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INVESTIGATIONS FROM THE MAESTRÍA EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS: THE IMPACT

OF RESEARCH THESES WITHIN THE MEXICAN CONTEXT

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Michael WittenTeresa Aurora Castineira Benítez

Verónica Sánchez HernándezEditores

BENEMÉRITA UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE PUEBLAFacultad de Lenguas

Maestría en la Enseñanza del Inglés

INVESTIGATIONS FROM THE MAESTRÍA EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS: THE IMPACT

OF RESEARCH THESES WITHIN THE MEXICAN CONTEXT

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BENEMÉRITA UNIVERSIDAD AUTÓNOMA DE PUEBLAJosé Alfonso Esparza OrtizRector

Rene Valdiviezo SandovalSecretario General

Roberto Criollo AvendañoDirector

Celso Pérez CarranzaSecretario Académico

Verónica Sánchez HernándezSecretaria de Investigación y Estudios de Posgrado

José Demetrio Julio González MartínezSecretario Administrativo

Verónica Sánchez HernándezMichael WittenDirectores del Libro

Teresa Aurora Castineira BenítezEditora Literaria

Agustín Antonio Huerta RamírezEditor

Primera Edición, 2013ISBN: 978-607-487-687-1

©Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla4 sur 104Puebla, Pue. Centro Histórico

Facultad de Lenguas24 norte 2003 Col. HumboldtPuebla, Pue.Tel. 01 222 229 55 00 Ext. 5826

Impreso y hecho en MéxicoPrinted and made in Mexico

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Table of Contents

Editors’ forewordMichael Witten, Teresa Castineira Benítez & Verónica Sánchez Hernández

Evaluation practices at higher education in MexicoAmelia Hernández Grande & Fátima Encinas Prudencio

Exploring the effect of an ELT MA program on teachers’ professional development in MexicoLeonel Ojeda Ruiz & Fátima Encinas Prudencio

Supervision in initial language teacher education and the role of beliefs: A case studyLeticia Estudillo León & Verónica Sánchez Hernández

A critical comparison of discourses used in summer job advertising for Mexican and Australian Audiences: A Multimodal AnalysisGloria Angélica Ortiz Barroso & Teresa A. Castineira Benítez

English? Next term…maybe!: Procrastination in EFL courses in higher educationBlanca Estela Flores Martínez & Michael T. Witten

Exploring critical reading strategies for LEMO translation students Ismael Mauro Jiménez Gómez & Michael T. Witten

M. A. students’ expectations and perceptions about teachers’ written feedback in academic assignmentsGeorgina Aguilar González & Rebeca Elena Tapia Carlín

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Editors’ Foreword

byMichael Witten, Teresa Castineira Benítez

& Verónica Sánchez Hernández

Research practices in the field of English Language Teaching (ELT) and Applied Linguistics (AL) are varied and often multidisciplinary. Researchers

within these fields investigate a wide range of interests which span from topics as varied as the acquisition of phonemes to social inequalities that are (re)produced by particular discourse(s). The purpose of this volume is to disseminate the findings of research studies that were conducted within a particular sociocultural con-text, namely, the M.A. in ELT (Maestría en la Ense-ñanza del Inglés) at the Language Faculty (Facultad de Lenguas) of the Benemerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla (BUAP). Within the previously mentioned context, senior faculty members form research groups that are based on particular research interests. These research groups are called ‘cuerpos academicos’, and they are meant to foster collaborative research within the university as well as provide mentoring opportuni-ties for less experienced researchers as they collaborate with senior researchers in their investigations.

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The studies presented within the current vol-ume represent the results of such mentoring as stu-dents from the M.A. in ELT performed their research theses under the guidance of members from distinct cuerpos academicos within the Language Faculty of the BUAP. The cuerpo academico called, ‘Investig-ación, Literacidad y Desarrollo Docente’ (Investiga-tion, Literacy and Teacher Development) guided the research process of three research studies that are present within this volume, which include: “Evalua-tion practices at higher education in Mexico” by Ame-lia Hernández Grande; “Exploring the effect of an ELT MA program on teachers’ professional development in Mexico” by Leonel Ojeda Ruiz; and “Supervision in initial language teacher education and the role of beliefs: A case study” by Leticia Estudillo León. The cuerpo academico called, ‘Estudios Críticos’ (Criti-cal Studies) also guided the research process of three research studies that are present within this volume, which include: “A critical comparison of discourses used in summer job advertising for Mexican and Aus-tralian Audiences” by Gloria Angélica Ortiz Barroso; “English? Next term…maybe!: Procrastination in EFL courses in higher education” by Blanca Estela Flores Martínez; and “Exploring critical reading strategies for LEMO translation students” by Ismael Mauro Jiménez Gómez. The cuerpo academic called, ‘Docencia e In-novación Profesional’ (Teaching and Professional In-novation) guided the research process of one research study that is present within this volume, namely, “M. A. students’ expectations and perceptions about teachers’ written feedback in academic assignments” by Georgina Aguilar Gonzalez. All of these research studies represent the diverse interests of the research groups that participate with the M.A. in ELT at the

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Language Faculty of the BUAP as they foster research competencies in students, a dimension in their forma-tion that we consider to be an integral part of their professional development within the field of English Language Teaching and Applied Linguistics.

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Evaluation Practices at HigherEducation in Mexico

Amelia Hernández Grande & Fátima Encinas Prudencio

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Evaluation Practices at Higher Education in MexicoAmelia Hernández Grande & Fátima Encinas Prudencio

AbstractThis article is part of a qualitative study which focuses on exploring professors’ evaluation practices of academic texts in an ELT graduate program in Mexico. This article high-lights the importance of discussing and clarifying the ele-ments that professors evaluate in academic papers and the different writing conventions students are expected to mas-ter at this level. Students are seldom told about the textual conventions, principally because the rules have become second nature to their professors who have already been initiated into the different disciplinary writing practices and take for granted that students already know how to write. However, studies have shown that in Latin America stu-dents have problems when writing. Hence, this study seeks to contribute to the understanding of professors’ academic writing expectations in this specific context with one main objective to help students focus more on those aspects and become more successful in their different writing practices.

Key words: Literacy, Literacies, Writing in Latin America, Evaluation, Expectations.

ResumenEste artículo es parte de un estudio cualitativo enfocado a explorar las prácticas de evaluación en textos académicos en un programa de maestría en la enseñanza del inglés en Mé-xico. El presente artículo subraya la importancia de discutir y clarificar los elementos que son evaluados por los profeso-res así como las diferentes convenciones que los estudiantes deberían manejar. Los estudiantes rara vez son informados

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acerca de las diferentes convenciones en la escritura princi-palmente porque estas han pasado a un segundo plano para los profesores quienes ya se han iniciado en las diferentes dis-ciplinas de las escritura y dan por hecho que sus estudiantes saben cómo escribir. Sin embargo, estudios han demostrado la problemática de la escritura en América Latina. Por lo que este estudio busca contribuir al entendimiento de las expec-tativas de los profesores en cuanto a textos académicos con el objetivo de ayudar a los estudiantes a enfocarse en esos as-pectos y llegar a tener un mejor desempeño en las diferentes prácticas de escritura.

Palabras claves: Literacidad, Literacidades, La escritura en América Latina, Evaluación, Expectativas.

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Introduction

The current study sets out to: a) to detect the charac-teristics professors value and penalize in graduate students’ assignments in an ELT graduate program,

and b) to identify the experiences these professors report influenced and shaped their evaluation criteria. Writing has become a central issue of higher education. In some gradu-ate programs, it is the main way in which students are evalu-ated. They are generally expected to display the knowledge they acquired in the subject areas in written assignments (Marucco, 2004). As mentioned above, writing is funda-mental for students, professors and researchers’ academic life. Although writing is as old as knowledge and history and there are many studies about writing, there is still much we do not know about writing, especially in foreign language contexts (Encinas & Keranen, 2010, Carlino, 2004a). Most of the research on writing has been carried out in English speaking countries such as the USA and Australia (Carlino, 2007). Moreover, very few writing studies have focused on writing evaluation (Juzwik et al, 2006).

In Latin America formal writing research started in the last 20 years or so in countries such as Argentina, Bra-zil and Chile (Carlino, 2007). In México, it initiated in the mid-1990s but there is still very little published (Encinas & Keranen, 2010). Most of the research has been carried out in areas such as understanding learner’s literacy practices, un-derstanding writing through the comparison and contrast of writing in L1 (Spanish) and L2 (English) and understand-ing writing into a wider context (Encinas & Keranen, 2010). Hence, as writing in English in Mexico is a very new area of inquiry, this study attempts to contribute to these investiga-tions focusing on writing evaluation processes at the gradu-ate level. Then, another reason for carrying out this study in my workplace is based on the need to investigate the writing conventions in the context where it takes place in order to help both students and professors in this complex process (Juswik, 2004).

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In this same line, this study intends to contribute to understand professors’ evaluation practices in a specific context in order to raise students’ awareness of their profes-sors’ expectations when writing their assignments. Besides, studying professors’ criteria to evaluate academic writing is relevant in order to contribute to a topic that has not been widely studied. Finding and describing the commonalities and differences in these parameters could raise both profes-sors and students awareness about how to enhance literacy standards in this graduate program. It is worth mentioning that, looking beyond the graduate writing tasks, those stu-dents interested in publishing during the program and after they graduate need to be familiarized with different writ-ing conventions. As Braine et al (cited in Leki, 2001 p. 198) points out in professional settings, academics from different fields and disciplines “are facing mounting pressure to pub-lish internationally, and for better or for worse, publishing in English.” Also, this study is important because through it, other professors who help students in their literacy practices could expand their views and consider other elements that writing evaluation encompasses in order to aid students in the development of their writing literacy practices. Hence, understanding the “the rules of the game” in the writing and evaluation process might an impact in students’ future lit-eracy practices both as learners and teachers.

Research questionsThus, the present research sought to answer the fol-

lowing questions:

RQ 1.-What writing characteristics do these profes-sors report they value and penalize in graduate stu-dents’ assignments?

RQ 2.-What experiences do these professors report influenced and shaped their evaluation criteria?

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Theoretical Framework Defining Literacy

Writing plays an important role in higher educa-tion. “Writing is a key assessment tool, with students pass-ing or failing courses according to the ways in which they respond to, and engage in, academic writing tasks” (Lilis, 2001, p. 20). This definition encompasses the main idea of writing for this article and at the same time it leads to situate academic writing in a general context.

Defining Literacy from a historical perspectiveThe word literacy was traditionally defined as the

ability to use written language or as “a simple way of record-ing language by printed signs” (Richards, Platt & Platt 1992, p. 42). However, in the past 15 years or so, a major parading shift has been taking place in literacy and the tendency has been towards a broader consideration of “literacy as a social practice” (Miller, 1984, cited in Johns, 2002, p.3). Research-ers (Lea and Street, 1999; Maybin, 2002) talk about “the new literacy practices which conceptualize literacy not in terms of skills and competencies, but as an integral part of social events and practices” (Maybin 2002, p. 197). This means that “particular attention is given to people’s use of oral language around texts, and to the ways in which the learning and use of texts is culturally shaped” (Maybin, 2000, p. 197).

The role of literacy in the school is directly linked to the roles of literacy in the larger society (Olson, 2008). Hence, understanding the historical context of writing is important in this field because our theoretical and pedagog-ical practices are always historical situated (Matsuda, 2003). During the 1940s writing was perceived and defined merely as a “system of written symbols which represent sounds, syl-lables, or words of a language” (Richards, Platt & Platt, 1992, p. 42). It was not until after the Second World War writing had significant transformations and teachers and adminis-trators of compositions began to pay especial attention to writing instruction and composition due to the increasing

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number of students in higher education and required col-lege composition courses (Matsuda, 2003). Hence, during the 1970s writing as a process was introduced and defined as “particularly the more complex composing skill valued in the academy which involves training instruction, prac-tice, experience, and purpose.” Thus, writing was seen as a set of skills that need to be developed through practice and learned through experience (Grabe & Kapplan, 1996). A more recent perspective considers literacy practices are not something that we just can pick up; they are integral to our individual identities, social relationships and community memberships (Hyland, 2003). The writer, then, is viewed as a “social being and texts are viewed as genre exemplars: pur-poseful, situated and repeated” (Miller, 1984, cited in Johns, 2002, p.3). From this perspective writing is seen as a social practice which is shaped by the context in which it occurs.

Literacy or LiteraciesIn new literacy studies, researchers try to avoid judg-

ments about what constitutes literacy for the discourse com-munity they are working with “until they can understand what it means for the people itself” (Maybin, 2000, p. 199). This means there is not a single way of producing writing, but it is shaped by the context it is developed. As Malinowski commented, “in order to understand language, we need to look at its context of situation” (Malinowski, 1923 cited in Maybin, 2000, p. 199). There are different ways to practice writing, but an educational system typically values one par-ticular set of writing practices over others. In the same way, Hyland (2002) shares this conception and says that “there is no single literacy… but a wide variety of practices relevant and appropriate for particular times, places and participants and purposes” (p.54). However, one problem with literacy prac-tices is pointed out by Ivanič (1998, p. 68) who reminds us that “a difficulty with the term literacies is that there are no clear criteria for cutting off one literacy from another.” Thus, there is the necessity to raise students’ awareness regarding

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writing as a dynamic process which is in constant change and is shaped by the context in which it takes place.

Writing in a second languageThe complexity of writing increases when it is in

another language. As Criollo, (2003) and Currie (1993) consider the complexity of writing emerges from its own nature, and this task is even more complex and demand-ing when the writing is in another language different from the native or mother tongue. While writing in another language, writers deal with another grammatical and syn-tactical language system different from their own language and their background. Likewise, Campbell (1998, p. 13) af-firms “second-language writers tend to use a limited range of writing strategies, relaying on previous successes rather that experimenting with alternative strategies in new writ-ing situations.” Furthermore, Campbell (1998, p.13) sug-gests that “writing can be more complicated for non native speakers because they are not familiar with the genre or rhetorical approach that is used or required for writing a text.” In this sense, writing in L2 becomes more complicated for non-native speakers for two main reasons. They have to write in a language different from their mother tongue, and understand and use new rethorical patterns. Furthermore, Perales-Escudero (2005) agrees with the previous opinions and adds that learners who wish to write in new academic settings not only have to master the content and concepts of their subject area, but also they need to be aware and develop the required skills to write effectively and appro-priately in the foreign language. Writing conventions vary from culture to culture, so even for well established schol-ars, writing in the foreign language remains challenging and complex. Thus, EFL writing implies a higher level of complexity and writers cannot assume that the way things are done in a specific culture are accepted or well seen by writers in another culture (Perales-Escudero, 2005).

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Writing in Latin American higher educationWriting practices are highly linked to higher edu-

cation (Parodi, 2004; Murray, 2001); however, professors in higher education often complaint about student writ-ing problems (Lillis, 2001; Bazerman, 2008; Lea & Street, 1998). These complaints suggest “the mismatch between students’ writing and institutional expectations is fre-quently attributed to a literacy deficit on the part of the students” (Ivanič, 1998, p.343). Students in Latin America and Mexico also present problems in their literacy practic-es. Roux (2006) identified students main problems when writing are related to students’ difficulties expressing their own ideas and organizing academic texts. These problems may be explained according to some authors, because stu-dents tend not to plan before writing, do not take into ac-count the audience and there is little reflection on their writing processes (Carlino, 2004c).

However, there are other factors that may influ-ence students writing problems and they are worth briefly reviewing some of them relevant for this research. Most of the studies carried out about the way writing is taught, viewed and perceived in Latin America consider writing as a simple way of putting words together and attention is placed at its superficial level (Smith, Jimenez & Marti-nez – Leon 2003; Carlino, 2004b, Smith, 19944, Hernan-dez, 2004). Hernandez (2004) considers the teaching of writing from kinder garden to university is mainly based on form rather than meaning. This seems to be a common perception of writing in Mexico which does not contrib-ute significantly to students’ writing development. In fact, Hernandez (2004, p.1) pointed out, “It seems that the dif-ferent educational programs, professors writing practices and writing perceptions inside and outside the classroom tend to eradicate writing from people’s mind.”

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Furthermore, according to the results of different studies in basic education (Hernández, 2004; Smith, 19944, Smith et al., 2003, Carlino, 2004b) teachers focused more on the form of the text than on the content or meaning it conveyed. These studies conclude that students’ writing was highly controlled and there is little evidence of students’ own production for real communication in class. In fact, students have few or no opportunities to practice writing in a stake free atmosphere (Coit, 2010). Similarly, Smith et al. (2003, pp. 774-775) reported “students writing was cen-tered on short, discrete texts, typically dictation or copying of teacher-produced models... We observed no examples of students writing for communicative purposes.” Both teach-ers and students were more concerned on “correctness of form, in spelling, accent marks, and punctuation, as well as in the actual quality of student handwriting” (Smith et al, 2003. p. 775). Similarly, Smith (1994, p.259) agrees with the current writing problematic and he affirms:

Hasta hace poco tiempo –tal vez aun hoy en día- enseñar a escribir ha sido una tarea intui-tiva basada en la experiencia y visión del maes-tro, en la revisión y correcciones constantes de la gramática y la ortografía; esto es, apoyada más en cuestiones formales de la lengua, que en el adecuado manejo y expresión de las ideas, sin tener un conocimiento del proceso de composi-ción de un texto, así como de sus propiedades textuales.

Benvegnu (2004, p. 46) adds “…it is commonly observed writing and reading courses are global at basic education, and it is taken for granted they are the same for all contexts” (my translation). Then, the problem’s complexity increases because a significant number of teachers seem to believe that writing can be taught once and students automatically adjust it to the requirements of different educational levels.

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According to the information provided above, it is not surprising to see that the teaching of in basic education has a direct impact on students’ writing at higher educa-tional levels As Di Stefano and Pereira (2004, p. 25) state “...incluso el pasaje del grado al postgrado- responden en gran medida a la falta de familiaridad, de trabajo y de reflexión sobre los códigos propios de la cultura escrita en los espacios de producción y circulación del saber.” In the same line of thought, Marucco (2004) comments that university teachers conclude the problems students face at this level regarding their academic texts are due to the lack of writing experience in previous educational levels. In a study on undergradu-ate student writing, Roux (2006) states students reported to have difficulties with content and the construction of aca-demic texts. According to Marucco’s study (2004) university teachers in Argentina reported similar problems with their students in academic writing. These are: unfamiliarity with text construction, the lack of coherence and cohesion and plagiarism problems. This researcher considers this situa-tion emerged from the way writing is taught at school and the lack of writing instruction in higher education.

There is a general agreement among experts affirm-ing literacy has not been taught properly or at least not in a way that helps students develop writing for real communi-cative purposes. As Lea and Street (1998) claimed institu-tions do not equip students with the necessary elements to become successful in their literacy practices. Nonetheless, there is a clear and significant interest in improving the im-portance of writing situation as well as in motivating those involved in education to reconsider writing in academic life at different levels. There are different authors who attempt to find pathways to promote students’ academic writing de-velopment (Jones, Turnery Street, 1999; Russell, 2003; cited Roux, 2004; Marucco, 2004; Benvegnu, 2004; Hernandez, 2004). At the basic level for instance, there is a recent inter-est in promoting written and oral language for communi-cative purposes through the National Reading Program as

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a government implementation. The Mexican government through the Secretaria de Educacion Publica (2001 cited in Smith et al. 2003) has invested considerable efforts and re-sources in teachers training programs to encourage and pro-mote love for reading. Furthermore, there is the common belief that if student are good readers they tend to be good writers. As Smith (1994, p. 259) claims, “Todo cuanto un niño aprende acerca de la lectura le sirve para convertirse luego en un escribiente. Todo lo que aprende acerca de la escritu-ra contribuye a su habilidad lectora.” However, Hernandez (2004) questioned this position and he suggests focusing on both Reading and writing.

Moreover, there are also many authors that consider the importance of writing in students’ lives in higher educa-tion. Carlino (2004b) states,

Escribir y aprender son inseparables; aprender a escribir con eficacia puede ser uno de los com-ponentes de la formación universitaria que más habilita intelectualmente (Centro de Estudios Interdisciplinarios para la escritura, 2002 cited in Carlino, 2004b).

Using the same theoretical perspective, Di Stefano et al. (2004) claim that for more than a decade different stud-ies have paid attention to the different writing problems that students face in academic writing and have failed to provide possible solutions to reduce them. Some efforts have been proposed based on their own teaching experiences which are focused on developing students reading and writing skills through complex texts which require students’ re-flection on two aspects, in the language itself and the text’s construction. The aim of these practices is to develop stu-dents’ awareness about the interconnectivity between the text and context in which it is produced. Similarly, Carlino cited in Benvegnu claims (2004, p. 47) “Los procesos de la lectura y escritura deben ser atendidos como uno de los as-

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pectos fundamentales de la formación y no como la provisión de herramientas desvinculadas de las áreas lógicas propias de las áreas científicas”. Writing according to these authors (Carlino, 2004b; Marucco, 2004; Hernandez, 2004) is both process and product, and faculty members’ role is to sup-port students in their writing practices in higher education instead of complaining about the lack of students’ writing competence.

One of the main purposes of writing instruction is then to enable students with the necessary elements to rec-ognize the appropriacy of each text in the given context as well as to identify the text’s construction. This could help students to participate in their professional discourse com-munity and to foster students’ reflection in the reading and writing processes in order to listen and construct their own arguments when writing. As seen above, writing instruction has been changing in the last decade. It is not seen just as a simple process of putting words together, and attention is not only focused on correctness or structure aspects as it is described by Smith (1994, p. 261).

Escribir es un proceso de enorme complejidad. Escribir supone el dominio de un buen núme-ro de habilidades y conocimientos, simples al-gunos, incluso mecánicos, como el manejo de los espacios en la página, la segmentación de palabras y oraciones...; complejos otros, como generar las ideas, ordenarlas, planificar la es-tructura de acuerdo con el tipo de texto, decidir el lenguaje que se va a emplear… organizar el texto de manera que sea cohesionado, coheren-te y adecuando.

Undoubtedly writing aims to be considered from a different perspective in tertiary education where students are seen as active writers in the process of becoming mem-bers of a discourse community. The writers’ role is aimed to

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produce texts to communicate and contribute to the com-munity by following the conventions of each discipline. And the professors’ role is to guide and facilitate students writing focusing on both the process and the text which has to re-spond to its communicative purposes in a certain discourse community.

Overview of writing evaluation in academic contextsThe process of rating written language perfor-

mance is still not well understood, despite a body of work investigating this issue over the last decade or so (Lumley, 2002; Belanoff, 1998; Boyd, 1998; Speak & Jones, 1998). For the purposes of this investigation special attention is paid to evaluating and grading writing. According to Bacha (2002), it is generally accepted by teachers and research-ers that testing writing has two main purposes, to provide feedback and to provide a final grade which means evalu-ating or grading students’ writings. However, it is worthy mentioning that the evaluation of writing in ELT as it is commonly understood today has not always had the same procedures and scoring criteria (Bacha, 2002). These have been revised and adapted to meet the needs of adminis-trators, teachers and learners (Bacha, 2002; Boyd, 1998). Indeed, as Boyd mentioned (1998) writing evaluation has shifted, at least in theory, from current traditional rhetoric’s obsession with hunting down errors towards an evaluation more focused on revision. So, the evaluation process has moved from the current-traditional system to a more social, interactive and cultural perspective. In the former students were graded according to the ideal of “correct, well-punctuated, idiomatic, and fluent Eng-lish which the staff considered they should be able to produce” (Copeland, p. 588 cited in Boyd, 1998). In this system there is the mania for covering students’ papers with red ink and tabulating errors to get the final grade. Conversely, in the latter, grading offers a more “demo-cratic process that includes space for difference, struggle,

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and students criticism” (Schwengler, p. 222 cited in Boyd, 1998). As mentioned before, current evaluation practices are different from those practiced a century or so ago at least in theory, because what really happens into a class-room depends only on the teacher beliefs, and perceptions towards the writing teaching process.

Overview of Evaluation, assessment and gradingIn the literature of the grading process, one of the

most common problems is an indiscriminate use of termi-nology. Different terms are used interchangeably: evalua-tion, assessment, commenting, responding, and feedback. All of these terms are all used to mean grading which cre-ates confusion and obscures the pertinent issues (Speck & Jones, 1998). Hence, for the purpose of this study it is worthy to distinguish and clarify these concepts. Evalua-tion implies measurement, resulting in a grade or score. However, evaluation encompasses two main components, summative and formative evaluation. The former focused mainly on measuring the final product or summing pre-vious activities. The latter, formative evaluation helps students to achieve their established goals stated in the summative evaluation without giving a grade (Speck & Jones, 1998). In the same way, formative evaluation usually involves comments, responses or feedback. Commenting on students’ papers does not involve measuring students’ performance. In fact, commenting serves two primary purposes. It can provide advice about how to revise in or-der to improve or they can be used to justify a grade. It is important to highlight that in the literature; comment-ing and responding are often synonymous. Even though, some researchers seem to prefer the term responding over commenting because responding seems to indicate a more serious or formal approach to provide feedback whereas commenting may imply a less thoughtful even a passing remark, the two have been used interchangeably (Speak & Jones, 1998).

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Grading, however, is “specific to the classroom situation and measures individual performance or a par-ticular assignment or a particular course” (Speak & Jones, 1998, p. 21). One of the main criticisms about grading highlights its lack of information to describe the process used to calculate, measure, or determine students’ grade. Indeed, when teachers report a successful grading tech-nique, what they mean is that they have found a strategy that saves time, or takes a set of criteria to provide grades. Conversely, assessment typically means “a large- scale mea-surement for institutional purposes” (Speck & Jones, 1998, p. 21). Some of the most used and common techniques in the assessment process are analytic scales, holistic scoring, and primary trait scoring (Odell and Copper cited in Speck & Jones, 1998). All of these techniques are consider useful when providing scores; however, they have also been severe-ly criticized for the absent of validity. In fact, Huot (cited in Speak & Jones, 1998, p. 21) has pointed out that a number of variables can cause bias in raters and that “holistic rat-ings cannot be used beyond the population which generated them.”

It is also worth highlighting that while “evaluation and assessment might be used to apply to any enterprise, grading is exclusively connected to schooling” (Zack & Weaver, 1998, p. xiv). Moreover, evaluation and assessment are connected to the idea of scholarship, as bold, rigorous, and probing whereas grading implies a reward or punish-ment, even with remediation. Some researchers maintain that grading is more commonly found with secondary school teachers than college professors (Zack & Weaver, 1998). Conversely, Bacha (2002) points out that assessment or responding has as a main goal to provide feedback during the process of acquiring writing proficiency whereas evalu-ation implies the assignment of grades or scores that will indicate the level or quality of the written product. At this point, Bernard-Donals (1998), comments about the inter-relation that exists between evaluating and grading. On the

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one hand, while evaluation would imply grading in one form or another, grading, on the other hand, assumes certain standards that guide the idea of what a good writing is or is not. In sum, as described above, it can be seen that com-menting, responding and giving feedback are part of forma-tive evaluation whereas evaluation and grading are part of summative evaluation. At first sight, all of these terms are obviously different; however, because they are related their differences can become blurred and need to be clarified when discussing these issues.

Teachers’ beliefs towards evaluating writingResearch has in recent years, made significant

contributions to our understanding of how knowledge, decisions, and thinking function when raters grade writ-ing (Lumley, 2002). In the same way, studies have shown that for many centuries, holistic, analytic, or impressionist methods of written compositions have mostly been used in testing and examining written texts, particularly in aca-demic settings (Cumming, 1997; Spolsky, 1995) Descriptive criteria, rating scales, and benchmarks or exemplar papers have been the main mean of specifying the content of such grading which has been implemented through the training, monitoring and moderating of raters to ensure their reliabil-ity in their scoring (Ruth & Murphy, cited in Lumley, 2002). Purves (1992) claimed these tools should only be considered a guide in the evaluation process; otherwise, their over-em-phasis could affect the value and complexity of writing and of students’ abilities. Furthermore, theorists suggest that scales for writing performance should not be institutional-ized because such situation could dismiss the nature of edu-cational achievement. In fact, there are some theorists who are against the use of rating scales affirming that the scales themselves circumscribe and limit, rather than empirically describe or expand, the parameters of learning, curricula, and human abilities (Brindley, 1998; Cumming, 2001; Lum-ley, 2002). Hence, for many years in the academic settings

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teachers used and still make use of scales to guide them in the complex process of grading written texts.

However, current studies have contributed to eval-uation and suggest that the actual practices of writing as-sessment occur through rater’s individual or sometimes collaborative interpretations and judgments. As Connor (1995, cited in Lumley, 2002, p. 1) has pointed, “we have looked behind the curtain, into raters’ minds, to examine what composition assessments really involve.” Different studies have been done in order to understand what really happen when raters rate written papers. These studies have shown that assessing writing involves a constant interplay between making interpretations and judgments as well as attention to diverse features of the language, discourse orga-nization, and ideational content of the text being assessed (Cumming, 2002). In this way, Lumley points out that the validity of writing assessment resides more in the complex cognitive process of human scoring that in the necessary under-specified, established criteria and scales that tradi-tionally define a writing test (2002). In fact, Lumley (2002) affirms, the centrality of raters’ knowledge and experiences is fundamental in the rating process. This means, raters as-sess what they believe, have learned and value (2005). This is what Burns calls “hidden pedagogy” which encompasses aspects such as beliefs, attitudes, expectations and deci-sions which serve as a sustainable basis for observable be-havior (1992). In the same line, Cumming (1989) comments teacher’s decision-making are influenced by teacher’s expe-riences, individual conceptions and their interactions with local contexts. Indeed, there is a growing body of research pointing out the contradictions between what teachers say regarding evaluation criteria, what they consciously believe, and what they actually do unconsciously.

On the one hand, teachers inspired by Freire en-courage the textual authority of the author/student above the reader/teacher. However, a significant number of re-search has shown that writing instructors teach the writ-

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ing process but grade written products (Appleman & Green cited in Maylath, 1998). Hence, although teachers preach to value the authority of the authors/students they honor the authority of the reader/ teachers (Connors & Lunsford cited in Maylath, 1998). This situation has placed evaluator’s cred-ibility into question, and this problem became more evident during the 1960s when different studies showed that while teachers were told to grade students writing solely on the merits of its content, the study’s results nevertheless showed that grading was based mainly on what the researchers called composition errors. So, special attention was given to aspects such as: punctuation, grammar, and spelling. This phenomenon is called the halo effect (Maylath, 1998). Simi-lar results were found during the 1970s when new investiga-tions were done in order to find the criteria that teachers used to evaluate academic writing. In these studies full-time teachers were asked to grade written papers, and the stud-ies reported they also based their judgments primarily on the technical correctness of sentence structure (Maylath, 1998). Two decades later, in Connors and Lunsford’s study (cited in Maylath, 1998) identical results were found, what they found, in short, was that most teachers gave evidence of reading students papers in ways antithetical to the read-ing strategies currently being explored by many critical theorists, mainly by attending to products, especially their surface errors, instead of process (cited in Maylath, 1998).

However, it is important to point out that Connor and Lunsford’s (cited in Lumley, 2002) results show once more that their findings might not seem so disturbing if their subjects simply disagree with critical theorists and openly followed their own criteria with consistency (May-lath, 1998). Hence, the judgments expressed in writing by teachers often seemed to come out of some privately and personal held set of ideas about what good writing should look like. Moreover, according to Freedman (1981); Hamp-Lyons (1990); Weigle (2002) and Carini (1994 cited in Ba-zerman, 2008) there are other factors which might affect

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the evaluation process. There is a variety of factors which influence the way writing is evaluated including the nature and subject of the writing task; the scales and scoring proce-dures used; the texts’ characteristics, the raters; and various contextual factors. These factors provoke variation in the evaluation process which is at certain extend problematic, because a goal in when assessing students papers is to re-duce as much as possible or to eliminate variation that can be attributed to factors other than the candidate’s writing abilities (Freedman, 1981 cited in Bazerman, 2008). In the same way, Carini (1994 cited in Bazerman, 2008) empha-sizes the importance of context, both social and historical, in evaluation, criticizing impersonal assessment procedures that remove writing from its context. Indeed, she conceives assessment as personal, contextual, and descriptive in order to acknowledge the links between writing, personal history and identity. As seen above, there is a significant amount of research which accounts for inconsistency between theory and practice regarding evaluation practices; however, there also seems to be a general agreement that writing evaluation is both a personal and contextualized act.

Methodology This research study was conducted following a qual-

itative approach. This approach was selected on the premise that in order to investigate professors’ evaluation criteria to evaluate academic papers in an ELT graduate program and the experiences that have influenced and/or shaped that evaluation criteria, it was important to explore and under-stand the meaning of a phenomenon from the views of par-ticipants in their natural setting (Creswell, 2009). Moreover, this naturalistic approach was selected because I intended to understand the perceptions, feelings, and knowledge of people within its real-life context (Patton, 1987). Therefore, this approach allowed me as a researcher to study selected cases in depth and detail and capture the richness of peo-ple’s experiences in their own terms (Patton, 1987).

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Case studyA qualitative research study can be conducted fol-

lowing different traditions (Creswell, 2009). For this re-search, a case study was used. According to Patton (1987, p. 19) “case studies become particularly useful where one needs to understand some particular problem or situation in great depth, and where one can identify cases rich in in-formation.” In the same line, according to Stake (1995 cited in Creswell, 2009, p.13), a case study is “a strategy of in-quiry in which the researcher explores in depth a program, event, activity, process, or more individuals. Case studies are bounded by time and activity and researchers collect detailed information using a variety of data collection pro-cedures over time.” It was bounded because according to Cohen et al (2007) a bounded system can be, for instance, a child, a class, a school, a community and in this case, the bounded system was a group of professors in a graduate ELT program in a public university. Moreover, based on Stake’s taxonomy the type of case study was “instrumental” and “collective” (Stake, 1994 cited in Cohen et al, 2007, p. 254). This study was considered instrumental because it exam-ined a particular case in order to “gain an insight into an issue” (Stake, 1994 cited in Cohen et al, 2007, p. 254), which was professors’ perceptions regarding their evaluation cri-teria in an ELT graduate program.

Data sourcesData resources are places or phenomena from or

through which you believe data can be generated Creswell (1998). In a case study data can be obtained through ob-servations, interviews, audio-visual material, documents and reports (Miles & Huberman, 1994). Cohen et al (2007) also suggest semi-structured and open interviews, observa-tions, narrative accounts and documents, diaries, as a com-mon method of collecting data.

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Stimulated recallThe rational for selecting stimulated recalls as a

collection method in this study was based on the nature of the research questions that sought to explore profes-sors’ actions in their evaluation practices including their decisions making and interactive thoughts (Calderhead, 1981, cited in Gass & Mackey, 2000, p. 9). Furthermore, because stimulated recalls are considered one subset of a range of introspective methods it was possible to elicit data from participants about their thought processes in-volved in carrying out a task or activity (Gass & Mackey, 2000). Nunan (1992) mentions stimulated recalls can yield insights into processes of eliciting participants’ comments about the options considered, decisions made and actions taken about a particular issue which would be difficult to obtain by other means. Therefore, through stimulated re-calls participants were able to comment about their evalu-ation practices, and the base of their decisions made.

Stimulated recall is carried out with some degree of support, for example, showing a video tape to learners (Nunan, 1992). In this case, each professor was asked to select a highly-scored and averagely-scored final project they had already graded. Once professors selected the texts, some of them sent them via E-mail. I took the texts they sent me to the stimulated recall with each professor because I wanted them to talk about their evaluation pro-cesses and expectations of students papers. The purpose of this dynamic was to help them recall their process look-ing at the texts asking them as few questions as possible. First, I asked them why they had chosen the highly-scored assignment. Based on their own answers, I asked them to expand or explain. The same procedure was followed with the averagely scored assignments. Finally, I asked them about an experience which has affected or shaped how they evaluated students’ assignments.

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Data analysis proceduresStimulated recall data were organized and prepared

for analysis. This involved a transcription of all the data. The transcriptions were treated as “a window into human expe-rience” (Ryan & Bernard, 2003, p. 259). Moreover, the tran-scriptions were seen as a whole because it was intended to obtain a general sense of the information and to reflect on its overall meaning (Creswell, 2009). As Cohen et al point out (2007, p. 369) “the whole is greater than the sum of the parts.” Thus, texts were explored as a whole to obtain a gen-eral sense of data.

In the process of exploring the data, I listened to the recordings and read the transcripts several times in order to find information relevant to the research questions (Hycner, 1985 cited in Cohen et al., 2007). During this process a de-tailed analysis was carried out with a coding process. Coding according to Silverman (2005) is putting data into theoreti-cally defined categories in order to analyze it. Dey (1993, pp. 96-97) states that “categories must have two aspects, an in-ternal aspect – they must be meaningful in relation to the data – and an external aspect – they must be meaningful in relation to the other categories.” While coding and cat-egorizing, different colors were used to identify the different categories found in the texts. Memos and notes were writ-ten which described the concepts discovered, and theory observations, in which I, as researcher, tried to summarize my ideas about what was going on in the text (Ryan & Ber-nard, 2003, p. 280). In other words, this procedure helped me to identify key concepts of the emerging patterns and themes (Brenner at el. 1985 cited in Cohen et al. 2007).

Then, some classification procedures were followed to develop some generalizations about the cases. A categori-cal aggregation (a collection of instances) was carried out to establish some patterns of correspondence between two or more categories (Creswell, 1998). The categories that emerged during this process are presented in the table below.

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Table 1 – Data analysis categories

Participants’ perception regarding academic writing

Participants’ evaluation criteria to evaluate academic writing

Characteristics of good papers (students, interest in the writing process, a well written introduction, good-organization among others)

Characteristics of average papers (lack of students interest in the writing process among others)

The role of rubrics in professors’ evaluative practices

Writing evaluation criteria construction (evolving from previous experiences highly linked to academic background and profes-sional growth

Finally, a direct interpretation was carried out in or-der to make sense of the data (Cohen et al. 2007). Naturalis-tic generalizations were developed and presented (Creswell, 1998).

Findings The present research was a case study that recount-ed the experiences of five professors in an ELT graduate program so no generalizations are expected to be done, just contributions to the area of writing evaluation in graduate contexts. The main objectives of this study were to identify the characteristics professors value and penalize in gradu-ate students’ assignments in an ELT graduate program, and to identify the experiences these professors reported influ-enced and shaped their evaluation criteria.

