A Study of the Relationship Between Planning Decisions and Interactive Decisions Made by Teachers in English Classrooms in China

• In Event: Planning and Decision-Making Processes in Language and Linguistics

Abstract

Researchers realize teachers and their teachings cannot be properly understood without understanding teacher cognition, which is concerned with how teachers think, know and believe. The present paper probed into three outstanding EFL college teachers’ decision-making process, exploring the relationship between teachers’ planning and interactive decisions. Methodologies like non-participant classroom observations, interviews, audio-based elicited introspection and retrospection, were employed. Results showed that teachers’ planning decision and interactive decision differed in the way how they are made, the influential factors, and the particular contents. However, both of them are generally consistent with teachers’ underlying pedagogical principles. Teachers’ planning decisions provide a structure and framework for interactive decisions, and they are subject to modification as teachers implement them in the classroom.

Author

• Hongyu Jiang