The Pedagogical Knowledge Base

of Four TESOL Teachers

BARBARA MULLOCK
Department of Linguistics
School of Modern Language Studies
The University of New South Wales
Sydney NSW 2052
Australia
Email: b.mullock@unsw.edu.au
Many researchers have called for a broadening of the theoretical base of language teacher
development programs to include gathering information not only on what teachers do in the
classroom, but also on what they know, and how this knowledge is transferred to their teaching
behavior, especially as they gain more experience in the classroom. However, in the field of
teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL), studies of teachers knowledge
base and its development are relatively scarce (Borg, 2003; Gatbonton, 2000; Johnston &
Goettsch, 2000). This qualitative study is a partial replication of Gatbontons (2000) study,
using her stimulated recall methodology and coding features, but it also extends her study by
incorporating a number of key changes. The data derive from intact classes of low intermediate
to advanced level students in general English, Business English, and Cambridge Advanced
Certificate classes. The study examines the reports of 4 teachers, with differing amounts of
TESOL teaching experience, on their thinking about their activities in these classrooms.

INTEREST IN TEACHER COGNITION, THE

nature of teacher knowledge, and teachers
thought processes, has constituted a major area
of research in general education since the mid1970s (Freeman, 2002), as it has become clear
that much of what teachers do in the classroom is
the product of, or is accompanied by, some form
of thinking (Calderhead, 1987; Clark & Peterson, 1986; Freeman, 2002). Teachers knowledge,
sometimes referred to as the pedagogical knowledge base, is accumulated knowledge about the act
of teaching, including the goals, procedures, and
strategies that form the basis for what teachers
do in the classroom.1 Thus, research into teachers pedagogical knowledge is based on the assumption that what teachers do in the classroom
has its origins in thoughts or mental acts, which
have been shaped by attitudes, values, knowledge,
and beliefs gathered through years of being a student and being (or becoming) a teacher (Borg,
1999, 2003; Calderhead, 1987; Clark & Peterson,

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C 2006 The Modern Language Journal

1986; Gatbonton, 2000). The expectation is that

if we can gain access to these thoughts, we can
gain valuable insights into the knowledge behind
them. These insights, in turn, may be significant
for teacher development programs as well as for
teacher and curriculum effectiveness.
Another reason for research into the pedagogical knowledge base is the hope that we can establish that knowledge about teaching English to
speakers of other languages (TESOL), while not
as complex and highly specialized as the professional knowledge required in medicine or law, is
sufficiently specialized to warrant professional status (cf. Schon, 1983, 1987). Acquiring this status
may result in increasing importance being placed
on the preparation and certification of TESOL
practitioners. It needs to be pointed out, however, that there is some debate about the role of
preparation, with some researchers suggesting it
has less impact on some trainees than we might expect (Almarza, 1996; Kagan, 1990, 1992; Peacock,
2001). Nevertheless, other studies suggest that
trainees can undergo significant changes in cognition as a result of preservice training (Dunkin,
1995, 1996; Richards, Ho, & Giblin, 1996; Sendan
& Roberts, 1998).