RQ 1.-What do these academics report they value and penalize in graduate students’ assignments?

The answer to this research question is divided in three parts. First, professors defined what writing is for them. Second, they commented about their evaluation cri-teria. Finally, three of them talked about the role of rubrics when grading papers. According to them these three aspects are related in their evaluation processes.

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Firstly, the results in this study indicated most par-ticipants, in this setting, perceived writing as a complex process especially for foreign language learners in higher ed-ucation. They showed awareness of the difficulties Mexican writers had in their writing practices in English at a graduate level so this explained to some extent their standpoints to-wards students’ writing. Furthermore, most of them viewed writing in a foreign language as a process which might be best learnt through “cognitive apprenticeship training pro-grams but emphasizing on deliberate practice” (Kellogg, 2008, p. 2).

Moreover, most of them also considered writing as a social and context dependent practice. They overtly ex-pressed that there is no unique way to write but there are many which vary from context to context and writing is undoubtedly socially affected. As Bazerman (1988) points there are aspects that can affect a text such as formal defini-tions, expected features, institutional forces because writing is a social action and the impact and understanding of a text varies through time, place, and situation. At least three par-ticipants considered writing in this context cannot be seen as a genre or text type that must be slavishly followed, but rather, students must understand and rethink the rhetorical choices embedded in each generic habit to master the genre or required text type (Bazerman, 1988).

In addition, although all of the participants af-firmed writing has a communicative purpose most of them focused mainly on students’ writing in the program for their different subjects. Only two of them emphasized graduate students should be aware of the audience they are address-ing if they want to become members of the ELT discourse community.

Secondly, regarding professors current evaluation practices, this study indicated good academic writing for these particular faculty members was the one that fulfilled their requirements and expectations. It is important to high-light that expectations are beliefs or hypotheses about peo-

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ple, objects, events, and situations (Olson, Roese & Zanna 1996). The expectations of these community members were connected to their personal writing perceptions, as men-tioned before, to their previous teaching experiences and to the social and context conventions of this particular setting. Although the expectations were personal and tended to vary from person to person, a certain consensus regarding pro-fessors’ expectations towards good texts was identified. This conclusion can be drawn on the grounds that from a total of five participants three of them selected a different essay from three different courses written by the same student. Hence, in spite of their different experiences, evaluation be-liefs and expectations, they seemed to share up to a certain point similar writing conventions regarding good academic papers. These conventions encompassed aspects such as: students’ progress in their learning process, fulfilling profes-sors’ requirements, listening to their comments and advice during their writing processes, understanding their rules and expectations. Besides, they considered a good text had face validity, contained a clear and well written introduc-tion, used the literature to construct their arguments, and had few grammatical problems which did not obstruct the understanding the text. Furthermore, regarding professors’ evaluation practices, this study detected that these profes-sors tended to grade based on the degree of individual im-provement rather than on accomplishment of uniform goals.

On the other hand, this study also revealed the as-pects professors penalized in texts were related to lack of students’ awareness of professors’ expectations. Moreover, most professors considered students who did not perceive writing as a dialogue and were not aware of the existence of audience had more difficulty to succeed in their writing prac-tices. Participants in this study affirmed students sometimes were careless and did not seem to understand “the rules of the game” (Carlino, 2004b). This created a conflict between what these professors expected and what writers produced. Many of these participants seemed to think that an average

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text was often more the result of students’ lack of interest towards their own writing than a lack of competence. This study also identified that one of the reasons that professors reported for grading a paper as average was students’ resis-tance to incorporate their feedback. This lack of interest to improve their texts amplified the texts’ deficiencies in as-pects in which the most predominant were related to face validity, linguistic, coherence and cohesion problems. How-ever, students in a similar context have argued that profes-sors did not specify the assignments’ requirements clearly, and as a consequence they could not fulfill their professors’ expectations (Aguilar, 2010).

Finally, three professors mentioned the role of ru-brics in their evaluation practices. Although the professors in this study agreed rubrics were useful tools to delimit the range of issues to be addressed in making grading decisions explicit and showing what and how the teacher values in a particular piece of writing (Hyland, 2003), they thought they were time consuming. Moreover, they highlighted that a graduate program evaluation cannot be completely based on a fixed set of categories or a limited range of issues to be addressed, but evaluation is a personal act that involves de-cisions based on personal beliefs, experiences, and specific situations.

RQ 2 - What experiences do these professors report influenced and shaped their evaluation criteria?

Professors’ evaluation practices as explored in this study are heavily influenced by personal beliefs, teaching experiences; teaching contexts and professional develop-ment. Then, their evaluation criteria was not a fixed set of categories they learnt at some point of their life, but is an ongoing process in which they construct their criteria based on what they live, read, argue with others, learn from others and from themselves. T1: ... I lived any experience that marked the way I evaluate, I think, I think yeah there is an event when I was in my Ph.D. because in my Ph.D. I read about academic writing and then

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I became aware of the complexities and difficulties involved yeah!!! I read about citation practices and academic register and genre and so on and so far. Then I became aware of all these implicit issues so when I started teaching not so much in the past generation but in the last generation I realized how difficult it is to write in the second language and… So we think language is just a means to communicate something but we don’t see it as a craft that we have to learn and I think we need these moments that make us aware of the complexi-ties in order to be aware yeah!! To be aware of why one essay is probably better than the other and how it might be evalu-ated. (T1/L167)

This, most considered, constructing their evaluat-ing criteria is a continuous process and probably what they value today will be shaped differently tomorrow depend-ing on their experiences. This study also revealed that some participants have modified their criteria due to social and contextual factors because they became aware of the diffi-culties non-native English speakers present when writing in English. However, for two professors being tolerant did not necessarily mean becoming less demanding. Some stated that they considered themselves gatekeepers who evaluate both linguistic and rhetorical patterns in a text which are ac-ceptable to this specific context, the ELT graduate program.

Implications of the study To conclude, professors have a clear idea of what they

expect from MA students writing. They are conscious that they belong to a discourse community and that the students at this level are not writing for the professors, but they ex-pect students to know how to write according to the conven-tions of that discourse community. They consider themselves just as gatekeepers. Most of the participants mentioned that when assigning a grade they valued more students interest and progress in the writing process that the paper itself. It means a paper could be excellent but if the professor con-sidered that that the student could have done a better job

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the professor could tend to penalize such situation provid-ing a lower grade. On the other hand, if the paper is not the best writing but the students shows a significant improve-ment in the writing process, professors tended to praise with a higher grade. Other aspects were mentioned such as: texts face validity, introduction and organization, audience aware-ness and text purpose, grammatical issues, and complying with instructions and feedback. Second. Although rewriting is not a common practice in Latin America, professors in this program are using it. They are starting to work more on the process rather than the product. Professors provide feedback in order to guide students to improve their writing. Third, writing evaluation is a personal act. It depends on what pro-fessors believe, have learnt and value. And it is influenced by past academic experiences, research interests, and reflec-tive teaching practices. Fourth, even though rubrics could be a solution to let students know what it is expected from their writings, professors reported that rubrics were not fixed when grading, they were very useful when assigning a grade but not in this context due to the over population in the class-room but they could serve to provide a defensible position in case students challenged her/his evaluations.

Moreover, Literacy at a graduate level is undoubt-edly acquiring an increasingly important role for both stu-dents and professors. In Latin America, writing is becoming a fundamental practice in educational settings especially in graduate programs where generally students are evaluated based on their texts. However, writing has also been found to be a complex process and its complexity increases when it is in another language. In the context of this study where Mexican students were enrolled in a graduate English pro-gram, writing was particularly challenging because they had to meet the requirements of a specific discourse community in a language in most cases they had learned as a foreign lan-guage. Hence, two final comments emerged from this study related to students and professors.

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Regarding students’ situations, there was a need to guide students in the development of the competences re-quired to enhance their writing practices. It does not follow from the fact that students in this MA program are highly proficient in oral English that they have mastered the writ-ing conventions expected from them at a graduate program (Grabe & Kapplan, 1996 cited in Camps 1999). Students need to be aware of the different genres they are expected to master. In addition, students in this graduate program were teachers who were currently teaching and they could use this awareness with their own students.

As for professors, it would be a desirable practice to establish their writing expectations clearly and the as-pects they evaluate in a texts to avoid confusion in the pro-cess of grading assignments. Furthermore, telling students how much they value their effort and improvement in their writing practices could make students reflect and improve their writing. Professors could enhance students’ awareness about the importance of meeting not only their conventions but the conventions of the community they wanted to enter.

To sum up, according to this study writing was far from being a simple way of recording symbols. In this study, it was related to processes and practices where rewriting was highly valued. Most professors to different extents had in mind the objective of guiding students to become members of a wider community discourse. As Bazerman pointed out “writing is social action and regularized forms of writing are social institutions interacting with other social institu-tions” (1988, p.22). Finally, it seemed that professors’ evalu-ation practices sometimes overtly and others implicitly were focused on raising students’ awareness that they were not working in isolation but belonged to a wider community and thus, there were writing conventions and standards to be attained.

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Appendix A: Course program

BENEMERITA UNIVERSIDAD AUTONOMA DE PUEBLA

COURSE-OUTLINE:

DISCOURSE, GENRE, AND CORPORA: ANALYSES AND PRACTICE

Spring Term 2007

Please note: This course-outline gives a general overview of the course contents which will, however, be modified based

on students’ needs and interests.

GENERAL OBJECTIVES AND CONTENT OF THE COURSE:

The goal of this course is to introduce students to different theoretical perspectives on the notion of context and its re-lation to foreign language teaching and learning.

The work in this course should thus enable learners to:• Examine different definitions of the term context

with particular reference to studies in language education and explore different perspectives on researching the contexts of language teaching and learning;

• Understand the concept of discourse, in particular the relationships between discourse practices in the foreign language classroom and the institutional and political context;

• Become familiar with approaches to the analysis of writing and reading specialized texts, in particular the concept of genre;

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• Evaluate issues concerning disciplinary variation within and across genres;

• Understand the role, importance, possible applica-tions and limitations of corpora research in the field of Applied Linguistics;

• Understand relationships between research, theory and practice.

• Identify researchable issues within the study of text and discourse in language educational practice.

OUTLINE OF COURSE CONTENT AND CONCOMITANT BIBLIOGRAPHICAL REFERENCES

1. Discourse in Context: How do institutional and educational-political contexts influence what we do and say in our language classrooms?

2. Discourse in Context: Theoretical views on how contexts influence discursive practices.

3. Genres: Different theoretical approaches to the no-tion of genre

4. The genre approach to teaching (including: the role of corpora research)

5. Analysis of a specific genre: academic writing6. A political view: genres and social change

EVALUATION CRITERIAYou will be expected to attend all class meetings (you need a minimum of 80% assistance to pass the class), to do the readings thoroughly before each class meeting and to be prepared for class discussion.

o Participation and assistance 20%o Presentation 30%o Final project (essay) 50%

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While all students should do the reading, each student will present 1 article from the reading list throughout the term (each presentation between 10-15 minutes). This extensive reading and presentation practice will in turn support the development of a final term paper. Apart from the length (between 7 and 10 pages), the essay can take several forms. You can

1. discuss articles and books from the reading list (and additional ones) critically (7-10 pages, includ-ing for instance a summary of the development of the field and its branches, main questions asked, main authors, positive contributions to the teach-ing of foreign languages, gaps in the research etc.);

2. analyze aspects of your own teaching practices/ institutional context in the light of the theoretical frameworks discussed;

3. present one approach to genre teaching and design a teaching unit accordingly.

Other topics are possible. Please come forward and tell me your ideas.

51

Appendix B: Analysis of professors’ stimulated recall T1

1 Hello!!! Firstly, I would like you to tell me why do you consider this as a good paper and this one an average paper?

2 Well, there are several issues, I mean it already starts at the title yeah!

3 so the title is pretty clear, awareness of the issues in-volved in the writing of

4 an argumentative essay, so there is a clear indication of what this essay is

5 Going to argue, what the au-thor wants to do, and then in the introduction

According to the teacher a good text contains a well structured intro-duction firstly

6 Section she wrote very clearly what she wants to do in the es-say, so this is a

7 Very good orientation for what is coming and then she follows what she says in the

8 introduction and step by step, so there is coherence in this es-say yeah!!!. She doesn’t

The second charac-teristic of a good es-say is that the writer follows what she mentions in the in-troduction

9 Say things she doesn’t do, she only says things she would do and she does then yeah!!!.

52

10 This is one thing, this is a would say, these are formal is-sues that help the readers to

11 Orient him or herself in the essay because it is really well structured. The other point is

12 That wherever the this author says makes sense. It is coher-ent, this is not only at the

13 Level of the argument and on the level of content but also on the linguistic level. So the

14 phrases are connected, by, well, connectors which make sense. Maybe in the other essay

The teacher values three levels of a well structured text: the level of the argu-ment, content level and the linguistic level

15 Which is not so good you will see that the connectors are not so good, so you do not

16 Know where the argument is. She says for instance, this au-thor has this opinion, the

17 Other author has that opinion, and you see how she discusses both authors and this is

18 Missing in the other essay. So this is one point that it is really well written linguistically

53

19 And there is also logic and co-herence. And the other thing is that she really engage in

20 The literature in quite a lot of literature but not in a superfi-cial way but she discusses

The teacher values the way the writer discuss in a reflec-tive way the infor-mation she brings into the text.

21 What one author says, in the context of other opinions, oth-er perspectives so what, you

22 Get the feeling that this per-son really understood what she read and for instance that she

23 . She can present it in a fairly, un-judgmental way, but

24 Through presenting and com-paring these authors she brings out her own argument. you

I the good text there is evidence of the student’s own voice

25 Can see what she favors, and the way she employs these au-thors and these other texts

26

Is really well done linguistically as well as in terms of content. So she does not jump

27 from one idea to the other. It has then an argument ...that is basically why I thought

28

This is an excellent essay. Well, it is quite an art to be able to write an essay in this way

54

29 And to have read the literature and studied it, so it was well a ten.

30 ...and when you say this is a good essay according to the linguistic aspect what do you really mean? What aspects?

31 First of all, well, it is grammati-cally correct, so you have one subject in one sentence

32

33

The verb is conjugated in the right way, and you have logical relations between the

At the linguistic level the teacher re-fers to the fact that there are complete sentences, the sen-tences are ordered in a logical way. The paragraphs are well structured

34 Sentences like: because, in op-position to, therefore, then and so on and so forth. So it is on a

35 Sentence level it is well writ-ten. In paragraph level it is well written because the paragraphs represent

36 Units of argument and then also on the discursive level it’s very well written, by which I mean the

The text fulfill the teacher’s expecta-tions

55

37 Whole text is structured in a way that is common or what is expected from essays. She has an intro-

38 -duction, and she gives the lit-erature review, she discusses it and she gives her conclusions. So on

39 All these three linguistic levels it is just simple good.

40 ..and what about the other one? This is not a very good one right?

41 Exactly!!! The point is... this person is basically lacking all the abilities the other person has. For

In the average text the writer shows a lack of abilities to write

56

57

Exploring the effect of an ELT MA program on teachers’ professional development

in Mexico

Leonel Ojeda Ruiz &Fátima Encinas Prudencio

58

59

Exploring the effect of an ELT MA program on teachers’ professional development in MexicoLeonel Ojeda Ruiz & Fátima Encinas Prudencio

AbstractTeacher professional development has been studied from different perspectives; however, these perspectives have not addressed the effect of an English Language Teach-ing (ELT) master’s program in Mexican English teachers’ professional development. This study aimed to explore five teachers’ professional development during and after an ELT master’s program. In order to achieve this aim, a case study approach was carried out using two different sources of data collection: the participants’ CVs and in-depth interviews. The results suggest that the participants’ professional de-velopment took place mainly after the master’s program. These results yielded different categories of development: 1) self-awareness, 2) flexibility and openness to new ideas, 3) decision-making processes, 4) networking and 5) author-ing. The authoring of conference presentations and publi-cations also emerged as one of the significant features that illustrated the participants’ development. These results may be helpful for a follow-up project which investigates teachers’ developmental stages and their identities.

Key words: Professional development, Master’s program, EFL Mexican context.

ResumenEl desarrollo profesional del docente has sido estudiado des-de diferentes perspectivas; sin embargo, estas perspectivas no se han dirigido al efecto de un programa de Maestría en la Enseñanza del Inglés en el desarrollo profesional de maes-

60

tros de Inglés en México. Este estudio se enfocó a explorar el desarrollo profesional de cinco maestros durante y después de un programa de Maestría en la Enseñanza del Inglés. Para alcanzar este objetivo, se llevo a cabo un estudio de caso usando dos fuentes diferentes de recolección de datos: los CV’s de los participantes y entrevistas a fondo. Los re-sultados sugieren que el desarrollo de los participantes tuvo lugar principalmente después del programa de maestría. Los resultados arrojaron diferentes categorías de desarrollo: 1) auto-conciencia, 2) flexibilidad y apertura a nuevas ideas, 3) proceso de toma de decisiones, 4) conexiones y 5) autoría. Las presentaciones en conferencias y publicaciones también surgieron como una de las características significativas que ilustraron el desarrollo de los participantes. Estos resultados pueden ser útiles para un proyecto de seguimiento que in-vestigue las etapas de desarrollo de los docentes y sus iden-tidades.

Palabras Claves: Desarrollo Profesional, Programa de Maestría, Contexto Mexicano.

61

Introduction

Teachers’ professional development has been stud-ied from different perspectives, including reflec-tive teaching (Bartlett, 1990; Richards & Lockhart,

1996; Wallace, 1991; Zeichner & Liston, 1996), teachers’ use of language diaries (Bailey, 1990; Jarvis, 1996), teach-ers’ collaborative practice (Bailey, Curtis & Nunan, 1998; Edge, 1992; Johnston, 2009) and teachers’ own classrooms (Allwright & Bailey, 1991; Burns, 1999; Nunan, 1989, 1990). However, there are very few studies focusing on teachers’ development during and after an MA program. The EFL context at the master’s level (Wichadee, 2011) seems to be unexplored. For this reason, this particular study focused on the professional development of five English teachers who completed an ELT MA program in central Mexico. For this reason, this study addressed the following research question:

• What did the participants indicate in their CVs and express in their interviews that might give evidence of professional development experienced during and after their MA program?

Theoretical frameworkTeachers’ professional development

Professional development has been understood and defined in different ways depending on the author’s theo-retical perspective. For instance, Lange (1990) states that teacher development is “a process of continual intellectual, experiential, and attitudinal growth of teachers, some of which is generated in pre-professional and professional in-service programs” (p. 4). In a similar fashion, Borko and Putnam (1995) emphasize that “professional development should provide opportunities for teachers to construct knowledge of subject matter and pedagogy [my stress] in an

62

environment that supports and encourages risk taking and reflection” (p. 59). These definitions focus mainly on the individual, cognitive component of professional develop-ment.

Day (1999) provides a definition which incorporates a more social, collaborative component:

“Professional development consists of all natural learning experiences and those con-scious [my stress] and planned activities which are intended to be of direct or indi-rect benefit to the individual, group or school and which contribute, through these, to the quality of education in the classroom. It is the process by which, alone and with oth-ers [my stress], teachers review, renew and extend their commitment as change agents to the moral purposes of teaching; and by which they acquire and develop critically the knowl-edge, skills and emotional intelligence essen-tial to good professional thinking, planning and practice with children, young people and colleagues through each phase of their teach-ing lives” (p. 4).

Day’s (1999) definition not only encompasses all the elements given in Lange’s and Borko and Putnam’s defini-tions, but also includes learners, colleagues and the school, as important elements in teachers’ professional develop-ment.

Emphasizing the social component of development, Musanti & Pence (2010) state that “professional develop-ment needs to be conceived as a collaborative enterprise, where a space for learning through mutual exchange, dia-logue, and constant challenge is created” (p. 87). Likewise,

63

Johnston (2009) uses the concept of collaborative teacher development to refer to “any sustained and systematic in-vestigation into teaching and learning in which a teacher voluntarily collaborates with others involved in the teach-ing process” (p. 242). Here teachers’ professional develop-ment is also understood as a social process where teachers not only interact but also collaborate with each other and attempt to solve problems together in order to better un-derstand their specific teaching contexts.

From the previous definitions, it is possible to realize that teachers’ professional development unfolds in two im-portant intertwined components: a cognitive component, where he/she acquires knowledge, skills and values; and a social, collaborative component, where he/she interacts with other teachers and learners who are also part of his or her teaching practice, and these interactions can promote teacher’s development. The emphasis the different authors give to each component reflects their philosophies regard-ing professional development. The definitions provided above are helpful in understanding the complexity of pro-fessional development.

Teachers’ development: Reflective practice and situ-ated learning

According to Dewey (in Zeichner and Liston, 1996), “the process of reflection for teachers begins when they ex-perience a difficulty, troublesome event, or experience that cannot be immediately resolved” (p. 8). For instance, nov-ice teachers can learn –by reflecting by themselves or with others– to recognize their strengths and weaknesses when they face a problem in their workplace. Reflecting on what is going on in the classroom (such as possible causes of the problem, different actions that could have been taken, and the like) may be helpful in understanding and, con-sequently, solving some of the problems teachers encoun-

64

ter in their practice. An example of the use of reflection in teachers’ practice is illustrated by Jarvis (1996) when she used learning diaries in training courses “to provide an op-portunity [for teachers] to reflect on their teaching” (p. 151). In her study, she concludes that those teachers who suc-ceed in reflecting on practice reveal a heightened sense of their own responsibility for their learning and for changing their teaching. Wallace (1998) highlights this idea by com-menting that “it is natural, and appropriate, for teachers to develop their expertise by reflecting on their practice” (p. 17). This illustrates the individual, cognitive component of professional development.

In order to understand the social, collaborative com-ponent of professional development, it is necessary to highlight that teachers belong to a small circle of colleagues who collaborate together in order to achieve an end. This group may be referred to as a community of practice (Lave & Wenger, 1991). “Communities of practice are groups of people who share a concern, a set of problems, or a pas-sion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” (Wenger, McDermott & Snyder, 2002, p. 4). Wenger (1998) comments that “we all belong to communities of practice. At home, at work, at school, in our hobbies… and the com-munities of practice to which we belong change over the course of our lives. In fact, communities of practice are ev-erywhere” (p. 6). In short, communities of practice entail collaborative work.

As members of a particular community of practice, teachers may participate in other activities and they may learn from their participation with more experienced col-leagues. This kind of participation in other activities is referred to as legitimate peripheral participation (Lave & Wenger, 1991), where “[teachers] inevitably participate in communities of practitioners and the mastery of knowl-edge and skills requires [them] to move toward full par-

65

ticipation in the sociocultural practices of a community”. In this sense, the knowledge that teachers acquire and the skills they develop are the direct result of the interactions with other practitioners in their specific contexts where they are situated.

It is now possible to understand the individual and the social components of professional development through reflective practice and situated learning. On the one hand, teachers’ individual professional development may take place as they reflect on their actions in their prac-tice; on the other hand, teachers’ collaborative professional development is promoted as they interact with other mem-bers of their community –novice and expert– while being “active participants in the practices of social communities and [constructing] identities in relation to these commu-nities” (Wenger, 1998, p. 4).

MethodologyA case study approach was adopted in this particu-

lar project. According to Creswell (2007), a case study “in-volves the study of an issue explored through one or more cases within a bounded system” (p. 73). This study may be classified as a collective case study (Stake, 2003) in which “a number of cases are studied in order to investigate some general phenomenon” (Silverman, 2005). The purpose of this study was to investigate the professional development (the issue) that five EFL teachers (the number of cases) achieved during and after studying an MA program in Eng-lish Language Teaching (the bounded system). Ary, Jacobs, and Razavieh (2002) state that “the greater advantage of a case study is the possibility of depth” (p. 441). In words of Gall, Gall, & Borg (2005), it “provide[s] a thick descrip-tion [original bold] of the phenomenon” (p. 306) under study. In this particular study, a convenience sample (Gall, Gall, & Borg, 2005) of five participants was used.

66

SubjectsThe subjects for this investigation were five English

teachers who finished an MA program offered by a faculty of languages in Central Mexico. This program was found-ed in 2005 and is offered every other year. At the time this study was conducted, two generations (2005-2007 and 2007-2009) had already finished the MA program, each made up of twenty-three students. The third generation (2009-2011) has recently finished the program and it was made up of twenty-three teachers. The five participants in this study were three female teachers and two male teach-ers. Due to availability issues, four participants belonged to the first generation and one participant to the second generation of the program. At the time of the study their ages ranged from thirty-one to forty years old, with ten to twenty years of experience.

As part of their academic background, all the par-ticipants have a BA and MA in ELT from the Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla; in addition, they have also taken extra courses and certifications. As part of their teaching background, the participants are all proficient language teachers who have worked in different private and public schools with different language levels, from kinder-garten to university students. Moreover, all of them work in different departments at the BUAP such as Common Core English Courses, Social Outreach English Courses, the BA program, the Open BA program, The Department of Continuing Education and the self-access center.

The following table summarizes the information about the participants of this project.

67

Part

icip

ants

’ aca

dem

ic a

nd te

achi

ng b

ackg

roun

d

Part

icip

ant

Gen

der

Gen

erat

ion

Year

s of

ex

peri

ence

Type

of

inst

itut

ion

Stud

ies

Curr

ent d

epar

tmen

t at

BU

AP

P1

Mal

e20

05-2

007

10 y

ears

Publ

ic a

nd

priv

ate

BA a

nd M

A in

EL

TEd

ucac

ión

Con

tinu

a, B

A

prog

ram

P2

Mal

e20

05-2

007

10 y

ears

Publ

ic a

nd

priv

ate

BA a

nd M

A in

EL

TEd

ucac

ión

Con

tinu

a, O

pen

BA p

rogr

am

P3

Fem

ale

2007

-200

910

yea

rsPr

ivat

e an

d pu

blic

BA a

nd M

A in

EL

TTr

onco

Com

ún U

nive

rsit

a-ri

o, B

A p

rogr

am

P4

Fem

ale

2005

-200

712

yea

rsPr

ivat

e an

d pu

blic

BA a

nd M

A in

EL

TTr

onco

Com

ún U

nive

rsit

a-ri

o, E

duca

cion

Con

tinu

a

P5

Fem

ale

2005

-200

720

yea

rsPu

blic

and

pr

ivat

eBA

and

MA

in

ELT

Educ

ació

n C

onti

nua,

se

lf-ac

cess

cen

ter.

Tabl

e 1.

1 Par

tici

pant

s’ te

achi

ng a

nd a

cade

mic

bac

kgro

und

68

InstrumentsTwo different instruments were used to collect the

information for this project. The first instrument was their CVs and the second was in-depth interviews. With these instruments, it was possible to triangulate the data collec-tion procedure.

Data Collection ProceduresThe CVs (see Appendix A) were collected and ana-

lyzed in order to obtain evidence of personal/professional development taking into account the process and the end of the MA program as a starting point. Due to the fact that more evidence was required in terms of the participants’ development, it was necessary to ask the participants more direct questions that could help to answer the research questions of this project. For this reason, the participants were then interviewed. With these interviews (see Appendix B), a lot of qualitative data were gathered and analyzed. The interviews took place in the participants’ workplace. The recording of the interviews ranged from 30 to 40 minutes. These interviews were later transcribed for further analysis in order to achieve the aims of this study. Several categories emerged from the analysis; these categories provided evi-dence of personal/professional development that the par-ticipants had experienced during and after the MA program.

Data Analysis ProceduresThe information in the interviews was analyzed in

order to find some similarities in the personal/professional development the participants had experienced. The aim was to identify categories that might give evidence of de-velopment, providing valuable insight into the nature of the participants’ professional development. The CVs were also analyzed looking for evidence of development. The information was highlighted and used as evidence of the categories that were previously identified. The CVs illumi-nated one of the categories (authoring) found in the analy-

69

sis and expanded the information that the participants expressed in their interviews, contributing significantly to the study.

FindingsThe analysis of the data revealed evidence of develop-

ment experienced during and after the MA program by all the participants in this study. Different categories emerged from an extensive analysis of the interviews regarding the participants’ professional development. Such categories were a) self- awareness, b) flexibility and openness to new ideas, c) decision-making process, d) networking and e) authoring.

The first category that gives evidence of professional development after the MA program has to do with self-awareness. Participants 2, 3, and 5 talk about self-aware-ness in their development. The following extract exemplifies participant 2’s self-awareness when he comments that:

I do have plans, but I haven’t done anything, be-cause of the circumstances, because of laziness, because of whatever it could be, but then you are aware of your own, you are aware of your own lacks, or your own, you’re aware of the fact that you are not growing up, I would say that’s good, at least to notice that. (P2)

Participant 3 expresses self-awareness of her own de-velopment with this comment:

I see myself as a very different person not only academically but also personally, I feel like a dif-ferent person, I feel like I have become, maybe if you see it like in a ladder, I feel like maybe I was like in the second step and after the MA I am in the fourth maybe, no?... I think I’m in the fourth or I don’t know. I don’t think if it was only one step, it was more, it was more not only because I

70

was, I started teaching here, but also because eh I started investigating and also because I have had contact with other researchers, and other people, meeting new people for example in those con-gresses has been very inspiring, you know? (P3)

Also, participant 5 expresses her self-awareness with the following extract:

I think that the things that I discovered about teaching, I really love that area, I like to learn and learn about it, and all the things that I learned while I was reading and looking for the information, well, was really useful for me, no? And realizing that, for example, realizing that there are so many areas to research, it is like when I was taking these courses that I was tell-ing you it was like my view was narrow but then with this it was different, no? I saw a different, a different view, I saw a different thing. (P5)

Another category that emerged was flexibility and openness to new ideas. Three participants expressed how they perceived themselves as flexible professionals who are open to new ideas after the MA program. Participant 1 ex-pressed it in the following lines:

I was like the kind of person that was really confident about what he knew, but then I dis-covered lots of things and like I said I was in my inner circle, and then I, my inner circle ex-panded and I was able to see more things that were happening around, and so I also grew as a person, because I became more responsible, I think (laughs) and also more open to new ideas, or different ideas, or points of view, the thing that’s very important if you want to be part

71

of an MA program, and also I learned to work with different kinds of people that I didn’t use to work with. (P1)

Participant 2 mentions something important for him. He explicitly mentions that:

…studying an MA opens, opens uh, opens your mind, broadens your way of thinking and then you start seeing your activities in a different way because of the knowledge you are acquir-ing. (P2)

The last participant to mention flexibility and open-ness to new ideas was participant 3. She expressed that:

… sometimes you get married with some ideas and this is like this, no? For example in investi-gation, this is like this, and this, but no. If you’re reading, you’re going to realize that it’s not the only thing, no? This is a perspective but there are others, no? so yes that also impacts in my life, no? my personal life, I am not married to one idea, you know, I think now that there are more, so maybe I was kind of flexible but I now I think I am more flexible… I’m more open. (P3)

Evidence of professional development is appreciated as a decision-making practice in the participants’ profes-sion. Two participants made very important decisions in their practice which reflected the development they had achieved. Participant 1 stated the following remark:

…in the specific case I told you, this course, that was a perfect course, in my opinion the Evalua-tion course I gave, but after learning something new or at least after opening my eyes I realized

72

that I had to do something, and that is part of professional development, that very specific decision was part of my professional develop-ment. (P1)

Participant 2 made another important decision. His comment shows that it was a good decision for him, al-though it was not for others.

I was working at another private school and the pay was really good, and sometimes my wife complained, ‘why did you quit the job?’, and I tell her ‘it’s because I wouldn’t grow up there ei-ther’, professionally talking, right? And uh, well after the years you see that the choices have been the appropriate at least in terms of grow-ing up professionally. (P2)

Another category that gives evidence of the partici-pants’ professional development is networking. In this category, participants 1 and 3 expressed a similar opinion regarding their connections with other people after the MA program. Participant 1 mentioned the following:

…also to build up more connections… we’ve been able to meet people that without the mas-ter’s, you know, it would have been very compli-cated. (P1)

Participant 3 created more connections with other coworkers. She expresses the following fact about her con-nections:

In my case I started having more friends, you know, having more eh coworkers to work with, eh even you know, going out with your eh co-workers, which it was a thing that I didn’t have before. (P3)

73

Of similar importance is the fact that the develop-ment was reflected in the authoring category. This category had to do with the participants being immersed in any kind of qualitative research and being authors of their own pa-pers, presenting them in congresses or publishing books. Participants 1, 3, 4, and 5 talked about their authoring pro-cess. The following extract provides evidence of the author-ing category for participant 1. He mentions that:

We’ve been able to implement programs here in the Facultad… we’ve been doing workshops and presentations… we’ve been doing small re-search projects… we’re going to present a small research in the MEXTESOL this year… and we might present something for the FEULE, too. (P1)

Participant 3 mentions some experiences regarding the authoring category. She expressed that:

…after the MA, I saw that I liked investigating; the process of writing the thesis also gave me that, I knew I like…, I confirmed that I liked investigating, and not only that I liked it but I was good at it… I went to London, it was a con-ference, my thesis project was contributing to my director’s project. She was doing a project too, so my project was contributing to hers, and that’s why I got the scholarship and that extra money helped me go to London and present with her, so that was one of the best experiences I, I ever had… and after that eh some national ones came, I presented in Aguascalientes too, also in Queretaro, and then this year I pre-sented in here in Puebla, it was a local one, so, and now I’m doing another project… and also the publication of a book, you know, a group

74

that collaborated, so there were some universi-ties that participated in this book, and I wrote a chapter in this book so it was, it was also a very nice experience, you know, like having the book and seeing your name there, and it’s like ‘Oh my God, I could do it’. (P3)

Participant 4 mentioned the following important fact for her:

I feel [the MA] has given me some authority… a little before the MA or while I was doing the MA program, I was looking for actually looking for chances to do presentations, to write in journals, and to participate in curricular changes and so on, so I was looking for the chances, I simply didn’t have enough credentials, enough official things that support my work, and say ‘this is who I am’, I was also aware that I needed to prove that I was up to the challenge because I was, but people need credentials, that’s a fact, we all need people to show us documents that can support that. (P4)

Finally, participant 5 mentions her participation in a publication, which also reflects the authoring category. She commented the following:

I have had the opportunity to participate in some congress and to publish, almost, an article but I would like to do more with that… we are present-ing a project about autonomous learning, about independent learning, so somehow I’m also very involved in that, and for example for me, it is very satisfactory, it is a satisfaction that when I, when I’m writing something I have the idea, and probably there are some partners that don’t know what to do, so for example, in that case, I

75

have now that experience, I know how to do it, and I know that I have the capacity to uh prob-ably to publish something else one day, right? I mean I understand this kind of language and it makes me feel good with myself. (P5)

The following table summarizes the different catego-ries that emerged as evidence of professional development experienced by the participants during and after the MA program. This information was yielded from the interviews carried out with the participants.

76

Part

icip

ants

Cat

egor

ies

of D

evel

opm

ent

(Sel

f-) a

war

enes

sFl

exib

ilit

y /

open

ness

to

new

idea

s

Dec

isio

n-m

akin

g pr

oces

sN

etw

orki

ngau

thor

ing

P1√

√√

√

P2√

√√

P3√

√√

√

P4√

P5√

√

Tabl

e 1.

2 Ev

iden

ce o

f pro

fess

iona

l dev

elop

men

t du

ring

and

aft

er th

e M

A

77

Table 1.2 shows how different participants fit in sev-eral categories. The participants were aware of their con-texts (implied in Day, 1999), which lead them to be flexible to make informed decisions (Brookfield, 1995). As they shared their concerns, they created new relationships or networks (Smith, 2005; Beck & Kosnik, 2006; Musanti & Pence, 2010) to start doing research in their own contexts (Allwright & Bailey, 1991; Allwright, 1993), turning into authors of their own projects which can be presented in national or international congresses and can also be pub-lished. Although this does not necessarily suggest a de-velopmental sequence, it represents a multidimensional process in the sense that these categories emerged ran-domly depending on each participant’s developmental process. This gives evidence of the nature of the partici-pants’ professional development.

The participants’ CVs offered additional relevant data that was crucial to give evidence of the participants’ development during and after the MA program, especial-ly in the authoring category. Figures 1.1 and 1.2 compare each participant’s development during and after the MA program respectively. Their development is presented in terms of presentations in local, national and international events.

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Figure 1.1 Participants’ presentations during the MA program

Figure 1.2 Participants’ presentations after the MA program

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As the tables show, participant 1 presented twice in local events during the MA, and after the MA his participa-tion was doubled. In national events, he presented only once during the MA; after the MA his participation increased to seven national presentations. Participant 2 presented twice in local events during the MA, and after the MA he presented eight times. In national events he presented once during the MA and four times after the MA. Participant 3 did not have any presentation during the MA program, only after the MA. Three presentations were local, four national and one inter-national, this one with her thesis director. This indicates that her development in authoring took place after the MA. Participant 4 did not present locally or nationally during the MA, but internationally. She had one international presen-tation during the MA, after the MA she presented four na-tional presentations and four international presentations. Finally, participant 5 did not have any presentation during the MA; she presented two local and two national presenta-tions after the MA. Although the participants presented a few presentations during the MA, figure 1.2 provides further evidence that the participants’ development in terms of au-thoring conference presentations took place mostly after the MA program.

Additional evidence of professional development is displayed in table 1.3. In this case, the development expe-rienced by the participants is reflected in terms of reading/direction of theses and publications of research articles or chapters in a book.

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Table 1.3 clarifies the participants’ development expe-rienced mainly after the MA program. Most of their activi-ties as thesis readers/directors as well as their publications of research articles or chapters in a book have mostly taken place after the MA program.

ConclusionsThe aim of this project was to understand the nature

of the personal/professional development that English lan-guage teachers had achieved during and after the comple-tion of their MA program. This aim was achieved through the analysis of qualitative data indicated in the participants’ CVs and data expressed in their interviews. It was possible to see that this development was manifested in different ways.

With the evidence provided in the findings, it is pos-sible to conclude that:

• The participants experienced some kind of development during their MA program, but it was the completion of the MA that trig-gered their participation as presenters in local, national and international events, as thesis readers/directors, and as authors of research articles or chapters in a book.

• After the completion of the program, the par-ticipants’ authorship developed and expanded to new audiences.

• The participants’ professional development was multidimensional in the sense that the re-sulting categories were not mutually exclusive and were often intertwined.

