Language Teaching Research 9,4 (2005); pp.

381–402

Teachers’ knowledge and experience

in the discourse of foreign-language
classrooms
Manel Lacorte University of Maryland – College Park

Recent research on second language acquisition (SLA) has strengthened

foreign (FL) and second language (L2) teaching methodologies supporting
the development of communicative tasks, interactive activities in the
classroom, and learner-centred instruction. However, these and any other
trends in FL and L2 teaching and learning could be more beneficial if
teachers and teacher educators would deepen their understanding of the
diverse pedagogical and institutional conditions that may influence
classroom work. As part of a wider interest in the relationship between
teachers’ knowledge and beliefs and their practices in a number of
classrooms of Spanish in the USA, this qualitative study focuses on the
teachers’ management of the transitions between instructional stages – i.e.,
phases in the development of a lesson – with specific attention to the
analysis of interaction and control during the transitions.

I Introduction
Current foreign (FL) and second language (L2) methodologies have
shifted from traditional teacher-centred instruction to a learner-centred
classroom, where learning, learner needs and purposes, and meaningful
processes of communication are integrated (Nunan, 1988; Tudor, 1996).
In this context, teacher and learner roles are redefined as dynamic rather
than static dimensions of the communicative process, and the classroom
is, in theory, considered as ‘a bridge to the outside world rather than
as a linguistic quarantine station where learners are protected from the
risks involved in having to engage in genuine communication’ (Nunan,
1999: 77).

Address for correspondence: Manel Lacorte, Jiménez Hall 2202, University of Maryland, College
Park, MD 20742, USA; e-mail: mlacorte@umail.umd.edu

© 2005 Edward Arnold (Publishers) Ltd 10.1191/1362168805lr174oa

382 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

The realities of language instruction, though, may be not as straight-

forward as they initially appear for L2 teachers working under unsuit-
able conditions such as those deriving from large classes, heavy teaching
loads, low levels of student motivation, required involvement in admin-
istrative responsibilities and, in certain contexts, high expectations
regarding research portfolios (Crookes, 1998; Wilkerson, 2000). Also,
even though the term ‘communicative’ has become commonplace in
L2 teaching, the range of its actual applications in the classroom indi-
cates that ‘[it] is not a mutually shared construct between scholars and
practitioners’ (VanPatten, 1998: 931).
Based on a combination of methods for the collection and analysis
of data, this study seeks to examine qualitatively how teachers’ beliefs
and attitudes may influence the development of certain segments of
FL classroom discourse, specifically the transitions between the instruc-
tional stages – periods or steps in the progress or development of the
lesson. The main argument is that a deeper understanding of the inter-
action of beliefs and practices could allow language teachers and teacher
educators to better accommodate any current and future innovations
in classroom practice – such as teaching and learning techniques or
materials – to the distinct characteristics of any given language class-
room and its participants. Relevant to the study are the notions of
language teacher knowledge and beliefs, and the discourse of L2
classrooms.

II Language teacher knowledge and beliefs

‘Knowledge’ – facts and ideas resulting from study, investigation, obser-
vation or experience – and ‘beliefs’ – trust or confidence in some person
or principle – (Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary)1 – constitute
relevant notions for the understanding of classroom practices, partici-
pant reactions to pedagogic changes, and ways in which new informa-
tion is processed. Research in general education indicates that
knowledge about teaching may be influenced by personal experience
(personal, educational and social background); experience with school-
ing and instruction; and experience with formal and pedagogic knowl-
edge (Connelly et al., 1997; Richardson, 1996). Teachers’ beliefs result
from the relationship between (a) the values, goals and assumptions
that teachers have about the content and development of teaching, and
 Manel Lacorte 383

