Scenario-based classroom context mode: reshaping non-native teachers’ decision-making and pedagogical reasoning

Abstract

Teacher decision-making and pedagogical reasoning have been extensively investigated in the last two decades. However, there is a scarcity of research that examines the two constructs together in one single study. This study was an attempt to address this gap by implementing a teacher education course using the self-evaluation of teacher talk (SETT) framework that aimed to reshape the decision-making and pedagogical reasoning of ten non-native teachers. Data were collected over a 10-week period through Camtasia, which facilitated video-stimulated recall sessions. Conversation analysis was employed to analyze the interactions in classroom context between the learners and the novice teachers and the interactions between the novices and the first researcher-as-a-participant or experienced teacher. The findings showed that the novices relied on the SETT-oriented metalanguage to justify their decisions after the teacher education course (POST-TEC). In addition, although in the PRE-TEC phase, they lost their temper and codeswitched because of frustration when facing learners’ reticence, they used a number of useful interactive decisions such as avoiding teacher echoes and on-the-spot corrections during discussions in the POST-TEC. It can be concluded that examining the SETT modes separately contributes to our richer understanding of classroom discourse, as each mode has its own specific pedagogic goals that teachers should pay attention to in their classroom decisions. Suggestions for further research and implications for making the decision-making and pedagogical reasoning of language teachers more explicit are provided.