The results of this study help in understanding the na-ture of professional development experienced at a master’s level, showing evidence of different categories that illustrate the complexity of the concept. The results also corroborate the individual, cognitive and social, collaborative perspec-tives of professional development identified in the literature.

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LimitationsSome limitations were encountered in the realization

of this study. First of all, the number of participants was lim-ited to five teachers from one program. Secondly, the par-ticipants’ teaching contexts were also limited, in the sense that they all work in different departments in the same insti-tution. This calls for a wider variety of contexts such as pub-lic/private institutions and different levels (secondary, high school) where teachers’ development might be experienced in completely different ways.

Suggestions for further researchAccording to the results of this project, a longitudi-

nal study is recommended in order to observe and analyze the changes that the participants experience as manifesta-tions of their personal/professional development in their teaching contexts. Also, as mentioned above, a larger num-ber of participants and a wider variety of teaching contexts would be necessary in order to analyze if different manifes-tations of development take place. There is the possibility that teachers may not develop after the MA as they wished; thus, a study which investigates the factors that stop the par-ticipants from developing in their teaching contexts would be highly recommended.

Due to the fact that identity was not the scope of this project, another possible direction of investigation would be the identity that the participants develop after the MA program. This may lead to an understanding of the changes that the participants experience as a person, and this in turn, would help to understand their active or passive participa-tion in different teaching contexts.

Finally, a study which investigates the stages that teachers go through would be useful in gaining insights into the challenges they face when moving from one stage to the other, especially in the EFL Mexican context.

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List of references

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Ary, D., Jacobs, L. C. & Razavieh, A. (2002). Introduction to research in education. (6th ed.). Belmont, CA: Wad-sworth.

Bailey, K. M. (1990). The use of diary studies in teacher edu-cation programs. In J. C. Richards & D. Nunan (Eds.). Second language teacher education. (pp. 215-226). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Bailey, K. M., Curtis, A., & Nunan, D. (1998). Undeniable insights: The collaborative use of three professional development practices. TESOL Quarterly. 32(3), 546-556.

Bartlett, L. (1990). Teacher development through reflective teaching. In J. C. Richards & D. Nunan (Eds.). Sec-ond language teacher education. (pp. 202-214). Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

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Borko, H. & Putnam. R. T. (1995). Expanding a teacher’s knowledge base: A cognitive psychological perspec-tive on professional development. In T. R. Guskey & M. Huberman (Eds.). Professional development in ed-ucation: New paradigms & practices. (pp. 35-65). New York: Teachers College Press.

Brookfield, S. D. (1995). Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass Publishers.

Burns, A. (1999). Collaborative action research for English language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Creswell, J. W. (2007). Qualitative inquiry & research design: Choosing among five approaches. (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: SAGE.

Day, C. (1999). Developing teachers: The challenges of life-long learning. London: Falmer Press.

Edge, J. (1992). Cooperative development: professional self-development through cooperation with colleagues. Essex: Longman.

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Jarvis, J. (1996). Using diaries for teacher reflection on in-service courses. In T. Hedge & N. Whitney (Eds.). Power, pedagogy & practice. (pp. 150-162). Oxford: Oxford University Press.

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Johnston, B. (2009). Collaborative teacher development. In A. Burns & J. C. Richards (Eds.). The Cambridge guide to second language teacher education. (pp. 241-249). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lange, D. L. (1990). A blueprint for a teacher development program. In J. C. Richards & D. Nunan (Eds.). Sec-ond language teacher education. (pp. 245-268). Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lave, J. & Wenger, E. (1991). Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Musanti, S. I. & Pence, L. P. (2010). Collaboration and teacher development: Unpacking resistance, con-structing knowledge, and navigating identities. Teacher Education Quarterly. 73-89.

Nunan, D. (1989). Understanding language classrooms: A guide for teacher-initiated action. New York: Pren-tice Hall.

Nunan, D. (1990). Action research in the language class-room. In J. C. Richards & D. Nunan (Eds.). Second language teacher education. (pp. 62-81). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Richards, J. C. & Lockhart, C. (1996). Reflective teaching in second language classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Silverman, D. (2005). Doing qualitative research. A practi-cal handbook. (2nd ed.). London: SAGE.

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Smith, L. C. (2005). The impact of action research on teacher collaboration and professional growth. In D. J. Tedick (Ed.). Second language teacher education: International perspectives. (pp. 199-213). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

Stake, R. E. (2003). Case studies. In N. K. Denzin & Y. S. Lincoln (Eds.). Strategies of qualitative inquiry. (pp. 134-164). Thousand Oaks: SAGE.

Wallace, M. J. (1991). Teaching foreign language teachers: A reflective approach. Cambridge: Cambridge Univer-sity Press.

Wallace, M. J. (1998). Action research for language teach-ers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wenger, E. (1998). Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-versity Press.

Wenger, E., McDermott, R., & Snyder, W. M. (2002). Cul-tivating communities of practice: A guide to man-aging knowledge. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press.

Wichadee, S. (2011). Professional development: A path to success for EFL teachers. Contemporary Issues in Education Research. 4(5), 13-21.

Zeichner, K. M. & Liston, D. P. (1996). Reflective teaching: An introduction. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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Appendix A

PARTICIPANT 2’S CV

• Fecha de nacimiento: 22 de Diciembre de 1980

• Dirección: Calle José Clemente Orozco 1403-2 Col. Satélite Magisterial

• Código postal 72320 Puebla Pue.

• Teléfono: 2 74-73-95

044 – 22 – 21- 91 – 12 – 33

ESCOLARIDAD

2005 -2007 Maestría en la Enseñanza del Inglés. Mención Cum Laude. Facultad de Lenguas Modernas (BUAP)

1998-2002 Licenciado en Lenguas Modernas. (Inglés). Facultad de Lenguas Modernas (BUAP)

1995-1998 Preparatoria Enrique Cabrera Barroso Campus Tecam-achalco (BUAP). Clave 3069

CERTIFICACIONES

ISE III Integrated Skills in English C1 of the CEFR. November, 2010.

ISE II Integrated Skills in English B2 of the CEFR. September, 2008.

ISE I Integrated Skills in English B1 of the CEFR. January, 2008.

EXPERIENCIA LABORAL

Licenciatura Escolarizada en la Facultad de Lenguas Modernas (BUAP) de enero de 2005 a la fecha.

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Educación Continua en la Facultad de Lenguas Modernas (BUAP) de 2008 a la fecha.

Licenciatura Abierta en la Facultad de Lenguas Modernas (BUAP) de 2008 a la fecha.

Cursos Sabatinos, semanales y dominicales en la Facultad de Len-guas (BUAP) a partir de curso Otoño – Invierno de 2002 a la fecha.

Universitario Cristóbal Colón. De enero de 2011 a la fecha.

Instituto Universitario Puebla (IUP). Primavera- Verano de 2007 a otoño-invierno de 2008.

Sala de materiales del Centro de Auto-Acceso y Tecnología de la

Escuela de Lenguas (BUAP). Febrero de 2003 a diciembre de 2006 (los días sábados).

Sala de Materiales del Centro de Auto-Acceso y Tecnología de la Escuela de lenguas (BUAP). De Agosto de 2004 diciembre de 2006 (los días domingos)

Instituto Mexicano Madero Plantel Zavaleta. Julio de 2004 a fe-brero de 2005.

Sala de lectura Escuela de Lenguas (BUAP) de Septiembre de 2004 a diciembre de 2004.

Sala de video del Centro de Auto-Acceso y Tecnología de la Escuela de lenguas (BUAP). Curso otoño 2004.

Instituto Anglo Español de Puebla. Ciclo escolar 2002 -2003 y ciclo escolar 2003 -2004.

Colegio España de Puebla. Ciclo escolar 2000 - 2001 y ciclo escolar 2001 – 2002.

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ACTIVIDADES ACADEMICAS IMPARTIDAS

Tallerista en la Semana de Actualización y Desarrollo Docente del Nivel Medio Superior organizado por la Dirección General Aca-démica (SEP) y la Facultad de Lenguas BUAP (agosto de 2011).

Facilitador en el Primer Encuentro de Docentes de Inglés del Nivel Medio Superior; “Compartiendo Realidades” organizado por la Di-rección General Académica (SEP) y la Facultad de Lenguas BUAP (enero de 2010).

Instructor del “Curso-taller y asesorías para estudio de pertinen-cia y modificación de los planes y programas del área de inglés del ITSSMT” Instituto Tecnológico Superior de San Martin Texmelu-can (Agosto a Diciembre de 2009).

Facilitador en el Coloquio “Competencias en el Bachillerato” orga-nizado por la DGA (SEP) y la Facultad de Lenguas BUAP (agosto de 2008).

Instructor en el curso-taller “Methodology of English Language Teaching” organizado por la Subsecretaria de Educación Media Su-perior (SEP) (marzo - abril de 2007).

ACTIVIDADES ACADEMICAS

Lector y director de tesis del programa de licenciatura escolarizada en la Facultad de Lenguas, BUAP de 2010 a la fecha (2 tesis leídas en 2010; 2 leídas en 2011; 3 dirigidas en 2011).

Participación como miembro de la Comisión para el proceso de Admisión de la Licenciatura Abierta en la Enseñanza de lenguas (inglés) (BUAP) procesos 2009, 2010 y 2011.

Organizador en el “II Encuentro de egresados y empleadores de la Licenciatura en Lenguas Modernas 2007” (Facultad de Lenguas, BUAP). Junio de 2007.

Tutor Académico en la Facultad de Lenguas Modernas (BUAP) de otoño de 2005 a la fecha.

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PONENCIAS

“Towards The Succes of the PNIEB” en el Foro Nacional sobre la Formación Inicial de Maestros en la Enseñanza del Inglés. Orga-nizado por la Direccion General de Educación Normal y Desarrollo Docente. Celebrado en la Escuela Normal de Atlacomulco Profe-sora Evangelina Alcántara Díaz. Febrero de 2010.

“Teacher development stages: Beyond de academic concerns” en el XXIII Foro de Especialista Universitarios en Lenguas Extran-jeras. Organizado por la Universidad Autónoma de Baja California. Ensenada BC. Noviembre de 2009.

“Teacher development stages: Beyond de academic concerns” en la Expopresencia 2009 de la Facultad de Lenguas BUAP. Noviembre de 2009.

“Describing the process for establishing inter-institutional connec-tions for the development of an innovative educational program” en el IX Encuentro Internacional de Formación para Docentes de Lenguas celebrado en la Universidad Autónoma de Chiapas y en la Universidad Intercultural de Chiapas. Tuxtla Gutiérrez y San Cris-tóbal de las Casas Chiapas. Diciembre de 2008.

“Exploring the role of paralinguistic signs to accomplish saving face” en el XXII Foro de Especialistas Universitarios en Lenguas Extranjeras. Organizado por la Universidad de Ciencias y Artes de Chiapas (UNICACH). Tuxtla de Gutiérrez Chiapas. Noviembre de 2008.

“Exploring the role of paralinguistic signs to accomplish saving face” dentro de la IV Expopresencia de la Facultad de Lenguas (BUAP). Noviembre de 2008.

“La investigación como herramienta para el desarrollo de pro-gramas educativos en inglés para propósitos (ESP); una alterna-tiva para responder a las necesidades contextuales” dentro de la III Expopresencia de la Facultad de Lenguas (BUAP). Noviembre de 2007.

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“La investigación como herramienta para el desarrollo de pro-gramas educativos en inglés para propósitos (ESP); una alternativa para responder a las necesidades contextuales” en el 3er congre-so internacional de metodología de la Ciencia y la Investigación para la educación. Organizado por la Asociación Mexicana de Metodología de la Ciencia y de la Investigación A. C. y el Instituto Campechano. Campeche, Campeche. Marzo de 2007.

“Discoursive and Social Practices Regarding Methodology at LEMO” en el XXI Foro de Especialistas Universitarios en Lenguas Extranjeras. Organizado por la Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla (BUAP). Puebla, puebla. Agosto de 2007.

“Desarrollo de Cursos con Propósitos Específicos de la BUAP” den-tro de la Jornada II de trabajos de investigación de la Facultad de Lenguas (BUAP). Junio de 2006.

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Appendix B

INTERVIEW QUESTIONS

1. Can you mention some of your background about your teach-ing or professional experience and your teaching context?

2. How do you conceive professional development?3. What did you learn from your thesis process that helped you

to grow professionally?4. Did all this learning or knowledge experienced during the

MA affect your teaching?5. Do you think the MA program has helped you to have more

opportunities to grow professionally such as presentations in congresses, publications, curricular programs, and so on?? If so, how?

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Supervision in Initial Language Teacher Education and the Role of Beliefs:

A Case Study

Leticia Estudillo León &Verónica Sánchez Hernández

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Supervision in Initial Language Teacher Education and the Role of Beliefs: A Case StudyLeticia Estudillo León & Verónica Sánchez Hernández

AbstractThis article describes the analysis of my supervisory beliefs as a novice supervisor in an initial English teacher educa-tion program: Licenciatura en la Enseñanza de Lenguas modernas (LEMO) in the Faculty of languages at Ben-emerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla, Mexico. This research attempts to raise awareness among teacher educa-tors on novice supervisory beliefs and their relevance in de-termining the nature of novice supervisory activities in the teaching practicum. The study followed a self-explorative approach using data collected by means of recorded and transcribed verbalizations from the feedback sessions with two student-teachers. The data were studied and coded ac-cording to the emerging topics, using analytical strategies recommended for ethnography and grounded theory stud-ies. Subsequently, the recurrent categories served to iden-tify my beliefs.

Key words: Language teacher education, beliefs, supervi-sion, practicum.

ResumenEste artículo describe el análisis de mis creencias como su-pervisora novata en el programa de formación docente en la enseñanza de lenguas: Licenciatura en la Enseñanza de Lenguas Modernas inglés (LEMO) en la Benemérita Univer-sidad Autónoma de Puebla, México. Esta investigación pre-tende crear conciencia entre la comunidad de formadores de docentes de leguas acerca de las creencias de los supervisores

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novatos y las implicaciones de estas en la naturaleza de las actividades de la supervisión de la práctica docente. El estudio de llevo a cabo siguiendo un enfoque auto explorativo. Los datos se obtuvieron a través de las sesiones de retro alimentación de mí como supervisora novata y dos practicantes; las sesiones fueron audio- grabadas y transcri-tas. El análisis de los datos se llevó cabo usando técnicas et-nográficas y teoría de anclaje. Las categorías que emergieron fueron usadas para identificar mis creencias como supervi-sor.

Palabras Clave: Educación de profesores de Lenguas, Creencias, Supervisión, Práctica docente.

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Introduction

Although English language teacher education (hence-forth ELTE) programs have existed in Mexico for several years, there is little research on teacher edu-

cation processes in the Mexican context (Ramirez-Romero, 2007), particularly on practicum supervision. Therefore, the intention of this study is to contribute to the literature of the factors influencing supervisory practices in initial Eng-lish teacher education programs, especially for those who are novice teacher educators. The perceived value underly-ing this research is that teacher educators must be prepared to face the challenges that being a professional in this area implies.

Among the challenges, there is one that may pro-mote improvement in the practical matters of educating teachers; that is, identifying prior beliefs and conceptions about supervising practitioners. The recognition of such conceptions might enhance teacher educators’ ability to discern how the process of supervising practitioners is con-ducted, particularly in English teacher education programs in public universities in Mexico. As Borg (2009) states:

“A key factor in the growth of teacher cognition research has been the realization that we can-not properly understand teachers and teaching without understanding the thoughts, knowl-edge and beliefs that influence what teachers do. Similarly, in teacher education, we cannot make adequate sense of teachers’ experiences of learning to teach without examining the un-observable mental dimension of this learning process” (p.163)

This case study is a self-exploration of a novice su-pervisor of English pre-service teachers who were enrolled in a public university in Puebla, Mexico. The identifica-tion of the beliefs held during this first period of being a

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novice supervisor will certainly play a very significant role to promote supervision awareness. I had never been in the area of supervision, so I considered that knowing the exis-tent relationship between my supervisory actions and my supervisory cognition was valuable in order to explore my needs in this area. Indeed, Borg (2009) sustains that “be-liefs, knowledge and thoughts” (p.166) underlie what teach-ers do in their instructional practices. So, this complexity is similar in my case since knowing and understanding the be-lief system underlying my supervisory practices is a means to understand what I did and, in consequence, to look for further professional development in the supervision within the teacher practicum. In other words, “New understanding emerges from a process of reshaping existing knowledge, beliefs and practices” (Johnson & Golombek, 2003).

We may question the extent to which a self-study is feasible or not for identifying and explaining this phenome-non. Self-exploration has become increasingly prominent in the field of education (Richardson, 1996; cited in Sakui and Gaies, 2006). For example, Hamilton and Clarke (1996; 1994; cited in Sakui and Gaies, 2006) and Gebhard and Oprandy (1999) sustain that most research on teacher issues is done from the perspective of an outsider, and it is consequently reported using a prescriptive approach. Therefore, this re-search, done from the insider perspective, is valuable in the sense that it represents a rich perspective on particular situ-ations under study by the means of reflection.

As such, this study did not intend to solve a prob-lem, but to reflect on supervisory practices as a means to professional growth. Additionally, this study might be pivot-al in promoting critical reflection as a form to reach efficacy, not only in the field of English Language Teacher Education, but also in the particular area of the practicum supervision. Bailey, Curtis and Nunan (2001) state that reflection is one of the inherent personal approaches to professional devel-opment since “by participating in professional development opportunities we not only gain new vocabulary, ideas and

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skills; we also gain confirmation or reaffirmation that what we do is worthwhile” (p.10). This study aims to answer the fol-lowing questions.

Research Questions1. What were the most salient supervisory practices I expressed in the verbalizations?2. What beliefs do these supervisory practices sug-gest?3. What professional development implications do these findings suggest for my further supervisory ac-tivity?

THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK Teacher Training vs. Teacher Development

Language teaching education has been framed by the paradigm, training vs. development…on the one hand, teacher training and teacher development (or edu-cation) on the other (Edge, 1988; cited in Wallace, 1991). This paradigm can be better understood as “the two broad kinds of goals within the scope of teacher education; they are often identified as training and development” (Rich-ards and Farrell, 2005, p. 3). The goal of teacher training is to prepare teachers to enter into what and how teaching can be done while teacher development is a personal deci-sion (Wallace, 1991). Moreover, Widdowson (1990) argues that training pursues specific teaching behaviors stated as trainable skills; meanwhile teacher development seeks to develop teachers’ critical thinking on current practices in order to improve teaching practice. Interestingly, Williams (1999) establishes a comparison between the distinction of teacher training and development, and the distinction of learning and education. This comparison relates training and learning as momentum skills that are used to satisfy immediate needs while development and education pursue long term aims that enable teachers to resolve the unpre-dictable situations along their careers. Thus, teacher train-

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ing is a process of learning the subject matter of teaching while development or education is a never ending process that is focused on professional growth that enables teachers to have ample perspectives on professional goals (Richards and Farrell, 2005).

Freeman (2001) states “there are several misconcep-tions surrounding these two strategies” (p.76). Firstly, both training and development usually depend on information that comes from external sources. This information is pro-cessed and then is put into practice. The difference between these two processes is that in training, the information comes from lectures, presentations, readings, demonstra-tions, which in fact can be named theories. In develop-ment, the information is obtained through experience that later is externalized through collaboration with colleagues or reflective processes. Secondly, training and development are thought to be sequential processes, training as a pre-service strategy and development as an in-service strategy. This is not the case since they can be integrated together into teacher education programs. Lastly, in relation to the terminology used, “trainer” can be used for teacher educa-tors who use both strategies, training and development, but it is important to establish that teacher education includes training and development as two “complementary and in-tegrated strategies” (Freeman, ibid, p.76).

In summary, training and development play differ-ent roles in the process of teacher education, so training fo-cuses on an induction about language teaching as well as an introduction into the field of language teaching, whereas development encloses two significant attitudes: self- deter-mination and critical thinking during the process of being self-educated to confront the changeable situations along teaching. However, these strategies can be incorporated in teacher professional preparation as they are not considered exclusive for a specific period during the process of learning to teach.

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Models of Teacher Education

1) The craft model. This approach to teacher education (Wallace, 1991) has its basis in an imitation model, so pro-spective teachers or in service teachers observe what and how an expert teacher performs in a real class, taking this expert as a model of teaching to carry out a class in a similar manner. Wallace (1991) critiques this model stating that it does not permit novice teachers to develop scientific knowl-edge since teachers are trained and not educated to think critically. Thus, this model is based on training, extending a gap between development and traditional teacher educa-tion. Furthermore, Morris and Stones (1972:7; cited in Wal-lace, 1991) call this model “traditional” and it is compared to the method of learning how to do routine tasks. It is also called static and conservative; consequently, it is not flex-ible to the rapid changes in the field of teaching. This model relies on the training strategies which consider learning to teach a form of transmission from the expert to the novice, assuming that knowledge might be transmitted in a linear fashion. Thus, using this model in L2 teaching will follow training strategies as a central tenet in learning to teach.

2) The applied science model. The base of this model is to apply scientific knowledge derived from research to ap-plied linguistics, psychology and other various areas to solve practical issues in the classroom. Wallace (1991) presents a critique of this model, establishing that the strategy of ap-plying scientific knowledge to solve teaching problems us-ing empirical research has drawn a line between experts and doers since the application of the experts’ recommenda-tions fails to be incorporated into practice. In other words, “In spite of the vast amount of research that has been done, the most intractable professional problems remain” (Wal-lace, ibid p. 9). The negative result is due to the top down application that comes from the experts to the appliers. The suppliers of scientific knowledge, most of the time, are ex-

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perts in fields related to human learning, but not specifically focused on L2 Teaching. As a result, this model opens a gap between researchers and teachers. This model embraces a top down process similar to that of the transmission model since; again, the theory of learning teaching comes for ex-ternal sources while teachers are just receivers.

3) The reflective model. This model is based on the cycle of reflection, which establishes past experiences as the basis of reflection in order to improve teaching practices. Wal-lace (1991) states that reflection is based on the two main types of knowledge, “received knowledge” and “experiential knowledge”. Received knowledge derives from “research- based theories and techniques” (Shön, 1983, 1991; cited in Bailey, Curtis and Nunan, 2001), and it is used as input dur-ing education courses. Experiential knowledge will be con-structed by professional practice and developing knowledge in-action by incorporating reflection in order to develop professional knowledge. Thus, this model advocates de-velopmental strategies in L2 teaching as a central tenet. It becomes a critical aspect which contributes to the effective-ness of teachers, not only during early teacher education, but also throughout teachers’ careers.

These models of professional education have mul-tiple implications towards L2 teaching, especially in super-visory activity since they are one of the sources of input for English teacher education. Furthermore, teacher education is rooted in the paradigm of training and development, playing a very significant role in the formation of teach-ers’ cognition or beliefs. Calderhead and Richardson (1996; cited in Sakui and Gaies, 2006 ) state that “Teacher cogni-tion should be viewed as a complex web of various types of knowledge, including subject knowledge, personal practical knowledge, craft knowledge, case knowledge, and personal theoretical knowledge, as well as beliefs and values, all of which influence teachers’ thought patterns and behaviors” (p.153). Hence, teacher knowledge and beliefs may become

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a key issue in understanding L2 teaching since they pro-vide deep insights into how teacher educators’ practical knowledge is constructed and consequently reflected in professional practice, particularly in the supervision of the teaching practicum.

The Nature of Teachers’ BeliefsIt is worth mentioning that the literature on teach-

ers’ beliefs will frame the exploration of the supervisory beliefs in this paper due to the scarcity of available litera-ture. Furthermore, the possible influence of belief systems over teacher educators’ actions and their significance in the practical implementation of instructional supervisory practices in L2 teaching is discussed. Beliefs are difficult to define in part because of their many labels which include “cognitive structures or theories (Nisbett & Rosss’s, 1980; Clark & Peterson, 1986; cited in Woods, 1996), “conceptions” (Freeman, 1990; Cited in Woods, 1996), “preconceptions” (Wubbles, 1992; cited in Woods, 1996), “situated knowl-edge” and “context free knowledge” (Leinhardt, 1989, cited in Woods, 1996), “teachers’ practical knowledge” and “aca-demic subject matter” or “formal theoretical knowledge” (Calderhead, 1988; cited in Woods, 1996), “Personal prac-tical knowledge: images” (Clandinin & Conelly, 1986; cited in Woods ibid) and “Maxims” (Richards,1998), among oth-ers. These labels have caused confusion around meanings of similar terms (Clandinin & Conelly, 1986; cited in Mo-hamed, 2006, p.18). Although, the main confusion resides in distinguishing beliefs and knowledge, there are many re-searchers and theorist who have attempted to differentiate these two terms, including: Alexander and Dochy (1994; cit-ed in Sakui & Gaies, 2006); Calderhead (1996); Pajares (1992; cited in Sakui & Gaies, 2006); Woods (1996). For instance, Pajares (ibid.) claims that beliefs are particular in nature and are born by individuals, whereas knowledge includes facts that are accepted by people in general. Nespor (1987; cited in Sakui & Gaies, ibid) proposes that beliefs are “episodic

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memories, whereas knowledge is stored in semantic net-works in our memory system” (p.153). A primary distinction between the two concepts is that knowledge is conscious and can change while beliefs could be considered uncon-scious and difficult to change. Therefore, the distinction can be stated in three forms: the manner in which individuals store beliefs and knowledge, the conscious or unconscious manner in which teachers hold beliefs and knowledge, and the meaning teachers give to their reasons behind their ac-tions based on beliefs.

In contrast, one important theory (Clandinin & Conelly, 1986; cited in Sakui & Gaies, 2006) connecting be-liefs and knowledge is that “personal practical knowledge depicts teacher knowledge as deeply rooted in life and cul-tural experiences, situated in teaching environments, and closely related to behavioral patterns” (p.154). Thus, teach-ers’ knowledge is gained through contextual experience, and it is manifested in teaching actions. Contrasting this point of view, Kagan (1992) argues that professional knowl-edge can be better recognized as a belief since professional knowledge grows with experience, and it is formed as a way of personal pedagogy or a belief system that guides teach-ers’ opinions, decisions and actions. Similarly, Richards and Lockhart (1994) have also stated that teachers’ belief systems are formed gradually over time and comprise “both subjective and objective dimensions” (p.30), which provides the conditions to much of the teachers’ decision making and actions.

Beliefs are a form of knowledge that have a power-ful influence over teachers’ actions, so they work as filters through which instructional judgments and decisions are taken. The interrelation of beliefs and knowledge is formed early in life as the result of individuals’ experience as stu-dents and their education (Johnson, 1994), so this system of beliefs is derived from what Lortie (1975) has character-ized as “the apprenticeship of observation”. Echoing this ar-gument, Richards (1998) claims that “ teacher beliefs form

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a structured set of principles that are derived from experi-ence, school practice, personality, education theory, read-ing and other sources” (p.67). In the same line, Kindsvatter, Willen & Ishler (1988; cited in Richards & Lockhart, 1994) present different sources of beliefs: a) personal experience as language learners, b) experience of what works best, c) established practice, d) personality factors, e) education-ally based or research-based principles, and f) principles derived from an approach or method.

Beliefs and knowledge are interconnected in a sys-tem formed by the different sources of input teachers are exposed to as learners in their early schooling, formal train-ing as teachers and their previous and present teaching practice. This composed system, consequently, is reflected in teaching, representing “personal practical knowledge” (Sakui and Gaies, 2006).

Personal practical knowledge is what Woods (1996) refers as the BAK (Beliefs, Assumptions and Knowledge) system stating that beliefs, assumptions and knowledge have common characteristics and they are difficult to exist in a separated manner. In a similar manner Richards (1998) introduces what he calls “teachers’ maxims” that work as “rules for best behavior” (p.53) which build up as teachers’ beliefs systems evolve. These maxims are reflected in every part of teaching, regarding learners’ involvement, plan-ning, maintaining order and discipline, encouragement of student learning, accuracy, efficiency, conformity and em-powerment of learners. He also argues that the maxims are developed from “experience of teaching and learning, from teacher education experiences, and from teachers’ own personal beliefs and value systems” (p.60).

Subsequently, teachers’ beliefs are complex net-works that seem to be interwoven with teacher’s knowl-edge, and they act as a frame of reference to develop teaching activities. However, every teacher holds a very particular belief system since this is shaped according to particular conditions teachers observe during schooling

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and during their lives. In other words “knowledge and be-liefs are socially constructed (Dewey, 1938; cited in Sakui & Gaies, 2006) suggesting a bi-directional relationship between teachers’ knowledge and behavior” (p.154). This means that knowledge and beliefs have a direct influence in the teaching processes, and at the same time, these processes can be reflected in knowledge and beliefs. In other words, it all becomes a personalized belief system. As a result, teaching proceedings are interpretive, mean-ing that “teachers’ knowledge is situated, interpretive and dynamic” (p. 154). Abelson (1979; cited in Woods, 1996) identifies six characteristics of a belief system; 1) They are non- consensual: not everybody agrees on the belief and alternative beliefs on the same issue are accepted, 2) they often include a concept of existence of something, 3) they are highly evaluative: states are considered as good or bad, 4) they contain a high degree of episodic (anecdotal) ma-terial, 5) they are differentiated in degrees of strength, 6) they present unclear boundaries and they highly overlap.

To conclude, a definition of a supervisors’ belief system for the purposes of this study can be delineated. A belief system is an individual, interconnected network, constructed by the supervisor’s contextual background throughout their personal and working life, including early education, formal or informal teaching education, and previous and current teaching and supervisory ex-periences. This results in a system that plays a major role in guiding supervisors’ thinking and behavior in terms of decisions and practices, such as assessing and evaluating the supervisees and executing judgments in supervision through feedback conferences. Thus, it is in the feedback conferences that supervisors reflect the way they perceive the process of supervision in the teaching practicum as well as a materialization of beliefs systems.

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Supervisory Models in L2 TeachingSupervision in English language teacher educa-

tion is characterized as “an ongoing process of teacher education in which the supervisor observes what goes on in the teacher’s classroom with an eye toward the goal of improved instruction” (Gebhard, 1990: 1; ibid), so the role of supervision is to analyze teachers’ practices as a form of teacher education whose purpose is to develop a sense of responsibility towards the improvement of lessons. Language teaching supervision has gone through several changes resulting in a refinement of supervision practices due to the influence of the existent supervision approaches in general teacher education. Bailey (2009) states that language teaching supervision was influenced by three main approaches from supervision in general ed-ucation, the scientific approach, the democratic approach, and clinical supervision. 1) In the scientific approach, in-teraction analysis was the means to examine classroom performance and develop competencies teachers were believed to show. 2) In the democratic approach, supervi-sion was a type of treatment and a kind of ego counsel-ing. 3) Clinical supervision is a type of collaborative work between the teacher and the supervisor, and both of them would determine the observation focus and the subse-quent objectives for teaching improvement. English language teaching supervision has also been influenced by the way teachers are observed and the modes of giving feedback after the observation confer-ences. The relative influence of these general supervision approaches, observation methods and the post- observa-tion feedback conferences have produced particular ap-proaches in English teaching supervision. For example, Freeman (ibid) has suggested three supervision approach-es based on the power relationships established between the supervisor and the observed teacher, which include: the supervisory, the nondirective, and the alternatives op-tion. Therefore, supervision in ELTE has constructed its

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own supervisory approaches due to the challenges that language teacher education has been through as well as the paradigm in general teacher education, training and development strategies. As a result of the new roles of supervision in ELTE, some other supervision approaches have been proposed. For example, Gebhard (1984; cited in Nunan and Richards, 1990) described six models of su-pervision, three of them are the ones posed by Freeman (1982), and the other three are: collaborative, creative and self- help-explorative supervision. In the collaborative model, the supervisor does not direct the teachers; the decisions are harmoniously shared and taken by both the supervisor and the teacher.

The creative model combines techniques taken from the other four models established by Freeman (1982, 1989; cited in Bailey, 2009). In this model, supervisory be-haviors can be adapted to the particular situation or the necessities of a particular teacher. The last model, self–help explorative, is an extended version of creative super-vision, also proposed by Fanselow (1977a, 1981, 1987b), who describes it as a model “that provides opportunities for both teachers and supervisors to […] gain awareness of their teaching through observation and exploration” (p.163).

In conclusion, it is clear that these models and ap-proaches in ELTE supervision have shifted from the tra-ditional model of transmission of knowledge to a more developing teacher approach, seeking reflective practices as a form of improvement of English language teaching. Thus, supervisory practices have been redirected accord-ing to the shifts of teacher education, as it is now focused on a developmental approach. During the process of the teaching practicum, supervision is considered a way to provide support for professional development (Yee and Wai, 2007) as well as a transition from academic matters to the teaching reality. Supervisors take different roles ac-cording to the context where supervision is made. Thus,

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there are two main purposes of supervision in ITE (Yee & Wai, 2007): 1) Formative assessment that heightens professional learning. 2) Summative assessment whose purpose is certification or informing personnel decisions. Moreover, supervision is carried out through pre and post- observation conferences which are held and shaped according to the relationship established by the partici-pants. Holland (1989; cited in Yee & Wai, 2007) identified three main factors influencing the pre and post-obser-vation conferences in ITE: 1) The perceived purpose, 2) The relationship between the teacher and the supervisor in the conference situation, and 3) how information and data about the teacher’s performance are used during the conference.

As a result of the influence of the former factors the nature of supervision is “asymmetrical” (Tsui, Lopez-Real, Law, Tang and Shum, 2001; cited in Yee & Wai, 2007;Wallace and Woolger, 1991) since power relationships are established; this consequently guides the supervisory con-ference to evaluate just the participation of the student- teacher. However, supervision through feedback confer-ences is also considered formative since the information and the data obtained from the practitioner’s performance should be used to encourage professional learning; Lyle (1996; cited in Yee & Wai, 2007. p. 1067) sustains that supervision is a form of scaffolding a “teacher´s zone of proximal development”, meaning that supervision should take a constructivist approach that leads student-teach-ers to conceptualize and to integrate new information, producing new concepts that acquire significance for them. Similarly, Stones (1987; cited in Yee & Wai, 2007) emphasizes that supervision should be a form of teach-ing student- teachers to solve pedagogical problems. So, supervisors should encourage student teachers to develop self-critical abilities to identify their own concerns. Equal-ly, Orland- Barak (2002; cited in Yee & Wai, 2007) advo-

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cates supervision based on developing student-teachers’ ability to conceptualize their experiences, this is giving student-teachers the chance to redirect their behavior in order to produce a change. Hence, supervisors are con-sidered positively and negatively determinant during the teaching practicum (Slick, 1998). Considering that feed-back conferences are the means to achieve supervision, an analysis on the substance of pre and post observation feedback sessions might lead supervisors to understand the potentials of supervision in order to be aware of the student-teachers ‘needs to improve (Lopez-Real, Stimp-son and Bunton, 2001).

MethodologyThe current research is a case study which intends

to understand phenomena in their natural context, in-cluding particularities and complexities that bound the context into a ‘single case’ (Yin, 2003).

ParticipantsOne novice supervisor (henceforth NS/I) and two

student-teachers, whose pseudonyms are Kit and Mel, took part in this study. The supervisor was a 38-year-old female and a part time teacher in the faculty of Modern Languages of a Mexican public university. She had 23 su-pervisees at the time of this study. However, two of the twenty three student-teachers were able to participate. These two participants were 22-year-old females who were in the last term of their teacher education program in the same faculty as the researcher. Among other supervisor’s duties, the supervisor must observe student-teachers to evaluate them at least three times during the term which lasted approximately 4 months.

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Data collection procedureThe data were collected by means of transcripts of

audio-recorded feedback supervisory sessions. The feed-back sessions between the supervisor and the two student-teachers were separately audio-recorded. These recordings were collected in three different moments during the practicum term (the beginning, the middle and the end). Twelve audio recording feedback sessions were collected in total: six pre-observation and six post-observation ses-sions. Subsequently, these were transcribed. (See Appen-dix A for a sample).

Data Analysis Procedures The analysis of the data was done following the strategies recommended for the analysis of narratives looking for specific themes, metaphors, and plotlines to categorize general topics, (Clandinin, 2007; Sakui and Gaies, 2006). Therefore, for the purposes of this research, grounded theory was used as a data analysis technique, which included two coding stages: open and axial coding (Creswell, 2007; Dörnyei, 2007; Brown and Rodgers, 2002). These two coding stages were used to find recurring issues in order to locate emerging themes in the supervisor dis-course.

DATA ANALYSIS Most Salient Supervisory Practices and their connec-tion with supervisory beliefs From the analysis of the data, four main salient su-pervisory practices emerged; 1) being prescriptive, 2) being considerate, 3) scaffolding, and 4) comparing challenges. These themes were recurrent, and the extracts presented in this section are the most representative to illustrate each category.

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1. Being Prescriptive Behaving in a prescriptive or directive manner (Freeman, 1982, 1989; Fansellow, 1977, 1981, 1987) was a re-current reaction. In the following interaction Kit expresses her concern about the language level of students and the way in which she corrected them. I informed her that her techniques were not in accordance with my perceptions as to how to correct students, so I wanted her to use other tech-niques as can be seen in the extract below.

14Kit OK, well I noticed that there are some students that they don’t have the, How can I say? The suit-able level in this case to, to speak they’re trying to speak I correct them in their pronunciation and for those students who don’t have the level or they’re afraid to speak I don’t force them to speak, I don’t correct them at all in this case I let them go on and later at the end, maybe at the end of their speaking or their speech I point out some, some mistakes, some phrases, some words, yeah.

15NS Well, maybe, there are other techniques that you can use, we’re gonna see them, yeah?...

In another excerpt from the same post feedback ses-sion, I continued with the same idea about techniques, but this time the issue was listening.

39NS you only play the material and that´s it, what if you investigate a little bit how to introduce listen-ing

40Kit Yeah, OK.

41NS What abilities and sub abilities to develop when they listen because they have to develop abilities like a, like discriminating sounds.

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42Kit Yeah.

43NS Discriminating words, understanding general ideas, or listen for specific information, so you need to see all those points

44Kit Aha, yeah.

45NS When you set a listening activity and then you have to set the activity in order to have tree main points, the introduction of the activity, the development of it and then the ending and then you can have a follow up or not it depends, so what do you think?