(b) the understanding of the social, cultural and institutional context

where teaching occurs (Freeman and Richards, 1996; Richards, 1998).
In his study of English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers in Canada,
Woods (1996: 282) analysed their beliefs, assumptions and knowledge
(BAK), and found that BAK ‘seemed to underlie everything that the
teachers did and said’.
Research on the interaction of teachers’ beliefs and practices has
examined a number of issues in order to develop, as Freeman and
Johnson (1998: 397) point out, a knowledge base of language teaching
supported by ‘the activity of teaching itself . . . the teacher who does
it, the context in which it is done, and pedagogy by which it is done’.
One of the most productive issues has been the nature of grammar teach-
ing as teachers perceive it. Findings from this perspective indicate that
most teachers believe in some sort of grammar teaching, although
the exact nature of this teaching varies considerably from teacher to
teacher (Eisenstein Ebsworth and Schweers, 1997). As Borg (1999;
2003b) notes, the cognitions behind this variability are generated by
key educational and professional experiences such as teachers’ language
education, teacher education programme, and classroom experience.
For this reason, knowledge of the L2 grammar may only become
pedagogically significant when combined with other kinds of teacher
knowledge, like knowledge of learners, L2 learning and self (Johnston
and Goettsch, 2000).
Another area of growing interest deals with teachers’ uses of the target
(TL) and first (L1) languages in the L2 classroom. Even though the
emphasis here is still on theoretical perspectives and empirical analyses
of classroom discourse (see, e.g., Levine, 2005; Turnbull and Arnett,
2002), some studies have provided qualitative descriptions of language
use from the teacher’s perspective (Macaro, 1997; Polio and Duff,
1994), while others have focused on the teachers’ difficulties with using
the TL in their classrooms due to conflicts with the curriculum, the
students and with the persons considered as their original models for
teaching (Morris, 1998).
As the field of research continues to generate data through a variety of
methods applied to more diverse samples, recent studies have addressed
the thinking and actions of experienced teachers (Breen et al., 2001), the
different meanings that teachers may develop about communicative
language teaching (Mangubhai et al., 2005; Sato and Kleinsasser, 1999),
384 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

the influence of new language policies on the teachers’ professional

identity, social relationships with others in the work context, and their
classroom practices (Breen, 2002), or the extent to which new constructs
like the Standards for Foreign Language Learning (1996) may affect the
beliefs and practices of FL teachers (Allen, 2002).
The present study seeks to analyse the relationship between teachers’
beliefs and attitudes and their discourse during the transitions between
the instructional stages making up a language lesson. Accounting for
approximately 15% of classroom time in elementary classrooms (Doyle,
1986; cf. Richards and Lockhart, 1996), these transitions also seem to
take up a significant percentage of time in L2 classrooms, especially
those with regular communicative activities in pairs or small groups.
Previous work on transitions or ‘boundary moves’ – discourse between
instructional stages – in language lessons was carried out by Sinclair and
Coulthard (1975) as part of their study of L1 classrooms, and by
Mitchell et al. in the field of FL instruction (1981). However, these stud-
ies and most references in L2 methodology tend to consider the teacher
as the responsible party for effective transitions that ‘establish a link
between one activity and the next’ (Richards and Lockhart, 1996: 121),
‘make it clear that there will be a shift in focus’ (Hadley, 2001: 462), or
‘make the connections . . . across each activity clear’ (Hall, 2001: 110).
These notions of ‘good’ management, based on concision and clarity,
might not give an adequate account of what actually happens in the
classroom. Rather, features of discourse conveyed by either teacher or
students during the transitions initially viewed as undesirable could in
fact ‘serve a function within the larger discourse of the classroom, pro-
viding a “boundary” zone between phases of the lesson, during which
social and task-related negotiation may take place’ (Gourlay, 1998: 1).
Drawing upon this perspective, our study seeks to analyse L2 teachers’
management of transitions, with specific attention to the issues of inter-
action and control over the instructional sequence – including the use of
L1 and L2 by the teachers.

III Methods
As part of a larger qualitatively-oriented project dealing with
teacher–student interaction in classrooms of Spanish in the USA, data
for the present study came from (a) three interviews with five teachers at
 Manel Lacorte 385

the beginning, halfway and the end of the academic year; (b) extensive
notes from non-participant classroom observations (10–12 for each
teacher); and (c) retrospective analysis of audiotapes recorded during the
instruction. The triangulation of these data collection strategies was
intended to provide different kinds of data on the teachers’ beliefs
and their verbal behaviour in the classroom. These methods sought to
answer two questions: (1) What perceptions do FL teachers have about
their classrooms and their own teaching? (2) How could these percep-
tions be related to the teachers’ management of the transitions between
instructional stages?
The three interviews followed a ‘semi-structured’ design by which the
researcher introduces a number of topics (rather than specific questions)
that may generate information relevant to the purpose(s) of the interview
(Bauman and Sherzer, 1974; Silva-Corvalán, 2001).2 As a consequence,
the content of the interviews varied as the researcher collected informa-
tion about the teachers’ professional experience and behaviour. The first
interview centred around issues or ‘domains’ deemed relevant to this
study such as academic and teaching background, language learners,
teaching Spanish in the USA and in the participating schools, and pro-
fessional development. At this stage, ‘descriptive’ questions – e.g., ‘How
would you consider your teaching at present?’ – allowed the researcher
to elicit extended comments from the teachers about the initial themes.
The subsequent interviews would include structural and contrastive
questions to bring about a closer definition of the meanings shaping the
teachers’ knowledge and their behaviour in the classroom (Spradley,
1979). After the initial areas of interest were outlined, the structural
questions contributed information about how the teachers organize their
knowledge – e.g., ‘What kinds of considerations do you have when
choosing a textbook?’ – and the contrastive questions focused on what
the teachers meant by the various terms they used to describe their
knowledge – e.g., ‘What differences do you find between a “traditional”
and a “communicative” text?’
The observations were designed to yield an account of the teachers’
verbal behaviour and their interaction with students. There were two
instruments: (a) ‘on-site observation’, to code the instructional stages
and to record the non-verbal behaviour of teacher and students during
the lesson,3 and (b) ‘retrospective analysis’, to combine data from the
observations with the discourse recorded during the transitions. In this
386 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