Barbara Mullock
In language teaching, as Borg (2003) pointed
out, it is only since the mid-1990s that studies of
teacher cognition have begun to appear (see also
Freeman, 2002). The TESOL pedagogical knowledge base, like TESOL teacher cognition in general, has not been heavily researched (Borg, 1999,
2003; Gatbonton, 2000; Johnston & Goettsch,
2000). In addition, there is considerable variety in
methodological approach in TESOL teacher cognition studies, and by no means all studies take
into account what occurs in real-life classrooms
(Borg, 2003).
REVIEW OF THE LITERATURE
Freeman (2002) provided a clear account of
the development of research into mainstream
teachers cognition. Research into mainstream
teachers cognition began in the mid-1970s, when
researchers worked within a process-product
paradigm, which examined teaching in terms of
the learning outcomes produced. Attention later
turned to more qualitative or hermeneutic approaches, which examined how teachers thinking affected and shaped the way they taught.
The decade 1980 to 1990 marked fundamental
changes in how teacher cognition was conceptualized and researched, yielding now-commonplace
concepts such as the teacher as decision-maker,
the role of beliefs, attitudes, and assumptions
in teaching, the apprenticeship of observation
(Lortie, 1975), and pedagogical content knowledge. The latter concept was a component of
Shulmans (1987) highly influential framework
that postulated that experienced teachers possess a distinct form of knowledge. This knowledge comprised content knowledge, pedagogical
content knowledge (the application of content
knowledge to the classroom), general pedagogic
knowledge, curriculum knowledge, knowledge of
learners and their characteristics, knowledge of
educational contexts, and knowledge of educational ends, purposes, and values. The decade
from 1990 to 2000 Freeman termed the decade
of consolidation (p. 8), and was characterized by
deeper understandings of the role and nature of
teachers mental lives.
In language teaching, the most recent and
comprehensive review of teacher cognition is by
Borg (2003). He defined teacher cognition as
the unobservable cognitive dimension of teaching (p. 81), a dimension that plays a pivotal
role in teachers lives and that is strongly affected by prior language learning experience(s),
professional coursework, contextual factors, and
classroom practice factors. In other studies, prior

49
language learning experiences have been shown
to form the basis of teachers initial conceptualizations of language teaching and may exert a
considerable influence throughout the teachers
life (Almarza, 1996; Bailey et al., 1996; Golombek,
1998; Numrich, 1996; Peacock, 2001). Teacher education can also be highly influential, although
there is considerable variation in impact across
studies and even among participants in the same
study (Almarza, 1996; Dunkin, 1996; Richards
et al., 1996; Sendan & Roberts, 1998). Cognitive
change as a result of teacher education (preservice or in-service) does not always guarantee behavioral change, or vice versa (Borg, 2003). In
particular, the role of context, such as social,
institutional, and curricular factors, can affect
the extent to which teachers are able to implement changes they believe are desirable (Burns,
1996; Tsui, 1996). Finally, classroom practice and
teacher cognition exist in a symbiotic relationship (Foss & Kleinnsasser, 1996, as cited in Borg,
2003, p. 91), although most research into this relationship derives from two research perspectives:
pedagogical decision-making, and teachers personal practical knowledge (Borg, 2003; see also
note 1).
Turning now to classroom practice studies that
are more directly relevant to this article, Breen
(1991) found that the pedagogical concerns of
teachers fell into three categories: those concerned with learners, those concerned with the
subject matter of the class, and those that focused
on teachers meeting their pedagogical goals and
managing the lesson. Binnie Smith (1996) examined teachers pre-active and interactive decisionmaking, finding that major influences on their decisions included their understandings of second
language (L2) theory and the nature of language
learning. Burns (1992, 1996) found that although
teachers were heavily influenced by beliefs about
language and the language learning process, contextual factors, such as the learners and the institution, were also highly influential. Woods (1996)
examined factors influencing eight teachers, as
they planned and executed their lessons, and
demonstrated that decisions were heavily influenced by emergent information. Breen, Hird, Milton, Oliver, and Thwaite (2001) found that teachers were concerned with the learner (the learners
attributes and how the learner undertakes the
learning process); how to use the classroom context to optimize learning; teaching, and learning
content; and their own contributions as teachers. A number of studies have explored teacher
thinking about a particular aspect of L2 teaching,
such as grammar (e.g., Andrews, 1994; Borg, 1998,