With Mel, the discourse was similar. I wanted to fo-cus on the techniques that Mel employed during her class. Mel, on the other hand, was more interested in focusing on instructions, which was a theme that we had previously dis-cussed during the session. 3NS Well let me tell you that you’re not so bad yeah well

I think it was a good technique to present first the vocabulary and then you continued very well ,excellent wonderful I think one of the ar-eas that you need to reinforce is your pronun-ciation, I mean , you just check that part because your activities are really good you prepared, good activities and you really involve students on what you are doing yeah and for about the instructions what do you think about your instructions?

4ST2 I think that sometimes are not correct because, I think that, I change my instructions may be I have a lesson for me that contain the instructions but I forget the instructions that I wrote and sometimes, I say other things and this sometimes doesn’t help me because I spent more time to say instructions…

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In the former extracts, it is evident that I provided prescriptions to student-teachers as to how they should carry out their teaching-practices. This, therefore, suggests that I established what I considered rules of best behavior for an English teacher (Richards, 1998), meaning that my supervisor’s role was to direct student-teachers towards “good” teaching. I took into account only what I consid-ered was adequate in English teaching, implying that I perceived myself as the expert and the person in charge of all the decision-making (Freeman, 1982, 1989). It is also noticeable that student-teachers perceptions were often ignored since my perception on “good” or “bad” teach-ing dominated the discussions. This supervisory role was based on my beliefs, assumptions and knowledge (Woods, 2006) rooted in how I perceived teaching English. This prescriptive supervisory behavior is strongly associated with the craft model of teacher education (Wallace, 1991), indicating that I wanted the student-teachers to imitate (Lortie, 1975) my teaching strategies, following the trans-mission model of teacher education. In short, my pro-fessional practice in the area of teacher supervision was influenced by my teaching beliefs (Richards and Lockhart, 1994). Interestingly, the findings also advocate other types of behaviors that lead in different directions as explained in the following sections.

2. Being ConsiderateIn the following interactions, we see a different as-

pect of my supervision behaviors, namely, being consider-ate. This quality is shown in the following sequences with Kit.

56NS Those are the main points that I think, that I consid-er you need to reinforce because well, you´re good at teaching.

57Kit Really?

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58NS Yeah you have the key points to continue with this, so don’t worry too much, just polish some aspects.

59Kit Yeah, through the practice, I think so, though the experience.

60NS Yeah.

With the other student teacher, Mel, I was also at-tentive when she expressed her concerns about classroom management.

12Mel Also I notice that, maybe, the week before vacation my mentor helped me, also this week because I lost the control. Last class I lost the control and this sit-uation made the teacher help me with the students.

13NS I don’t think so, I saw something that is really, really good with you, I mean, when you count in a loud voice, one, two, three, they were like aha this is the teacher, no?

14Mel Yes.

In this interaction, Mel seems to be really anxious due to an issue with her mentor teacher. I attempted to lower the level of anxiety by commenting on a situation in the classroom that I believed she managed quite effec-tively. Both of the excerpts above demonstrate that my beliefs are not only composed of language teaching theo-ries or methodologies. They also have a humanistic com-ponent. While this category is not present in the scholarly literature on teacher supervision, it was a recurrent behav-ior when I interacted with the student teachers. As such we might claim that these beliefs are rooted in personality

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factors (Kindsvatter, Willen & Ishler, 1988; cited in Rich-ards & Lockhart, 1994).

3. Scaffolding In the following interactions, we see yet another aspect of my supervision behaviors, namely, scaffolding through the use of questions. The following extracts illus-trate how I asked student- teachers about the issues they had faced during their practice and how the student teach-ers reacted to my questions.

21NS Do you think that your class is really teacher centred?

22Kit Yeah ! yeah, yeah, yeah.

23NS What do you think about that?

24Kit Paying attention to you, this is like, I don’t know how I call it, because it’s no easy, I mean, in this case is you are the centre and then they are paying attention to you, if you made a mistake, oh my Goodness! How can you fix that part? So, In this case they have to look around, they have to go with some classmates, they are not just to do that, is that the point?

With Mel the topic was her feelings about her class.

1NS Well, Mel how do you feel about this class?

2Mel I feel bad

3NS Why Mel?

4 Mel Because, because it was the worst class I ever have had!

5NS Really, do you think?

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6Mel Yes.

7NS Why?

8Mel Because I can’t get the control, I lost the control.

9NS Do you think?

10Mel Completely, yes because sometimes the teacher goes out and I have the group alone and I can control the group, but today I don’t know what happened, but they didn’t pay attention, at first they were paying attention; and also I didn’t know if I could speak in Spanish or English, I don’t know what happened, but I don’t like that class.

3NS Aha, yeah you didn’t like your class then, Why you don’t know if you have to speak in English or in Spanish ? Why? What is the reason behind that?

4ST2 Because, I usually use, I use Spanish when I notice that the students don’t understand but now, I don’t know, I think that the first problem was the lesson I couldn’t print it, then I arrived, late, then I don’t know may be I don’t, I don’t have a good organiza-tion in this lesson.

The examples above suggest that questions played a significant role in my supervisory belief system. I uncon-sciously incorporated questions into the process due to the context of the interaction, and it seems that questions fos-tered student teachers to resolve their own doubts. Thus, my practices as a supervisor include the idea that it is through experience that teachers acquire their professional knowledge (Wallace, 1991). The following category, compar-ing challenges, has to do with the former in that I felt like I could empathize with the students due to similar past expe-riences in my own teaching history.

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4. Comparing Challenges In the following interactions, we see one more as-pect of my supervision behaviors, namely, comparing chal-lenges. This tendency is salient due to my recurring use of words such as “you and Me”, “we” and “us”, as illustrated in the following sequences of interaction.

18Kit I am not very patient, I think so, yeah, yeah.

19 NS well, something that I think is gonna be kind of dif-ficult for you and for me to understand because sometimes we, we think that we’re the center [yeah] of the class.

In another sequence with Kit the pattern of the in-teraction is again related to comparisons.

34Kit I´ve seen that when I correct the pronunciation, they immediately write some, I don’t know, the way, the way that they can pronounce.

35NS And it’s good right?

36Kit Yes, and for that reason I think it´s good for them.

37NS Yeah, of course, yeah. Yeah you´re doing what your context asks you for no? at the moment, at the pre-cise moment you implement that because some-times we´re not like machines, we have to do this, only this no?

With Mel, I also tended to include myself in the situations.

10Mel Also when the mentor checks my lesson or my obser-vation sheet she always says that I have to mime, I have to act but…

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11NS I told you since the very beginning when we’re teachers we have to be sometimes like clowns, we have to be like actors, we have to be like mothers, we have to be like, sometimes like children, some-times like animals I mean, because you have to do the sounds you have to lie down on the floor because that is our profession commitment yeah, it is not easy you have to be accustomed.

6Mel you said, you said something, you said something about my pronunciation, pronunciation.

7NS Yeah, Pronunciation, don’t worry come on, pronun-ciation is not easy to overcome because, it’s kind of hard for us, but you can improve your pronuncia-tion by listening…

Comparing challenges between myself and the student-teachers was a recurrent tendency. I unconscious-ly incorporated my personal English learning and teach-ing experiences into the sessions to establish empathy with my students, continuously indicating to them that I had gone through similar experiences. As my supervi-sor behavior reflects beliefs, assumption and knowledge, (Dewey, 1938; Richards, 1998; Richards and Lockhart, 1994; Woods, 1996) which were derived from my experi-ences as a novice (and later experienced) teacher, I be-lieved that what was happening to the student-teachers had happened to me. This suggests that my supervisory practices were influenced by teacher training strategies based on the transmission model, and various knowledge areas were activated at the moment of the practical appli-cation of the supervisory activities, namely, the feedback sessions (Woods, 1996).

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Professional Development Implications. The findings clearly suggest that my beliefs shaped my supervisory perceptions and behaviors, implying that my belief system was composed of four recurrent behav-iors: being prescriptive, being considerate, scaffolding, and comparing challenges. This presuposes that my previ-ous experience on teaching, learning to teach and my expe-rience as a teacher educator are clearly expressed through the different behaviors I observed during supervision. The findings make evident that I faced my own restrictions. I behaved in a directive manner. I judged and evaluated student-teachers’ performances, relying on my own teach-ing behaviors as the model to follow without taking into account that student-teachers had to develop a sense of responsibility towards their own teaching (Yee and Wai, 2007). Consequently, the findings advocate changing the focus of my further supervisory activities, implying that I should find a way to foster student-teachers to develop abilities to observe themselves and then to “enhance their professional learning” (Yee and Wai, 2007) in order to be aware of their teaching reality (Gebhard, 1990). In this sense, student teachers would create their own criteria and initiative in regards to their initial experiences of teach-ing as a form of professional development. This initiative would promote student-teachers to continue developing professionally throughout their professional life. Other-wise, practitioners are just receiving an imitative model of English teaching aligned to the traditional model of teach-er education (Wallace, 1991).

Thus, the findings have allowed me to recognize my belief systems as a supervisor. Moreover, understand-ing myself as a novice supervisor is a first step towards looking for improvement, taking into account that my professional development is essentially a personal deci-sion. This study raises awareness on how the most salient supervisory belief systems shaped practices, implying that knowing supervisory belief systems is a way to reflect and

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consequently to promote professional development in the area of the practicum supervision at a university level (Bai-ley, Curtis and Nunan, 2001). In general, the findings from this investigation suggest that my novice supervisory practice was strongly influenced by beliefs, assumptions and knowledge rooted in learning English, learning English teaching and being a teacher educator. It was evident that most of my supervi-sory behaviors were interrelated, creating an interplay of the different areas of knowledge developed along learning to teach and current experiences as an English teacher (Ne-spor, 1987; Woods, 1996; Richards & Lockhart, 1994; Borg, 2009). To conclude, my fist supervisory practices were “a personal experience as the prime source of education” (Dewey, Butt et al, ibid). The experience of self-exploring and reconstructing my novice supervisory practices has en-lightened my supervisory knowledge. I am conscious of the implications that my belief systems have over the different areas that I have to develop as an English teacher educa-tor. In particular, self-discovery has been valuable in defin-ing who I was as a supervisor, and then, to reconsider what aspects I would like to change to improve my supervisory practices as well as the quality of the learning experiences of the student-teachers I work with. The reconstruction of my “experience, in the light of socio-cultural practices of supervision was a way to self-reflect” (Duarte, 2007, p. 156) about the influence of my supervisory BAK systems. Thus, reconstructing, and understanding my supervisory experi-ence from a critical point of view has helped me: 1) to be-come aware of the socio-cultural context of supervision; 2) to begin to belong to the supervisors’ community; and 3) to develop professionally in the area of supervision.

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Appendix A Sample of transcriptions

Transcription Conventions

? Questioning intonation

( , )Pause

[ ] Overlap

NS: Novice Supervisor

Kit: Student-teacher

Student-Teacher KIT Pre-Observation Feedback 1

1NS How do you feel today?

2Kit Fine and a little bit nervous.

3NS Why are you nervous?

4Kit Because there is a lot, there are not enough students to prepare this class and I thought it was a normal class, a simple class as others that I taught before.

5NS And what is normal for you?

6Kit Normal?

7NS Ah-ha (Affirmation)

8Kit What do you mean?

9NS Why did you mention normal class?

10Kit Ah because they came or arrived a little bit late and they’re not enough, they are like a five or six stu-dents.

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11NS Ah-ha, so the normal class for you is to have I mean six students?

12Kit Yeah

13NS Ok

14Kit I think so, I consider enough students to start the class.

15NS Ok. Then, I think that you have to be relaxed, don’t worry too much (laughing)

16Kit Yeah

17NS I’m observing, I mean some aspects, but it’s for giv-ing you some feedback

18Kit OK

19NS OK It’s only that

20Kit Ok

21NS Don’t worry about it

22Kit OK I’ll try to don’t concentrate much in that part and just I’ll do what I know.

23NS You behave as usual and nothing happens here.

24Kit OK

25NS I am invisible

26Kit OK I’ll try to do that

27NS Thank you

28Kit You’re welcome

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Post-observation feedback ST1

1NS How do you feel about your class now?

2Kit Right, I think, fine, [aha] not more nervousness just good and comfortable with my thing with what I done.

3NS Aha, what do you consider are your weak points?

4Kit Weak points?

5 NS Weak points.

6Kit Taking time, time, reviewing the time, I mean of following the activity but I prepare, but the time that I prepare it, I mean.

7NS So, time is something that you’re really worried about.

8Kit Ye, not worried, but that is upon me, I mean, it is over me I think, so, [aha] it is, I don’t care a lot, but I don’t look at, the time [aha] I just follow and fol-low and follow, and maybe the, the, because I like to cover everything in the lesson or the, in this case the learners and the exactly learn[aha] or they really got the idea of the grammar point by, and but I have to do the time or I have to look at the time, but this is something that I don’t know usually [aha]

10Kit Good technique? [aha] Doing at the time [for you] doing at the time if they are speaking doing it, do it in, in when they got the mistake in this case because if I let them to do it, do it and doing it they are like fossil? [Fossilizing] fossilizing [fossilizing mistakes] mistakes but,

11NS So you have that idea, I mean that is your, your let’s see your approach of seeing that part [Yeah, I think

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so, yeah that part] then that’s why you´re correcting them at the moment [at the moment] And what do you think when you correct them, they stop talking or they don’t know how to continue? I noticed that, I don’t know what do you think about that part?

12Kit What do you mean? When I asked them?

13NS No, when you corrected them, and then specially on pronunciation, they’re talking, or they’re read-ing, or whatever and then you correct them, and then they stop and then they don’t know how to continue, they’re like hesitating.

14Kit OK, well I noticed that there are some students that they don’t have the, How can I say? The suit-able level in this case to, to speak they’re trying to speak and I asked them, those students who speak or they usually speak in the class, so those students who usually speak in the class I use to well, I correct them in their pronunciation and for those students who don’t have the level or they’re afraid to speak I don’t force them to speak, I don’t correct them at all [aha] in this case I let them go [go?] go on and later at the end, maybe at the end of their speaking or their speech I point out some, some mistakes, some phrases, [yeah?] some words, yeah.

15NS Well, maybe there are other techniques that you can use [yeah] yeah, we’re gonna see them, yeah? Something that I think that I consider is one of your strongest points is that part about organiza-tion, you’re really organized, even when you write on the board you were really, really organized, you used colors and that was wonderful because in that way you catch attention of students and then some-thing that I noticed that I consider that you have to well, to check is when you’re asking something and maybe it’s because of what you mention at the

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beginning, time, because you don’t wait for the an-swers, you’re like in a hurry, you ask something and then you rrrrr and then you continue and you an-swer by yourself and you don’t wait for the students’ answers [yeah] but I now I see that it’s because of the time, because time is over you so you have to ask and answer at the same time, could be that you wait, that you give them time to think, to talk, to organize ideas and then to express those ideas no? what do you think about that?

16Kit Yeah, I think so it’s, you are right, completely, com-pletely you are right

17NS Yeah, but it’s because of the time, right?

18Kit I am not very patient, I think so, yeah, yeah,

19NS You have to be [yeah] you have to be because [yeah, I have to] it’s not that easy, I mean, to talk or to ex-press something yeah? I saw other nice points yeah, for example when you used synonyms in order to avoid translation, that’s excellent [yes, I like…] I loved that, and then other about preparing materi-als while the students are working that is something good and then well something that I think is gonna be kind of difficult for you and for me to understand because sometimes we, we think that we’re the cen-ter [yeah] of the class, what do you think about that part?

20Kit What do you mean?

21NS Do you think that, I mean that your class is really teacher centered.

22Kit Yeah [yeah] yeah, yeah, yeah.

23NS What do you think about that?

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24Kit paying attention to you, this is like, I don’t know how I call it, because it’s no easy, I mean, in this case is you are the center and then they are paying attention to you, if you made a mistake so oh my Goodness! How can you fix that part? So, In this case they have to look around, they have to at some classmates, they are not just to do that, that is the point?

25NS yeah, what I mean is that maybe you can let them to organize themselves, I mean, to talk, to write, to express by themselves because everything is, is for you

26Kit yeah, yeah

27NS What if you, what if you leave them, what if you give them some task to do.

28Kit OK

23NS Yeah in order to discover by themselves yeah that could be, I don’t know, what do you think about that idea?

24Kit Yeah, That’s right, I like it, I like it,

25NS To prove new techniques, yeah?

26Kit Yeah, because in my reflections I wrote something that I always like, I consider speaking it’s a useful skill and this is to communicate or to show you are learning a language

27NS Aha, aha.

28Kit And so I try to plan or prepare an activity in the way they should speak

29NS Yeah, I notice that at the beginning of your class and that is good, for example you, you encourage them

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to talk into real life, about real life, about what they live yeah [yeah] every day or whatever, but for ex-ample when you explain grammar may be you can allow them to prepare examples, no?

30Kit Yeah.

31NS in that part, yeah [Yeah]

32Kit Ask them could you give another example. [Yeah]

33NS You can allow them to think about five examples and then aha you share the examples with us, and then you can write or they can write or whatever

34Kit Yeah.

35NS And then they can act not only you, but aha also their participation more, more,[yeah] than you yeah? Aha and well that was about the examples , yeah, and then well, that was about the interrup-tions I think and then I think you need a technique or a method in order to set listening activities

36Kit Aha.

37NS Because that was difficult even for you.

38Kit Yeah.

39NS Because you only play the material and that´s it, what if you investigate a little bit how to introduce listening

40Kit Yeah, OK.

41NS What abilities, not abilities, sub abilities to develop when they listen because they have to develop abili-ties like a, like discriminating sounds.

42Kit Yeah

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43NS Discriminating words, understanding general ideas, or listen for specific information, so you need to see all those points

44Kit Aha, yeah.

45NS When you set a listening activity and then you have to set the activity in order to have tree main points, the introduction of the activity, the development of it and then the ending and then you can have a fol-low up or not it depends, so what do you think?

46Kit Yeah, that’s right, I think it´s suitable.

47NS And in that way you can [yeah] develop more, more, more than just [yeah, I think so, yeah] just playing the CD or the cassette or whatever.

48NS Yeah, just listen, listen because you want, you have to listen, [catch the idea] catch the idea or catch the word [yeah] maybe you can get more, more of that activity [yeah].

49Kit Although, I taught them some strategies, some of them have been useful for me, [aha] that just in this part in the listening, I think so, it’s not enough I…

50NS No, you need to investigate a little bit, you need to, awake that background that they have, you need to give them more, more keys, aha in order to discover the, what they can do, with that listening, yeah be-cause it is not listening just because you have to lis-ten.

51Kit Yeah.

52NS Nop, you have to help them to develop those abili-ties

53Kit OK.

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54NS To understand a listening, I think, What do you think?

55Kit Yeah, of course that would be better.

56NS Those are the main points that I think, that I con-sider you need to reinforce because well, you´re good at teaching.

57Kit Really?

58NS Yeah you have, I mean the key points to continue with this, so don’t worry too much, just polish some aspects.

59Kit Yeah, through the practice, I think so, though the experience.

60NS Yeah.

61Kit I will get those points, I don’t think so, in other words…

62NS Of course you´re going to succeed, of course you´re going to do it.

63Kit Yeah.

64NS We learn through practice, there’s no choice

65Kit Yeah.

66NS And that´s it I think. Thank you for your time.

67Kit Thank you teacher.

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A Critical Comparison of Discourses Used in Summer Job Advertising for Mexican

and Australian Audiences: A Multimodal Analysis

Gloria Angélica Ortiz Barroso &Teresa A. Castineira Benítez

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A Critical Comparison of Discourses Used in Summer Job Advertising for Mexican and Australian Audiences: A Multimodal AnalysisGloria Angélica Ortiz Barroso & Teresa A. Castineira Benítez

AbstractBased on the fact that discrimination is produced in dis-course and communication, the present research examines social inequalities among Mexican and Australian adver-tising discourse of a holiday job organization. This study is based on a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) and a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA). MDA was used in or-der to analyze the semiotic resources employed to advertise summer jobs to two different audiences and CDA was con-ducted in order to identify social inequalities used within the discourse. The results of this study will allow possible participants of the program to be aware of the discrimina-tive actions that the organization has over Mexicans.

Key words: Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA), Criti-cal Discourse Analysis (CDA), discourse, semiotic resourc-es, Mexico, discrimination.

ResumenTomando como base la existencia de discriminación en el discurso y la comunicación; el presente documento examina las desigualdades sociales existentes en el discurso utilizado para promocionar trabajos temporales para audiencias mex-icanas y australianas. El estudio encuentra sus bases en el Análisis Multimodal de Discurso así como su Análisis Críti-co. Se llevó a cabo el Análisis Multimodal de Discurso con el fin de analizar los recursos semióticos utilizados en la propa-ganda de trabajos temporales de verano para dos audiencias diferentes, mientras que el Análisis Crítico de Discurso se

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condujo con el propósito de identificar desigualdades socia-les empleadas en dicho discurso. Los resultados arrojados permiten a posibles candidatos a participar en el programa de trabajos temporales estar conscientes de los actos de discriminación que la organización realiza con respecto a los aspirantes Mexicanos.

Palabras clave: Análisis Multimodal del Discurso (AMD), Análisis Crítico del Discurso (ACD), recursos semióticos, México, discriminación.

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Introduction

The development of media and technology has nar-rowed distances and increased communication among people living in different parts of the world.

Nowadays, people are able to look for information, buy things or look for a job via the Internet. The internet also provides the opportunity to look for jobs all over the world. These opportunities increase for bilingual people, and they increase even more if one of the spoken languages is English. Advertisers know that “[u]nder the influence of ‘hyper-glo-balization’ and ‘diversity marketing’ in recent years, English has become the most favored language of global advertis-ing (Bhatia 2006, p.601). In non-English-speaking countries, English is the most commonly used language in advertising messages, serving as the language of modernity, progress, and globalization” (Ling Hsu, J., 2008, p.155).

With the above serving as a backdrop, it is relevant that in the United States of America (U.S.), different jobs for summer-camps are offered to citizens from different countries around the world and are advertised in brochures in order to attract distinct applicants. In order to acquire such employment, the applicant must fulfill certain require-ments. However, in some cases, job opportunities differ depending on the nationality or racial identity of the appli-cant. Such differences are guided by discriminative stereo-types made by employers, as pointed out by Rosigno (2006) who says that “[r]esearch on race and gender inequalities in employment typically infers discrimination as an important causal mechanism” (p.16). In fact, “Much of the debate over the underlying causes of discrimination centers on the ratio-nality of employer decision making” (Pager, 2009, p.70), and sometimes this decision making is based on established ste-reotypes. As a result, workers can suffer ‘stereotype threat’ because of gender, race, or economic situation.

Within a particular B.A. program in English Lan-guage Teaching (ELT) in Central Mexico, these types of sum-mer camp employment programs are extremely popular. It

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seems that the students within this program are not aware of this kind of discrimination. Students fulfilling summer camp job requirements could join a different kind of pro-gram that offers more academic and professional benefits; however, they still apply for summer-camp jobs. Summer-job advertising seems to be effective at attracting students to work in the U.S., even if the opportunities offered to Mexi-can participants are completely different from the opportu-nities that they offer to citizens from other parts of the world (i.e. Australia). Brochures promoting job opportunities in the U.S. use different discourses based on the nationality of the target audience. “All the inequities and marginalizations in the world are enabled and maintained via the controlled and manipulative deployment of capital, literal and symbol-ic. Discourses are symbolic capital, exploited in ways that benefit some and disadvantage others” (Toolan, 1997, p.89). This disadvantage can be clearly observed in the informa-tion and discourses found in summer-camp job brochures for Mexicans. Discourse can create social inequalities and provide power to certain audiences or message senders; as a result, “[c]ritical discourse analysts emphasize that many of these inequalities and injustices [just alluded to] are en-acted, reproduced and legitimated by text and talk’ (Van Dijk, cited in Toolan, 1997, p.87). The fact that different bro-chures promoting summer job opportunities are produced according to the nationality of the applicant, even when requirements are the same for all the applicants, could be considered as a race discrimination act. This act of discrimi-nation places Mexicans at a disadvantage when obtaining a job, even before they actually apply for it. In order to explore this state of affairs further, this study conducted a multi-modal analysis of a summer job organization’s advertising discourse from a critical perspective in which discourse will refer to spoken and written language use, as well as other semiotic modalities such as images and the structure of the brochure advertisements (Fairclough, 1993).

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1.1 Aims The purpose of this research was to analyze how

jobs are advertised differently according to the nationality of the target audience. The following research questions are discussed:

• RQ1: How are summer jobs advertised in terms of semiotic and socio-cultural features from a discourse analysis perspective?

• RQ2: How is discourse used to construct a re-lationship between summer job brochures and their target audience?

• RQ3: What differences in discourse can be found within U.S. holiday job brochures pro-duced for Mexican and Australian audiences?

• RQ4: What social inequalities are created by the differences between advertising brochures produced for Mexican and Australian audi-ences?

This analysis reviewed different semiotic features in order to compare and interpret the different discourses ac-cording to different target audiences. For this reason, a mul-timodal analysis was conducted, which considered written text, visual discourse, context and social practices. In order to analyze the socio-cultural aspects and social inequalities, a critical discourse analysis was conducted.

2. Theoretical Framework2.1 Discourse

Communication among human beings has been crucial in the development and evolution of our existence. Communication is possible when discourse occurs. Dis-course has been defined by some as “the study of language” (Tannen, 1989, p.6) while for others, Halliday (1978), Kress

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and van Leeuwen (1996), O‟Toole (1994), Scollon and Scol-lon (2003), discourse is more than just language by itself. From this conception, discourse might be considered to go beyond the use of language to how and what language and other semiotic resources are used for.

Discourse can be a written text, an oral conversa-tion, a painting, a video, or even a piece of music based on the idea that sometimes an image or a sound may say more than words. From this point of view, discourse, in this re-search, will be defined as any kind of expression, conscious or unconscious, that sends a message which can be identified and decoded by another human being. Participants are able to identify discourse because of domain, social practices, genre and speech acts. According to Bloor and Bloor, people sharing domains also share social practices. “Social practices involve social conventions”” (Bloor & Bloor, 2007, p.8) and “genres” that people engaging in those social practices can recognize because of culture and social structures. For ex-ample, a person who is familiar with the domain of instant messaging will interact according to the genre of chatting by following social conventions such as abbreviations and the use of emoticons. These aspects work together in order to create meaning. For these reasons, discourse cannot be isolated. It should be analyzed and interpreted according to the relationship between the discourse itself and the social context where it is used, as well as, the relationship between the language and the participants.

2.2 Discourse Analysis According to Fairclough, discourse analysis can be

considered as “an approach to the analysis of language that looks at patterns of language across texts as well as the social and cultural contexts in which the texts occur” (1993, p.3). As discourse analysis takes into consideration a variety of semiotic resources in the interpretation of discourse accord-ing to the audience, place, and time in which it is found, it will be the main tool of analysis for the two summer-camp

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jobs’ advertising because these brochures were analyzed ac-cording to the context that they were designed for and ac-cording to the target audience culture that they are trying to reach.

2.3 Discourse Design According to Kress (2010) “Design is about a theory

of communication and meaning, based – at least potentially – on equitable participation in the shaping of the social and semiotic world” (p.6). “Design focuses on an individual’s re-alization of their interests in the world.” (p.6) Design refers to a “process whereby the meanings of a designer (a teacher, a public speaker, but also, much more humbly and in a sense more significantly, participants in everyday interactions) be-come messages” (Kress, 2010, p.28). Designers take into con-sideration the culture of their target audience. A discourse that is targeting a Mexican audience will be different from the discourse created for a Japanese audience because the “[d]ifferences between societies and cultures means differ-ences in representation and meaning” (Kress, 2010, p.8). As a result of these differences, “signs are made with very many different means, in very many different modes” (ibid., p. 10). “They are the expression of the interest of socially formed individuals who, with these signs, realize – give outward the expression to – their meanings, using culturally available se-miotic resources, which have been shaped by practices of members of social groups and their cultures” (Kress, 2010, p.10). This means that designers apply different semiotic re-sources when creating advertisements. The decision to use or not using certain semiotic modes is based on the desire of designing a specific message for a specific audience be-cause “different modes offer different potentials for making meaning. These different potentials have a fundamental ef-fect on the choices of mode in specific instances of commu-nication.” (Kress, 2010, p.79) As specific instances interact in order to create communication, Kress (2010) defines com-munication as multimodal and as a response or reaction to a

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specific prompt. In order for communication to be success-ful it relies on the interaction of a participant with a message that was actually created by another participant. This has as a consequence that “[t]he interpreter’s interest produces at-tention; attention shapes the form of engagement; this leads to selections being made; the selections are framed; there is the subsequent transformation and transductions of the elements in the frame; and in that; the sign is produced” (Kress, 2010, p.42). This is how communication is created through the interaction of participants, messages and the different semiotic resources or modes that are part of the message. As stated previously, “[m]ode is a socially shaped and culturally given semiotic resource for making mean-ing.” Image, writing, layout, music, gesture, speech, moving image, soundtrack, and 3d objects are examples of modes used in representation and communication” (Kress, 2010, p.79). According to Kress (2010), these modes have a specific meaning in a specific cultural environment because of their meaning in a specific society.

2.4 Modes of discourse Development of technology, media and society in

general has had an impact on the way in which messages are created. For this reason, researchers have concluded that discourse includes not just the words that are said or writ-ten, but also gestures, tone of voice, silence and other simi-lar features regarding spoken discourse, while for written discourse, capitalization, color, images, position of text and even handwriting can affect meaning.

As discourse involves different kinds of semiotic re-sources that act together to construct meaning, researchers have defined these resources as modalities of discourse. Ac-cording to Thiran, (2010), “[a] modality is a natural way of interaction: speech, vision, face expressions, handwriting, gestures or even head and body movements” (p.145). Semi-otic resources or modes of discourse cannot be separated from the whole discourse because they are integrative and

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interact to create meaning. Modes of discourse are comple-mentary; each semiotic resource provides information that is required for better understanding of the discourse under analysis (Thiran, 2010). “Modes are semiotic resources which allow the simultaneous realization of discourses and types of (inter)action. Designs then use these resources, combin-ing semiotic modes, and selecting from the options which they make available according to the interests of a particu-lar communication situation” (Kress & Van Leeuwen, 2001, p.22). The “use of several semiotic modes in the design of a semiotic product or event, together with the particular way in which these modes are combined” (p. 20) is defined as multimodality.

2.5 Multimodal Analysis Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) can be de-fined as the study of language that integrates language with other resources, such as images, body movements, gestures, colors, music, sound, text position and distance (Halliday, 1978). MDA takes into consideration the use of these semi-otic resources in social settings. (Van Leeuwen, 2008; Scol-lon & Scollon, 2003). According to recent studies, partici-pants should be able to recognize the different modalities used in discourse in order to create an accurate interpreta-tion of it. Therefore, participants creating discourse should be aware of the design of discourse. “Designs are concep-tualizations of the form of semiotic products and events” (Kress & Van Leeuwen 2001, p.21). According to Kress and Van Leeuwen (ibid.) in order to design discourse, there are three elements that have to be designed simultaneously: a formulation of a discourse or combination of discourses, a particular (inter)action in which discourse is embedded and a particular way of combining semiotic modes (p. 21).

An important aspect to consider when doing MDA is the context of the researcher, his / her own beliefs and culture. Bloor and Bloor (2007) state that “[w]e need to be aware of our own position in relation to the object of our

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analysis since our beliefs and attitudes are likely to color the way we heard or read” (p. 33), and the “expectations of the reader are based on socially agreed conventions with respect to issues of fact, opinion, objectivity and bias” (p. 47). For this reason, I present the analysis of these two bro-chures according to the expectations, the social conven-tions, the different semiotic modes used in the brochures, and my social position (Scollon and Scollon, 2003).

In order to interpret semiotic resources, Scollon and Scollon (2003) have established a pattern to facilitate a multimodal analysis in which features such as space, body posture, text, color, distance and accessories are taken into consideration.

This analysis considered the use of the term “ge-osemiotics” as an important part to analyze the brochures’ discourse. Geosemiotics describe spaces and location of/in discourse. “Geosemiotics takes it that all these spaces are crucial in the location of discourses in place. “It´s dark”, “It’s quiet”, “it stinks here”, “it’s hot”, or “that’s” hot” all index different perceptual spaces; one looks to a different semi-otic zone for interpretation” (Scollon & Scollon, 2003 p.53). As location and space of discourse are important, the dis-tances between participants of discourse are too. Distances can describe the kind of relationship between participants. According to Hall as cited in Scollon & Scollon (2003) there are four “interpersonal distances”; Intimate distance, per-sonal distance, social distance and public distance.

Another important semiotic resource refers to the “personal front…a kind of identity kit that one assembles out of the mixed bag of what Goffman calls “sign equip-ment”, personal and physical characteristics and objects one might wear or carry” (Scollon & Scollon 2003, p.57). This includes haircut, posture, clothing, glasses, and other accessories.

Multimodal analysis involves what the participant is expressing as well as what he/she is not. “The expres-siveness of the individual appears to involve two radically

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different kinds of sign activity: The expression that he [sic] gives and the expression that he [sic]gives off” (Goffman 1959:2 in Scollon & Scollon, 2003, p.55). The interpretation of what participants in discourse are communicating also depends on the interaction between participants of dis-course and the target audience that discourse is reaching.

For this reason, “[t]he term visual semiotics makes reference to the work of Gunther Kress and Theo Van Leeu-wen, particularly as found in their book “reading images: the grammar of visual design” (Kress and Van Leewen cited in Scollon and Scollon, 2003, p.84) where the authors state that “[t]he problem of how visual images index the real world in which they are placed. The problem of how so-cial actors index these images which are so abundant in our world, constructing ongoing social performances as part of the social situation front” (p. 84). In other words, how im-ages represent the real world, if they do it and “how images mean what they mean because of where we see them, and in how we use images to do other things in the world.” (ibid.) Images should be interpreted according to their place in the real world. Scollon and Scollon (2003) based on Kress and Van Leeuwen suggest four main semiotic systems when conducting multimodal analysis; represented participants, modality, composition and inscription.

Represented participants refers to the identifiable elements within a (visual) text. Modality has been defined by Scollon and Scollon (2003) as “the truth value or cred-ibility of statements about the world” (p. 92). The meaning given to a specific color depends also on the code of orien-tation that has been established to interpret the meaning of colors. There are four coding orientations that can be considered when analyzing visual discourse; technological orientation, sensory orientation, abstract orientation, and psychological orientation. Since this research analyzed ad-vertising visual discourse the psychological orientation was the one providing the data for this research.

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Composition refers to the location of the different semiotic resources that are part of a visual discourse. Ac-cording to Scollon and Scollon (2003) “what appears in the upper portions of the image is the ideal, what is in the lower portion is real; what is on the left is given, what is on the right is new” (p.92).

Interactive participants refer to the relationship be-tween the producer, the participants represented and the target audience. According to this criterion, Scollon & Scol-lon (2003) claim that interactive participants can be divided into three different types; the producer of the image and the participants represented, represented participants within the picture, and represented participant and the viewer/reader/user (p. 92).

Finally, Scollon & Scollon (2003) claim that “[w]e use inscription to cover all of the meaning systems that are based on the physical materiality of language in the world. This would include the meaning associated with the difference between a boardwalk, a grave path, and a concrete sidewalk, between jeans and silk suit, between a leather-bound book and a paperback, glossy paper and newsprint.”(p.129-130). This means that it is not just the participants of discourse the ones telling something, but also the items related to them have a specific purpose inside discourse. There is a dif-ference between a girl carrying a backpack and a girl carry-ing a purse. They will reach different audiences because of the identity and reality of the audience.

2.5.1 Text and Images Sometimes discourses include statements or pieces of language that contain a specific message. There are four systems related to the way “text” is presented. According to Scollon and Scollon (2003) these four systems are fonts, material, layering and state changes.

One of the most common modes or semiotic re-sources used in advertising is “images”. Images have been a means of communication among human beings since

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ancient times. According to Kress (2010), even when an “[i]mage does not have words nor sounds” (p. 82) it can say more than a word and can reach a wider audience. “In im-age, meaning is made by the positioning of the elements in that space; but also by size, colour, line and shape” (Kress, 2010, p. 82).

2.5.2 Color According to Lester (2000) color is one of the first

semiotic resources that the brain recognizes in an image, and it can be interpreted in different ways. Color can be interpreted from an iconic point of view or from a psycho-logical one. Iconic refers to the color related to a real object in nature. It is not a color designed to an object or created by the human being. Iconic meaning will relate “green” to leaves or trees and “blue” to the sky. On the other hand, a psychological meaning given to a specific color refers to the relationship of this color to a feeling or an emotion. Ac-cording to Lester (2000), some of the most common inter-pretations or relationships between color and meaning are the following: Green means versatility, life, peace, fertility and it also creates a calming effect because of its relation to nature. Red means passion, love, anger and sometimes pro-tection. White is associated with meanings such as purity or cleanness. Gray is interpreted as an elegant color. Black is usually seen as authoritative and powerful. Finally, an in-terpretation of color also depends on culture, for example in Western societies “black” is worn in funerals while in some Asiatic countries their funeral color is “white”. Cul-ture and context is important when interpreting color be-cause its meaning changes from one place to another or even from one person to another because [t]he eye sees the color –all colors- but the brain interprets its meaning. (Lester, 2000, p.37)

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2.5.3 The context The context of discourse is a crucial feature when

analyzing the purpose of it. The location of discourse de-fines the frame where it will be analyzed. Location is impor-tant when interpreting discourse due to cultural, social and linguistic conventions. The location of a discourse refers not just to its physical location, but also to its social positions in the world. Location of discourse will establish the domain and the social conventions through which it should be ana-lyzed (van Leeuwen & Jewitt, 2001).

2.6 Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) studies discourse as

a social practice. In other words, it studies the relationship be-tween discourse and the social context where it is used. Accord-ing to Wodak and Weiss (2003), “discourse is socially constitu-tive as well as socially conditioned – it constitutes situations, objects of knowledge, and the social identities of and relation-ships between people and groups of people” (p.13). “Since dis-course is so socially consequential, it gives rise to important is-sues of power. Discursive practices may have major ideological effects – that is, they can help produce and reproduce unequal power relations between (for instance) social classes, wom-en and men, and ethnic/cultural majorities and minorities through the ways in which they represent things and position people” (Fairclough & Wodak, 1997, p. 258). As discourse analy-sis sees issues of gender, racism, politics, and media, it will be valuable to the interpretation of the two brochures.