study, the transitions were determined from (1) the verbal behaviour of
the teachers; e.g., the teacher summarizes the previous instructional
stage, introduces a new stage, interrupts a stage due to unexpected
occurrences during the instruction, or attempts to move forward to
another stage with words like ‘all right’, ‘then’, ‘now’, ‘so’, or with
expressions like ‘so, now that we’ve seen how the neuter pronoun works,
now let’s practise with it, ok?’ and (2) the students’ verbal and non-
verbal reactions to that behaviour; e.g., the students open their books to
find the corresponding activity.

IV Institutional and instructional contexts

The following data come from five courses of Spanish for beginners
each conducted in a different institution. Schools A, B and C are public
high schools in three of the four school districts of County Z, located in
a rural area in the East Coast of the USA. School D is a private board-
ing high school for girls, and School E is a private 4-year college of
liberal arts, both located in the same county.4 According to the US
Census, County Z had at the time of the investigation a slightly higher
percentage of population with less than a high school diploma, a higher
rate of unemployment and a lower median income than the state and
national averages. The teachers involved in the investigation exhibited
different profiles:
1) Teacher A was a male in his late twenties, with a BA in Spanish and
6 years of teaching experience (5 years in School A).
2) Teacher B was a female in her mid forties, with an MA in Spanish
in progress and 15 years of experience in diverse academic contexts
(1 year in School B).
3) Teacher C was a female in her mid fifties, with a BA in French and
Spanish and about 30 years of teaching (most of them in School C).
4) Teacher D was a male in his early forties, with an MA in Museology
and Elementary Education, and 2 years of teaching experience
(both in School D).
5) Teacher E was a male in his late thirties, with a Ph.D. in Spanish lit-
erature and approximately 15 years of experience (6 in School E).
Mainly because of their geographical location, these classrooms were
quite homogeneous in terms of the L1 of the students (English) and their
 Manel Lacorte 387

race (white). The only exceptions were Classroom C, with four African
American students (out of 30), and Classroom E, with five international
students (out of 18). All the classes had a similar proportion of male and
female students (except for Classroom D, with only girls) and a similar
age distribution.

V Data analysis
As a preliminary step towards the analysis of the teachers’ management
of the transitions, there follows a brief account of the main areas of inter-
est for the teachers, concerning their classrooms and their own teaching.
Next, the analysis will focus on two relevant issues about the teachers’
discourse that emerged from the observations: the control over the
instruction, and the use of L1 and L2.

1 The interviews: teachers’ knowledge and beliefs

Even though the topics introduced by the researcher in all the interviews
were meant to balance practical and theoretical aspects of teaching, the
teachers were keener to discuss more practical issues concerning their
teaching and the classroom in the following areas: adaptation of materi-
als to complement the course textbook (B, C, D and E); implementation
of school or state curricula (B, D and E); the influence of the sociocul-
tural context in the students’ attitudes towards Spanish (A, B and C);
classroom atmosphere (B, D and E); classroom discipline and manage-
ment (A and C); and individual differences (A and B).
Along with such practical orientation towards pedagogic matters in
the classroom, the teachers emphasized other personal and educational
events as key factors in both their professional career and teaching at
present: influence of particular individuals at different stages of their
career (college supervisor for A, teacher mentor for B and D, high school
teacher for E); familial support and encouragement during their studies
(A, C and E); and concrete learning experiences with the L2 (exchange
programmes in Spanish-speaking countries, workshops for FL teachers,
etc.) related to different aspects of the Hispanic cultures and languages
(all the teachers). As supported by most literature about teaching, the
teachers in this study appeared to approach their diverse professional
activities according to what may be perceived as their ‘personal theories
388 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

of teaching’, that is, personal and subjective understandings of teaching

and learning a language.5 These personal theories combined elements
from three main dimensions:

