Understanding Teachers' Beliefs in a Professional Development Project of Writing Instruction

• In Event: Roundtable Session 55
  In Roundtable Session: Understanding Teacher Beliefs in Early Childhood Education

Abstract

A plethora of research reveals that teachers’ beliefs directly influence their classroom practices and teaching outcomes. However, no enough attention has been given to exploring second/foreign language (L2) writing teachers’ beliefs in their professional development. This research reports a case study on changes in English teachers’ beliefs after attending a professional development project for teaching L2 writing. Data were collected from two English writing teachers by semi-structured interviews and teaching journals. Findings show that the professional writing project broadened the teachers’ understanding of different writing theories, provided them with a clear model of how to integrate these new approaches into writing courses, changed their instructional focus and shifted their perception of teachers’ roles in teaching practices. Pedagogical implications are discussed.

Authors

• Lin Sophie Teng, The University of Auckland

• Peijian Sun, Auckland University