According to Van Dijk (2003) “Critical discourse analysis (CDA) is a type of discourse analytical research that primarily studies the way social power abuse, domi-nance, and inequality are enacted, reproduced, and re-sisted by text and talk in the social and political context.” (p.352) According to Fairclough and Wodak as cited by Van Dijk (2003) CDA addresses social problems. It sees power relationships as discourses and states that discourse is part of society and culture. In society, discourse plays an ideo-

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logical role, and it is historical. Discourse is always a link between societies because it is a form of social action as well as interaction.

According to Van Dijk (2003) discourse implies two different levels; micro level and macro level. Van Dijk (2003) places language use, verbal interaction, and com-munication as micro level while power, dominance and in-equalities will be part of the macro level of discourse. Ac-cording to Van Dijk (2003) “[f ]or instance, a racist speech in parliament is a discourse at the microlevel of social in-teraction in the specific situation of a debate, but at the same time may enact or be a constituent part of legislation or the reproduction of racism at the macrolevel.” (p.354). In order to analyze these levels, Van Dijk (2003) propos-es four different features of discourse; members, actions, context, and personal and social cognition. Members or groups refer to how participants of a specific social group engage in discourse and how these groups react because of the acts or discourse of its members. Action refers to the acts or reaction of each participant of a group and how these actions are part of the action of a whole social group. Context refers social structure, in other words, it refers to how social interaction are similar or different around the world. Finally, personal and social cognition refers to the fact that each participant has his / her own opinions and memories, but also he/she has shared opinions with other members of the social group.

Those opinions influence the actions of the group. The actions of the group are related to the participation and interactions of the members. This interaction is based on the control that members have over the other ones. Ac-cording to Van Dijk (2003), “[m]ost people have active con-trol only over every day talk with family members, friends, or colleagues, and passive control over, e.g. media usage” (p.355). The difference between active and passive control creates a gap between audiences and participants.

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CDA analysis has become important in the last two decades because from interaction with others, (verbally, in a written form, from the media and from society itself), peo-ple mentally create an image or idea about a specific group of people. According to Van Dijk (2005), these ideas or models create a prejudice. Prejudice is learnt from social interaction. Van Dijk (2005) states that people tend to associate the “good things” or the “right way” with themselves while the “bad” or “wrong” belongs to the others. Societies create identity, and identity creates inequalities among other groups. These in-equalities cause stereotyping, which is closely related to racist attitudes.

In order to talk about stereotyping we need to define nationality and racial identity. According to Bloor and Bloor (2007), “[w]hereas a person’s nationality is usually specified by geographical boundaries such as place of birth or parents’ birth or by naturalization, racial identity is popularly imaged to be inherent in bodily structure and recognizable from the color of the skin, shape of the body or facial features” (p. 86). When people are categorized according to physical or cultural similarities generalizations are made. These generalizations become stereotypes about a certain group of people. Accord-ing to Bloor and Bloor (2007), some physical features can be associated with specific behavior, cultural practices, tradi-tions, social status, level of intelligence or even criminality. However, they state that “race is not physical but discoursal, and the merging of the race and ethnicity with nationality in the classification of human beings leads to considerable con-fusion and unacceptable stereotyping” (Bloor & Bloor, 2007, p.88). This unacceptable stereotyping usually leads to social inequality and to issues of power between members of a com-munity. “Inequality is the structural result of historical pro-cesses of social, political, cultural group dominance” (Van Dijk, 1994, 23). As a result of stereotyping and inequality, some social groups have become more powerful than others. In or-der to analyze those inequalities in the two brochures, a criti-cal discourse analysis will be conducted.

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According to Van Dijk (1985) “the choice of our research goals, our methods of inquiry, our theories, and the objects of analysis cannot be independent of our own sociopolitical positions—and interests—and of the wider social context of research” (p. 3). Based on the idea of dis-course as a compilation of different semiotic resources, this research analyzed two brochures of job summer camps ad-vertising by conducting a multimodal analysis and a criti-cal discourse analysis. The brochures were deconstructed in order to analyze each modality. However, they were also analyzed according to the whole context that the two bro-chures represent and the cultural context in which they were designed. Moreover, a critical discourse analysis was conducted in order to study social inequalities and power relationships between the two brochures, the target coun-try and the country were these brochures were created.

3. Methodology The purpose of this study as stated in previous

chapters is to develop awareness about discrimination when advertising American summer-camp jobs for Mex-icans. This awareness, could stop universities in Mexico from promoting these kinds of jobs among their students and encourage these institutions to look for programs that really fulfill students’ future professional needs when working abroad. This is a Multimodal Discourse Analysis (MDA) which analyzed and interpreted different modes of discourse used when advertising summer-camp jobs around the world, and demonstrates how these semiotic resources are used differently according to the nationality of the target audience. It also can be considered a Criti-cal Discourse Analysis (CDA) since it analyzed differences according to the nationalities of the applicants regarding stereotypical issues that can be considered discrimina-tory.

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3.1 The researcher context This study was carried out in a Public University

in central Mexico. This university offers different programs to students to study and/or work abroad before conclud-ing their studies. The university offers different programs including, academic years abroad, scholarships for specific careers and universities and temporary job positions. Even when there are programs that are more rewarding for stu-dents, the most popular among students of Modern Lan-guages is the one offering summer-camp jobs. American summer-camp jobs are offered via websites, and the uni-versity promotes these job opportunities by placing post-ers on bulletin boards around the school. Students go to summer camps, and they even repeat the experience more than once. However, it is important to say that the job positions offered at the summer camps are not related to their careers. Students get a position in these camps only because of their English level of proficiency. As stated in chapter one, participants applying to these programs must fulfill certain requirements that actually are the same for any applicant around the world; however, job positions vary according to the nationality of the participant.

3.2 The setting In order to establish the setting for this research,

I took into consideration the organization that is the most common one promoting summer-camp jobs at the uni-versity. This organization, CCUSA, is an international or-ganization that offers summer-camp jobs and volunteer activities for people of over sixty countries around the world. It was founded in 1985, and since then, it has been promoting summer-camp jobs in the United States for people of other countries who would like to work as coun-selors or support staff. This organization works on its own in some countries and through other partner agencies in others. Information required to apply to the programs of-

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fered by this organization can be found on their website. For of this reason, the setting for this research will be con-sidered to be the website of the agency offering summer camp jobs.

3.3 Participants/Objects of Study In order to analyze summer-camp job advertising,

the participants of this research were two brochures adver-tising information of the same summer-camp program but made for two different countries. A Mexican brochure was selected in order to analyze different semiotic resources used to advertise summer-camp jobs among the students of the previously mentioned university (3.1). In order to compare the different kinds of discourses used according to applicant nationalities, an Australian brochure was also selected.

3.4 Data collection The data collected for this research consists of a

two brochures advertising summer-camp jobs in Mexico and Australia. These brochures were downloaded from the organization website in October 2010. The brochures were selected because one of the brochures was from the coun-try were the research was conducted and the other in or-der to compare it to the first regarding the use of different semiotic resources according to the target audience of the brochures. Complementary data such as Visa information and staying in the USA policies was consulted in the USA Embassy website.

3.5 Analytical Framework The analytical framework that was used to inter-

pret these resources was based on multimodal analysis. A variety of techniques and approaches related to the semi-otic modes integrated in the multimodal texts were em-ployed to interpret, analyze and draw conclusions about the multimodality used to create the previously described

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brochures (3.3). This multimodal analysis took into con-sideration visual semiotics (Kress & van Leeuwen, 1996) to analyze pictures and position of visual items found in the brochures. It also reviewed theories of color used in adver-tising. In order to analyze written discourse the Systemic Functional Grammar approach was followed (Halliday, 1994). Also, the concept of geosemiotics, (Scollon &Scol-lon, 2003) was also applied in order to relate different se-miotic modes used for different countries. Finally, in order to explore the power issues regarding information found in brochures, a Critical Discourse Analysis (Fairclough, 1995) was also applied.

4. Findings The chapter provides a detailed description of

each of the modes of discourse found first on the Mexican brochure and secondly the one found on the Australian brochure.

4.1 Sample of the Analysis of the Data: Analysis of the Website’s Main Page The data collected for this research was download-ed from the internet. This organization was chosen because it is the one offering summer camp jobs to students of a B.A. program at a public university in central Mexico. When writing the website address, the main page of the page pops up. See picture 1

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Picture 1

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The main page shows the logo of the summer-camp job organization. The logo of the organization (see picture 2) is placed at the upper left corner of the website. As it appears on the upper part, it is interpreted as the “ideal” (See 2.3). The main mode of discourse calling our attention is the green background of the logo. As stated before (2.3.2), from a psychological point of view green means hope, life and nature. The logo involves a white sphere that is crossed by a running person. Under the logo the word CCUSA can be read, the letters are also in white; in addition, the last part of the word, USA, is written in bold, placing the word or country in this case as the visual target of the audience. For some, this could be considered as a subliminal message directing the attention to the country.

Picture 2

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Under the logo, placed on the left, in a white back-ground, a brief description of the organization is provided (see picture 3). In this case, text encourages the audience through the use of language. Even when the text is short, words are repeated to emphasize the impact of the adver-tisement. As shown in picture 4 the use of the words “ad-venture” and “experience” provides readers with the idea that working in their job positions is something that will be rewarding for the participants. The word “international” and the words “work and travel” support the idea of something fun, as a big opportunity in life. Almost at the end of the de-scription, the reader is asked to “select” his/her home coun-try.

Picture 3 Picture 4

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In the middle of the page, as the center of atten-tion, a man and a woman are standing together. Both are dressed casual, in order to establish a connection with a young audience. The man has a backpack which can be interpreted as a symbol of adventure and travel. They are standing in a very close position showing a close relation-ship that could be interpreted as friendship. Both of them are focused in a low camera angle which places them in a power position. Both of them are looking at the camera (the audience) engaging the audience from their privi-leged position. On the upper right corner, the image of the Golden Gate Bridge is displayed. Summer-camps are located far away from big cities. As a result, the picture of the Golden Gate Bridge is emphasizing the idea of trav-elling and adventure, suggested before by the brief sum-mary and supported by the backpack of the man.

Picture 5

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On the right, there are four boxes, three including links in order to choose, the home country, the employ-er and to become a member of the website. The last box, which is in red, suggests the reader to apply online and to ask for more information. This box is in red in order to give it more salience and urge the audience to apply to the pro-gram.

Finally, at the end of the page, logos of partner agencies are displayed. This is probably done to increase de viewer’s credibility of the site.

4.1 Sample of the Comparison of Semiotic ModesOn the left side, the website offers more informa-

tion, which is directed only to the Mexican or Australian audiences. In this part of the website, the link “program brochures” provided the data for analysis. (See Pictures 6 and 7).

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For Mexican AudiencePicture 6

For Australian AudiencePicture 7

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On this part of the website it can be noticed that on the Mexican website (see picture 8 ), there are just four links “ information meetings”, “camp fairs”, “contact us”, and “program brochures” while the Australian side includes the same four and “employer offers”, “news” “multiple program options” “media stories” and “local partners”. From this point, the program that requires the same profile for both Mexicans and Australians is not offer-ing the same opportunities. (See picture 9 ). In the case of Australians, they can look at employers offers before they arrive to the camp. This gives them the option to choose a position in the camp that best suits their needs and/or in-terests. In the case of Mexicans, they are not able to choose their job position. It is simply assigned to them.. Another link that differs between websites is the one showing “mul-tiple program options”. This link is closely related to the first. It provides Australians with information about differ-ent options for the same program. Again, Mexicans are not allowed to choose from different options. For Mexicans, there is just one offer. In the same part of the brochure, the website also offers links to social networks of the orga-nization (see picture 10). This includes forums, blogs, and social networks These links are not found in the website for Mexicans. This can be considered as an act of exclusion. In Mexico, we have the resources to be part of a commu-nity through social networks; however, this organization decided not to offer the links to Mexican applicants.

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Picture 8 Picture 9 Picture 10

Finally, the last part of the page shows contact in-formation. This part of the website is displayed in red. Even if the picture is small, and it appears at the bottom of the page, the yellow color attracts the readers’ attention. (See pictures 11 and 12) The decision to choose yellow for the text does not come from a psychological point of view, but from an advertising perspective. Yellow as well as red are colors that attract the attention of the viewer. In the text, it can be read “Request more info/ refer a friend” “Join our mailing list or tell a friend about CCUSA”. Differently from the Mexican website, again, the organization encourages Australians to be in contact with them and to talk to their friends about the organization. The link includes a small picture showing a boy and a girl. The woman is smiling and hugging a boy. The boy is also smiling and hugging the girl with an arm while pointing the viewer with the other hand. The angle of the camera is eye level. This means that the viewer and the person in the picture share the same social status. How-ever, the body language of the boy, he is pointing directly to the viewer, indicates control over the viewer (Kress & van Leuween, 1996). As people in the picture are smiling, they emphasize the sensation of friendship, and his gesture can be interpreted as an invitation to join the program. It seems that the viewer has been chosen to be part of it.

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Picture 11

Picture 12

4.3 Sample of the Comparison of TextThis section explains a sample of text analysis. The

text’s main purpose is to promote the jobs and to persuade readers to apply. The first line of the text emphasizes living the “real everyday USA”. An explanation is required of what the real “everyday” USA is. As this booklet was created in order to promote summer camp jobs, and taking into con-sideration the pictures depicted on the first part of the page, we might assume that the “real everyday USA” the organi-zation is promoting is the one for workers. The first pages describe the job as a wonderful experience to travel and have fun; however, in this part of the booklet, the creator of the message starts to emphasize the fact that it is a job. The sec-ond paragraph sells the idea of the U.S.A. that is promoted by Hollywood since the text refers to T.V and movies. In this part of the text, there are some words that called one’s atten-tion: “and if lucky maybe on a short holiday.” According to the text just “lucky” people can travel to the U.S. and just for a few days. As the writer created an atmosphere suggesting that going to the U.S. is difficult and just the “lucky” ones

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can go there, he/she starts to “sell” the idea of going to the U.S. as a worker during the summer. The next paragraph mentions some of the places where people can work dur-ing the summer. Some of the positions are available in ho-tels, inns bars, restaurants, shops, amusement and national parks. Finally, in the last paragraph the writer emphasizes the fact that participants should be students (see picture 13).

Picture 13

The next part of this page is the text (picture 14). The text main purpose is to persuade readers to apply for the pro-gram. The first lines sell the idea of the U.S.A. that is pro-moted by Hollywood since the text refers to T.V and movies. As in the Mexican brochure, the organization include again the statement “and if lucky maybe on a short holiday.” My in-terpretation of this statement is the same as in the Mexican brochure. However, the next paragraph is different from the Mexican brochure. In this part of the text, the organization uses “summer holidays” instead of “summer jobs”. Also, the time for Australians is different than the time offered to Mexicans. While Mexicans can just be part of the program during summer vacations, Australians have the opportunity to spend 12 months in the U.S.. There is no mention of job places in the Australian brochure. Instead of giving informa-tion about employers, the brochure states “So reward yourself

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and take a break from your studies or before you enter the workforce”. The Mexican brochure promotes job positions and sells the idea of working in the U.S.A. while the Austra-lian brochure promotes the idea of fun and “breaks” before working. Finally, the last part of this page provides the reader with the local website for Australians. (www.ccusa.com.au).

Picture 14

5. Implications There were two main questions that this study meant to explore: how summer jobs are advertised for dif-ferent target audiences and the existence, if any, of social inequalities when advertising summer jobs for Mexican and Australian audiences. This research found its meth-odological basis in Multimodal Discourse Analysis as well as in Critical Discourse Analysis in order to explain and in-terpret how an American organization advertises summer jobs and what is the interpretation and impact that the use of specific modes of discourse have on the interpretations made by a Mexican researcher. To answer the first research question, the data showed that summer camps jobs are advertised in three

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different ways in each of the countries. Advertisement was made by three different means: online (organization website), written or printed (brochures), and personally (interviews and meetings). These means are similar, but I found some differences between them. These differences are the answers to the research questions regarding the relationship between discourse and target audience, the differences between discourses created for Mexicans and Australians, and the social inequalities when advertising for Mexicans and Australians. The organization promotes its job positions on a website. The main page is exactly the same for all visitors (See Picture 15); however this is the page were visitors are asked to select their nationality. The following websites are different for Mexicans and Australians. There are different program options for them (See Pictures 16 and 17).

Picture 15

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Picture 16

Picture 17

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These websites are evidence of how unequal job opportunities are for Mexicans in comparison to Austra-lian participants by counting the program options that are offered for them. While Mexicans can choose between three program options, Australians can choose between twelve. In addition, the organization also has a local web-site for Australians, but it does not have a local site for Mexicans. I found this to be possible proof of social in-equalities regarding summer job advertising for Mexican and Australian audiences. Secondly, the organization promotes its job po-sitions via the brochures. The brochures were the main source of data for this research. They were downloaded from each website and they provide the reader with the necessary information to participate in the program. The brochures target similar audiences in certain aspects. The Mexican and the Australian brochure target young audi-ences, they were designed for people in an age range of 18 to 29 years old. One of the main ideas that are emphasized all along the brochures is the idea of traveling and expe-riencing the “real” America. Both brochures use the same colors and format. There is a difference in the number of pages of the brochures. The Mexican brochure has eight pages while the Australian brochure has six. The six pages that are found in both brochures have exactly the same size and type of fonts, format, and colors. If the brochures were not examined carefully, they would seem to be the same; unfortunately, they are not. The main differences that I found on the bro-chures are the ones related to text and pictures. The Mexi-can brochure explains how they work through a partner Mexican organization, and they are the ones in charge of providing information to Mexicans while the Australian brochure promotes personal interviews with the staff of the organization in order to provide Australians with in-

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formation and to clarify any doubts. Another difference is the use of technology that the organization emphasizes for Australians and limits for Mexicans. The organization has created a local Australian website to advertised job po-sitions. The organization, also shares Twitter, Facebook, and blog links for Australians, but they do not provide them or even mention them to Mexicans. According to the information that was found on the brochure, Australians can arrange an interview via Skype; however, Mexicans do not have that option. The differences regarding the use of social networks and technology that are promoted for Australians but limited for Mexicans seem to be an act of discrimination.

Another important difference is the number and the kind of jobs that Mexicans and Australians can have. Firstly, Mexicans are allowed to have a job in the U.S., and to work on that job from the beginning of the program to the end of it. On the other hand, Australians are allowed to have one, two or even multiple jobs. Secondly, the job positions that are offered are different. This program of-fers job positions in different countries around the world, and they ask participants the same requirements no mat-ter nationality; however, when the organization offers dif-ferent kinds of jobs, opportunities are not the same.

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Mexicans can work as part of the staff of restaurants, amusement parks, fast food chains, water parks, mountain resorts, hotels, and fishery. On the other hand, Australians can get jobs in:

Chart 1

As can be seen in the previous chart, the bro-chures offered four jobs that are the same ones for both Mexicans and Australians; however, there are another eleven jobs that are only for one or the other national-ity. The jobs that are just for Australians include casinos, resorts, inns, ski resorts and country clubs. The jobs of-fered for Mexicans include water parks, national parks, fast food chains and restaurants. The main difference

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between these jobs is the costumers or clients of each of them. The places that offer the jobs for Australians in-volve clients with a higher income and maybe a higher social status level. The amount of money that people spend in the jobs that are advertised for Australians is much higher than the one a person would spent on the jobs that are offered to Mexicans. Also, job positions that are offered to Mexicans involve less client contact than the ones that are offered for Australians. Also, the kind of activities that should be done in each job are different. The jobs that are offered for Australians are not as physi-cal as the ones that are offered for Mexicans. For example, Australians are not offered a job position in a “fishery”. “Fishery” is promoted for Mexicans, and it is also stated that it requires “manual labour” meaning that hard physi-cal work should be done. This is an act of discrimination originated by stereotyping. As stated by Van Dijk (1994), stereotyping causes social inequality and this gives more power to certain groups than to other ones. In this case, Mexicans are at a disadvantage when getting a job posi-tion even before applying for the program. The organiza-tion establishes “social power” over Mexican participants. According to Van Dijk “Social power is defined in terms of the control exercised by one group or organisation (or its ‘members) over the actions and/or the minds of (the mem-bers of ) another group, thus limiting the freedom of action of the others, or inf luencing their knowledge, attitudes or ideologies” (1993b, p.84). In this case, the organization has control over the actions of Mexicans since it limits the job positions for Mexicans. The organization decided to offer different jobs for different audiences. The organiza-tion has established the same requisites for both Austra-lians and Mexicans. The organization plays a “dominant” role over Mexicans. “Dominance is here understood as a form of social power abuse, that is, as a legally or morally illegitimate exercise of control over others in one’s own in-

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terests, often resulting in social inequality” (Van Dijk, T. 1993b, p.84). The organization denies Mexicans the right to choose a job for all the ones that the organization has to offer. This act limits Mexicans’ options and places them at a disadvantage regarding opportunities and income. “Social power and dominance are often organised and in-stitutionalised, so as to allow more effective control, and to enable routine forms of power reproduction” (Van Dijk, T. 1993b, p.85). This act contributes to the stereotyping of Mexicans as “manual laborers” in the U.S.. I strongly disagree with the decision of the organization about the different job positions available for Mexican participants since they must be students in order to join the program. This means they are studying to be professionals; in ad-dition, they should be able to have the opportunity to get a job that is related to their area of studying instead of getting a job that has been appointed to them because of an act of discrimination. The organization limits the “ac-cess” for Mexicans. According to Van Dijk (1993b) “there may be culturally different patterns of access based on age, gender, class, education or other criteria that define dominance and discrimination: women may have less ac-cess than men, blacks less than whites, young people less than adults” (p. 86). In this case, Mexicans have less access than Australians. This act of dominance and discrimina-tion gives Australians more social power over Mexicans when joining this program because “more access accord-ing to there several participant roles, corresponds with more social power” (Van Dijk, T. 1993b, p. 85). and “not everyone has equal access to the media or to medical, le-gal, political, bureaucratic or scholarly text and talk” (Van Dijk, T. 1993b, p.86) and in this case to a job.

Another finding shows how the organization of-fers only two program options for Mexicans and three for Australians. The third program option that is not offered

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to Mexicans is the one regarding “hiring sessions” and “job fairs”. The organization offers more job opportuni-ties as well as an interview with the “U.S. employer”. This means the organization is willing to send or to arrange interviews between Americans and Australians, but not between Americans and Mexicans, even when Mexico is much closer to the U.S.

Picture 20Brochure for Australian Audience

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Picture 21Brochure for Mexican Audience

As it can be seen in pictures 20 and 21, data also showed that the visual aids used in the brochures support two different ideas. In the Australian brochure, visual aids support and emphasize the idea of traveling and enjoying while being part of the program (See Picture 20). On the other hand, pictures in the Mexican brochure highlight the idea of working while being in the U.S. (See Picture 21). Data showed a significant difference in the use of vi-sual resources in the two brochures. Ninety percent of the pictures that were found in the Mexican brochure show people working, and only a ten percent of the pictures show people enjoying themselves while being part of the program (See Chart 2).

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Chart 2

On the other hand, data shows how visual aids are used

with a completely different purpose for Australian audi-ences. In the Australian brochure, eighty-eight percent of the pictures show people enjoying themselves while being part of the program. The Australian brochure not only of-fers more options to Australians than the ones it offers for Mexicans, but also it supports the idea of living a “good” ex-perience while “working” in the U.S.. The use of the words “job” and “work” decreases its impact in the Australian bro-chure since it shows more people enjoying themselves than working. According to the data, only twelve percent of the pictures show people working. (See Chart 3)

Chart 3

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As it can be seen in Chart 2 and Chart 3, the differ-ence between the use of visual aids of people working and people “having fun” is completely inversed. While 90% of the pictures in the Mexican brochure show people work-ing, only 12% of the pictures of the Australian brochure show people in the same condition. On the other hand, in the Mexican brochure 10% of the pictures show people enjoying themselves while in the Australian brochure, the percentage is 88%. The use of visual resources is the most significant in regard to the differences between the use of discourses according to distinct target audiences. As the requisites are the same for all participants all over the world, the only feature that differs between audiences is the nationality of the participants. For this reason, and af-ter analyzing the data, I consider that the discourse used in the brochures (text and pictures) is discriminatory against Mexicans.

“Discourse also plays a fundamental role for this cognitive dimension of racism. Ethnic prejudices and ideologies are not innate, and do not develop spontaneously in ethnic inter-action. They are acquired and learned, and this usually happens through communica-tion, that is, through text and talk. And vice versa, such racist mental representations are typically expressed, formulated, defended, and legitimated in discourse and may thus be reproduced and shared within the dominant group. It is essentially in this way that racism is “learned” in society ( Van Dijk, T., 1993a, p.146).

The fact that Mexicans have restrictions when choosing a job position, that they are the ones who have the offer to work in “manual labour” jobs, that the pictures en-hance the idea of Mexicans going to the U.S. to work, that

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the options for them are offered in a shorter period of time in comparison to the time that is offered to Australians, and that traveling information is not given to them shows how the discourse found in the brochures is used by a dominant group with ethnic prejudices over Mexicans.

Finally, I found differences regarding the use of discourse created for Mexicans and Australian audiences. From the data analysis and interpretation, I found social inequalities in the use of semiotic resources when the or-ganization advertises for Mexicans. The brochures of the organization showed stereotypical ideas about Mexicans. These stereotypical ideas are shown in text and visual aids, and they contribute to a negative image of Mexicans as well as to a negative impact on the opportunities than Mexican students can benefit from while being part of this program. In addition, the organization plays a dominant role when advertising for Mexican participants, and it places the Mexi-cans in a lower social power position than Australians. These actions contribute to negative attitudes towards Mexicans that could end in discrimination.

5.5 Final CommentsThe comparative multimodal analysis of the two

different brochures can have benefits for potential Mexican participants of the program. The conclusions of this study showed how the organization’s discourses reproduce power and dominance over Mexicans. This comparative analysis showed what semiotic resources are used by a dominant group (the organization in this case) in order to limit the access to opportunities to a lower social position group. This study showed evidence of the reproduction of a negative ste-reotype and how it contributed to the reproduction of rac-ism. It is now in our hands to analyze discourse, interpret it and to use it wisely in order to decrease racism and discrimi-nation among human beings.

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Appendix A

“Mexican Brochure”

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Appendix B

“Australian Brochure”

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English? Next term…maybe!: Procrastination in EFL courses

in higher education

Blanca Estela Flores Martínez &Michael T. Witten

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English? Next term…maybe!: Procrastination in EFL courses in higher educationBlanca Estela Flores Martínez & Michael T. Witten

Abstract This case study investigates some internal and external factors that have influenced Foreign Language Academic Procrastination in higher education. This is a qualitative study, and the instruments to collect the data are a struc-tured questionnaire and a semi-structured interview. The participants are three college students at a public university in central México. This study aims to explore the internal factors (self-esteem, self-efficacy, self-handicapping, irra-tional thoughts and fear of failure), namely affective/cogni-tive; and the external factors (task-aversiveness, timing of rewards and punishments, and the teacher’s role), in order to appreciate procrastination from the learners´ perspec-tive (Covington, 1992; Ellis and Knaus, 1977; Ferrari, 1995; Olafson, 2007; Pychyl, 2000; Solomon and Rothblum, 1984; Steel, 2007). Findings suggest that fear of failure; self effica-cy and self handicapping were the predominant internal (af-fective) reasons why students postpone the completion of a compulsory course of EFL. On the other hand, the teacher’s role; task aversiveness as well as timing of rewards and pun-ishments were found to be the central (external) reasons in the participants.

Keywords: academic procrastination; fear of failure; self ef-ficacy, self-handicapping; role of the teacher; task aversive-ness; timing of rewards and punishment

ResumenEste estudio de caso investiga algunos factores internos y ex-ternos que afectan la Procrastinación Académica en Lengua Extranjera en educación superior. Los instrumentos en este

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estudio cualitativo son: un cuestionario estructurado y una entrevista semi-estructurada. Los participantes son tres es-tudiantes de una universidad pública en el centro de México. Este estudio tiene el objetivo de explorar factores internos tales como: autoestima, autoeficacia, autosabotaje, pensa-mientos irracionales y miedo al fracaso. Además de los fac-tores externos tales como: aversión a la tarea, el mecanismo de recompensas y castigos, y el papel del maestro. Todo esto para entender la procrastinación desde la perspectiva de los estudiantes (Covington, 1992; Ellis and Knaus, 1977; Ferrari, 1995; Olafson, 2007; Pychyl, 2000; Solomon and Rothblum, 1984; Steel, 2007). Los hallazgos muestran que el miedo al fracaso; la autoeficacia, y el autosabotaje fueron los factores internos predominantes que provocan la dilación en los cur-sos de Inglés como lengua extranjera. Por otra parte, el papel del maestro, la aversión a la tarea así como el mecanismo de recompensas y castigos fueron los factores externos que provocan lo mismo.

Palabras Claves: Procrastinación Académica; miedo al fra-caso; autoeficacia; autosabotaje, papel del maestro, la aver-sión a la tarea; el mecanismo de recompensas y castigos

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Introduction

Milgram (1992) defines procrastination as “a modern malady noting that its occurrence is only relevant in countries where technology is advanced and

schedule adherence is important” (cited in Ferrari, Johnson and McCown, 1995, p. 12). Van Eerde (2004, p. 29) defines procrastination as a behavioral or trait disposition to post-pone or delay performing a tasks or making decisions. This behavioral delay is extremely prevalent in college (Ellis & Knaus 1977; O’Brien, 2002). Ellis & Knaus (1977) claim that from 80% to 95% of students engage in procrastination. Academic procrastination is the tendency to voluntarily delay an important and timely activity in the academic do-main despite expecting to be worse off for the delay (Fer-rari, 2001, Steel, 200). Such procrastination is common when students voluntarily delay their English as a foreign language (EFL) courses, which is common at a public uni-versity in central Mexico. One of the main goals among these college students is to finish their major successfully, albeit some of them do not reach their goals due to their English course postponement. Therefore, they have to stay at college for one or two extra terms or take an exemption test to graduate.

The aim of the current research study is to pro-vide insights into what kinds of procrastination behav-iors three procrastinating students engage in and to look into the external and internal factors that cause them to procrastinate in relation to taking EFL courses. The study further attempts to discover the effects that such procras-tination has, if any, on the procrastinators. Although there has been previous research on Academic Procrastination, these studies have been primarily restricted to quantitative methodologies with very few studies providing qualitative analysis. Furthermore, research on Academic Procrastina-tion within the Mexican context appears to be nonexistent. This writer has found no prior research related to language learning and procrastination. It seems probable that most

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of the psychological and environmental factors related to procrastination in prior research could also influence lan-guage learning and impact student decisions to delay their EFL courses, which provides warrant for conducting the present study.

QuestionsThe current work explored the following questions:

• Are the students who postpone their English as a foreign language (EFL) courses self-re-ported Procrastinators?

• What external factors are identified as the cause to procrastinate EFL courses among stu-dents enrolled at the BUAP?

• What internal affective/cognitive factors are identified as the cause to procrastinate EFL courses among students enrolled at the BUAP?

The following section will describe in detail the in-ternal (affective/cognitive) and external factors, that lead students to procrastinate.

Forms of ProcrastinationMany of the tasks performed by individuals are

self regulated. According to Behncke (2002), self-regula-tion appears to be the stable element attempting to guide behavior along a specific path to a directed aim or goal. However, many people are not aware of their capabilities to execute a course of action to develop such a perfor-mance, and this is known as procrastination. Ferrari and Emmons (1994, cited in Ferrari, Johnson and McCown, 1995, p. 7) claim that procrastination is manifested in dif-ferent forms, and it is labeled as functional and dysfunc-tional according to the degree it is presented. The authors

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explain that an individual may procrastinate to look for an optimal result to a task; therefore it is functional. On the contrary, if this postponement carries negative conse-quences to the individual, it is considered dysfunctional. Ferrari et al. (1995) define the adult tendency to procrastinate as the purposive delay in failing to start a task or meet deadlines. Ferrari (1992, 2000, and 2001, cited in Argumedo, Díaz, Díaz-Morales, Ferrari and O’Callaghan, 2007) identifies such delays as being moti-vated by a need for arousal. He defines arousal procras-tination as the external attributes or excuses to delay the poor performance related to environmental stressors. In the same research, Ferrari et al. (2007) identify a differ-ent scale of frequent procrastination among adults that is related to self-esteem and self-confidence. According to them a person delays completing tasks that may reveal his or her poor potential abilities. Therefore, Ferrari (2007) defines avoidant procrastination as the deviation of poten-tial exposure of perceived inabilities and incompetence. Milgran (1991) claims that no matter what form of pro-crastination individuals perform it will always elicit some degree of emotional upset.

Causes of Procrastination in Academic Fields It seems that the reasons for procrastination in

any human activity are similar. However, for this research I am bearing in mind those that, according to the research, have a major influence in the academic field. Ferrari (1995) claims, that research in procrastination has mainly fo-cused its attention on higher education. This is due to the college students’ decision to delay their deadline tasks. All in all, the reasons that contribute to procrastination seem to be emphasized in this field. The following section will only mention research carried out inside academic settings. Ackerman and Gross (2005, cited in Ackerman and Gross 2007, p. 5) state that “Procrastination involves knowing that one needs to perform an activity or attend

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to a task, and perhaps even wanting to do so, yet failing to motivate oneself to perform within the desired or ex-pected time frame.” Procrastination is a common practice among students, particularly those at higher levels. The most common form of students’ procrastination is to wait until the last minute to turn in papers or to study for ex-aminations.

External Factors of Procrastination Although procrastination is a personal decision, an individual cannot delay every daily activity or task. “Unless people procrastinate randomly, the nature of the task itself must then have some effect upon their deci-sions” (Steel, 2007). In his research, Steel (Ibid.) mentions timing of rewards and punishments, and task aversiveness as two main environmental factors that promote procras-tination. However, the author of the present work will add the teachers’ role due to the importance of teachers with-in the academic field. Besides, the teachers’ role has been mentioned in different research as a significant factor in procrastination (Ferrari et al., 2005; Olafson, Schraw and Wadkins, 2007).

Procrastination and Timming of Rewards and Pun-ishment In the view of environmental causes of procrasti-nation (arousal procrastination), Timing of rewards and punishments are some of the causes to delay a task, “the further away an event is temporally, the less impact it has upon people’s decisions” (Steel, 2007, p. 68). Steel men-tions two different perspectives about this phenomenon; this paper will discuss first, that labeled as impulsiveness (Ainslie, 1975). Impulsiveness is seen as the behavioral activation system that acts to motivate people in their pursuit of rewarding experiences. Critchfield and Kollins (2001, p.102) state that behaviorists relate this behavior to

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past consequences and the relation to reinforce and pun-ish after varying the degrees of delay.

Procrastination and Task Aversiveness Steel (2007) also mentions task aversiveness as the actions that one finds unpleasant. Hence, people who find a task unpleasant, boring or worthless tend to post-pone it. Steel (Ibid.) however, mentions that the rela-tionship between timing of rewards and punishments, and task aversiveness leads individuals to avoid the task, not to procrastinate. Milgram, Marshevsky, and Sadeh (1995, cited in Ferrari, 2004) found that students procras-tinate more on the academic tasks that they characterize as more unpleasant than on those that they characterize as pleasant.

Teacher’s Role In the research lead by Olafson, Schraw and Wad-kins (2007, p. 18) they labeled teachers’ role as anteced-ents of procrastination. The authors found that teachers played an important role in students’ procrastination. Stu-dents claimed that those teachers who are well-organized promote procrastination in an involuntary way. They also mentioned teacher´s expectations as promoting procrasti-nation. Teachers who expect less, are not strict in grading or negotiate deadlines also promote procrastination. The authors explain that teachers who are demanding and ex-pect better work quality decrease procrastination but may increase students’ performance anxiety.

Procrastination and Internal FactorsIrrational Beliefs

According to Ellis and Knaus (1977, cited in Bes-wick, Rothblum and Mann, 1988) procrastination is the result of emotional disturbance that stem from irrational

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thoughts. They explain that one of the major irrational beliefs that lead students to procrastinate is the idea that “I must do well” and prove “I am a worthwhile person.” When individuals fail to accomplish their goals, they ex-perience a loss of self-esteem. This irrational belief mo-tivates them to postpone a task. The student begins to reason “This assignment will only confirm my inadequacy as a person” (p. 209). As a result, students avoid putting their self-esteem on the spot.

Self-esteem As mentioned previously irrational thoughts in-terfere with self-esteem. Hence, students who fail in per-forming an activity may suffer absence of self-esteem. As a result they procrastinate in order to avoid putting their self-esteem at risk. Ellis and Knaus (1977, cited in Bes-wick, Mann and Rothblum, 1988) discuss self-esteem as a concurrent of procrastination. These authors also quote Burka and Yuen (1983) who claim that low self-esteem is a personality trait commonly experienced by procrastina-tors. They also emphasize that procrastination is a strat-egy, among procrastinators, to protect their feeble sense of self-esteem.

Self-efficacy Self-efficacy is an individual difference that is re-lated to students’ procrastination. Wolters (2003) quote Bandura, 1997; & Pajares, 1996 who describe self-efficacy as the students’ beliefs about whether they are capable of successfully accomplishing a particular task, activity or as-signment. They also claim that students that show higher levels of self-efficacy are more committed and obtain bet-ter grades than students that are less sure about their abil-ity to succeed. Besides, Wolters (2003) adds self-efficacy has an important impact on their motivation and behavior within achievement situations.