• adaptation to the institutional and classroom context, regarding

general curricular criteria, textbook guidelines, students’ needs and
level of motivation, interaction with colleagues, etc. (‘when and how
to do things’);
• experience with and development of teaching activities and
classroom routines (‘doing things in the classroom’);
• development of an appropriate personal philosophy of education
concerning classroom routines, the interaction with students, and the
academic and institutional contexts (‘linking thought and action
over time’).
I would suggest that the teachers’ approach to their job was based on
a dynamic and recursive process in which they would gradually find and
assess specific points of reference in order to adapt to new academic
environments (a book on classroom discipline, advice of a supervisor,
activities from professional workshops, suggestions by other colleagues
about learning activities, proficiency guidelines provided by state or
national professional organizations, etc.). The resulting experience gath-
ered inside and outside the classroom would have the potential to
feed back into the adaptation to other environments, and would
strengthen the development of general pedagogic principles realized
through sets of favoured practices ‘on the basis of background know-
ledge and experience and during further classroom experience’ (Breen
et al., 2001: 495).

2 The observations: discourse in the transitions between stages

While the previous section dealt with teachers’ views of language
teaching and learning, here emphasis is given to the visible elements
in the teacher decision-making process (Woods, 1996). A total of 57
observations (10–12 for each teacher) were carried out over an academic
year (see Appendix A). The analysis of transitions between stages
combined the transcription of the participants’ discourse and the
stages coded in the on-site observations. Keeping in mind that no
collection method could capture all the subtle features of teachers’
 Manel Lacorte 389

behaviour in the classroom, the analysis of the transitions between

stages sought to shed some light on a specific issue: the control over
the instructional sequence – including the use of L1 and L2 during the
transitions.

a Control over the instructional sequence: ‘Control’ may be defined as

the ‘power or authority to guide or manage’, or as a ‘skill in the use of a
tool, instrument, technique, or artistic medium’ (Webster’s Ninth New
Collegiate Dictionary). Possibly due to the influence of learner-centred
L2 methodologies, some teachers and teacher educators may have a
certain unfavourable attitude towards the notion of control in the L2
classroom. However, any classroom could be regarded as a scene where
an appropriate combination of different types of control might help to
develop an atmosphere conducive to enjoyable and efficient language
learning (Biao, 1996). My analysis of transitions between stages sug-
gested that teachers in this study resorted to two main kinds of control
over the instruction:

• Pedagogic control, or strategies to move forward the instruction and

maintain the focus on the classroom activities, e.g., the pace of the
instruction, the negotiation of content and activities, the physical
arrangements for the learning activities, and the physical position of
the teacher during the instructional stages.
• Disciplinary control, or measures to avoid or subdue interventions,
interruptions, and any other actions that could affect the progress
of the lesson, e.g., reprimands at an individual or collective
level, changes in seating arrangements, and other disciplinary
actions in accordance with the policy set forth by the teaching
institution.
This distinction does not mean that the options are mutually exclusive.
On the contrary, the teachers seemed to make use of either type of
control according to their interpretation and assessment of the academic
and social environment of the classroom. The following episodes
will attempt to illustrate such processes by combining data from the
interviews and the discourse recorded in the observations.
The first episode was recorded in a lesson taught by Teacher
A (Excerpt 1, Ob A/12). The teacher is about to finish the instructions
for a vocabulary activity in which the class will be divided into two
390 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

groups. Then, he hears a loud comment from a student who does not
seem interested in the arrangements for the activity:

Excerpt 1

1 T Ok, let’s see whose turn (.)

2 F Who cares?
3 LL ((after a brief silence, there are some exclamations of surprise and
laughing)) Oh:::: ((T stares at F.
4 There are more comments from students))
5 T ((smiling)) Clase, in the beginning of the year (.) I said ‘whose room
is this’?
6 LL Yours.
7 T Thank you! ((LL laugh. T looks at F)) ‘Who cares?’ (2) I care (.)
¿Comprende? [‘Understand?’]
8 F Yes, sí I mean.
9 T ((Smiling)) Very nice (1). Ok, that’s enough, that’s enough for you.
10 We’re done with . . . You understand, right?
11 F Sí.
12 T Muy bien. Now I forgot-oh, I’m over here ((new activity begins))

