[ELTWeekly Volume 8, Issue 1 | January 4, 2016 | ISSN 0975-3036]
An important component of current conceptualizations of Second Language Teacher Education (SLTE) is a focus on teacher cognition. This encompasses the mental lives of teachers, how these are formed, what they consist of, and how teachers’ beliefs, thoughts, and thinking processes shape their understanding of teaching and their classroom practices. Borg (2006) comments:
A key factor driving the increase in research in teacher cognition, not just in language education, but in education more generally, has been the recognition that teachers are active, thinking decision-makers who play a central role in shaping classroom event. Coupled with insights from the field of psychology which have shown how knowledge and beliefs exert a strong influence on teacher action, this recognition has suggested that understanding teacher cognition is central to the process of understanding teaching. (p. 1)
An interest in teacher cognition entered SLTE from the field of general education, and brought with it a similar focus on teacher decision making, on teachers’ theories of teaching, teachers’ representations of subject matter, and the problem-solving and improvisational skills employed by teachers with different levels of teaching experience during teaching. Constructs such as teachers’ practical knowledge, pedagogic content knowledge, and personal theories of teaching are now established components of our understanding of teacher cognition (Golombek 2009).
A central aspect of teacher cognition is the role of the teacher’s pedagogical reasoning skills, the specialized kind of thinking that teachers posses and make use of in planning and conducting their lessons. Here is an example of how teachers use these skills. I recently gave an expert teacher the following challenge. “A teacher has just called in sick. You are going to teach her 50-minute spoken English class, lower-intermediate level, in five minutes. Your only teaching aid is an empty glass. What will your lesson look like?”