The Cognitive Basis of Foreign and Second Language Teachers’ Global Attitudes in Classroom Teaching

Though some research has been done on second and foreign language (SL/FL) teachers’ attitudes, little is known about their cognitive basis while this issue is central to formal teacher education. Employing the rationale of the theory of planned behavior, this in-depth small-scale study investigated the implicit theories which form the cognitive basis of global attitudes towards grammar teaching in informal learning situations. A concise overview of relevant studies on SL/FL teacher attitudes and beliefs on (grammar) classroom teaching was introduced to inform the specific research questions. A general patterns of behavior analysis was innovatively conducted to uncover teachers’ global attitudes. Two types of global attitude towards grammar teaching (i.e., curriculum matter, task complexity) were found. These were divided into two hypothesized theories, namely the wholesale grammar teaching theory (WGTT) and the fragmented grammar teaching theory (FGTT). The cross-correlation and simple linear regression analyses showed that global attitudes significantly predicted their corresponding theories with the strongest predictor ß = 1.20, t(13) = 16.63, p .001 and the lowest ß = .92, t(13) = 2.24, p = .04. The WGTT was found to be a uniform entity, whereas the FGTT entailed two distinct sub-categories.