In the interviews, Teacher A emphasized the importance of setting

specific guidelines about management and discipline, especially at a
time when he felt that recent changes in American society could have
caused a decline of discipline standards in the educational system.
This position was based in part on the principles suggested by a book
that the teacher had read about the subject, and also on the advice given
by his college supervisor. The guidelines were to be conveyed in the
classroom through clear and concise messages from the beginning of the
course, in order to avoid as many discipline problems as possible later
on in the instruction. The above excerpt, in which Teacher A reminds
the student about his ‘ownership’ of the classroom, may reflect the
expectations established by the teacher from the outset. However, it
may also indicate how he attempts to maintain a certain balance between
his expectations and other strategies related to his more extended
experience as a teacher: humour (as in the case of the above episode),
positive reinforcement (to create a sense of ‘togetherness’ in the class-
room, linked to his views about the situation of American high school
students) and patience.
The next episode shows an exchange between Teacher B and two
students at the end of a question–answer activity from the textbook
(Excerpt 2, Ob B/3). She has been asking questions to the group from
 Manel Lacorte 391

a standing position next to her desk, and writing the answers on the
board:

Excerpt 2
1 T Ah! “la cabina telefónica”. El cuarto para Superman, super hombre
2 ⫽ [‘Ah! The “phone booth”. The dressing room for Superman’]
3 F ⫽He’s changed now!
4 M He lives in x in Superman three, the x go down one side xxx side he’s
Superman.
5 T ¿Sabes por qué? Es muy moderno, muy moderno ahora. Sí. ((LL
6 intervene in the conversation about Superman)). Sí, super hombre,
7 ¿verdad? Bueno, ¿voluntario para leer la lista aquí? [‘Do you know
why? He’s very modern, very modern now. Yes. Yes, a super man,
8 right? Ok, a volunteer to read this list?’] ((AC continues))

As Teacher B noted in the interviews, the interaction in this kind of

exchanges reflected her attempt to increase the students’ level of
both linguistic proficiency and cultural awareness. In contrast to the
disciplinarian approach of the first teacher, when Teacher B notices that
the initial students’ contributions about the changes experienced by
Superman may distract the group – and slow down the transition into a
new stage – she seems to resort to a different type of pedagogic strategy.
Here the teacher does not stop the conversation between students by
asking them in English or Spanish to concentrate on the next activity.
Instead, Teacher B elaborates briefly and in Spanish on the new item
brought about by the student(s), and takes back the control in order to
continue the instruction. In her lessons, she employed other strategies to
maintain or regain control, such as the intensification of the pace of
instruction, a central position in the front of the classroom, and negotia-
tion to sort out unexpected requests about make-up assignments, school
activities, exams, etc. Teacher B appeared to manage matters of a rather
disciplinarian nature at a collective level by (a) reminding the class
about old or new classroom rules, often displayed as signs on the
board (e.g., ‘No chicle en la boca’, ‘No gum in your mouth’), and (b)
talking to the group at either the beginning or the end of a lesson about
specific episodes that, in her opinion, could affect the development of
the course.
In contrast to the previous tendency of Teachers A and B toward
one type of control – disciplinarian or pedagogic – the next episode
illustrates the balance that Teacher C seemed to maintain between the
392 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

two types. The teacher has just finished presenting a list of new words,
and right before providing directions for the next activity, she notices
that a large number of students are not listening to her. Then, she
interrupts the transition in order to rearrange the previous physical
distribution of certain students (Excerpt 3, Ob C/11):

Excerpt 3

1 T Ok folks! ((LL talk with each other)) Tenemos una prueba (1) ¿Saben
2 las palabras? [‘We have a quiz. Do you know your words?’] You guys
evidently don’t need to look over words any further, let’s pronounce
3 ((LL complain)). Well, as noisy as you have been I think I’m (.) ssshhh
4 (3) Maurice, it is time for you and Bruce to switch places back to when
you came up.
5 M Why?
6 T Because I said so and I’m fifty-five and I’m a female. So, just move
it (.) ‘cause I said so. (2)
7 Move, Maurice, now!