50
1999; Johnston & Goettsch, 2000) or literacy (e.g.,
Burns, 1992; Tsui, 1996), but, although interesting, these studies are not directly relevant to the
current study.
A further study, and one on which this article draws, is that of Gatbonton (2000), who was
concerned with discovering what patterns or domains of pedagogical knowledge operate when
experienced teachers teach, and whether there
is consistency among teachers in their use of
these patterns. Her research was based on the assumption that the basis of teachers pedagogical
thoughts can be accessed through stimulated recall. In this process, teachers watch a video recording made of a lesson they have taught and report
what they were thinking during the act of teaching. The recollections are recorded, transcribed
verbatim, and analyzed. From these reported pedagogical thoughts, the pedagogical knowledge
guiding their teaching can be inferred.
Gatbontons (2000) study involved two groups
of Canadian English as a second language (ESL),
teachers of general English (total of 7 teachers)
and their classes. All teachers had at least 10 years
experience, with at least 5 years using the communicative approach. All but 1 had completed a masters degree in Applied Linguistics. The learners
consisted of seven groups of lower intermediate
adult migrants or refugees from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia, and a small number of French
Canadians. Four classes were taught by both experienced and inexperienced teachers, though
data from the inexperienced teachers were not reported in this article. The other three classes were
taught only by experienced teachers. The teaching materials comprised unfamiliar modules from
a textbook unpublished at the time (written by
Gatbonton herself ), and lessons were organized
around communicative activities and followed
up by fluency-oriented and accuracy-oriented
activities.
Gatbonton found that that the teachers produced an average of between three and four reported pedagogical thoughts per minute during
the stimulated recall. This finding indicates that
teachers have thoughts that can be accessed and
that they make decisions frequently during interactive teaching. The most frequent category of
reported pedagogical thought (20% of the total) was Language Management (thought units
concerned with the language students were exposed to, and language they produced). This category, together with six others, constituted around
64% of the pedagogical thoughts reported. The
six other categories comprised Knowledge of
Students (personality characteristics, ability, and

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needs, 9%), Procedure Check (whether the
students were on task, 8%), Progress Review
(whether the students were doing the task correctly and whether they had finished, 8%), Beliefs
(teacher beliefs about language, language learning, and language teaching, 7%), Note Student
Reaction and Behavior (reports about how students reacted or behaved, 6%), and Decisions
(teachers choices made while teaching, 6%).
There was, however, some variation among the
individual teachers in the way the categories were
ranked.
In the domains of pedagogical knowledge,
Gatbonton found that the most common domain
consulted by teachers during class was Handling
Language Items. This domain consisted of knowledge about how to manage specific language
items so that students could learn them: what
to give, how much, and when. Gatbonton gave
no details about the frequency with which any
of the other the five other domains were consulted, nor why she did not include them, which
is unfortunate.
Despite this limitation, Gatbontons study is a
useful one. In attempting to control a number
of variables (learner purpose, learner levels, textbook, teacher experience, and background, etc.),
it provides a benchmark for studies of pedagogical knowledge in TESOL. Nevertheless, it is not
immune to criticism. First, because it relates to
classes created for the purpose of research and
not to intact classes, there are doubts regarding
its ecological validity. A second problem, mentioned previously, is the lack of information about
the ranking and frequency of the six domains of
pedagogical knowledge consulted by the teachers
as they taught. It is not clear if the dominance
of the domain Handling Language Items was due
to the fact that the teachers were teaching essentially form-based lessons to a group of learners
convened for the purposes of research from an
unfamiliar textbook.
A third problem relates to the reliability and validity of the stimulated recall protocol used in the
study. In part, this problem is addressed later in
a discussion of the pitfalls in using the stimulated
recall protocol and of the attempts made to overcome them in the current study. However, before
proceeding, I would like to discuss two important
concerns.
First, a question often raised by researchers
from different traditions is whether the process
of asking participants to stop and comment on
videos of their teaching can provide a true portrait
of how teachers think in action. One answer is
that the use of verbal report procedures (of which

