The Epistemic Climate of a High School English Language Classroom in Iran: An Ethnographic Case Study

Document Type : Research article

Author
M. Bagherkazemi
Islamic Azad University (South Tehran Branch)
10.48311/LRR.15.2.95
Abstract
The “epistemic climate” of a classroom can be thought of as a major determinant of classroom procedures and the learning outcome. The present ethnographic case study involved the investigation of the epistemic orientation of the instructional materials, teacher, and students of an online tenth-grade high school English language classroom in Iran, regarding the core dimensions of their L2 learning-specific epistemologies: beliefs about the nature of L2 knowledge’s simplicity, certainty, source, and justification. The researcher’s observation and reflective notes paired with semi-structured interview data were qualitatively analyzed. Nine epistemology-related themes were extracted from the interview data. The results showed the predominantly absolutist orientation of the materials and students; the teacher, on the other hand, subscribed herself to a view of L2 knowledge as context-contingent and integrated, obtainable from multiple sources and subject to contextual evaluatism; however, there was a conspicuous incongruence between her beliefs and the epistemological orientation of her teaching practice, materials, and students. She attributed this observation to the mandatory instructional materials and stakeholders’ conceptions of L2 achievement. The findings reveal the significance of investigating the epistemic orientation of L2 teaching and learning in order to better facilitate students’ epistemological development and enhance their recognition of the context-contingency of L2 knowledge and knowing.

1. Introduction

Despite ample research evidence into the significance of learners’ beliefs about language learning (Bernat & Gvozdenko, 2005; Fazilatfar et al., 2015; Ghobadi Mohebi & Khodadady, 2011; Horwitz, 1988; Mori, 1999; White, 2008), research into language learning-specific epistemological beliefs (LLEBs), i.e., developmental beliefs about the nature of L2 knowledge and L2 knowing from absolutism to contextualism, is at a premium (Mardiha & Alibakhshi, 2020; Mori, 1999; Nikitina & Furuoka, 2018; Soleimani, 2018, 2020;  Ziegler, 2015; Wagner, 2019).  Research has shown that the epistemic climate of educational settings, which embeds epistemological beliefs held by learners and teachers and those underlying instructional approaches and materials, significantly influences the quality and outcome of instruction (Feucht, 2010). Moreover, epistemic climates vary widely across different subject matters and disciplines (Bendixen & Rule, 2004), and there is no direct relationship between language learners’ general beliefs about language learning and their general epistemological beliefs (Mori, 1999). Accordingly, the epistemic climate of L2 classrooms, which can potentially enhance our understanding of classroom processes and LLEBs-related influences on them, is worth investigating. This gains salience when school language education in Iran is concerned, owing to its apparent failure to help learners develop communicative competence in the English language. Given this, the present study was designed to explore the epistemic climate of a 10th-grade English language classroom in Iran, with an eye to the epistemological beliefs of the teacher, the learners, and the materials.  

Research Question(s)

The present study addressed the following research questions:

What is the epistemic orientation of the students in a 10th-grade English language classroom?
What is the epistemic orientation of the teacher in a 10th-grade English language classroom?
What is the epistemic orientation of the 10th grade English language coursebook (second lesson) and the teachers’ guidebook?
To what extent do the epistemic orientations of the teacher, students, and learning materials in a 10th grade English language classroom match?



2. Literature Review

The teaching and learning process is significantly influenced by the epistemological orientation of the educational environment (Ziegler, 2015). Feucht (2010) refers to five components of the classroom epistemic climate, which are: (a) the epistemological beliefs of students, (b) the epistemological beliefs of the teacher, (c) the epistemological basis of instructional approach, (d) the representation of knowledge in the discipline, course, as well as materials and curriculum, (d) the interaction of these four components. These aspects of the epistemic climate can be analyzed from the perspective of its four basic dimensions explicated by Hoffer and Pintridge (1997): simplicity, certainty, source, and justification. According to Hofer (2001), epistemic beliefs are evolutionary in nature, and a spectrum can be envisioned with absolutist beliefs on one side and critical context-oriented beliefs on the other for each of these four main dimensions.


Research has shown the relationship of teachers’ epistemological beliefs with their (a) teaching styles and management strategies (Soleimani, 2018, 2020) and (b) perceptions of teaching (Mardiha & Alibakhshi, 2020). As for language learners, Ziegler (2015) investigated epistemological beliefs about vocabulary learning. Learners were shown to hold absolutist beliefs about the source and justification of vocabulary knowledge, which Ziegler attributed to the lack of critical thinking facilitation tasks in the materials.


On the other hand, language education in Iran's official education system is marked with ignorance of communication skills, and the focus of teachers and students on the university entrance exam, the English section of which generally consists of multiple-choice vocabulary questions, grammar, and reading comprehension (Bagherkazemi & Arefkal, 2021). Against this background, the present study investigated the epistemic climate of a high school language classroom in Iran to unearth the epistemic orientations of the teacher, the students, and the materials.



3. Methodology


The study, which deployed an ethnographic case study approach, was initiated by obtaining the consent of the high school principal, teacher, and students. The researcher participated as an outsider in 21 sessions of a 10th-grade English course, with 32 female students registered in it. The classes were held online in "Shad" application. She recorded her observations in the form of field and reflection notes in accord with the core aspects of epistemology, focusing on the teacher, the students, and the materials. Observation data were triangulated with semi-structured interviews with the teacher and 15 convenience-sampled students in the post-course period. Data coding was subsequently conducted jointly by the researcher and a colleague of hers. Firstly, interviewees’ utterances directly related to each of the four main dimensions of epistemology (simplicity and stability of knowledge, and its source and justification) were determined (N = 409) through the directed qualitative content analysis approach (DQCA). These were further categorized into nine general themes in a secondary coding phase. The inter-coder agreement was ensured through Cronbach’s alpha coefficients in both coding phases. The researchers’ field and reflection notes as well as the course content were subsequently subjected to DQCA to unearth the epistemological basis of the materials and explore the extent to which the teacher and students’ epistemological beliefs and the materials’ epistemological basis went together.



4. Results

Regarding the teacher and students’ LLEBs, interview data analysis brought to the surface nine themes in relation to the four core aspects of epistemological beliefs. Beliefs about L2 knowledge certainty were categorized into those related to (a) stability/dynamicity of L2 skills and components, (b) simultaneous/spiral L2 presentation in the materials, and (c) significance of communicative tasks. Beliefs about L2 knowledge simplicity were classified into those pertaining to (a) separability/integratedness of language skills and components and (b) significance of memorization in L2 learning. Beliefs about L2 knowledge sources were divided into those associated with (a) teacher role and (b) learners’ role. Finally, beliefs about L2 knowledge justification fell into the two categories of (a) nativespeakerism/critical language awareness and (b) significance of effort/aptitude. Overall, the students proved to hold mostly absolutist beliefs in terms of the extracted themes, whereas the teacher more visibly adhered to contextual knowing beliefs.

Epistemological beliefs underlying the course book were also shown to be essentially absolutist in nature, as evident in the explicit presentation of vocabulary and grammar, sentence-based exercises, and emphasis on native-like pronunciation, among others. In addition, learners’ epistemological beliefs tended to be more clearly allied with the absolutism underlying the materials, and accordingly diverged from the teacher’s epistemologically more advanced beliefs; however, there was no congruence between the teacher’s beliefs and her teaching practice, which she attributed to the predominantly absolutist epistemology ruling school language education in Iran.

 

Keywords

Subjects

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Language Related Research
Volume 15, Issue 2 - Serial Number 80
May and June 2024
Pages 95-130