The most relevant feature of the disciplinarian control exerted by

Teacher C could concern her numerous personal comments in English
to individuals or the class, and about herself. As to the latter group of
references, the teacher occasionally reminded the class about her age
and gender, her teaching experience in the school, and her status as a
professional who earned a salary in exchange for her effort to keep the
class working. Some features of the teacher’s approach to pedagogic
control involved the noticeable short duration and intense pace of the
stages; her physical position in the front of the classroom; the physical
arrangements she made for students during the year in connection
with their behaviour in class; the use of English to move forward the
instruction – directions, explanations, requests, clarifications, etc. – and
Spanish as the object of instruction; and the adjustments made by the
teacher in her Spanish in connection with the students’ assumed level of
comprehension.
The interaction between Teacher D and his students appeared rather
dependent on the behaviour of certain individuals in the classroom. Two
of the six girls in the course participated in approximately 90% of the
interaction during transitions in Lessons 1–4. After the withdrawal of
one of these students, Lessons 5–10 showed a much lower number of
exchanges in the transitions, most of them with the other student, as in
the following segment. The teacher is finishing with the directions for
 Manel Lacorte 393

the homework and framing the next stage, when the student intervenes
to express her disappointment (Excerpt 4, Ob D/5):

Excerpt 4

1 T All right (.) a:: ((glances through the book)) (15) Para la tarea quiero
2 que escriban una composición a: de quince oraciones sobre lo que (1)
3 a:: sobre lo que hizo la sema-el fin de semana pasado. Entonces, m::
4 es, a:: (1) ((writes on the board)) [‘As homework I want you to write
an essay of 15 sentences about what you did last weekend’]
5 F Ay, Mr. T! We just did that or something like that last week.
6 T Drew! ((writes on the board)) (7) Hay que practicar, si quieres
7 aprender el español hay que practicar ((continues writing on the
8 board)) [‘You’ve got to practise, if you want to learn Spanish, you’ve
got to practise’]

In his first lessons, Teacher D appeared to experience some difficulty

in maintaining a regular structure of transitions and pace of instruction,
especially on days when numerous student interventions seemed to dis-
rupt his initial plans. Instead of leaning toward the implementation of
specific disciplinary actions, the teacher seemed to support the basis for
control mainly through decisions on materials and activities for the
course that gradually intensified the pace of instruction and reduced the
unexpected interventions from students during the stages and in the tran-
sitions between stages. Another factor for the development of pedagogic
control had to do with the use of Spanish in the instruction. Specifically,
several episodes of interaction during the lessons suggested an attempt
by the teacher to either maintain or recover the floor by resorting to
Spanish. It also appeared to have a visible effect on the behaviour of the
student(s) participating in the interaction (they would quickly become
silent), especially when this involved topics not directly related to the
planned sequence.
In the course taught by Teacher E, the transitions contained very few
instances of teacher–student exchanges. If in Classroom A this situation
could be related to the teacher’s disciplinary control over the instruction,
in Classroom E one of the reasons was the consistent pace of the instruc-
tional sequence. Other factors could be as follows:

• Significance of the teacher’s perception of the main objectives for

the course, and his preparation and organization for each specific
lesson; e.g., ‘Everybody x, somebody asked me a question as well
about the “Diario” exercises, right? It says, for example (.) for the
394 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

((closes door)) activities manual, that’s where those exercises are . . .

and the day in the course schedule is September 15, the day we turn
it in, ok? So, go back, take a look in your syllabus to clarify those
kinds of things on page two’ (Excerpt 5, Ob E/1).
• Expectations about the use of English and Spanish in the instruction;
e.g., ‘Bueno (.) vamos (.) a conseguir, vamos a obtener, vamos a
obtener información sobre los compañeros no hablando nada de
inglés, obviamente ¿no? Nunca nada de inglés ((smiles. IN con-
tinue))’ (‘Ok, we are going to obtain, we are going to obtain infor-
mation about our classmates without speaking any English,
obviously. Never in English’) (Excerpt 6, Ob E/6).
• Influence of the interpersonal, institutional and academic context on
the interaction between teacher and students (a Spanish class in a
private college of liberal arts with students older than those in the
previous classrooms in the study). The following exchange occurs
when Teacher E begins to provide feedback after an activity and he
notices that a female student has raised her hand. As in most
exchanges between the teacher and other students in the class, the
female student seems to follow a certain etiquette expected for
the interaction with instructors in this academic and institutional
environment (Excerpt 7, Ob E/4):