Barbara Mullock
the stimulated recall protocol is one) is based
on the assumption that teachers have some
degree of access to their professional thinking,
and that this thinking can be reported in words
(Calderhead, 1987). Indeed, as Schon (1983)
claimed, because the majority of teacher thinking and knowledge is tacit, and implicit within action, it is only through some kind of verbal report
that we can infer this knowledge and professional
thinking. It is common for researchers in teacher
cognition who work with Schons notions on reflection in teaching to draw heavily on teachers
verbal reports (often using stimulated recall procedures) and, from these reports, infer a set of
concepts and procedures to explain a teachers
classroom behavior (Schon, 1983). In addressing
the concern that verbal reports cannot provide a
true portrait of how teachers think in action, it is
important that we do not confuse the map with the
territory. Verbal report procedures cannot and do
not claim to provide an accurate portrait of how
teachers think in action. They are used, instead, to
help us infer the professional beliefs, knowledge,
attitudes, theories, and assumptions that teachers have about their work. These reports merely
give us some insight into some of the thought
processes that occur during the act of teaching.
It is highly likely, for example, that there remain
many thoughts that participants do not, cannot, or
have not recalled or verbalized. It is also possible
that some elements of teaching have become so
routinized that teachers might not be able to put
their actions into words (Schon, 1983). It is possible, too, that participants censor the thoughts
they report, giving merely those they think the investigator wishes to hear. Nevertheless, at present,
verbal report procedures remain one of the very
few means we have of gaining insight into teachers thought processes.
Second, in addition to these criticisms of the
internal validity of verbal report procedures,
there have been criticisms of external validity.
It is well known in general education that verbal report procedures used to elicit and access
teacher thoughts are extremely time-consuming
to conduct, and generally concentrate on a small
number of participants (usually between 1 and
12). Consequently, the findings of such studies
may be so context-dependent or teacher-specific
that generalization is dangerous. In considering
Gatbontons (2000) study, for example, it is not
clear whether similar results would have been
found if different language proficiency levels had
been used (rather than only lower intermediate),
if learning purposes had been different (e.g.,
English as a foreign language [EFL] learners

51
rather than ESL learners, Language for Specific
Purposes [LSP] rather than just general English),
if different age groups had been used (young
adults and secondary school students rather than
adults), if teachers with different levels of training
or experience, or both, had been studied, if the
study had been situated in a different geopolitical
context, and so on.
In Gatbontons study, aspects of the research design, including the tight control of variables, make
it unlikely that we can discover the true extent of
consistency among teachers in their use of pedagogical knowledge patterns (her second aim).
Her participants taught unfamiliar modules from
a general English textbook written by Gatbonton
herself. It is not clear what effects this unfamiliar material may have had on lesson structure
and teaching style, in comparison to, say, teaching from a more familiar text, and according to
aims and objectives prepared by the teachers
themselves. It is possible that the task demands
of teaching a group of learners convened for research, using an unfamiliar text, and being filmed
while doing so, may have resulted in teachers
placing more emphasis on content and instructional process than might normally be the case.
Furthermore, it is possible that the participants
may have censored their reports of their thinking
processes in view of the origins of the teaching
text.
In addition, there does not seem to be sufficient variation in lesson structure to enable us to
determine whether we would get the same results
if the focus of the lessons was different. Gatbonton
stated that the lessons consisted of generic communicative activities followed by form-focused
fluency- and accuracy-oriented activities highlighting utterances collected from the communication phase of the lesson (p. 589). Not all
teachers teach in in this manner. In fact, this
description suggests that individual skill development was not a feature of the lessons, as it
is in many textbooks currently in use. Indeed,
Gatbontons lists of teachers reported thoughts
while teaching, which comprise the different domains of pedagogical knowledge, suggest that the
lessons contained substantial focus on form, but
relatively little focus on the teaching of specific
skills. We cannot, therefore, be sure how much
reliance on certain domains and certain patterns
of pedagogical knowledge varies according to the
focus and structure of the lesson. Intuitively, it
would seem that Use of Knowledge would vary
according to the focus of the lesson (e.g., form
or skills), but there is insufficient information in
Gatbontons study for us to decide.