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Self-handicappingAnother individual difference that provokes procras-

tination is self-handicapping which maintains a close rela-tionship with people who show this self-regulatory failure (i.e., procrastinators). “Procrastinators may feel that their actions will not change their situations, and thus they con-centrate instead on managing their emotional reactions to the situations.” Covington and Beery (1976, quoted by Schouwenburg in Ferrari et al., 1995) explain the process of self-handicapping as follows:

By putting things off until too late the student sets up his own failure, but he does so in such a way as to avoid the shameful implication that he lacks ability. He can now attribute fail-ure to other things and, argue, in effect that his poor performance is not representative of what he can really do and therefore is not a fair measure of his ability and even less of his worth... The irony of all this is that by his own actions the failure avoiding (low hope for suc-cess and high fear of failure who are consid-ered academic procrastinators) may actually set up overt failure in his desperate attempts to avoid feelings of failure (p. 80)

Fear of Failure According to Solomon and Rothblum (1984) fear of failure is the dominant factor that leads students to pro-crastinate. That is to say, that delaying is caused by fear that performance will be substandard and not reach the ex-pectations set by others. Schouwenburg explains that fear of failure causes avoidance behavior and emphasizes that these avoidance may be misinterpreted as academic pro-crastination. “Being late in choosing the moment to start studying may be an act of academic procrastination, but it may also reflect fear of failure with respect to the examina-

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tion to come. Consequently, academic procrastination may be viewed as resulting from fear of failure.” (Schouwenburg, cited in Ferrari et al., 1995, pp. 73-4) Foster (2007) claims that many perfectionists do procrastinate, and many pro-crastinators, including those who are competent, high abil-ity learners, have perfectionist tendencies. Language Learning Domain External Factors

Every human being is born in a social context and develops a concept of self that is tied to the interaction they have with others. Therefore, individuals make sense of their social environment and the role they play on it through the use of language (Kelly, 1955, cited in Burden and Williams, 2006, p. 28). All in all, human beings are always aware of their competence as users of language. “Language is so pervasive a phenomenon in our humanity that it cannot be separated from the larger whole─from the whole persons that live and breathe and think and feel” (Brown, 2002, 144). Thus, in the field of foreign language teaching all psycho-logical aspects play an important role in both learning and teaching. This section will mention some of the external/internal aspects that are related to language learning and play an important role in procrastination.

Task Aversiveness and Language Learning This section will discuss task difficulty and task in-volvement. Williams and Burden (2007) mention Heider’s theory whose main aspect was to point out “how people perceive events rather than the events in themselves that influenced behavior” (p. 104). He adds that people will give reasons related to internal (personal) and external (environmental) factors when they are asked about their outcomes in specific events or the behavior of others. Heider´s ideas were developed by Weiner who has been interested in research about how people perceive their success or failure in academic and other situations. Wil-

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liams and Burden mention some success or failure attri-butions that people might mention when they are asked about their performance on a particular language learning task.

Teachers’ Role and Language Learning In the last paragraph, we mentioned the impact that a task has on individuals; however, these activities are mediated by an individual. In learning contexts this person is the teacher. Burden and Williams (1997) state that there are two main factors that motivate students to participate or carry out tasks. The first factor is “the per-sonality or nature of the person introducing the activity. All learners are likely to be influenced by their personal feelings about their teachers; therefore, their perceptions of their teachers and of the interactions that occur be-tween them and their teachers will affect their motivation to learn” (p. 133). The second is the way “in which the person presents the activity and works with the learner during the completion of the activity” (Ibid., p. 133). They also state that the teachers’ role is not reduced to trans-mitting knowledge; their main role is to boost students’ confidence, motivate and display a personal interest. Be-sides, teacher must enhance self-esteem and organize an appropriate learning environment. Rewards and Punishments and Language Learning It is a human condition to look for appraisal when carrying out an activity. People might get involved in some activities because they are enjoyable or helpful to obtain something in particular. Csikszentmihalyi and Nakamura (1989, mentioned in Burden and Williams, 1997) claimed that individuals show different motivation to carry out activities. They pointed out that “when the only reason for performing an act is to gain something outside the ac-tivity itself, such as passing an exam, obtaining financial rewards, the motivation is likely to be extrinsic. When the

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experience of doing something generates interest and en-joyment, and the reason for performing the activity lies within the activity itself then the motivation is likely to be intrinsic” (Ibid., p. 123).

Personality Factors.Brown (2002) describes the affective domain as the

emotional side of human behavior which may be juxta-posed to the cognitive side. These affective states involve personality factors and feelings about ourselves and about the individual with whom we come in contact. Brown (Ibid.) mentions Bloom, Krathwohl and Masía (1964) that made a distinction of the affective domain: a) receiving or being aware of the environment surrounding the individ-uals; b) responding or committing themselves in at least some small measure to a phenomenon or person; c) valu-ing or placing worth on a thing; d) organization of values into a system of beliefs creating an interrelationship and establishing a hierarchy among them and e) value system or acting consistently according to the values they have internalised (p. 143). As mentioned in the firsts lines of this paragraph, affective factors lead individuals to devel-op a concept of themselves. According to Burden and Wil-liams (1997) this self-concept is the amalgamation of all our perceptions and conceptions about ourselves which give rise to our sense of personal identity. Therefore, some of the internal factors that determine individuals’ person-ality will be discussed further below.

Irrational Thoughts and Learning Domain Ellis informs us that “Jorn (2000) developed a psy-chological theory based on the role of cognitions play in the development and maintenance of emotional dis-turbance.” Ellis (1990) argues that “the development of emotional disturbance is largely the result of certain bio-logical factors which predispose humans to think irratio-

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nally about the fulfillment of innate goals for affiliation, comfort and achievement (p. 5). Jorn (2000) argues that emotions and thinking are integrally related. That is to say “human psychological functioning is an efficient and interactive system of cognitions, emotions, behavior and biology responding to environmental conditions” (as cited in Jorn, 2000 p. 8). Ellis (1985, as reported in Jorn, 2000) developed a list of three irrational beliefs categories; also named three core: a) approval from significant others or the demand for love and approval from nearly everyone we find impor-tant; b) success or competency or achievement in things we find important; c) few frustrations or comfort or de-mand for comfort or nearly no frustration or discomfort. Drawing on Ellis (1985), Jorn (2000) asserts that people holding the former irrational beliefs tend to hold one or a combination of the following irrational beliefs: 1) awfuli-zation that refers to total disasterizing beliefs emphasized by such words as disaster, horrible or awful, and catastro-phe; 2) low frustration tolerance or the beliefs signalled by such word as intolerable, can’t stand it, and too hard; 3) global rating or the beliefs you condemn or blame your entire selfhood or someone else’s basic value in some im-portant way. Global rating is signalled by such words as loser, worthless, useless, idiot, and stupid.

Self -esteem and Language Domain In the first place, Brown (2002) explains self-esteem as the knowledge of yourself, and belief in your own capa-bilities for an activity. He identifies three different types of self-esteem. First, adults experience global or general self-esteem that is resistant to change except by active and ex-tended therapy. Second, situational or specific self-esteem refers to one’s self appraisals in particular situations such as work, education, home, social interaction etc. Third, task self-esteem relates to a task within specific situations on a specific subject matter (Ibid, 2002).

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Similarly, Shavelson, Hubner and Stanton (1976, cited in Larsen-Freeman and Long, 1991) proposed a ter-nary hierarchy to account for self-esteem, or the feeling of self-worth an individual possesses. The authors place these feelings in three different levels. The highest or global level involves the overall individual’s self-assess-ment. The medium level rates specific self-esteem or the individuals’ own perception not only in different life con-text, but also in various characteristics. At the lowest level individuals evaluate themselves on specific tasks such as writing a paper, driving a car, or learning a foreign lan-guage (my emphasis).

Self-Handicapping and Language Domain A different concern in language learning is the students’ perceptions and evaluations of their abilities. Students assume that ability is the main element for suc-ceeding and lack of ability is the most important reason for failure. “The self-worth motive is based on the prem-ise that a central part of all achievement is the need for students to maintain a positive image of their ability” (Covington, 1992, as cited in Alderman, 1999, p. 68). To maintain this positive image, students adopt failure-avoid-ing strategies. One of these strategies is self-handicapping or providing excuses for failure in advance. Covington (1992, cited in Alderman, 1999) claims that one form of self-handicapping behavior is procrastination where stu-dents irrationally put things off without good reason for a delay. When students delay studying they claim that “Because I studied at the last minute, I can´t be blamed for failure” -i.e. “at least my ability can´t be blamed” (p. 70). The author claims that procrastination may take the form of (a) last-minute studying, (b) staying busy with little to show for it, (c) collecting resources for a project but never starting it, or (d) undertaking many activities but not allowing sufficient time for any of them. A second failure-avoiding strategy is that where students set low or

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high goals. Omelich and Covington (1979) claimed that students with these unattainable goals “fail with honour” (p. 70).

Fear of Failure Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt (William Shake-speare; “Measure for Measure”, Act 1 scene). To clearly state the root of fear of failure, some approaches concerned with the learning process will be discussed briefly. First, the cog-nitive process that is concerned with the way individuals learn and think is relevant. All in all, it is focused on the mental processes involved in learning. Due to the fact that learning is a term that has been bound to intelligence, there is a belief that intelligence is an inborn ability to every hu-man being. This ability enables some individuals to learn better and faster than others. As a result, intelligence is seen as the main factor that predicts success or failure in school. Although intelligence plays an important role in the learning process, it is not the only one that determines an individual’s performance. Second, from the constructivists’ theory, learners make their own sense of their world, but they do so within a social context and through social in-teractions. At this point I will quote Holt (1964, as cited in Burden, 2006), “children begin school full of desire to learn, but gradually, sometimes even rapidly, lose such desire as a result of their learning experiences” (p. 58). Burden (Ibid.) quotes Glasser (1969; 26) “Very few children come to school failures, none come labelled as failures. It is school and school alone which pins the label of failure on children”. Third, the humanistic approach “emphasises the impor-tance of the inner world of the learner and places the indi-vidual’s thoughts, feelings and emotions at the forefront of all human development” (p. 30). From this understanding, Erikson (1968, as cited in Burden, 2006) claims that infants might develop a sense of industry as basic educational skills and learning competence, or a sense of inferiority if learn-

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ing experiences are beset with failure. A different source of failure is the need for achievement. Atkinson (1964, men-tioned in Burden and Williams, 2006) states that achieve-ment motivation is different in every individual. He adds that it is possible to assess these differences. Some people are dominated by the notion of success while others do no really care about it. Evidently, this need to succeed depends on the specific situation and the individual’s judgements about success or failure. That is to say: “a person might be inclined to avoid engaging in a particular activity because of a fear of failure” (Burden, 2006, p. 114).

Methodology This section will describe the methodological ap-proach applied in this research study. The contexts and participants will be described to provide the reader with a view of the participants’ background. Finally, an explana-tion of the instruments that were used in this research to gather data and support findings is provided.

Methodology The present research is considered a case study. This approach was chosen because “case study can provide rich information about an individual learner (or group of learners). They can inform us about the process and strat-egies that individual L2 (second language) learners use to communicate and learn, how their personalities, atti-tudes, and goals interact with the learning environment, and about the precise nature of their linguistic growth” (Johnson 1992, cited in Van Lier, 2005, p. 76). The case study in this research is collective due to the writer’s interest in the phenomenon of procrastina-tion among college student. Furthermore, more than one individual from different faculties participated in this re-search. In addition, this research is descriptive since it implies “the goal of eliciting understanding and meaning, the researcher as primary instrument of data collection

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and analysis, the use of fieldwork, and inductive orienta-tion to analysis and findings that are richly descriptive” (Merrian, 1998, p. 11).

OrientationVerbal Report The orientation that I used was the verbal report. A verbal report is a descriptive orientation that assesses the details of the behavior of individual learner performance (Cumming, 1994 p. 673). It encompasses a variety of techniques for gather-ing data about the cognitive or thinking process people use during learning tasks (Cohen, 1994; cited in Cumming 1994, p. 679). Therefore, a structured questionnaire was applied in order to know if the participants are procrasti-nators. Then, I used a semi-structured interview in order to know the reasons that lead students to delay their Eng-lish courses.

Context A public university in México considered as one of the most important in the country due to the high quality in its educational programs is where the study took place. The institution offers different majors that focus their at-tention on their own programs. However, as previously mentioned, inside every program there are some subjects categorized as Tronco Común Universitario (TCU). The TCU subject, that is the key point in this research, is Eng-lish as a foreign language. All students enrolled in the in-stitution have to achieve four levels of English (Leveled as English 100, 101, 203, 204). A specific time requirement is not specified as to when BUAP students must take these courses; hence, some students postpone them until the ending of their majors. For instance, some students who have accomplished all the subjects stated in their major’s curriculum still have not successfully completed their English courses. A different opportunity that students

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have to pass is an accreditation test. As well as the four levels of English, the accreditation test does not have any specific time requirement. Thus, some students that do not accredit the four levels of EFL put them off. As a con-sequence, if students neither achieve the four levels of EFL nor accredit them they have to stay at the university until they accomplish their four levels of English. The Modern Language Faculty (LEMO) offers an exemption test for all the students that have not accomplished their four levels of English and are not allowed to graduate. The exemption test is scheduled once a week during each term. Therefore two students who were at the LEMO in order to take this test were invited to answer a questionnaire and an inter-view for the current research study. In order to have a point of comparison, one more student who attended reg-ular TCU courses were invited to participate also. At the time that the students were participating in the current research study, they had completed all of their courses ex-cept TCU English courses. All of the participants permit-ted this writer to use the data that they provided and their names.

ParticipantsStudents enrolled at BUAP in different majors and

have almost fulfilled the requirements to obtain a degree make up the research participants for the current study. As previously mentioned, one student was found at the LEMO testing center due to their need to take the TCU English exemption test. The other two students were at-tending regular TCU English courses. These three partici-pants are described further below however their names have been changed to protect their privacy.

Esteban Esteban studied Business Administration. He has Russian nationality although he has lived in Mexico most of his life. Esteban said that he speaks English pretty well,

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because he learnt and practiced it in countries where the language is spoken. “Thanks to my mother I had the chance to travel a lot, thus I learnt English where it is spo-ken.” “I’m really good in English… well at least in speak-ing, because I did the accreditation test and only passed two levels.” When Esteban was interviewed he had already finished his major. However, he applied the test to pass English III and IV. This participant was enrolled in English 100, but the lessons in his Faculty were a disappointment for him.

Benjamín The second participant, Benjamín, was one of the participants who was taking TCU English courses rather than trying to pass the exemption test. He studied Psy-chology. He had already finished his major; however, he was coursing TCU English 203. He was considering at-tempting the accreditation test in the spring term 2010.

Joaquín The third and last student, Joaquín, was also one of the participants who was taking TCU English courses rather than trying to pass the exemption test. He studied Accountancy and had the Centro Nacional de Evaluación para la Educación Superior (CENEVAL) qualification. Al-though this student had finished all the subjects related to his major, he had not passed TCU English level 203. Thus, he was in one of the summer groups that I was teaching. He works for the government.

Instruments As mentioned previously this research used a questionnaire and an interview. Since “questionnaires are a widely used and useful instrument for collecting survey information, providing structured, often numerical data, being able to be administered without the presence of the researcher, and often being comparatively straightforward

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to analyze” (Wilson and McLean, 1994; cited in Cohen, et al., 2007). The Procrastination Assessment Student Survey (PASS; see appendix A) was developed by Solomon and Rothblum (1984). It was developed to assess the preva-lence of and reasons for academic procrastination. The PASS contains two parts. The first part assesses the preva-lence of procrastination in six academic areas: (a) writing a term paper; (b) studying for an exam; (c) keeping up with weekly reading assignments; (d) performing admin-istrative tasks; (e) attending meetings, and (f) performing academic tasks in general. The second part of the PASS describes a procrasti-nation scenario (delay in writing a term paper) and then suggests many possible reasons for procrastination in the task, including: (a) evaluation anxiety, (b) perfectionism, (c) difficulty making decisions, (d) dependency and help seeking, (e) aversiveness of the task and low frustration tolerance, (f) lack of self-confidence, (g) laziness, (h) lack of assertion, (i) fear of success, (j) tendency to feel over-whelmed and poorly manage time, (k) rebellion against control, (1) risk-taking, and (m) peer influence. For each of these reasons, two statements are given thus students will rate each statement on a 5-point Likert scale accord-ing to how much it reflects why they procrastinated the last time they delayed writing a paper. “The PASS showed if the participants are academic procrastinators. Once the results were obtained, the stu-dents were interviewed to find the reasons that lead them to procrastinate. “An interview in research marks a move away from seeing human subjects as simply manipulable data as somehow external to individuals, and towards re-garding knowledge as generated between human, often through conversations” (Kvale 1996:11, cited in Cohen et al. 2007, p. 227). The interview was adapted following the Paradigm Model of Academic Procrastination devel-oped by Olafson, Schraw and Wadkins (2007; p. 18. See appendix B).

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Findings This chapter will analyze and explain the results from the data gathered through the PASS questionnaire and the Interview. The analysis is organized by presenting the results of each participant individually. Each section first presents the analysis of the PASS questionnaire, and then presents the analysis of the interviews. Part 1 of the PASS questionnaire is a tool to evaluate the extent to which each participant is or is not a procrastinator. Part II of the PASS questionnaire sheds light on the external and internal factors that influence dilatory behavior. For this reason, the questionnaire is not presented question by question. In-stead, the global results for each part of the questionnaire are presented. This provides insights into 1) whether or not each participant is or is not an academic procrastinator and 2) which internal and external factors influence the pro-crastination. The interviews then further explore the initial findings from the questionnaire for each participant.

EstebanPASS questionnaire The results of Part I of the PASS questionnaire showed that Esteban is only a moderate procrastinator. Part II of the questionnaire identified the main factors that lead Esteban to procrastinate. These include inter-nal factors such as: lack of assertion, fear of failure, and risk-taking. The external factors that influence Esteban’s procrastination behaviors did not appear on the PASS questionnaire; however, during the interview certain ex-ternal factors did seem to appear. Furthermore, additional internal factors were also revealed during the interview. These factors are explored further below. The results from the interview will highlight the statements that seem to support the external and new internal factors that lead students to procrastinate. Although the interviews were carried out in Spanish, this section will show the transla-tion (interpretation) into English language.

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External FactorsThis section will analyze the main findings from

Esteban’s interview. The results showed that the external factors that influence Esteban dilatory behavior are main-ly; timing of rewards and punishments, task aversiveness and the role of the teacher. The following paragraphs will discuss these factors in greater detail. I was more inter-ested in doing the administrative courses and I said to my-self these are going to give me more (than English 3 and 4). Thus, Esteban decided to postpone all those activities that could interfere with his goals. It may be that the positive feelings and satisfaction of succeeding in his chosen major did not allow Esteban to see the future possible conse-quences of his procrastination. Although Esteban seems to experience an intrinsic motivation, the results in the accreditation test led him to experience arousal procras-tination that is caused by external factors. The following statements provide evidence to support this idea: “First, I did the College Board Exam and I passed three levels. I passed the first and second level with 10 and the last one with a 6. Before, it was no accepted to pass with 6. Thus, I left EFL until the end. Furthermore, although Esteban was warned about possible negative results in delaying his EFL courses, he focused his attention on the EFL cours-es deadline. Thus, he said: “…so I decided “to stop there”, and almost at the end I decided to do the exam. I looked for information and realized that I was allowed to do this exam [the exemption].” The previous statements provide evidence that Esteban was aware that no requirement is needed to accomplish the EFL courses. Therefore, Este-ban being conscious about his English level deliberately delayed his EFL courses. Related to timing of rewards and punishments there was the aversion to the task. Although Esteban always re-ported that English does not represent a problem for him, task aversiveness might influence him to procrastinate.

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That is to say, the first impression that Esteban experi-enced in his first EFL lesson might have influenced him to postpone them. He pointed out that: “English is com-pulsory in my Faculty when we are enrolled in the second term. All freshmen are given EFL level one thus I had the first lesson… Consequently, he had no choice but to enroll in an EFL course, but he, unfortunately, found the lessons ineffectual. Esteban makes this clear when stating: English is taught, sorry for the expression, in such a deplorable way that I prefer having other lessons rather than having Eng-lish. In some cases, I would like English to be elective. Furthermore and mentioned previously in chap-ter two (see section teacher’s role), tasks, lessons, and teachers in the field of education are not separate entities. Therefore, the role of the teachers is an important factor in procrastination or task delaying. In this area, Esteban claimed: “Surely, in my faculty English is taught in such a bad way. I feel the level is too low…and I think it is really too bad. English teachers are not well prepared.”

“I think teachers should be prepared to teach you. “(Teachers) must have a better accent because you imitate their accent. If your professor says “jaguar yú”, you will say “jaguar yú”. Thus instead of acquiring a good pronuncia-tion and it sounds natural you will finish with a pronuncia-tion worse than your first. Therefore I did not have the EFL courses.” Esteban’s complaints may lend support to Olaf-son et al. (2007) findings that state that non-demanding teachers may encourage students’ procrastination.

Internal factors The results of the interview showed that irrational thoughts, self-efficacy and self-handicapping are the internal factors that influenced Esteban to procrastinate. These internal factors may display in Esteban a fear of failure. This fear of failure was also found in the results of the PASS questionnaire. The next paragraphs will analyze and explain these internal factors and their connection with procrastination.

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High self-esteem is overtly claimed by Esteban. He asserts that his performance in college is highly ac-ceptable. The following statements indicate that Esteban judges himself as capable and worthy. Furthermore, these accomplish Bandura’s definition about self-efficacy. Per-ceived self-efficacy is defined as people’s beliefs about their capabilities to produce designated levels of perfor-mance that exercise influence over events that affect their lives. Esteban claimed: “As I mentioned before, English is not difficult for me. I am able to speak it. Besides, I am re-ally good at communicating and expressing myself. In my case I do not have any problems.” It seems that this feeling of high self-efficacy probably influenced Esteban to post-pone his EFL courses until the end of his major. However once Esteban was going to take the exam his Efficacy-Ac-tivated processes required task selection thus he claimed: “If I were asked to do an oral exam, I would say “yes, please.” It is because speaking is where I can demonstrate my knowledge in English better than writing…” During the interview, Esteban showed a high level of self-esteem em-phasizing his ability to communicate and his self-efficacy in speaking English. However and as stated in the previ-ously he expressed his preference for an oral examination. Although this task selection did not lower his self-efficacy concept, it seems that Esteban might experience fear of failure. Therefore, his task selection preferences may re-sult in self-handicapping. This is demonstrated by Este-ban’s excuse making for his results in English 203 (he got a six). Besides, he added: “…because I think than in real life… you are talking more than writing.” Ok you need a basis on the contrary you will speak like “Tarzan” and say “I want eating” Furthermore he accepted having some problems in carrying out all the needed requirements in a language performance. Therefore, he mentioned: “Well I am not perfect; I have some problems, above all with gram-mar and maybe it was a mistake to not take it; but I had already made the decision and I couldn’t turn back. The

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admission stated above by Esteban seems to mask his fear of failure, and as mentioned previously, he asked for an oral examination. It might be possible that Esteban was aware that the Evaluation Department does not assess students’ performance in oral skills. Therefore, with this admission he may reveal both his low ability to answer a grammar test and his fear to fail the examination. With his acceptance Esteban seems to display the failure avoid-ing strategy. According to Omelich and Covington (1979) this strategy helps students, who have set high impossible tasks to achieve, to fail with honor. Having examined the results related to Esteban, the analysis of Benjamín will now be presented.

Benjamín PASS questionnaire The results in the first part of the PASS question-naire revealed that Benjamín is a moderate procras-tinator. The PASS questionnaire part II showed task aversiveness as the external factor that primarily con-tributes to Benjamín’ s dilatory behavior. Furthermore, this section of the PASS showed that the internal factors that contribute to Benjamín’s procrastination are mainly fear of failure, rebellion against control and dependency. However in the interview more external and internal fac-tors that seem to influence Benjamín’s procrastination did emerge. These factors will be explained further below.

Interview The information obtained from the interview point-ed out that the main external factors experienced by Ben-jamín were timing of rewards and punishments, task aversiveness and the role of the teacher. Furthermore, the internal factors found in the interview were irrational thoughts, self-efficacy, self-handicapping, self-esteem (although to a lesser degree), and fear of failure. These results will be analyzed in the next sections.

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External Factors The following statements may assert that Ben-

jamín always placed more rewarding activities ahead of his EFL courses completion. That is to say, Timing of rewards and punishments was the external factor that apparently influenced in Benjamín’s dilatory behavior significantly, Benjamín said: “I was more interested in the subjects re-lated to my major, and always put English off until the very end.” Although it is an understandable claim, it also serves as an effective excuse to not accomplish disagreeable tasks. Furthermore, he added: “There was always some-thing more important to do.” Also Benjamín claimed: It (EFL course) was in the School of Communications before it was in the complex on the Vía Atlixcayotl, and I dropped my English course. I dropped it the second time also. I took it during the summer, and since it was summer, I thought…well…not now…and I dropped it again. So…I was enrolled in English many times and I always delay it for later on, later on…for next semester. There was always an excuse, like the English course was in the Faculty of Medicine or at the CU, so the travel times…there was always a problem. As mentioned previously, all students enrolled at BUAP have to accomplish four levels of English. The timing of these courses is quite flexible and students can take them at any time during their permanency at the university. This flexibility of the deadlines for English courses in the TCU may support Benjamín’s dilatory behavior. What is more, the freedom to take the EFL courses may influence him to procrastinate.

As mentioned earlier, Task aversiveness was a significant factor in Benjamín’s dilatory behavior. This aversion to EFL courses was not only found in the ques-tionnaire, but also it was mentioned in the interview. Although at the beginning of the interview Benjamín claimed that he had no problems with English, later he accepted: “Having English in summer is really hard so I would always say no. If you stop practicing, you lose your

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pronunciation. Then you don’t remember the verb conjuga-tions the same way; that’s why I say that it’s heavier in the summer because in the summer they go through almost a unit per class or a unit per week.” The last statements may support the idea that Benjamín felt overwhelmed with his EFL courses requirement. Therefore, he decided to post-pone the subject many times. Finally, Benjamín asserted: Specifically, it was always that I said…no. well…I’ll get into courses and take the accreditation test. I thought that I’d take two courses and get the accreditation…I’d get into an Interlingua or Quick Learning course and get the accredita-tion. I thought that I’d advance a bit and get the accredita-tion. I thought it would be easy.” This affirmation may lend support to Steel (2007) who mentions task aversiveness as the actions that individuals find disagreeable. As a result, people who find a task unpleasant, boring or worthless tend to postpone it. Besides, Milgram, Marshevsky, and Sadeh (1995, cited in Ferrari, 2004) stated that students procrastinate more on the academic tasks that they clas-sify as more unpleasant than on those that they grade as enjoyable.

Benjamín also mentioned the role of the teacher as an important external factor. Benjamín complained from past experience: I always had the impression that the TCU teachers, particularly the English teachers, were un-cool. I mean…when I entered there were always problems with the English teachers…that’s true. In my classroom in the first semester…it was English 1. Almost everyone in the class had problems with the teacher…but I escaped with a 7. The grades came out, and that was it. There was no way to know why you got the grade. In fact, because it’s a graduation requisite, there’s no recourse, and in the first se-mester, the teacher actually failed many students and girls were crying because in first and second the teachers were very arrogant. There is evidence in the data that seems to indicate that English teachers in the TCU are not valued by many students due to the institutional organization.

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Thus, Benjamín asserts: “But there have been experiences with teachers that are rather particular or a bit strange. I mean she didn’t put the grade that they got on the test, so we knew the teacher was a bit ‘special’ but…she arrived like with the grade determined already, which is why we all got out and said…What happened with the grade? We said…lis-ten teacher…Why are you failing us? Why are you giving us a 6 if the calculations we had done earlier… She had given us pre-grades that were… the tests, and we had thought that we had gotten a 6 or 7 more or less and they arrived…Why am I failing? if I got an 8…I think I got 40 points on the test. Why if some of us got 70% on the first test and they said that they got an 8 on the final….they got a 6 and said…Why? Anyway, that’s how it was with her. She didn’t take into account…” It seems that many students make teach-ers the scapegoat for individual failures (yet often accred-its them in individual triumph as well). As mentioned in prior research (Olafson et al. 2007) not only demanding teachers, but also excessively relaxed ones, presumably motivate procrastination. As stated in chapter two the amalgam of internal and external factors with stable and unstable dimensions may lead students to different out-comes. Therefore, when students feel tasks are out of their control (i.e. given by teacher), the results may depend on students own sense of capability to develop the tasks.

Internal Factors As mentioned previously, internal factors are highly bound to the individuals’ determination to act. Although these internal factors are closely related to the ability and ef-fort that an individual displays, they are also firmly attached to some external factors. “The decisions people make will depend on the internal attributes that individuals bring to the situation; their personality, confidence and other factors” (Burden and Williams, 1997). As mentioned early, irrational thoughts, self-efficacy, self-handicapping, self-esteem and fear of failure were the internal factors that influence

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Benjamín´s procrastination (which were also corroborated by the results of the PASS). The subsequent paragraphs will analyze and explain the internal factors displayed by Ben-jamín.

Irrational thoughts are connected with students’ inclination towards perfectionism. Along these lines, Ben-jamín admitted: “I am finishing the major and my grade is 8.6, and I received a 7…and I said to the teacher…I can’t get a seven because it’s going to lower my average a lot since it’s really only this subject and the other. It’s going to be more difficult to recover at this time. I thought it would be more convenient to fail. Although it is clear enough that Ben-jamín is facing problems with English, he asked the teacher to fail him in order to maintain his college average. Self-efficacy did also appear in Benjamín’s interview. At the beginning of the interview Benjamín judged himself as being good in the language and asserted: “Well... a lot, a lot... English wasn’t so difficult for me” Furthermore he displayed a slight sense of self-esteem and assured: “Well, I don’t un-derstand English very well, but as I look at my classmates, it gave them more trouble than it gave me.” Although Benjamín first claimed not to have any problem with the language, throughout the interview he accepted facing problems with EFL. Therefore, he mentioned: I thought that I’d take two courses and get the accreditation…I’d get into an Interlingua or Quick Learning course and get the accreditation. Now, I’m going to English courses. I started in July and now I’m in English three, and well…my idea is to take the accreditation test in January. These two statements may support the idea that Benjamín was not confident about his English language performance. Given that self-esteem is the value that indi-viduals have of themselves, it reflects a person’s evaluation or appraisal, and self-efficacy is a self-assessment about in-dividual’s own capacities. These two factors may be in tune with Benjamin’s decision to procrastinate. Berglas and Jones (1978) used the term self-handi-capping to explain that when self-esteem is at risk and fail-

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ure is expected in some activity, which is frequently con-nected to capabilities, individuals actively search for the factors that might interfere with the performance of this activity. Benjamín accepted that: “I thought that it’s easy. I thought that I’d take two coursed and get the accredita-tion. It also seems that Benjamín tried to protect himself asserting that: “And I always thought that the accreditation test was my only hope” Benjamín continues attempting to protect himself when he says: English is not offered in my faculty. …and going to another campus takes a lot of time.” “yes because now, in the major…well…in the faculty…they don’t offer the course. It’s either English three or English four, only in the summer is when they offer all four courses, and then, the English courses get separated by many con-tent courses of the actual major. Or later you’d have to take the course in CU or in the Faculty of Medicine, and we had classes here…whatever. I told myself…no…not now. And maybe they were excuses, but I always found some kind of problems.” All the assertions above may justify Benjamín´s procrastination. However, all these strategies to protect himself seems to be in concordance with Covingnton (1992) who claims that all students have the need to keep a posi-tive image of their abilities and look for strategies to protect them. Therefore, it is possible to assume that Benjamín is trying to conceal a feeling of potential failure. Although all the personality traits mentioned above may mask the fear of failure experienced by Ben-jamín, it was mentioned in the first paragraph that this feeling appeared in both the PASS questionnaire and the interview. This irrational fear to not succeed or show his low performance has led Benjamín to compare himself with his classmates. Furthermore, procrastinators may be concerned about what others think about them. There-fore, they may look for distractions where commitment is not needed. Evidently, Benjamín was looking for more important activities rather than his EFL courses, or was

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giving excuses to postpone them. He may try to protect his concept of self and avoid failure with this dilatory be-havior. According to the PASS, Benjamín rated himself as a moderate procrastinator thus it seems that he only delays some specific academic tasks. Furthermore, in the inter-view he seemed to experience task avoidance due to the fact that his decision to delay his EFL was intentional. However this intentional decision to postpone the EFL courses lasted to the end of the major and became a prob-lem for Benjamín. Therefore this dilatory behavior may become avoidant procrastination. The next section will analyze the results related to the third and last student.

Joaquín Questionnaire The results of part I of the PASS showed that Joaquín is a self-reported procrastinator. Part II of the questionnaire indicated that the external factor that most influenced Joaquín to procrastinate was task aversive-ness. This part also showed that fear of failure was an important internal factor in Joaquín’s dilatory behavior. These external factors will be explored further below.

Interview The interview showed that the external factors such as: timing of rewards and punishments, task aversive-ness and the role of the teacher influenced Joaquín to procrastinate. The internal factors that appeared in the interview were self-efficacy, self-handicapping, and fear of failure. The following section will discuss the main external and internal factors that emerged in Joaquín’s interview.

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External Factors Timing of rewards and punishments was, at first sight, the most important external factor that influenced Joaquín’s decision to delay his EFL. This paragraph states Joaquín´s beliefs about his priorities. He mentioned: “It wasn’t that pleasant. It wasn’t what I expected. I didn’t pay much attention in class, it wasn’t interesting for me. For me, the subjects from my major were more important, and in fact, that’s why I left the English courses until the end. Actually, I left the English courses behind.” “Since I had to work and had to study, you have to understand that I had some problems and I didn’t have time to do homework…”

“My idea was that I would take the English courses in the last semesters so that I wouldn’t be so pressured.” This recognition indicates that Joaquín is extrinsically motivated to prioritize his major subjects and put his EFL courses off. Furthermore, working also seems to provide more rewarding experience than passing English. That is to say, although he needs to fulfill his EFL course require-ment to obtain a grade and get his certificate, English as a foreign language is not a rewarding activity for Joaquín.

Task aversiveness has been mentioned as one of the factors found in the PASS that influences Joaquín´s dilatory behavior. What is more, the findings in the inter-view support that Joaquín procrastinated his EFL course due to his negative perception of the task, reporting that: “Yes, English is difficult for me”. It has never called my at-tention.” The aversion that Joaquín experiences to EFL may result to the connection of the stable internal dimen-sion of ability and the stable external dimension of task difficulty. Furthermore, it seems to be influenced by the unstable internal dimension of effort. This feeling of effi-cacy will be discussed in the section of internal factors that influence Joaquín to procrastinate below.

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The role of the teacher was also mentioned by Joaquín as a detrimental factor in his dilatory behavior. Teachers are an important key note in the tune of educa-tion. They can hinder or encourage students’ performance. Joaquín claimed: “It would be because of the way the teacher taught us, because of this…well…it wasn’t interesting for me. And that was it…it wasn’t interesting for me.” What is more, students have expectations about what kind of activ-ity is appropriate inside the EFL classroom. Then, he add-ed: “I…well…to learn I would prefer that the teacher put us into groups to do exercises in teams so that we might learn more than if he just shows us verb + subject + complement.” Joaquín continues emphasizing his beliefs about the teach-ing-learning process and appropriate activities inside the EFL classroom. What is more, his next comments seem to be placed into the three first features in Feuerstein Media-tion Theory. It is to say significance, purpose beyond the here and now, and the shared intention (see section 2.4.1.2) Thus, he added: Additionally he stated: “...there are some teachers that, at times, it seems to me that don’t…don’t…don’t transmit knowledge; rather they force us to learn cer-tain steps…steps to follow.” This statement seems to corre-spond to Burden and Williams (1997) who claim that the completion of a task depends on the way the teacher pres-ents the activity.

Internal Factors As mentioned earlier, internal factors arise from in-side us and are concerned with the success and failure that people attribute to their academic achievement. The three most significant internal factors mentioned by Joaquín were self-efficacy, self-handicapping, and fear of failure. As previously mentioned, Joaquín obtained unexpected results in his first EFL course. Therefore, his sense of self-efficacy may have suffered due to a lack of self-confidence and prac-tical skills. Wolters (2003) claimed, due to the impact that

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self-efficacy has on motivation within achievement situ-ations; individuals have the tendency to modify their be-havior. In Joaquín’s case, it seems to have encouraged him to delay engagement with activity in EFL courses. Joaquín reports, “I wanted to wait in order to do my best”, providing evidence that Joaquín recognizes his lack of ability in lan-guage learning. He seems to believe that with more time, his results in EFL would improve. However, his dilatory be-havior may be the result of the weak efficacy belief experi-enced by Joaquín. Self-handicapping seemed to appear once Joaquín felt endangered, and he decided to look for consistent excuses to put his EFL courses off. Therefore he claimed: “Generally speaking, my health, at times, is more important to me…I mean…then, I think about work.” “Well…I don’t know…another reason would be time! It’s very little time really, an hour of English is, well…is…I feel that it is very little time to learn. Another reason would be the material. I feel that the time is very little and the…the material I believe that…also the teachers…it also comes down to this, this and out of here…also I believe that the material... that if there were more material…and more rooms…not only the Technology Center but also if there were a room to see overhead transparencies, conferences and like that be in a little more contact…in contact.” All the statements mentioned above by Joaquín seem to be well supported since the view that health is, in general, considered a human priority. Furthermore, schools should provide students with all the facilities they need for their professional development. However, taking into account Joaquín´s performance in his EFL courses (at TCU and before university); it seems that these state-ments could also be a defensive strategy. Crozier (1997), states that the main goal of defensive strategies is to min-imize responsibility. He explains “Excuses don’t interfere

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with performance in themselves, but simply aim to shape the attributions made by other people. They tend to be used when failure is predicted, if the individual has little confidence in him- or herself” (p. 185). It is difficult, how-ever, to be sure whether the participant is presenting a defense strategy or simply providing valid excuses, par-ticularly when he mentions health problems. Fear of failure also influenced Joaquín’s decision to procrastinate. Covington (1992) states that as failing undermine how individuals are recognized, accepted and validated by others, they tend to put off or avoid tasks that might endanger self-worth. Thereby, Joaquín claimed: “…in fact, I took an English course about half way through the major, like in the fifth semester I took the first course and it went badly for me in that first course, and from there, I left it…I kept postponing it. Burden and Williams (1997) claim that a person might be inclined to avoid engaging in a particular activity because of a fear of failure. They also quote Atkinson (1964) who claimed that “achievement motivation for any individual can thus be determined by the relative strength of the tendency to approach a task compared with the strength of the tendency to avoid the task.” As mentioned through this paper BUAP students do have to accomplish four levels of EFL to get their title thus Joaquín emphasized: “My idea was that when I was in the last semesters, I would take the English courses so that I wouldn’t be so pressured…so that I would really understand that it is something important” Although the last statement in isolation seems to fit bet-ter with irrational thought, this decision was taken only after failing one of the EFL courses. As mentioned previ-ously in this paper, fear of failure is attached to low self-esteem. Brown (2002), Larsen-Freeman and Long (1991) relate self-esteem to specific tasks. Furthermore, Arnold, Andrés and Coopersmith (1999) relate self-esteem with

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previous experiences, memories and childhood. As men-tioned before, Joaquín is a self-reported procrastinator. During the interview, Joaquín asserted that he planned to postpone his EFL courses to obtain better results however task aversiveness and fear of failure did appeared in both the PASS questionnaire and the interview. These results may place Joaquín in the success or failure attributions mentioned by Weiner. In addition, and as mentioned through this section, Joaquín´s sense of self-efficacy was hinder after failing his first EFL course. Therefore, Joaquín might look for real and firmly believed reasons to procrastinate. As a result, although Joaquín’s decision to postpone his EFL course may be intentional, the inter-view showed that his unplanned dilatory behavior, due to failing, became avoidant procrastination. This chapter analyzed the data gathered from the PASS questionnaire and the interviews carried out with some students who are facing problems with the suc-cessful completion of their EFL courses. This analysis emphasized the main internal and external factors that influenced this dilatory behavior. The main conclusions and the implications of this research will be discussed in the following chapter.