Excerpt 7

1 T Algunas personas responden, algunas personas no. Tenemos que

2 practicar mucho los números. ¿Cómo practicar? Saadiya? [‘Some
3 people answer, others do not. We do have to practise the numbers a lot.
How to practise them?’]
4 F a:
5 T ¿Pregunta? [‘A question?]
6 F I didn’t mean to cut you.
7 T No, no.
8 F Ok, a: question

b Use of English and Spanish during the transitions: The analysis of

interaction and control during the transitions between stages revealed
another area of interest – the combination of English and Spanish as a
common feature of the teachers’ discourse in a striking number of tran-
sitions (except in the case of Teacher E). The two languages would often
appear in repetitions of the same word or sentence (e.g., ‘Ok clase, abran
los libros, open your books en la página ciento cincuenta y seis, one five
 Manel Lacorte 395

six one five seven’), or as part of the same sentence (e.g., ‘Bueno, flip
the page. This should be muy fácil [“very easy”]. Let’s go a la derecha
[“to the right”]’). On the other hand, the teachers who used mainly
Spanish – especially Teacher E – showed a significant tendency to use
repetition and other performance features such as changes in intonation,
emphasis and volume.
The comments made by the instructors during the interviews did not
seem to reflect certain theoretical views such as the cognitive value of
L1 as part of the negotiation of meaning in collaborative tasks (Antón
and DiCamilla, 1998; Swain and Lapkin, 2000), nor the benefits of a
judicious use of the L1 as an ‘enhanced form of input that is more salient
for the learner’ (Turnbull and Arnett, 2002: 205). Instead, in our final
interview at the end of the year the teachers linked the use of English to
one or more of the following pedagogical dimensions:

• The presentation and practice of specific aspects of the subject

matter, that is, grammar (A, B, C and D) and cultural facts connected
or not with the initial lesson script prepared by the teacher (B, C
and D).
• An attempt to keep the attention of young students toward new
learning contents, the directions for activities, and the activities
themselves (A, C and D).
• The personal experiences that some teachers had as learners of
Spanish in their high school, college or university (A and B).
• The institutional and sociocultural context in which some teachers
believed that students did not feel very motivated to learn a language
other than English (B and C).
• The lack of knowledge and resources to maintain the use of only
Spanish in the instructional sequence (D).
• The convenience of using the L1 in cases where that meant maxi-
mizing practice time in Spanish (E).

These responses seem to support Morris’s (1998) factors for the use of
L1 by teaching assistants in elementary French classes, arranged around
three categories: ‘those that relate to the TA’s language learning experi-
ences, those that relate to their professional development experiences,
and those that relate to the curriculum and the nature of the students
enrolled in the program’ (p. 120). Also, the analysis of the transitions
396 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

between stages suggested several possibilities about the use of Spanish

by the teachers, besides its main role as object of instruction:

• A prompt to converge attention on a new stage; e.g., phrases like

‘abran los libros’ (‘open your books’) and ‘en los cuadernos’ (‘in
your notebooks’).
• A procedure to keep or regain control over the interaction; see, e.g.,
Excerpt 2 (Teacher B) and Excerpt 4 (Teacher D).
• A reinforcement after correct or desired participations; e.g., ‘excelente’,
‘muy bien’, ‘está bien’, etc.
• A strategy to give more emphasis to remarks regarding matters of
discipline; e.g., expressions such as ‘cierren la boca’ (‘shut your
mouth’) and ‘escúchenme’ (‘listen to me’).
Further study of the combination of L1 and L2 in foreign language
classrooms should take into consideration the participants’ views and
attitudes as an essential aspect of the analysis. In addition, it should
account not only for the psycholinguistic conditions to which the com-
bination may be related, but also the variety of individual, professional,
sociocultural and political dimensions that may influence, for example,
the (im)possibilities of considering Spanish as the main language of
instruction and communication in Spanish classrooms in the USA.

VI Conclusion
The quite diverse personal and professional background of the teachers
involved in the study facilitated the identification of a number of issues
underlying the teachers’ personal theories of FL teaching and learning,
and their possible relationship with specific classroom strategies to
manage interaction and control during the transitions between instruc-
tional stages. The subsequent interpretation of these elements provided
further details on the following:

• The way in which teachers combine the adaptation to new academic

environments, the experience with diverse classroom practices, and
the development of general pedagogic principles in order to build
their personal theories of language teaching and learning.
• A potential distinction between two types of control: (a) pedagogic –
to advance the instruction and keep the focus on the learning
activities – and (b) disciplinary control – to avoid or restrain actions
 Manel Lacorte 397

affecting the progress of the lesson. These options are usually alter-
nated by the teachers according to their own approach to the social
and pedagogic conditions of the classroom.
• The multifaceted realities of L1/L2 use in the FL classroom, often
less related to any possible type of cognitive value but to a variety of
individual, professional and political factors.

