Teacher cognition for technology in language teaching

Supervisor: Dr Zöe Handley

A) Rationale for the project

As a result of the current pandemic, teachers all over the world have been forced to move their teaching online. Through this experience teachers have gained valuable insights into how technology can be harnessed to facilitate language learning and teaching. Understanding these insights or teacher cognition (teachers’ thoughts, knowledge, and beliefs) about the use of technology to support language learning and teaching is important because teachers are active decision-makers who develop their own personal contextualised theories of learning and have a significant influence on the implementation of pedagogical innovations. Moreover, studies of teacher cognition provide valuable evidence about how novel approaches and methods of language teaching work in real learning contexts and the factors that influence their success and as such are an important complement to observational and experimental studies of such approaches and methods. With a view to contributing to the development of guidelines for best practice in the use of technology in language learning and teaching, you will interview and/or survey language teachers about their experiences of the use of technology to support and facilitate language learning.

B) References that should be read (if you do not have access to these, please email zoe.handley@york.ac.uk)

Andrews, S. (2003). Teacher language awareness and the professional knowledge base of the L2 teacher. Language awareness, 12(2), 81-95.

Borg, S. (2003). Teacher cognition in language teaching: A review of research on what language teachers think, know, believe, and do. Language teaching, 36(2), 81-109.

Bostancıoğlu, A., & Handley, Z. (2018). Developing and validating a questionnaire for evaluating the EFL ‘Total PACKage’: Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) for English as a Foreign Language (EFL). Computer Assisted Language Learning, 31(5-6), 572-598.

Burden, K., Kearney, M., Schuck, S., & Burke, P. (2019). Principles underpinning innovative mobile learning: Stakeholders’ priorities. TechTrends, 63(6), 659-668.

Burden, K., Kearney, M., Schuck, S., & Hall, T. (2019). Investigating the use of innovative mobile pedagogies for school-aged students: A systematic literature review. Computers & Education, 138, 83-100.

Kearney, M., Burke, P. F. and Schuck, S. (2019) ‘The iPAC Scale: A Survey to Measure Distinctive Mobile Pedagogies’, TechTrends, 63(6), pp. 751–764.

Macaro, E., Handley, Z. L., & Walter, C. (2012). A systematic review of CALL in English as a second language: Focus on primary and secondary education. Language Teaching, 1-43.

Romrell, D., Kidder, L. and Wood, E. (2014) ‘The SAMR model as a framework for evaluating mLearning’, Online Learning Journal, 18(2).

Spence, P., & Brandão, R. (2019). Survey of attitudes towards digital culture & technology in the modern languages. London, UK: Language Acts and Worldmaking.

C) Research aims / questions

This project will explore teacher’s thoughts, knowledge and beliefs about the use of technology to support language learning in a context of your choice (e.g. MFL or EFL, primary, secondary or tertiary, UK or other country).

D) Methods

Working within the framework of teacher cognition, you will carry out interviews and/or surveys to gain an in-depth understanding of language teachers’ cognition in relation to the use of technology to support language learning and teaching.

E) Skills and opportunities you could gain

You will develop a critical appreciation of the potential value of the use of technology to support language learning and teaching as well as theories of teacher cognition. You will learn how to design interviews and/or surveys and analyse the data generated using thematic analysis and/or relevant statistical techniques.