Key FindingsAlthough the results stated before show that only one student is self-reported procrastinator, the other two stu-dents are also facing problems due to this dilatory behav-ior. These three participants are in the deadline of their major and the accomplishment of their EFL courses is the only requirement needed to get their titles. As men-tioned earlier in this paper and according to Ferrari and Emmons (1995), procrastination is considered functional if the individual is looking for optimal results in a specific task. However procrastination is considered dysfunctional if this delay causes problems for individuals. In conclu-sion, these three students may experience dysfunctional

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procrastination, due to their overwhelming urge to pass the four levels of EFL.

All the interviewed students tried to protect their self-esteem and looked for external factors to exempt them of their responsibility in procrastination. Timing of rewards and punishments was a common external fac-tor mentioned by each participant. All of them mentioned and placed the subjects related to their majors in the first place. Although it seems a good decision at the first sight, students are emphasizing not only the importance that these subjects have on their lives, but also protecting themselves for their delaying.

The second external factor mentioned in com-mon was task aversiveness. Although all the interviewed students mentioned this external factor, the impact has been different in each student. On the one hand, Este-ban claimed that he is really good in English; he likes the language and is pretty good in speaking. On the other hand, although aversion was not clearly accepted by this student, he accepted having some difficulties with gram-mar. Surprisingly, Esteban suggested that “English should be an elective major; not every student enrolled at BUAP is going to need it.” When asked if he did not agree that Eng-lish is important for students who are majoring in busi-ness administration, he claimed “If your goal is going to be a micro-businessman you will not need English.” In sum, task difficulty influenced procrastination rather than task aversiveness. On the contrary, task aversiveness played an im-portant role in Joaquín and Benjamín’s EFL performance. They openly showed their aversion for EFL and agreed in the problems this feeling has brought them. Even though decision to act depends on the individual, these decisions may be influenced by external or internal factors (Burden and Williams, 1997). Therefore, these students mentioned the factors that were not their responsibility. In the inter-view, Benjamín mentioned his total average and claimed

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“I can’t get a seven because it’s going to lower my average… I thought it would be more convenient to fail.” Joaquín mentioned the effect that stressors have in his health and assure “Generally speaking, my health, at times, is more important to me…I mean…then, I think about work.” The third external factor mentioned was the role of the teacher. Esteban highlighted the deceit that low or poor teacher’s performance caused him while Joaquín only mentioned the teacher’s imposition. All in all, it seems that that their teachers did not enhance students’ confi-dence, motivation, personal interest, self-esteem or an ap-propriate learning environment (Ibid, 1997).

As has been stated along this paper, self-efficacy is the self-assessment that individuals make about their competence in a specific task. This personality trait was mentioned by all the participants in this research. It seems that the psychological efficacy-activated process; that is to say, the individual’s selection of a task, mentioned by Bandura (1994) may influence all participants. However, they experienced this influence to different degrees as a result of their performance, and their decisions to act dif-fer accordingly. Two of the participants were not confi-dent in their ability to perform in the language, besides their motivation was hindered by the results of their first evaluations. Therefore, they might experience a detriment in both their self-efficacy and self-esteem. Hence, the re-action to protect their self-esteem was a dilatory behav-ior. On the other hand, although one of the participants showed a high level of self-efficacy their teachers’ perfor-mance was demotivating; hence, he procrastinated. The also dominant traits mentioned by partici-pants were self-handicapping, fear of failure, and self-esteem. Fear of failure and Self-handicapping are traits working together in combination to influence procrasti-nation. We will start with the idea that fear is related to the feeling that our performance will be substandard and not reach the expectations set by others. Thus, one begins

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looking for excuses to protect one’s self. Since self-handi-capping is to set up obstacles to succeed, or to put forward excuses for failure, it is used when failure is predicted or individuals have little confidence in themselves. As mentioned at the beginning of this chapter, students looked for excuses to protect their self-esteem, thus, mentioned external factors that were out of their control. This student’s strategy to protect them leads us to reflect on the interwoven psychological system in hu-man beings. In the trait of self-esteem, undoubtedly there is a connection between the levels already mentioned by Brown (2002) in this paper and the participants’ perfor-mance. One of the participants labelled himself as a good student and an excellent English speaker. He undoubtedly showed both a high situational self-esteem and a high task self esteem. The other two participants showed lower task self-esteem. Although these two students protected their self-esteem relating their failure to different factors, they mentioned that English is quite difficult for them.

Implications for Further Research As mentioned in chapter two, section 2.3 of this paper, research in procrastination has been carried out mainly in academic settings. However these research studies have enclosed academic tasks in general or have focused their attention in just one of the factors involved in this dilatory behavior. Although there are some re-search studies in the math area (Kalowale et. all, 2007), business area (Laforge, 2005) and reading in a second lan-guage (Bernhart, 2005), this researcher did not find any research in the field of EFL.

Although this research seems mainly focused on psychological reasons to procrastinate, the findings re-lated to the external factors were quite impressive. One of the participants reported that the teachers’ performance was not optimal to teach a language. This student report-ed being very good speaker of English before he had nega-

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tive experiences in the TCU. Furthermore, some students seem to believe that if education has a cost they will learn better as they emphasize the importance of their studying EFL in private institutions. Therefore, it may point to the need for more in-depth research focused on teachers and their beliefs about students who face problems with the language.

It seems that the flexibility in the EFL courses is causing in some students arousal procrastination. That is to say, students are aware that the four levels of EFL is a requirement to get their BA title. However, the fact that these EFL courses do not have any deadline (more than the accomplishment itself) it is leading students to pro-crastinate.

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Exploring critical reading strategies for LEMO translation students

Ismael Mauro Jiménez Gómez &Michael T. Witten

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Exploring critical reading strategies for LEMO translation studentsIsmael Mauro Jiménez Gómez & Michael T. Witten

AbstractThe role of reading in English language teaching and trans-lation needs to be under constant evaluation and review. In recent years, critical discourse analysis has sponsored new trends in critical reading in order to promote more con-structive reading using authentic texts. This research tries to explore critical reading strategies by means of a critical reading framework with translation students before at-tempting to decode a source text into a translated text. The main focus is to explore the nature of critical reading, the application of the critical reading framework with an au-thentic text, and the implications that underlie the text as well as the different manners of interpretation.

Key words: critical applied linguistics, critical discourse analysis, critical language study, critical thinking, critical reading

ResumenEl papel de la lectura en la enseñanza del idioma inglés y de la traducción merece estar en constante evaluación y revisión. En los años recientes, el análisis del discurso crítico ha auspi-ciado nuevas tendencias como la lectura crítica con el fin de que los lectores sean más constructivistas al enfrentarse con textos de la vida real. La presente investigación se propone explorar estrategias de lectura crítica por medio de un marco de lectura crítica con estudiantes de traducción antes de in-tentar la decodificación de un texto de partida en un texto de llegada. El objetivo principal es la de explorar la naturaleza de la lectura crítica, la aplicación del marco de lectura críti-

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ca con textos auténticos y las implicaciones que subyacen detrás del texto y las diferentes maneras de interpretación.

Palabras claves: Lingüística Aplicada Crítica, Análisis del Discurso Crítico, Estudios del Lenguaje Crítico, Pensamiento Crítico, Lectura Crítica

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1. Introduction

Today reading is one of the most effective ways of communication for speakers of different languages. Reading, no doubt, has become the main objective

of second and foreign language instruction. In recent years, considerable reading research has been performed and is seen as a communicative and interactive approach to the study of texts. In such a process, authors and readers cer-tainly interact by means of a written text, which merits deep analysis in order to understand meaning. Therefore, it is vi-tal for language teachers to help their learners to develop and improve their reading strategies in order to read effec-tively. There has been a long debate about what reading is, what its role at different levels of education is, what its ob-jectives are, and what methods, techniques or strategies are useful to be taught and learned. It is clear that this debate has not been entirely resolved (Aebersold & Field, 1997) . Critical applied linguistics (CAL) has contributed through critical discourse analysis (CDA) to the creation of a new field of study that attempts to describe the analytical approach of critical linguistic experts to the study of texts: critical reading (Fowler, Hodge, Kress & Trew, 1979). Criti-cal reading makes the habit of reading more satisfactory and productive, and lets readers handle difficult and more challenging reading material. Critical reading begins before opening a book, pamphlet, magazine or the like: what are we reading, who is writing to whom, why we are reading and how are we reading. Critical reading helps us to analyze, evaluate and come up with new ideas about a text (Penny-cook, 2001). Critical reading is defined in different ways. Ac-cording to Wilson (1988) critical reading implies that read-ers are actively and constructively engaged in the process of reading. The readers are continually negotiating what they know with what they try to make sense of. Mugford (1997)

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argues that critical reading attempts to give language users their own identity as readers and highlight an individual purpose for reading a specific text. However, critical read-ing seems to be ignored in EFL teaching; and in translation classrooms, reading critically is of paramount importance, yet needs to be reinforced by existing approaches to devel-oping reading skills. It is believed that readers are not given sufficient opportunities to work on a comprehensive reading framework to face up to real-life texts. Therefore, there is a need to study critical reading skills among university level students by encouraging them to respond to specific texts and analyzing their position as critical readers.

This study proposes to explore the critical read-ing strategies of a group of university students employing a framework proposed by the critical linguist Kress (1985), which covers three important factors:

1. Why is this topic being written about?

2. How is this topic being written about?

3. What other ways of writing about the topic are there?

The implementation of this framework will be real-ized by means of action research utilizing a selected text in English, a critical reading guide to conduct a critical read-ing session and a video recording of the events of that ses-sion. It is the concern of this research to explore how the participants respond to such a critical reading that might assist them to read texts more effectively before attempting their translation into Spanish. An additional focus is to as-sess if the participants develop a critical awareness which might determine to what extent the participants read a spe-cific text critically.

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1.1 Rationale Translation is an important area which warrants

research due to the fact that learners must have advanced reading skills in both their mother tongue and their foreign language. This is the dual linguistic knowledge that they must possess, which is unavoidable in translators. Hence, before attempting a translation, they need to read the source text carefully in order to have a coherent view of it, and then, to be able to make the correct decisions to produce a coher-ent translation text. In doing so, their language competence and reading performance are crucial because, in the former, they have to understand language rules consciously and, in the latter, they must have the ability to produce language.

1.2 Study Overview In order to carry out the study, the participants

were provided with a specific text that was selected by the researcher that explored an interesting yet controversial topic that was unusual for them to deal with inside the laic wing of the university: a religious text. The participants were asked to work with this text in order to explore their critical reading skills using a critical reading framework suggested by Kress (1985) from which three basic research questions are posed:

1. What personal opinions do the participants ex-press about the text topic? This question was addressed by a pre-reading task (see Appendix B). This question was reformu-lated in order to identify the spoken discourse that was done in the task. Although Kress (1985) focuses his attention on Why the topic of the text is being written about, it is more important to pay attention to What personal opinions the participants express toward the topic. These kinds of opinions have the

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purpose of, in Feuerstein & Schcolnik’s (1995) terms, introducing the participants to a coherent mindset and the topic, activating previous knowledge and en-couraging readers to engage with the text. This refor-mulation is supported by what Lankshear & Knobel (2004) have stated in the sense that Kress’ question is used conjointly as a tool for identifying the discourse that operates in a segment of spoken data, however this tool could be easily applicable to analyze both written and spoken texts.

2. What questions do the participants produce in relation to the text topic? This question was explored via a while-reading task (see Appendix B). Again, according to Feuerstein & Schcolnik (1995), instead of focusing on the second question from Kress (1985) as to How the topic of a text is being written about, the prerogative is to know What kinds of questions the participants might pro-duce when they read a given text. In other words, as Aebersold & Field (1997) have stated, it is necessary to explore what really happens when the participants read; how they consciously control and monitor their reading in terms of paying attention to what they read, thinking carefully about specific elements or at-tempting to identify the interactions which occur in such reading process.

3. What alternatives do the participants identify in regards to other possible ways in which the text have been written? This question was illustrated by a post-reading task (see Appendix B). In fact, this question did not need to be modified from Kress’ (1985) postulation. The text-centered view, as a raw material which was produced by a specific author, should be respected.

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Thus, according to Feuerstein & Schcolnik’s (1995), after activating their reading skills and strategies, the participants might deduce alternatives as to how the selected text could have been written.

2. Literature ReviewThis section intends to inform the reader of the nec-

essary theoretical background in order to understand the fundamentals of the study in terms of critical reading. To begin with, critical applied linguistics (CAL) will be briefly described (Pennycook, 2001). A special emphasis will be giv-en to a critical approach to translation (ibid.). Next, a brief review will be presented over two main critical domains of CAL that are helpful in grasping how this field of study has developed: critical discourse analysis (CDA), focusing on the work of Fairclough (1989, 1992a & b) and critical liter-acy (Kress, 1995). Then, critical thinking will be described as an active and constructive engagement in the process of reading critically. Finally, some interesting critical reading contributions will be briefly described, focusing mainly on the implementation of critical reading posited by Wallace (1992b), which is a fundamental tenet of this research.

2.1 Critical applied linguistics (CAL)Fowler, Hodge, Kress and Trew (1979) were the pio-

neers of critical linguistics. In their first attempt, they de-veloped an analysis for public discourse in order to identify the ideology which is implicitly present in texts. There have been several critical linguists who have tried to sponsor this field of study. Pennycook (2001) whose contributions have become important in critical linguistics are described below. Pennycook (2001) tries to give a definition of criti-cal applied linguistics (CAL); however, he claims this term is not an established domain of work. The term has two stances: the former deals with second or foreign (but not

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first) language teaching and the latter with language relat-ed to professional settings (including lexicography, trans-lation, speech pathology, etc). He linked the two stances and defines applied linguistics as a semi-autonomous and interdisciplinary domain which uses sociology, education, anthropology, cultural studies and psychology in order to focus on language use in professional settings.

2.2 Domain 1: critical discourse analysis (CDA)Critical discourse analysis (CDA) focuses mainly on

the exercise of power as it is present in the discourses of spe-cific texts (Fairclough, 1989). According to Wallace (2001), critical discourse analysts (i.e. Fairclough, 1989; Kress,1985) have taken into consideration the Foucauldian stance of dis-course to refer to “the manner in which specific ways of un-derstanding the world systematically cooperate with those people who enjoy a social and political power while others are marginalized” (p.210). The contributions made by these critical linguists will be briefly described in the following sections as the basic principles of critical discourse analysis (CDA) in relation to critical reading.

2.3 Domain 2: critical literacyCritical literacy is seen from different perspectives.

Wallace (2001) recognizes that it is important to differen-tiate between orthodox literacy and mainstream literacy, and that critical literacy deals with relations of power and the ways power is exercised in both real life and within spe-cific texts (Wallace, 2001, p. 210). Pennycook (2001) claims that critical discourse analysis and critical literacy often combine under the name of critical language awareness because the aim is to empower readers (learners) with a critical analytical framework to make them reflective on their own language experiences and practices and on the social institutions they belong to.

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Furthermore, Pennycook (2001) points out that literacy has been regarded as a set of isolated skills: read-ing and writing, decoding and encoding texts. The usual tendency is to conceptualize literacy in applied linguistics and TESOL along with psycholinguistic processes, schema theory or first language transfer. Based on this stance, Pen-nycook (ibid.) claims that literacy is usually defined as “the ability to read and write where skills are autonomous, aso-cial, and decontextualized cognitive processes, the second pair in the four skills approach of language acquisition to second language education (listening, speaking, reading and writing)” (Pennycook, 2001, p. 76).

Pennycook (2001) argues that critical literacy might take many forms. He distinguishes between two critical concepts: a) literary criticism and b) critical social literacy. He agrees with Luke and Freebody (1997) in the sense that critical literacy indicates a combination of edu-cational interests devoted to employ the possibilities that the technologies of writing and other ways of inscription provide for social change, cultural diversity, economic pro-bity, and political liberation. Pennycook (2001, p. 76) draws on his survey of literature on critical literacy in order to create a framework to differentiate various approaches to the field:

a. Literacy as social practice.b. Approaches which focus on critical discourse

analysis and critical language awareness.c. Genre literacy.d. Critical pedagogy and voice which make empha-

sis on Freirean-based participatory literacies or critical pedagogy approaches to marginalization.

e. A poststructuralist practice that aims to explore the discursive construction of reality across dif-ferent places.

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2.4 Critical thinking Critical thinking can be defined as one of the

most vital components of learning (Levy, 1997, viii). Criti-cal thinking can take place in different settings of adult life. Civically, critical thinking involves how people interact with each other, how they respect themselves, how human rights have validity in societies (understanding validity as having the capacity of being valid for something in relation to forms, rules or laws within a societal group), the respect to official institutions and to the symbols of one’s country (Levy, 1997, ix). Economically, critical thinking involves how workers, employees, managers and business tycoons are in-volved in the productive process of their companies, enter-prises and factories (Levy, 1997, ix). Politically, it involves how people participate actively in the democratic process of their nations, or the opposite, their non-participation, how they organize themselves to ask for modes of government to their local authorities. Religiously, critical thinking involves how people exercise their beliefs, faith and rituals, how such manifestations influence their way and standard of living (Levy, 1997, ix).

2.5 Focusing on critical readingIn recent years, critical reading has arisen as a new

reading tendency in English language teaching (Milan 1999; Wallace, 2001). However, the obvious question is what ex-actly reading critically means. Milan Spears (1999) claims reading critically is not a synonym of finding deficiencies or weaknesses in a text. Instead it consists of “making care-fully an evaluation, making solid judgments and putting into practice thinking, logic and reasoning powers” (Milan Spears, 1999, p. 250). In doing so, readers must have, on the one hand, open-minded criteria by not accepting what they read in a text because it is printed; and on the other, not refusing ideas and opinions because they are completely dif-ferent from what they believe.

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Wallace (1992b) who has been involved in the de-velopment of critical literacy in second language classroom in recent years retook the fundamentals provided by Fair-clough (1989) and Kress (1985) on critical discourse analy-sis. She conducted a study in order to propose an approach for critical reading. In her study, she uses models of reading that focus on the process of reading and the ways in which readers can interact with texts.

Wallace (1992b) claims critical reading has not been explored and developed adequately in the English as a For-eign Language (EFL) field. From this stance, we can perceive her concern with the lack of critical reading opportunities that learners have in order to engage with texts from alterna-tive perspectives. She posits that reading has been too often considered as a trivial activity, and that reading material is often selected according to purely grammatical criteria (Wal-lace, 1992b). Such texts have been regarded as instruments to identify linguistic structure. She also claims that the lack of suitable reading material is due to the fact that English learners may feel offended if they are confronted with cen-sored texts due to their family or educational background (Wallace, 1992b).

Wallace (1992b, p. 62) thinks that English learners have been marginalized, their reading goals are maintained at a basic level, and what is missing is:

1) To locate reading and writing texts in a social context.

2) The freedom to use ‘provocative texts’.

3) A specific methodology to interpret texts that focus on ideological assumptions and proposi-tional meaning.

As a general pedagogic aim, Wallace (1992b, p. 63) suggests that critical reading should assist learners in seeing

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reading and written texts as intriguing, that is, to see litera-cy as a phenomenon and to be assertive in their interaction with written texts. She suggests three basic components:

1) Reading practices.

2) Production and consumption of reading material.

3) Reading processes.

The first component refers to the practice of reading as communities of readers as much as individuals (Wallace, 1992b). In other words, the historical or cultural background of the participants must be taken into consideration when engaging in the reading processes. The second component tries to focus on how a specific text is produced in a particu-lar social community, that is, how a variety of texts come to us in the different form that they do (Wallace, 1992b). Here Wallace (1992b) uses the term genre to illustrate the set of texts types from menus to comic strips, focusing on variable formal and semantic features that these texts display (Wal-lace, 1992b). The third component deals with reading as a social process, that is, people read as members of a social group not as individuals (Wallace, 1992b, pp. 63-67). Our interpretation of texts depends on our previous social ex-periences and the social contexts in which we are reading. Wallace (1992b) argues that “our first language identities and experiences as readers inevitably influence our second language ones” (p. 67).

For Wallace (1992b) one of the main aims of critical reading is the reconstruction of discourses within texts. In such reconstruction, the “obvious” and “taken for granted” must be re-examined critically so that ways of speaking about certain social groups like women, blacks, foreign-ers, immigrants and other minorities should be analyzed adequately. In Wallace’s (1992b) study, critical reading led

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readers to confront the ideological content of texts in which dominant discourses were evident. Critical reading allowed learners to focus on the awareness that language plays in the transmission of dominant ideology. Therefore, it is impor-tant to perform formal and systematic critical analysis by examining linguistic features such as: specific sorts of col-locations, inclusive and exclusive pronouns, and nouns as agents or patients among others (Wallace, 1992b, p. 69).

In her study, Wallace (1992b) used only authentic texts, which implies texts written for purposes other than English language teaching. These texts may also include dif-ferent genres such as: advertisements, magazine, articles, and newspaper reports. Wallace (1992b) suggests teachers give readers the freedom to choose the texts they are inter-ested in, and that various interpretations should be accepted as long as learners are able to defend their positions. Wal-lace (1992b) then built on a critical reading procedure, tak-ing into consideration materials collection and the teaching approach that focuses on three main tasks: pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading. On average, a pre-reading task asks students to give their personal opinion about a cer-tain topic; or more critically, to deduce why such a topic was selected. A while-reading task intends for students to make predictions about the text; a critical activity would be the consideration of a set of ways to continue a text. Here, the questions are as important as the answers, that is, the gen-eration of interesting questions is of paramount importance rather than reading the texts in order to answer the ques-tions. Wallace (1992b) takes the framework suggested by Kress (1985) to increase awareness of the ideology of texts:

1. Why is this topic being written about?

2. How is this topic being written about?

3. What other ways of writing about the topic are there?

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In Wallace’s (1992b) study, she reports that her stu-dents became more aware of what they read while becoming more critical readers. She concludes critical reading in the EFL classroom should be manifested in different forms with different students due to the fact that learners have different language levels and different literary awareness.

3. Methodology This chapter will describe the methodological pro-cess that was followed in order to explore the critical reading framework postulated by Kress (1985). The context, the par-ticipants, the data collection procedure and the data analy-sis procedures will be described in turn.

3.1 Description of the research contextThe School of Languages at the Benemérita Uni-

versidad Autónoma de Puebla through its Licenciatura en Lenguas Modernas (LEMO) offers two academic profes-sional options: language teaching and translation. The stu-dents who have chosen the translation alternative are being trained to become translators with the objective of being able to translate written English texts into Spanish, making more widely available the advances of science, technology and communication among scientific, cultural and artistic societies of different countries (Plan de Estudios LEMO, 2002). Students from this translation program were chosen as the participants for this research and are described in fur-ther detail below.

3.2 Description of the research participantsSix young adult pre-service translation students

were invited to participate in the current study. They were native speakers of Spanish. Five participants were females in their early twenties and one male in his late twenties. All of them have taken the Test of English as a Foreign Language

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exam (TOEFL), scoring above 550 points, which is the re-quired score that the institution has established as a gradu-ation requirement. Finally, it is worth mentioning that the participants showed a willingness to participate in this re-search. They were informed about the nature of this study, and they agreed to participate without reservations.

3.3 Description of the instruments The instruments that were elaborated in order to

collect the data are described below.

3.3.1 Text selection The selection of a “provocative” text, in Wallace’s

(1992b) terms, was necessary in order to explore the par-ticipants’ responses to the production and consumption of reading material. As such, the researcher carefully chose the text from a variety of sample texts. The text is an article called ‘My Eve, My Mary’ taken from Newsweek magazine. This magazine mainly deals with political is-sues around the world but includes other topics that may be considered polemic by readers.

According to Wallace (1992b) the texts to be analyzed from a critical reading perspective need to be ‘provocative’ and ‘a very clearly ideologically loaded’. As such, the researcher carefully chose the text from a variety of sample texts. The text is an article called ‘My Eve, My Mary’ taken from Newsweek magazine. The text mentioned above is provocative as the author of the text tries to analyze the roles that Eve and Mary have within Christianity. It has an ideological load because readers can express their own views towards an icon such as Mary, independently of whether or not they are believers. It was decided to use this kind of text because it fits the criteria suggested by Wallace to explore critical reading practices (see appendix A).

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3.4 The critical reading guide In order to explore the participants’ critical read-

ing practices, it was necessary to prepare a critical reading guide to conduct the critical reading session (see appendix B). This guide focuses on the framework postulated by Kress (1985), connected to three different phases within the criti-cal reading process: pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading tasks. For this reason, the critical reading guide is meant to lead the participants through these three phases, which are described in greater detail below.

3.5 Video recording and transcript This study performed a critical reading session with the six participants described above in order to explore how they would actually engage with a sample critical reading task. The critical reading task was held on the 29th of May of 2008. The session took place at the meeting room at School of Languages, and it took seventy seven minutes. This criti-cal reading session was videoed and later transcribed for analysis.

3.6 Data AnalysisThis study utilizes an approach to data analysis which

follows procedures for various phases of coding. Creswell (1998, p.57) presents a format for this coding process, which was utilized by the researcher in this study. This format fol-lows four phases that include:

• Open Coding: the researcher forms initial categories of information about the phenome-non being studied by segmenting information.

• Axial coding: The investigator assembles the data in new ways after open coding in which the researcher identifies central categories that influence the phenomenon, specifies ac-tions or interactions that result from the cen-

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tral phenomenon, identifies the contexts that influence the phenomenon, and delineates the outcomes for the phenomenon.

• Selective coding: the researcher identifies a ‘story line’ and writes a story that integrates the categories in the axial coding model. This phase typically includes the presentation of conditional hypotheses.

• Conditional Matrix: Although rarely found in grounded theory studies, this phase consists of the development of a visual portrayal that elucidates the social, historical and economic conditions influencing the central phenom-enon.

This analysis strategy was primarily chosen because the type of data that was available for analysis seemed to lend itself to the systematic process described above. Fur-thermore, it allowed the researcher to adopt what Horn-berger (1994) describes as an emic and holistic view that might create a whole picture of the event under study from the participants’ perspective. Keeping the above points in mind, it was decided to follow Watson-Gegeo’s (1998) rec-ommendation that the subjects’ words should be used when possible in an attempt to bracket the researcher’s existing assumptions about the phenomenon.

4. ResultsThis section will provide a discussion of the results

that were obtained during the critical reading session. The video transcripts of the pre-reading, while reading and post-reading tasks are analyzed respectively. In each task, different critical reading categories will be identified through the process of coding (open, axial, and selective coding) according to the manner in which the participants

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engaged with the controversial issues of the selected read-ing text.

4.1. Pre-reading taskDuring pre-reading task, the participants’ prior

knowledge about the controversial topics of the text was first activated. In order to activate the participants’ previous knowledge, the researcher prepared some pre-reading ques-tions (see Appendix B) related to the text topic. This was done for two reasons: 1) in order to encourage them to think about the topic of the text; and 2) to engage the participants in a group discussion.

In analyzing the discussion transcripts, the re-searcher first engaged in the process of open coding and identified some initial categories in order to segment the data given. These initial categories were taken from the participants’ personal opinions about the topic, and were words that appeared in high frequency throughout the pre-reading discussion. They included: These questions included:

1. Religion 5. Eve

2. Church 6. Virginity

3. The Bible 7. Worship

4. Mary

Then, the researcher analyzed the data in new ways after the open coding process in order to identify the central categories that seemed to influence the discus-sion held with the participants. The categories previously cited above became axial categories, which included the following:

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1. Being religious 5. The role of Eve and Mary

2. Going to church 6. The role of virginity

3. Reading the Bible 7. The worship of Mary

4. Mary as an icon

It was then necessary to progress from axial codes to selective codes in order to relate the participants’ voic-es to categories that relate directly to the critical reading process. Therefore, the axial codes were transformed into selective codes. During this process, the seven categories above were reduced down to three selective categories as can be seen in figure 1 below.

Figure 1. Reduction from Axial to Selective codes in critical pre-reading process

4.2.2 While reading taskDuring the while-reading task, the participants

had to formulate their own questions. This should be done as Valerie (1995) has stated to focus their attention on the main idea of paragraphs in the participants own words. This while-reading task was very interesting in the sense that the questions produced by the participants are closely related to the critical reading strategy posted by

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Valerie (1995) called questioning to understand and re-member by asking questions about the content of the text-topic.

At the beginning of this task, the researcher pro-vided the participants with the copies of the reading text. Then, the participants were asked to read the text careful-ly, paying careful attention to new vocabulary (lexis), and above all, to identifying the main ideas and supporting ideas of the different sections of the text. They spent ap-proximately fifteen minutes in doing this, and then, they wrote questions about the text that were inspired during the reading process.

Using the questions that each participant pro-duced as a starting point, a similar coding process was followed to that which was described in the pre-reading section. The open coding started with the participants’ questions. These codes developed into abstract read-ing categories, which eventually were combined into three selective codes. The selective codes include: issues found within the text, issues related to the author, and issues related to society. The first category is relat-ed to how the participants characterized the type of text they were working with. The second category is related to the text producer (author), emphasizing the author’s purposes for addressing the specific audience in a par-ticular manner, and the third category examines how the contents of the text become relevant within the societal context.

In terms of critical reading, these issues related to society were very revealing in regards to how the partici-pants made connections between the text and the wider society. They made these connections under three basic stances:

1) The participants proposed that the text pro-vides “a positive model” for (Mexican) wom-

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en to follow or aspire towards due to Mary’s values. Participants used adjectives such as: obedient, virgin, pure, and sacrificing.

2) Participants also noticed that the text pro-vided “a negative model” (Eve) for the same women to avoid or reject. Participants used adjectives like: curious, rebel, disobedient.

3) Finally, the participants proposed that the text suggests that society needs something to believe in, which is not offered in reality.

4.2.3 Post-reading taskThe post-reading analysis followed a similar

coding process that was utilized in the pre-reading and while-reading sections. The process concluded with the discovery of two selective coding categories which in-cluded: identification of intended audience and awareness of genre. As the participants discussed issues related to the intended audience, there seemed to be two types of readers: those who read only within the confines of the text and those who read beyond the confines of the text. Readers who remained within the confines of the text defined the ‘ideal audience’ for the text as “people who are interested in religion.” Readers who journeyed beyond the confines of the text propose that the text was written for “people who are critical” or “feminists.” In regards to the participants’ awareness of the genre, all of the participants could accurately recognize the text type as a literary essay. Furthermore, all of the participants proposed alternative genres in which the text could have been written effective-ly, including: short story (narrative), academic essay or a persuasive/argumentative essay.

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DiscussionIn this study it was demonstrated how a critical read-

ing process may be explored taking into consideration three main reading tasks: pre-reading, while-reading and post-reading. The main goal of reading critically is for consumers of texts to recognize and interpret their various dimen-sions, some of which require “reading between the lines”. This process requires readers to engage in inference work, language exploration, and more precisely, on style, register, genre and discourse structure. During the pre-reading task, three main selective categories were identified: expressing personal stance toward the topic, cultural orientation and personal beliefs and values. During the while-reading task, three selective coding categories were developed: issues found within the text, issues related to author and issues related to society. Finally, during the post-reading task, two selective coding categories were found: identification of in-tended audience and awareness of genre. The current results respond to the call of Kress (1989) for the development of a social and cultural setting to sponsor critical reading. It has been demonstrated that building on this framework, the participants were given the opportunity to explore their critical reading competence. The proposed framework considerably helped them to re-late specific interpretations of a reading text to their socio-cultural context. Critical reading was done both individually and collectively, allowing them to develop roles as both readers and interpreters. What is more, they were encour-aged to react to and interact with an authentic reading text and analyze the motives and intentions of the text producer as well as identify the content and structure of the text topic. By evaluating an argument, they tested the logic of the text and could measure its credibility and emotional impact.

It is also noteworthy that during the critical read-ing session, the participants demonstrated the ability to

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be open-minded and to discuss any topic. This is a positive characteristic of translators who have the capacity and tal-ent to deal with all kinds of topics. The participants were able to adopt the role of critical readers who were actively and constructively engaged with the text, both individu-ally and collectively as meaning makers as they constructed questions, formulated and confirmed hypotheses as well as evaluating what they read throughout the critical reading process.

ConclusionThis research represents a first attempt to explore

critical reading research in a local Mexican context. Further research will be helpful in order to determine to what extent critical reading would be a suitable methodology for both English Language Teaching (ELT) and for developing trans-lation competences in academic institutions.

Since critical discourse analysis (CDA) through crit-ical reading intends to empower, change and emancipate people, it would be interesting to look into whether there is a risk that such an approach might offend or alienate some students. Furthermore, it would also be very important to explore whether or not it is actually desirable or ethical for English language teachers or translation teachers to adopt the role of ‘liberators’ with the purpose of practicing a phi-losophy of emancipation in classrooms, especially in regards to polemic and controversial issues that critical reading in-tends to explore.

In recent years the Benemérita Universidad Autóno-ma de Puebla has fostered a new educational model (Mod-elo Universitario Minerva, 2007, p.7). This model promotes the development of complex thinking abilities, focusing on problem solving, classroom debates, asking questions which may cause cognitive conflicts, cooperative learning strate-gies, learning from errors and project development. It may

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be assumed that the critical reading framework that was ex-plored within this study is suited appropriately developing many of the educational goals mentioned above due to its views on critical thinking and critical literacy. Critical read-ing is an excellent tool to decode ideological positions and power relations that are hidden from “lay” readers as well as to reinforce the reading strategies within ELT and transla-tion classrooms to make more conscious readers when en-gaging with different sorts of texts. This is, of course, a clear invitation to open serious academic debates regarding the appropriateness of critical reading approaches within the setting of public universities in Mexico.

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Appendix A

The text

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Appendix B

The critical reading guide

Aim: To encourage translation students to explore the re-flective critical reading of a macro text taken from a maga-zine article.

Procedure:First phase: (about 20 minutes)

1. Introduce the participants to the topic. Em-phasize that the participants will be involved in a serious topic as religion. Open a brief discussion about the topic, begin asking them: Are you religious? How often do you go to church, temple, synagogue, etc? Do you sometimes read the Bible?

2. As part of pre-reading task the following ac-tivities will be done: a) the participants will be given the text; b) ask the participants to skim the text (looking at the title, the sub-heading and the pictures) to familiarize with the text and the topic; c) ask the participants to give their ‘personal opinion’ about the top-ic; d) ask the participants why they think the text was written, e. g., because of …. a special interest in religion, etc; so as to …. inform, persuade, convince, etc; e) ask them what the text is about.

3. The following pre-reading questions might reflect a judgment to the topic of the text, e. g., a) the role of Eve and Mary in the Chris-

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tianity (disobedient v. obedient); b) Catholic versus non-Catholic beliefs (Do you think Mary deserves worship?); c) the role of vir-ginity in society (Is virginity important today for women?).

Second phase: (about 60 minutes)

4. As part of while-reading task the partici-pants will be invited to read the text care-fully. The teacher and the participants will quickly check the meaning of any unknown words (15 minutes). Instead of ‘finding right answers’ to specific questions, the partici-pants will be motivated to produce their own questions according to the text. The ques-tions will be written in the board. Then the participants will create a debate in order to provide a suitable answer to a specific ques-tion (45 minutes).

Third phase: (between 15 or 20 minutes)

5. As part of post-reading task, participants will be encouraged to think over to whom the text is specially addressed, e. g., for the general public? For someone in special? For Catho-lics or non-Catholics? In addition they have to take into consideration in what other ways the text could have been written.

A matrix as shown below will be completed by the teacher with the data provided by the participants. This data will focus on the previous pre-reading/while-reading/post-

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reading procedure in the critical reading session. Each task will be related to three different categories respectively, that is, the pre-reading to know category; the while-reading to want to know, and the post-reading to learned.

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M. A. students’ expectations and perceptions about teachers’ written feedback in

academic assignments

Georgina Aguilar González &Rebeca Elena Tapia Carlín

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M. A. students’ expectations and perceptions about teachers’ written feedback in academic assignmentsGeorgina Aguilar González & Rebeca Elena Tapia Carlín

Abstract Writing for academic purposes in EFL involves an ability to express oneself effectively in a foreign language as well as responding appropriately to specific disciplinary writing demands. Some studies have been carried out in teacher re-sponse to student writing and student response to teacher feedback in ESL/ EFL contexts (Scott, 1996; Juzwik et al., 2006). However, written assessment feedback has not been widely researched (Rae & Cochrane, 2008). The aims of this qualitative research are to identify students’ expectations about teachers’ written feedback on academic assignments and to describe this teaching practice based on students’ perceptions at an M.A. program in a public university in Mexico. For this exploratory, descriptive and interpretative study, data was collected through a questionnaire and One-on-One interviews. The findings reveal the expected char-acteristics in teachers’ written feedback, the commonalities in the most meaningful teachers’ written feedback, as well as constraints and suggestions to improve these practices.

Key words: Academic Assignments, Written Feedback, Per-ceptions and Expectations.