Keeping in mind its limited scope, the results of this study may
support the findings from other larger-scale qualitative projects in ESL
settings (see, e.g., Breen, 1991; Breen, 2002; Breen et al., 2001; Kubota,
2001) and studies in FL education (see, e.g., Kubota et al., 2003; Osborn,
2000; Reagan and Osborn, 2002; see also Kinginger, 2002, for a related
discussion from the perspective of sociocultural theory) with regard to
the significance of notions such as control, status and authority for the
understanding of social and linguistic interaction in L2 classrooms.
Many teachers of Spanish and any other languages in the USA nowa-
days may find themselves trying to reconcile, on the one hand, recom-
mendations from current pedagogic trends about learner-centred
instruction, creativity and meaningful communication, and individual
differences and diversity in the classroom; and on the other, issues
related to previous experiences learning or teaching the FL or L2, man-
agement and discipline within the classroom, high ratio of students to
teachers, students’ lack of cultural awareness, lack of quality materials,
inadequate in-service training, etc.
This study has sought to give language teachers and language teacher
educators a closer view of the less accessible social and pedagogic
dimensions of the relationship between L2 classroom participants
coming from diverse personal and educational backgrounds. To some
degree, this kind of reflection could induce a notion of teaching ‘stan-
dards’ that would address not only the linguistic and cultural principles
of L2 learning, but also the variety of norms and actions shared by teach-
ers and students as members of a distinct academic community, such as
Spanish classrooms in the USA. Further formal or teacher-initiated
analyses of the interaction between principles and practice in FL class-
rooms could benefit greatly from suitable combinations of different
research methods and instruments, a more active involvement of partic-
ipants in the interpretation of processes taking place inside and outside
the L2 classroom, and the consideration of more than one level of
398 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

analysis, namely, the individual level, the interactive level (groups) and
the level of collectivities (organizational, cultural or societal).

Acknowledgements
I am indebted to the teachers who kindly agreed to participate in this
study. Without their consideration and valuable time this project would
have not been possible. I am also very grateful to Simon Borg, Judith
Liskin-Gasparro, Adrian Holliday and Helen Winder for comments and
suggestions on draft versions of this paper. I would also like to thank the
two anonymous reviewers for their very constructive feedback. Any
omissions and weaknesses are my own.

Notes
1 For further discussion about the working definitions of ‘knowledge’ and ‘beliefs’
provided in this paper see Allen (2002), Borg (2003b), Pajares (1992), Richardson
(1996) and Woods (1996).
2 The researcher did not aim to present the interviews as a casual and unstructured
encounter, because a so-called ‘spontaneous’ interview – or a ‘dialogue’ – is not a
natural speech event, nor does it have ‘rules of speaking to guide the subject or the
interviewer’ (Wolfson, 1976: 195). On the other hand, an interview is recognized and
accepted as a speech event by both the interviewer and (it is hoped) the interviewees,
which may produce more valid results from speech appropriate to the occasion.
3 The stages outlined in this study were intended to reflect the teachers’ views of the
lesson as a sequence of recognizable teaching events: presenting new content (PR),
providing directions for the activity (IN), working on the activity (AC), assisting
students during the activity (AS), giving feedback (FE), etc.
4 The selection of teachers and schools for this project was based on the researcher’s
ability to carry out the study in nearby schools and colleges while teaching full-time in
the same geographic area.
5 Pajares (1992) identifies several similar constructs in general education, such as ‘princi-
ples’, ‘implicit theories’, ‘practical knowledge’, ‘professional craft knowledge’, which
have been used thereafter by authors in general education and L2 teaching and learning.

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402 Teachers’ knowledge and experience

Appendix A
For both interviews and classroom observations, transcriptions were
based on a combination of conventions from the Jeffersonian System
(Psathas, 1995; Psathas and Anderson, 1990), particularly common in
Conversation Analysis, conventions relevant to discourse uttered in L2
classrooms (Allwright and Bailey, 1991), and a few personal additions.
The excerpts of classroom discourse in this paper indicate the teacher
and lesson from which they were recorded (e.g., ‘Excerpt 1, Ob A/12’
comes from Lesson 12 taught by Teacher A). Other transcription
conventions in this paper include:
(.) interval of less than a second
(2) length of an interval in seconds
(. . .) utterance partially reported
:::: prolongation of previous sound
T teacher
F1, F2 female student
M1, M2 male student
LL unidentified subgroup of class
LLL whole class
Who cares noticeable increased volume
⫽ latching, or no interval between utterances
x, xx, xxx incomprehensible item from one word to beyond phrase length
(( )) verbal descriptions of events in the classroom
[] translation into English of speech conveyed in the L2