Exploring grammar teachers’ beliefs and practices through focus-on-form instruction

Abstract

The present case study intends to explore some aspects of the beliefs’ mechanism among grammar teachers and the way they are shaped in the teaching environment, particularly using form-focused instruction. This is a major issue relatively unexplored in the context of the Algerian university. Studies in the field of teaching and learning tended to explore and evaluate the teachers’ teaching practices and actions related to a definite framework guided by a prescribed teaching methodology. This interest stressed the concrete side of the teaching job but not in the mental process that controls and supervises everything. This work explores beliefs about form-focused instruction held by grammar teachers with different teaching experiences and backgrounds in the English section at the Mohamed Khider University of Biskra and the relationship between these beliefs and classroom practices, in addition to that, the elements shaping the teachers’ beliefs while performing their daily teaching routine. This exploratory research was based on two main questions: What are the teachers’ beliefs about form-focused instruction? And to what extent are these beliefs reflected in the classroom practices. Through the previous questions a hypothesis was formulated if teachers held beliefs about teaching including form-focused instruction, it would be reflected in the way they perform in the classroom. In order to answer the questions and validate the hypothesis, three data gathering tools were used: a questionnaire administered to nineteen teachers’ of grammar, a semi structured face-to-face interview to a sample of ten grammar teachers and a semi structured classroom observation during the 2016-2017 academic year. Results show that the participants hold very specific beliefs, shaped mostly by their personal experience and actualized in different ways in the classroom.