AbstractoEn la enseñanza del inglés como lengua extranjera, redactar para propósitos académicos implica la habilidad para expre-sarse efectivamente en la lengua así como responder apro-piadamente a las demandas de una redacción disciplinaria específica. Se han llevado a cabo estudios en relación a la

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respuesta del maestro hacia la redacción del estudiante así como la respuesta del estudiante hacia la retroalimentación del maestro en contextos de ESL/EFL (Scott, 1996; Juzwik et al., 2006). Sin embargo, la retroalimentación en la redacción no ha sido ampliamente investigada (Rae & Cochrane, 2008). Los objetivos de este estudio cualitativo son: identificar las expectativas de los estudiantes sobre la retroalimentación escrita del maestro en trabajos académicos y describir esta práctica docente basándose en las percepciones de estudian-tes de un programa de Maestría en una universidad pública en México. Para este estudio exploratorio, descriptivo e in-terpretativo, la información se recolectó utilizando cuestio-nario y entrevista. Los hallazgos de la investigación revelan las características esperadas en la retroalimentación escrita proporcionada por los maestros, las similitudes identificadas en la retroalimentación escrita más significativa dada por los maestros, las limitaciones y sugerencias para mejorar estas prácticas.

Palabras clave: Trabajo académico, Retroalimentación Es-crita, Percepciones y Expectativas.

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Introduction

Writing for academic purposes in EFL involves an ability to express oneself effectively in a foreign language as well as responding appropriately to

specific disciplinary writing demands. In this regard, the role of teachers in providing feedback on students’ writ-ing becomes essential because it raises students’ awareness about the quality of their performance and helps them im-prove in the process (Todd, Mills, Palard, & Khamcharoen, 2001; Shin, 2003). Some studies have been carried out in teacher response to student writing as well as student re-sponse to teacher feedback in ESL and EFL contexts (Scott, 1996; Juzwik et al., 2006). However, written assessment feedback has not been widely researched (Rae & Cochrane, 2008). This study aims to explore students’ expectations and perceptions about teachers’ written feedback in aca-demic assignments as well as the usefulness of this feed-back at a M.A. program in a public university in Mexico. In order to accomplish these goals, the research addresses the following questions:

1) What are students’ expectations about teacher written feedback in academic as-signments at the M.A. program?

2) What kind of written feedback is provided to M.A. students on their academic assign-ments according to students’ perceptions?

Theoretical FrameworkStudents’ expectations and perceptions

In educational contexts, students have expecta-tions and perceptions about the teaching and learning process as teachers do. In this piece of research, expecta-tions and perceptions are essential terms that need to be defined as they will help to characterize teachers’ written feedback in academic assignments. Expectations refer to a

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“belief that something should happen in a particular way or that something should have particular qualities or be-havior” (Macmillan English Dictionary, 2002, p. 476, cited in Tapia-Carlín, 2008, p. 83). In writing, students generally expect teacher’s feedback (Shin, 2003) with specific char-acteristics, which could vary considerably (Hyland, 2003). However, a consensus could be achieved since the begin-ning of a course to address these students’ expectations in teachers’ response.

As mentioned before, students’ perceptions are also present in an educational context. In this regard, students’ perceptions of evaluation and assessment play a significant role as “they influence their approaches to learning and study” (Struyven, Dochy, & Janssens, 2005, p. 325). In this project, perceptions are defined as “the recognition and un-derstanding of events, objects, and stimuli through the use of senses” (Richards, et al. 1997, pp.268-269) influenced by prior understandings and experiences (Reid, 2007). Thus, students’ perceptions of teacher’s written feedback may differ as each individual could understand a single event in various ways. Despite this, giving students voice helps to balance a top-down approach to curriculum design and provide more effective conditions for learning.

Feedback in writingIn writing assessment in English as a Second Lan-

guage, feedback is considered as a “response to students’ writing” (Reid, 1993, p. 205) and it is defined as “any input from reader to writer that provides information for revision” (Keh, 1990, cited in Reid, 1993, p. 218). In this regard, revision refers to “changes produced on a piece of writing” (Wallace & Hayes, 1991, cited in González-Quitero & Roux-Rodríguez, 2007, p. 55) and it is thought to “recurrently shape ideas that need to be expressed” (Lehr, 1995, cited in González-Quitero & Roux-Rodríguez, 2007, p. 55). Moreover, “the provision of feedback on students’ writing” is considered as “a central pedagogic practice” (Coffin et al., 2003, p. 102, cited in Zacha-

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rias, 2007, p. 3). In sum, feedback in writing is part of an ongoing process whose aim is to improve students’ perfor-mance in this skill with the help of a reader.

Effective feedback Providing feedback is often seen as one of the

ESL writing teacher’s most important tasks; however, there is some concern about its effectiveness. According to Wiggins (1993, p. 183), “few teachers, and even fewer tests, ever provide what students most need: informa-tion designed to enable them accurately self-assess and self-correct- so that assessment becomes ‘an episode of learning’”. Regarding this, it emerges the questioning about what “good” or “effective” feedback encompasses. Many researchers have made contributions to this issue by providing characteristics that help to identify what these terms convey. For instance, Gilbert (1978, cited in Wiggins, 1993, p. 189), summed up the principles of good feedback in his book entitled Human Competence, in which he catalogued the requirements of any informa-tion system “designed to give maximum support to per-formance”. According to him, the requirements involve eight steps, which are the following:

1. Identify the expected accomplishments…

2. State the requirements of each accomplish-ment. If there is any doubt that people under-stand the reason why an accomplishment and its requirements are important, explain this.

3. Describe how performance will be measured and why.

4. Set exemplary standards, preferably in mea-surement terms.

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5. Identify exemplary performers and any available resources that people can use to become exemplary performers.

6. Provide frequent and unequivocal feedback about how well each person is performing. This confirmation should be expressed as a comparison with an exemplary standard. Consequences of good and poor perfor-mance should also be made clear.

7. Supply as much backup information as needed to help people troubleshoot their own performance…

8. Relate various aspects of poor performance to specific remedial actions.

In addition to these requirements, Wiggins (1993) argues that effective feedback is timely and immediately us-able. In other words, feedback should occur often and dur-ing assessment so that it serves as the basis for intelligent adjustment en route while students are performing and as learning for later attempts. Similarly, Leki (1992, cited in Scott 1996, p. 107) points out that corrections and feedback are worthless if students never have the opportunity to re-write a piece and perform better. Moreover, Elbow (1986, cited in Wiggins 1993, p. 187) highlights that “sometimes good feedback is not ‘criterion-based’ but ‘reader-based’, the reader simply reacts to the effectiveness of the piece”. Moreover, Hyland & Hyland (2006, p. 206) state that the information in feedback is effective only if “it engages with the writer and gives him or her a sense that it is a response to a person rather than to a script”. Responding appropri-ately and effectively to students writing conveys under-standing what students expect to accomplish with a text

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(intention, audiences, and points of view) to avoid appro-priation (Hyland & Hyland, 2006). Thus, effective feedback encompasses not only specific information about students’ performance and how it is measured, but also concurrent remedial action that response to the writer following a reader-based approach leading to the solution of problems and learning.

Focus of feedbackThere is little agreement about what the focus of

attention should be, form (e.g., grammar, mechanics) or content (e.g., organization, amount of detail), when teach-ers respond to students’ writing. Many studies have been done in L1 (first language), L2 (second language) and EFL (English as a foreign language) contexts in order to find out which of these two types of feedback in writing leads to students’ improvement; however, different conclusions have been drawn. On the one hand, feedback focused on form in some cases appears to be effective in helping students write better. Instances of such assumption are found in the studies reported by Hendrickson (1978, cited in Fathman & Whalley, 1991, p. 180), Lalande (1982: Fath-man & Whalley, 1991, p. 180), Fathman and Whalley (1985, cited in Fathman & Whalley, 1991, p. 180), and Robb, Ross and Shortreed (1986, cited in Fathman & Whalley, 1991, p. 180) respectively. On the other hand, in the area of teacher feedback on content, contradictory as well as beneficial results in students’ writing have been obtained. For ex-ample, Zamel’s (1985, cited in Fathman & Whalley, 1991, p. 180) study reports that in English as a second language, teachers’ comments on content were vague and contra-dictory and students tended to respond to comments on form and ignore those on content. In another report, Kepner (1991, cited in Truscott, 2001, p. 332) experimented with two forms of feedback in intermediate Spanish as a foreign language; half of the group received comprehen-

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sive correction on sentence level-errors while the other half received comments on content. Kepner found no sig-nificant differences in accuracy whereas students who had received content-oriented feedback were significantly su-perior in the measure of content. Another instance of this type of study is Sheppard (1992, cited in Truscott, 2001, p. 332)’s work, which is quite similar to Kepner’s; he found no writing advantage for the error-correction group while the content group made significant gains in their writing. Up to now, there is not a concrete answer to the contro-versy of feedback focused on form rather than on content or vice versa.

Despite this debate, the majority of researchers agree that attention must be provided to both content and form (Taylor, 1981, cited in Fathman & Whalley, 1991, p. 180; Krashen, 1984, cited in Fathman & Whalley, 1991, p. 180; Fathman & Whalley, 1991). Raimes (1983, cited in Fathman & Whalley, 1991, p. 180)’s suggestion in this re-gard is that “teachers should look at content as well as errors in structure and focus on linguistic features after ideas have been fully developed”. Thus, considering con-tent and form as necessary and relevant to improve stu-dents’ performance in writing seems to be the most viable approach regarding ‘useful feedback’. However, it cannot be denied the fact that more research in this area is re-quired in order to be able to identify more accurately “the type of teacher feedback that is most appropriate and ef-fective” (Paulus 1999, p. 267, cited in Dannels & Martin, 2008, p. 139). For the moment, it is then the teacher who makes the final decision taking into account the variable alternatives offered on studies done for responding to stu-dent writing, as well as considering his/her context and students’ needs.

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Purposes of FeedbackAs mentioned before, teachers may respond to

form and/or content in a piece of writing; however, there could also be other issues to be considered. Teachers could have a number of different purposes in mind regarding their experiences and perceptions, as well as students’ needs and context. Furthermore, according to the approach to the teaching of writing, different stages of this process can be characterized by different purposes. For example, Ferris et al. (1997, cited in Hyland, 2003, p. 186) identified eight broad functions of response in over 1,500 teacher com-ments, ranging from “Asking for unknown information” to “Giving information on ideas”. In a similar way, Hyland and Hyland (2001, cited in Hyland, 2003, p. 187) propose a more flexible approach that involves the selection of func-tions of praise, criticism, and suggestions in their com-ments. Praise is quite helpful to motivate and encourage students to improve their performance, but this function is often reserved for final drafts to reward students’ effort. Criticism and suggestions can be seen as opposite ends of a continuum as the former focuses on “what has been done poorly” and the latter provides “a retrievable plan of action for improvement” (Hyland, 2003, p. 189). Because of this, it is advisable to pair both functions (Ibid.) in order to avoid failure in the understanding of the criticism and be able to rectify the problem by following some explicit advice. In sum, knowing about the purposes and functions that feedback encompasses lead to a better understanding of how a message can be more effectively conveyed during the writing process.

Functions of feedbackProviding feedback also involves interpersonal is-

sues to maintain a harmonious relationship with students. This interpersonal construction is conveyed through miti-gation strategies and expressions of praise, criticism and suggestions (Hyland & Hyland, 2006, p. 206). These strate-

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gies help teachers (a) soften the force of their comments to avoid causing resentment and hostility and to preserve a positive relationship, (b) moderate the teacher’s dominant role and (c) tone down what might be seen as over directive interventions in students’ writing. Some of the mitigation strategies are the following (Hyland & Hyland, 2001, cited in Hyland, 2003, p. 191):

• Paired comments: Combining criticism with either praise or a suggestion

Vocabulary is good but grammar is not accu-rate and of ten makes your ideas difficult to understand.

Good movement from general to specific, but you need to make a clearer promise to the reader.

• Hedge comments: Modal verbs, imprecise quantifiers, usuality devices

Some of the material seemed a little long-winded and I wonder if it could have been compressed a little.

There is possibly too much information here.

• Personal attribution: Teacher responds as ordinary reader rather than as expert

I’m sorry, but when reading this essay I couldn’t see any evidence of this really. Per-haps you should have given me your outline to look at it with the essay.

I find it hard to know what the main point of each paragraph is.

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• Interrogative form: Express element of doubt or uncertainty in the comment

The first two paragraphs –do they need join-ing? Did you check your spelling carefully? Why not make a spelling checklist of words you often get wrong and use this before handing in your final?

Despite these strategies represent interpersonal resources for negotiating judgments and evaluations of students’ writing in a harmonious way, they could be in-direct and create confusion (Hyland & Hyland, 2001, cited in Hyland, 2003, p. 191). This situation could affect revi-sion by making students either ignore the comments or have negative attitudes toward the teacher which might prevent effective learning. Thus, feedback implies delicate social interactions that can enhance or undermine its ef-fectiveness and the value of the teaching-learning process itself.

Techniques in feedbackA variety of techniques have been proposed to

provide teacher written feedback to students. Some of the most common are commentary, rubrics, minimal mark-ing, taped comments and electronic feedback (Hyland, 2003). These techniques will be explored in the following paragraphs.

The first one, commentary, refers to handwrit-ten commentary on the student paper itself. This type of feedback is seen more as a response than as an evaluation to students’ work because it states how the texts appears to the teacher as reader, how successful the teacher thinks it has been, and how it could be improved (Hyland, 2003). The provided responses may appear as both marginal and end comments. The former is immediate and precise be-

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cause it is provided at the exact point in the text whereas the latter allows the teacher to summarize key points and make general observations on the text (Ibid.). The second technique, rubrics, is usually cover sheets that contain the criteria used to assess a written assignment and how the student performs in relation to these criteria (Hyland, 2003). As rubrics delimit the range of issues to be addressed, they are helpful in making grad-ing decisions explicit and showing what and how the teacher values a particular piece of writing. The third technique is minimal marking. This is a type of “in-text, form-based” feedback (Hyland, 2003, p. 181). In this feedback, a set of simple “correction codes” is used in order to indicate the location and perhaps type of error (Ibid.). This feedback seems to have its pros and cons. In one hand, it is claimed that minimal marking is more effective in stimulating a student response (e.g., Bates et al. 1993; Ferris, 1997, cited in Hyland, 2003, p. 181) and also perhaps in developing self-editing strategies (Hy-land, 2003, p. 181). On the other hand, it is assumed that when using this technique, it is not always possible to un-ambiguously categorize a problem, so it creates confusion (Ibid.). For this reason, some teachers adopt a more mini-malist approach of this technique by focusing on a limited number of general areas (Hyland 1990, cited in Hyland, 2003, p. 181).

Another mentioned technique is taped commen-tary. It consists of “recording remarks on a tape recorder and writing a number on the student paper to indicate what the comment refers to” (Hyland 1990, cited in Hy-land, 2003, p. 182). This type of feedback seems to have many advantages such as providing listening practice for learners and showing the writer how someone responds to their writing as it develops. Finally, electronic feedback is also considered as a common technique to provide teachers’ feedback to students. Through the use of computers, “teachers can

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provide comments on electronic submissions by email or by using the comment function, which allows feedback to be displayed in a separate window while reading a word processed text” (Hyland, 2003, p. 183).

As it can be observed, each of these techniques in feedback has its own characteristics and purposes that differentiate them from each other. It depends on the teacher which one to use or combine in order to provide a useful response to students’ performance in writing aca-demically.

Teacher’s roles in providing feedbackTeachers’ response to students’ writing implies

playing several different roles. According to Leki (1990, cited in Scott, 1996, p. 101), Reid (1993) and Tribble (1996), some of these roles are as real reader (i.e. audience), as as-sistant/consultant/or coach, and as evaluator (or judge). In the first role (real reader), teachers’ responsibility is to respond to the ideas and content that learners have at-tempted to communicate through their writing (Reid, 1993; Tribble, 1996). In assistant/consultant/ or coach role, teachers provide students with the necessary help to improve their work and send students back to the writ-ing process (Reid, 1993; Tribble, 1996). This role is closely related to what Raimes (1983, cited in Scott, 1996, p. 101) identifies as collaborator’s role. Raimes (1983, cited in Scott, 1996, p. 101) claims that in this role, the main job is to help the writer see what to do next to improve, so there is a focus on the writing process rather than only on the final product. Finally, in the evaluator’s role (judge), the teacher comments on the students’ overall performance and points out strengths and weaknesses with the aim of helping them write more effectively in the future (Tribble, 1996). In addition to these roles, Reid (1993) considers the role of describer of the main rhetorical features while Tribble (1996) makes reference to the examiner’s role in which the teacher provides an objective assessment of stu-

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dents’ writing based on explicit criteria that show what students can and cannot do as writers (Tribble, 1996). As seen, teachers’ response to students’ writing is not as sim-ple as it may appear to be due to the different roles that are involved in it.

Academic WritingAs this research focuses on expectations and per-

ceptions about feedback in academic writing, it is nec-essary to explore what this type of context implies. In academic writing, Samraj (2002, cited in Hidalgo-Avilés, 2006, p. 22) proposes a model to explore more fully the relationship among various contextual features surround-ing this type of writing. His model consists of contextual layers arranged into different levels that shape writing (Figure 1). In the highest level, the academic institution context influences the writing. Then, the academic disci-pline forms a contextual level below this. In the next level, the context of the course is set, which does not completely overlap with the discipline in terms of its values. Below this, a more specific level, which is task, is mentioned. Finally, the lowest level is the context of each individual student with regard to his/her background and choices in-fluencing the text produced.

Figure 1: Layers of Context

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As this model shows, academic writing is not an isolated process. Academic writing is a social act that oc-curs in a specific context. This context shapes and deter-mines the construction of texts acceptable to the different levels involved in academic writing. Regarding students’ writing in disciplinary envi-ronments, “expectations of students’ writing, and the sub-sequent response, assessment, and evaluation, are more varied across disciplines, and there is a higher degree of consistency among teachers within a given discipline” (VanSledright & Frankes, 1998 cited in Bazerman, Little, Bethel, Fouquette, & Garufis, 2005, p. 122). Thus, discipline teachers are likely to expect similar things from students’ writing because their expectations seem to be influenced more by the particular characteristics of the discipline itself than by more personal elements such as taste or opinion (Bazerman et al., 2005). However, these expectations or conventions are often not made explicit to students (Creme and Lea, 1997; Kern, 2002; Lea and Stierer, 2000, cited in Hidalgo-Avilés, 2006, p. 25). Instead, “they are mediated by individual members of teaching staff-through, for example, their general advice on writing and their feedback to stu-dents on specific pieces of written work” (Lea and Stierer, 2000, p. 4, cited in Hidalgo-Avilés 2006, p. 25). Therefore, writing conventions tend to differ to some extend because this advice is based on “the ways in which staff constitutes their own academic world-view and their own academic knowledge” (Lea and Street, 1998, cited in Hidalgo-Avilés 2006, p. 25). Students are exposed to variations in academic writing despite its apparent disciplinary consistency. This situation requires attention and highlights the importance of making explicit what is expected from students in a con-sistent degree. In conclusion, academic writing and pro-viding feedback in general terms are social, dynamic and bidirectional processes that are situated in a unique and

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particular context which is socially constructed and emerg-es from the interrelation of many elements.

Academic AssignmentMost times, undergraduate and graduate students

are required to perform a variety of writing assignments. Obviously, these assignments will vary from one study field to another, but how this concept is defined in this project. In general terms, an assignment refers to “a task or mission” (The Oxford Compact Dictionary & Thesaurus, p. 40). By being more specific, in the teaching area, a task is “an activ-ity which is designed to help achieve a particular learning goal” (Richards, et al., 1997, p. 373). Moreover, it is assumed that a number of dimensions of tasks influence their use in language teaching. These dimensions include: goals, proce-dures, order (location within a sequence), pacing, product, learning strategy, assessment (how success on the task will be determined), participation (type of grouping), resources and used language (e.g. mother tongue or foreign language) (Ibid.). Thus, an assignment is considered in this project as an activity or task encompassing a particular learning goal.

In the authentic assessment of writing, an as-signment has some important components. According to O’Malley and Valdez-Pierce (1996), these components are “the nature of the task and the scoring criteria”. The former is determined by the purpose of writing (informa-tive, expressive/ narrative and persuasive) and the genre (biographies, essays, research papers/article, dissertations, theses and projects) (O’Malley & Valdez-Pierce, 1996; Jor-dan, 1997). Thus, each of the assignments will have its own content structure or format, style, and various conventions. The latter, which should always be defined before the exer-cises and assessment procedures are developed, is usually established by the teacher following three different types of rating scales: “holistic, primary trait and analytic scor-

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ing” (Cohen, 1994; Herman, Aschbecher, & Winter, 1992; Perkins 1983, cited in O’ Malley & Valdez-Pierce, 1996, p. 142). As mentioned, when defining a written assignment, it is relevant to take into consideration both elements, along with a particular learning goal, to make it clear to students and lead to an effective writing assessment.

MethodologyFor this study, a qualitative research was carried

out. The rationale for selecting this approach is based on the nature of the research questions that evokes the explo-ration of the topic taking into account participants’ views in their natural setting (Creswell, 1998). Moreover, this approach allows me as a researcher to emphasize the role as an active learner “who can tell the story from the par-ticipants’ view rather than as an ‘expert’ who passes judg-ments on participants” (Creswell, 1998, p.18). Therefore, this study was exploratory, descriptive and interpretative in order to understand participants’ views about an activ-ity, which was teachers’ written feedback.

A qualitative research can be carried out follow-ing different traditions. In this project, a case study was used. According to Creswell (1998), a case study is “an exploration of a ‘bounded system’ or a case (or multiple cases) over time through detailed, in-depth data collec-tion involving multiple sources of information rich in context” (p. 61). Moreover, the type of case study carried out was instrumental and collective (Stake 2000, cited in Silverman, 2000, p. 127). This case study was considered as instrumental because a case was examined to provide insight into an issue (Stake 2000, cited in Silverman, 2000, p. 127), which was teachers’ written feedback in academic assignments in English as a Foreign Language context. Furthermore, this case study was seen as collective be-cause more than a single case was explored (Stake 1995,

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cited in Creswell, 1998, p. 62). In other words, each of the 5 participants represented 5 single cases since every indi-vidual brought their own interpretations and experiences about a common event or activity.

SettingThe study was carried out in a public university

located in Puebla. This university offers a Bachelor’s de-gree program in language teaching and translation, as well as a Master’s degree program in teaching English as a foreign language. At the Master’s program, which is the context to be explored in this project, the curriculum is divided into four quarters and two summer courses, last-ing two months each of them. In each period, students are expected to take different subjects related to areas as applied linguistics, teaching, and research three times a week. All the subjects are given in English, so students are required to have a certain level of proficiency. In addition to this, the program provides an introductory course from which only 25 students will be accepted.

ParticipantsA qualitative research requires clear criteria for

selecting participants. Regarding this, in this study, par-ticipants were chosen on the basis of convenience (Miles & Huberman 1994, cited in Creswell, 1998, p. 119). The participants of this study are 5 students at the master’s program in this public university. They are 3 females and 2 males. Their age ranges from 29 to 35 years old. The five participants are Mexican. All of them work in the EFL teaching area at different levels. In addition to this, the participants have already finished their courses from the M.A. program and are currently working on their research projects.

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InstrumentsIn this research, the instruments used for gather-

ing information are questionnaires and interviews. Firstly, the questionnaire (appendix A) used for collecting data was semi-structured. According to Cohen, Manion, and Morri-son (2000, p. 321), the semi-structured questionnaire “sets the agenda but does not presuppose the nature of the re-sponse”. In other words, this type of questionnaire has a clear structure sequence and focus, allowing the participant to respond using his or her own terms. This semi-struc-tured questionnaire consisted of six questions, which were 4 open-ended and 2 closed. This format was useful because in some cases, the possible answers were unknown whereas in others some guidance was required to avoid irrelevant and redundant data. The purpose of this questionnaire was to explore students’ expectations towards written feedback in academic assignments. It is relevant to mention that this questionnaire was piloted twice with two different partici-pants in order to obtain useful feedback and do the neces-sary corrections to improve it.

Secondly, the type of interview used was a One-on-One interview (appendix B) in which “the researcher asks questions to and records answers from only one participant in the study at a time” (Creswell, 2005, p. 215). The kinds of questions asked in the interview were open-ended, so the participants could “best voice their experiences un-constrained by any perspectives of the researcher or past research findings” (Creswell, 2005, p. 214). The aim of this interview was to obtain information about M.A. students’ perceptions towards teachers’ written feedback in academ-ic assignments. Regarding this instrument, it is significant to mention that the interview was adapted from an already carried out research (Leki, 2006) and piloted in this spe-cific context of the project to make the necessary changes to improve it.

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Data collection proceduresOnce the questionnaire was designed, validated

and administered in a one-to-one basis for reliability, it was provided to each of the participants of this research. Par-ticipants answered the questionnaire. After that, partici-pants were able to revise some of their assignments where they got teachers’ written feedback in order to refresh their memory and previous experiences regarding this issue. Fi-nally, students were interviewed following a pre-structure set of open questions which encompassed many of the top-ics already mentioned in the questionnaire.

Data analysis proceduresIn order to analyze the information collected from

the questionnaire and interview for this study, the partic-ipants were given a number to protect their identity and some important steps were followed. These steps will be described in each one of the instruments.

On one hand, the interviews were first organized into computer files. After that, these texts were reviewed in the light of the research questions. The audiotape record-ings from the interviews were converted into text data to analyze them. The transcriptions were treated as “a win-dow into human experience” (Ryan & Bernard, 2003, p. 259). Moreover, the transcriptions were seen as “a whole before breaking them into parts” (Agar 1980, cited in Cre-swell, 1998, p. 143). Thus, texts were explored to obtain a general sense of data.

Secondly, in the process of exploring data, some memos were written. These memos were mainly code notes, which described the concepts discovered, and the-ory notes, in which I, as researcher, tried to summarize my ideas about what was going on in the text (Ryan & Bernard, 2003, p. 280). In other words, I could be able to identify “categories and concepts that link into substantive and for-

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mal theories” (Ryan & Bernard 2003, p. 279). This proce-dure was useful in order to start making sense from the whole information.

Thirdly, some classification procedures were fol-lowed to develop some generalizations about the cases. A categorical aggregation (a collection of instances) was carried out to establish some patterns of correspondence between two or more categories (Creswell, 1998). Thus, the data was coded to identify broad themes that formed the major idea of the database. Moreover, different colors were used to identify more easily the different categories found in the texts. In addition to this, a problem-solution approach (Cresswell 2005, cited in Tapia-Carlín, 2008, p. 56) was followed to restore the story of participants and be able to order, sequence, discuss and easily understand the data. A classification procedure was also used to develop some categories that served to organize and summarize the information found in the transcripts.

Finally, a direct interpretation was carried out in or-der to make sense of the data. Naturalistic generalizations were developed and presented (Creswell, 1998). Moreover, some personal reflections and views were considered as this study led to “lessons learned” (Lincoln & Guba 1985, cited in Creswell, 2005, p. 251).

On the other hand, questionnaires were analyzed using qualitative as well as quantitative procedures due to their nature. First of all, the questionnaires were collected and the quantitative data entered in Excel for processing and analysis. Totals of each response were quantified and turned into graphs to illustrate the main findings. Second-ly, the qualitative data was written down in tables in order to better process the answers following the same procedure used for interviews, which was categorizing and coding the data and then reducing the categories into themes. Final-ly, the results were analyzed and some conclusions were

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drawn in order to determine students’ expectations and perceptions about teachers’ written feedback in academic assignments.

Findings1) Students’ expectations about teacher’s written feed-back

On one hand, the students’ expectations about teachers’ written feedback in their academic assignments were quite similar for all the participants. Their beliefs about the way in which teachers’ feedback should be did not differ at all. They all expected a continuous and pro-gressive response that provided “information for revision” (Keh, 1990, cited in Reid, 1993, p. 218) by focusing on con-tent as well as on form to effectively and efficiently improve their performance in an assignment as EFL learners in a specific academic context.

As participants expected a more formative feed-back, the tendency to ask for the commentary technique was evident in the results. All of them expected written comments to appear in different parts of the text to be im-mediate and precise as well as at the end to see the summa-rized key points and the general observations made on the text by the teacher (Hyland, 2003). Moreover, participants expected from the teacher a reader’s response that showed them how successful they had been in their performance as well as how they could improve (Ibid.). In this regard, it was also found that the functions expected in the feedback were criticism and suggestions. Thus, participants wanted a clear, precise and sincere response about their perfor-mance in an assignment, as well as some guidance that helped them understand and rectify what required their attention for improvement. This idea is also reinforced by the expectation of rubrics as another technique of feedback in order to find out how successful their performance had

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been based on specific criteria. Therefore, for participants, feedback was expected to provide “guidance”, “confirming or disconfirming evidence”, as well as “a degree of confor-mance with the goal or standard” (Wiggins, 1993, p. 198).

In this research, it was also found that partici-pants expected those characteristics from feedback be-cause they wanted to be able to reconstruct their ideas and improve in their performance of a given assignment. In other words, “concurrent feedback” that takes place “not only once after assessment but often and during it” was expected by participants as it would serve as the basis for intelligent adjustment en route and as learning for lat-er attempts (Wiggins, 1993, p. 190). Moreover, according to participants, obtaining that feedback could help them identify the teacher’s expectations more explicitly and in that way succeed in their assignments. As Johns (1990, p. 60) states it is the expert, “all-powerful reader of EAP stu-dents’ texts who can either accept or reject students’ writ-ing as coherent and consistent with the conventions of the target discourse community”; thus, his/her response is quite relevant for participants.

2) Description of teacher’s written feedback based on students’ perceptions

On the other hand, participants’ perceptions about the two subjects whose feedback was quite mean-ingful showed relevant results. Participants’ understand-ing of this event reveals many commonalities in the teachers’ practice that lead to some useful ideas to be ad-opted or adapted in other educational contexts. First of all, both subjects provided a formative feedback that seemed to emphasize the process of developing and improving students’ writing by the teacher’s intervention (Ur, 1996; Rea-Dickins & Germaine, 2001; Reid, 1993). Moreover, the focus of both types of feedback was mainly on content;

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however, other areas of the texts were also considered such as format, form, and organization. In other words, teachers seemed to respond to each student considering their specific needs (Hyland 1998; 2001, cited in Hyland 2003, p. 184).

Secondly, in the two subjects, teachers used the commentary technique to respond to students’ written as-signments, so students could identify how successful they were in their performance as well as how they could im-prove it (Hyland, 2003). Furthermore, it seems that both teachers made use of “paired comments” (Hyland, 2003, p. 191) which imply a combination of functions such as criticism with either praise or suggestion in order to avoid failure in the understanding of comments and guide/mo-tivate students to improvement.

Finally, it was also found that both teachers played two important roles, which were as consultant and as real reader. Thus, teachers responded to the ideas and content that the participants attempted to express and sent them back to the writing process (Reid, 1993; Tribble, 1996). This implies that both teachers conveyed the writ-ing of academic assignments in their subjects following a process-oriented approach, as well as English for spe-cific purpose approach. In other words, students could be guided to understand their own composition process and to fulfill the expectations (standards and requirements) of an academic discourse community.

As the research shows, the feedback provided in subject 1 and subject 2 seems to fulfill the participants’ ex-pectations. Thus, knowing in advance about students’ per-ceptions and expectations about feedback could be quite beneficial for the teacher in further practices.

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3) A problem-solution analysis about teacher’s feed-back based on students’ perceptions

As students also made reference to different prac-tices of feedback, its analysis and interpretation conveyed relevant information. Following a “problem-solution ap-proach” (Cresswell, 2005, cited in Tapia-Carlín, 2008, p. 56), some constraints and suggested proposals made by participants were identified in this information to im-prove feedback practices and they are displayed in the following table.

Problem-solution table

Problem Solution

1. Amount of feedback. A) Providing more than just a grade.

2. Difficulty in under-standing feedback.

A) Providing samples.B) Peer feedback.C) Teacher-student confer-ence.

3. Identification of teach-ers’ expectations.

A) Providing rubrics that show teachers’ expectations.B) Providing samples.

4. Time.

A) Providing opportunities to rewrite and improve before handing in the final assign-ment.

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As seen in the table, first of all, the feedback is sometimes reduced to the provision of a simple grade; however, this is not enough for students; comments on specific and different areas of a written assignment are expected and considered as more relevant. Secondly, un-derstanding feedback could sometimes be difficult and confusing, so providing samples (Wiggins, 1993, pp. 195-197), having peer-feedback (González & Roux 2007, p. 54, cited in Tapia-Carlín, 2008, p. 93; Hyland 2003, p.198) or promoting teacher-student conference (McCarthey, 1992, cited in Hyland, 2003, p. 192) can help to overcome this situation. Thirdly, sometimes teachers’ expectations are not quite explicit and clear for students; thus providing students with samples or rubrics (Wiggins, 1993, p. 189) orientates them in the process of writing in academic con-text. Finally, feedback tends to be provided at the end of the course, so time should be rearranged in order to have opportunities for rewriting and improving before handing in the final version. As seen, feedback practices may im-ply some difficulties or problems; however, taking into ac-count the suggestions from participants that have already had the experience could be quite beneficial.

ImplicationsThe present study confirms that students value

teachers’ written feedback and believe it helps them (Fer-ris, 2003, cited in Hyland & Hyland, 2006, p. 215; Hyland 1998, cited in Hyland, 2003, p. 179). Moreover, it was found that students considered formative feedback as encourag-ing them to develop their writing and consolidate their learning through the guidance and response of an expert, which in this case is the teacher.

This study also shows that there was a matching between students’ expectations and the features identified in the feedback provided by subject 1 and subject 2. This

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coincides has a relevant implication. It can be enhanced the effectiveness of the teacher’s commentary and the students’ revisions by uncovering student feedback pref-erences through the use of questionnaires, cover sheets (Leki, 1990 cited in Hyland & Hyland, 2006, p. 215), or au-tobiographies.

Although research carried out on writing assess-ment have shown that there is less certainty about who should give a response to written work, the form it should take, and whether it should focus more on ideas or forms (Hyland, 2003), the data obtained in this study suggest that teacher’s written feedback should be complemented with other types of practices such as peer feedback and teacher-student conferencing in order to clarify doubts or misunderstanding. Moreover, the proposed form that feedback should take is written commentaries, as they provide a response to students’ ideas and needs (Hyland & Hyland, 2006, p. 215) considering an interpersonal link.

In addition to this, this study supports the idea of promoting the use of ‘assessment for learning’ (Stiggins, 2007, p. 22, cited in Dappen et al., 2008, p. 46). A concur-rent feedback, taking place often and during assessment, is expected in order to improve in the writing process, as well as to be able to accomplish the requirements or stan-dards in a specific discourse community.

This study is an important source of insight and reflection on the significant and complex role that writ-ten feedback plays in improving students’ writing, as well as on its effective use in academic contexts. Thus, a “re-flection-in-action, a reflection on action and reflection for action” (Schön 1983, cited in Yost & Sentner, 2000, p. 40) may be promoted into our professional practice.

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Limitations of the researchThe present study has two main limitations. First of

all, since the study is based on few cases, the results cannot be generalized. Despite this, the study can serve as a point of departure to research more in teachers’ written feedback at graduate levels. Secondly, the instruments used in this re-search provided students’ expectations and perceptions, so it is unknown to what extent the results shown are consis-tent with the facts. It is hoped, however, that the richness of the qualitative data uncovered in this research will be useful in reflecting and developing a more effective way of provid-ing written feedback in academic contexts.

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Appendix A

Questionnaire

Thank you for agreeing to answer this questionnaire which aims to obtain information about your expectations towards teachers’ written feedback on academic assignments in the M.A program at the Faculty of Languages. Your identity will remain completely anonymous.

Instructions: Read carefully the following questions and answer them.

1. What is feedback for you in an academic context?

2. What do you think the main purpose of providing feed-back is in an academic context?

3. When you handed in a written assignment (an essay, project or research proposal), did you expect any teacher’s feedback?

YES NO

4. If yes, tick ( ) the statements that better express the kind of feedback that you expected or/and write your idea(s):

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PURPOSE

a) I expected feedback to be formative ( )

b) I expected feedback to be summative ( )

c) I expected feedback to be formative and summative ( )

d) Others: _________________________________________

FOCUS

a) I expected feedback to be focused on content ( )

b) I expected feedback to be focused on form ( )

c) I expected feedback to be focused on form and content ( )

d) Others: _________________________________________

TECHNIQUE

a) I expected feedback to be handwritten commentaries. ( )

b) I expected feedback to be electronic comments using email or the comment function in a word processed text. ( )

c) I expected feedback to be cover sheets (rubrics). ( )

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d) I expected feedback to be minimal marking, which indi-cates the location and type of error using a set of simple “correction codes”. ( )

e) I expected feedback to be taped commentaries, which are recording remarks on a tape recorder. ( )

f) Others: _________________________________________

PLACEMENT

a) I expected feedback to be written in different parts of my written assignment. ( )

b) I expected feedback to be written at the end of my written assignment. ( )

c) I expected feedback to be written in different parts, as well as at the end, of my written assignment. ( )

d) Others: _________________________________________

FUNCTION

a) I expected feedback to provide praise. ( )

b) I expected feedback to provide constructive criticism. ( )

c) I expected feedback to provide suggestions. ( )

d) Others: _________________________________________

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5. Why did you expect that kind of feedback?

6. At what moment of a course at the M.A. program did you expect to receive feedback on your written assignments? Why?

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Appendix B

Interview

Thank you for agreeing to answer this interview which aims to gather information about your perceptions towards teachers’ written feedback on your academic assignments in the M.A program at the Faculty of Languages. Your identity will remain completely anonymous.

1. As long as I know, at the M.A. program, you were asked to write some assignments. Am I right?

2. If so, could you think about two or three courses where you got written comments? Which are these courses?

3. Describe the kinds of written comments that you received in each of these courses.

4. Describe what you did with those comments in each of these courses.

5. Did you have any difficulty in making sense of those com-ments?

If so, what kind of difficulty did you have?

If not, why do you think it was not difficult?

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6. Did those written comments help you improve your aca-demic writing?

If so, how?

If not, why?

7. Were there any written comments on your papers at the master’s program that you wish you could have got that you did not get? Can you explain?

8. Is there any other kind of feedback you wish you could get on your papers at the master’s program? (e. g. teacher-student conferencing, peer feedback, etc.) If so, which one?

9. Are you satisfied with the time at which you received teachers’ written feedback on your written assignments?

Why?

10. Has teachers’ written or oral feedback on your M.A. writ-ten assignments motivated you to develop professionally?

If yes, how?

(Adapted from Leki, I. (2006). “You cannot ignore”: L2 graduate students’ response to discipline-based written feedback.)

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INVESTIGATIONS FROM THE MAESTRÍA EN LA ENSEÑANZA DEL INGLÉS: THE IMPACT OF RESEARCH THESES

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