Teacher beliefs and practices with respect to English vocabulary teaching

Abstract EN

Contributing to filling a gap in the literature, this study investigates how teachers think English as a foreign language vocabulary should be taught (at two levels in schools in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (KSA), and how, as reported by their students, they in fact do teach it.

We further explore how far these beliefs and practices accord with accepted ‹good practice› in the literature, and the extent of the mismatch between them.

An extensive statistical analysis was undertaken of responses to 38 items covering key features of vocabulary teaching in questionnaires administered to 32 teachers and 128 students at intermediate and secondary level, both male and female.

The results show that teachers entertain many beliefs that are consistent with modern expert thinking about how vocabulary teaching should be done, with the exception perhaps of vocabulary assessment.

In many instances, however, their reported practice falls short of their belief, though notably in the use of L1 Arabic the reverse occurs.

Interpretations are offered referring to known features of the KSA teaching context which might lead to these mismatches.

Differences based on gender and educational level, but rarely on teaching experience, were also found.

Finally, implications are drawn for the stakeholders in the context, which may be relevant in similar contexts beyond KSA as well as for researchers in the general field of teacher cognition.

Keywords: Teacher beliefs, practices, teacher cognition, vocabulary teaching, EFL