaire, professional learning conversation, classroom observation, and
reflective practice. The results showed that a skill-based view was a
predominant perception of reading and teaching reading in English in China’s
vocational contexts, which was coherent with the findings of previous studies.
Through a teacher professional learning programme, participants developed a
sociocultural understanding of reading and teaching reading in English. Put
simply, participants expanded their understandings of reading and teaching
reading in English from a skill-based to a social-practice perspective. In a
similar vein, participants’ perceptions of criticality broadened, shifting from a
dichotomous to a dialectical view. This shift was accompanied by their evolving
understandings of critical reading and teaching critical reading in English. That
is, critical reading was seen from a pathway to developing critical thinking to an
approach to developing learners’ identities as whole persons as critical readers
with the capacity of understanding their world interculturally and informed by
moral values (Farren, 2020, p. 477). Teaching critical reading in English was
understood as a new practice that shifted the focus of teaching from language
to developing English reading literacies through the language. Within this shift,
a deeper engagement with texts manifested in text analysis and text
transformation was acknowledged by participants in this study. At a later stage
of the teacher professional learning programme, all participants perceived their
understandings of critical reading were congruent with their own classroom
practices. This finding was validated via the triangulation of my classroom
observation field notes.
This study contributes to the current understanding of teacher education in
global and local vocational contexts. Within the local context, it adds to insights
into the professional learning of teachers who teach English language for
general academic purposes in China’s higher vocational colleges. The present
study is a pioneer in the exploration of alternative pedagogic strategies for
developing English reading literacies in vocational contexts. Methodologically,
the teacher professional learning programme in this study has proven to be
effective in that it enabled participants to gain a better understanding of theory
and practice in relation to language and literacy education. The professional
learning conversations facilitated teacher professional learning in this study,
indicating that they might be useful tools for the professional development of
teachers in similar contexts.