Documentation:
Borg, S., (1999, September ). Studying teacher cognition in second language grammar
teaching, Elsevier Science Ltd, 27, 19-31.
Summary
For
many years, the issue of teaching grammar has been researched; however, none of
those works have precisely discussed the cognition under teachers'
instructions. Therefore, in the
beginning of this article, several discussions about teachers' cognition toward
grammar teaching are overviewed, which aims at revealing the inadequate
research in the past two decades, which truly discovers that most of researchers
put many attentions on the acquisition of students' grammatical knowledge,
instructional contexts of comparing different strategies of students, and
description on natural grammar teaching environment, and which all of those
turn to be inconclusive. Then, by
introducing a new perspective of research of both descriptive and interpretive
in scope on grammar teaching, the author, after interviewing his co-workers, clearly
shows that grammar teaching involves in diverse-faceted decision making
processes. In other words, grammar
teaching is often seen as the compromises of confliction based on teachers'
cognitions, including language usages, learning instructions, learning
backgrounds, learners' levels, and the
teacher, himself or herself. Besides,
three especially influential factors are also aroused, which are teachers'
language education, teachers' schooling education, and teachers' classroom
experience, illustrating that the underlying of cognition of formal instruction
are gathered by crucial educational and professional experiences in teachers'
daily lives. In short, research in this
writing are findings of evaluation of teacher cognition and practices in formal
instruction, showing the importance for teachers to reflect processes they
conduct in teaching in order to improve their teaching gradually. In the end, even though the lack of doubtless
knowledge of effective grammar teaching and learning makes the evaluation of
cognition obscured, this insight research posts a future possibilities of
further studies.
My Critique
After
reading this research, there are several merits, which could be judged form its
introduction, methodology, and discussion, and which is worth of learning. First of all, the author gives a clear explanation
of why he wants to conduct this research in the introduction paragraph. By adding guided questions in the beginning,
readers would be able to know what the research is going to discuss in the
following section. In addition to his
well-composing of his questionable points or parts, presenting an obvious outlook,
and making readers better understand what the author is trying to explore
through this research.
Second,
although the author doesn't exactly arrange the methodology into a single
section for enhancing the reading quality, it is still not difficult to figure
out that the whole research lies on observation literatures and interviewing
his co-workers, which the author believes composing this way would be better
than showing data in one aspects only.
Reviewing amount of literatures makes this study be successful because
this not only examines the overall history of research of grammar teaching but
also posts debatable perspectives toward those findings as well. Besides, because of lacking complete
discussions of teachers' cognition in teaching grammar, it is good to see that
the author gather them together in this research to easily compare and
contrast. Even more, the completeness of
exploring literatures extends a evolution of grammar teaching research though
none of them has a closer analysis. And,
beside observation from literatures, the author also provides interviewing
information of his colleagues to support that study on teacher cognition in
formal instruction had better be both descriptive and interpretive, which
breaks the obstacles of focusing on one aspect in the past, and stay coherence
to what the author has said in its introduction, aiming to further discover the
core cognition of teachers' teaching processes.
Third,
discussions that appear in each section carry on ideas of previous issues and
open for the following discussion as well.
Besides, discussions are not set in the end of the research, which
readers could make connections between literatures and discussions easily
rather than turning pages to find out again.
The insight argument of literatures is no longer a linear way of
presenting ideas but from a various aspect that matches the idea what the
author has said that cognition of teaching grammar is not a monolithic
phenomenon.
In conclusion, this research has provided many different
aspects in the field of teaching grammar research. Basically, it is a well-organized writing or
project. And, it is really impressive
that the author indeed gather all the related study together and rearrange them
into a inclusive research. Yet, the
insufficient of unquestionable knowledge for deciding teachers' cognition from
right to wrong reveals a sense of pity.
At last, the suggestions of topics of advanced research given by the
author encourages other-alike researchers to carry out, which is quite good to
end this research in an aspect of hoping, expecting, or believing in the future
progresses.
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