The contextual reshaping of beliefs about L2 writing : three teachers' practical process of theory construction

Abstract

In the last two decades there have been discussions of the theoretical knowledge base for ESL writing pedagogy. This paper focuses on how teaching experience at a newly implemented L2 writing center contributed towards personal theory development of ESL writing for three teachers. By combining the literature on teacher knowledge with ESL writing, we studied teachers' changing beliefs about ESL writers, readers, texts and contexts. With data from planned collegial experience-sharing activities and writing centre feedback we created a story of each teacher's orientation. We then conducted open-ended interviews to gather responses from the protagonists of the stories. Through inductive analyses of the data we found that all three have critically examined and somewhat revised their content and pedagogic content knowledge of ESL writing. Using these stories we question whether programme and curriculum developers should devise strategies to help teachers consciously see the theory-practice connection in ESL writing.