52
There is a need, then, to conduct a replication or partial replication study, and to compare Gatbontons findings with those gathered
from a different sample set, especially from naturally occurring, intact classes of different proficiency levels, with different purposes, taught by
teachers with different levels of experience and
expertise, in different institutional and geopolitical contexts. Replication studies are quite rare
in L2 teacher education, yet if we wish to create
a representative, explanatory base for our work,
it is important that the findings on which we
build our base are solid. One way to achieve this
goal is to replicate studies, and discover whether
the findings of studies such as Gatbontons are
replicable.2
THE CURRENT STUDY
The current study is a partial replication of
Gatbontons (2000) study, using a wider data base.
The study was carried out on four intact classes of
different proficiency levels in two private commercial language schools in Sydney, Australia, during
early 2002. One class was Business English, one
was examination preparation, and two were general English. The aim of the current study was
to examine whether the patterns of pedagogical knowledge found in Gatbontons (2000) study
would also be found in these teaching situations,
with teachers of differing levels of experience.
The current study differs from Gatbontons in a
number of respects. First, it involves intact classes
and their regular teachers, rather than classes specially formed for the purposes of research. Second, the classes were at three different language
proficiency levels, rather than merely the lower
intermediate level as in Gatbontons study. Third,
the learners were sojourners attending commercial language schools, rather than immigrants and
refugees in a specially convened course. Fourth, a
broader range of teaching programs and material
was examined. Rather than just general English
programs, the current study involved general
English, Business English, and an exam preparation class. Fifth, the skill focus of the classes was
wider, and included reading, listening, speaking,
and grammar/vocabulary rather than just communication activities followed up by fluency- and
accuracy-oriented activities. Sixth, the teacherparticipants had different levels of TESOL experience, ranging from 3 months to 12 years.
Finally, there was no effort made by the researcher
to control or direct the content of the lessons.
Some teachers were familiar with the teaching
material used, others were not (in Gatbontons

The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)

study, all teachers used unfamiliar materials), but
all the teachers designed and planned the lessons
themselves.
The Stimulated Recall Technique
The current study used the stimulated recall
technique to infer the pedagogical knowledge
base used by teachers with differing levels of experience and expertise in different institutional
contexts. I discussed earlier the difficulty of uncovering covert mental processes in teaching because the nature of professional knowledge is tacit
and implicit within the teaching act (Calderhead,
1987; Clark & Peterson, 1986). Consequently,
the domain of teachers pedagogical knowledge
presents a challenging methodological problem
for researchers. Stimulated verbal recall presents
one solution. Again, it is important to bear in
mind that the thoughts reported in the current
study cannot and do not constitute the entire pedagogical thought process and pedagogical knowledge of the teachers involved during the lessons
recorded. What stimulated recall can provide us
with is an indication of the categories of pedagogical knowledge that TESOL teachers use,
an indication of what domains of pedagogical
knowledge are consulted, and approximately how
often.
As pointed out above although stimulated recall is one of the few tools we have available for
probing pedagogical knowledge, it has attracted
criticism in the areas of reliability and validity (see,
e.g., Clark & Peterson, 1986; Davis, 1995). Gass
and Mackey (2000) suggested that reliability issues
can be considerably reduced as long as (a) the
time lag between the thinking and the reporting
is as small as possible, (b) a detailed research protocol is developed, and (c) an independent third
party rater, trained in the coding procedure, is
used.
At this point, it is worth noting that Gatbonton
commented that for one or two teachers there
was a delay in viewing the videotape that ranged
from a few days to three weeks (p. 590). Although she stated that one teacher, interviewed
after several weeks, expressed concern that she
might have forgotten what happened, she commented that the moment [the teacher] saw the
lesson she seemed to have no problems about it
(Gatbonton, 2000, p. 590). However, work in cognitive psychology suggests that the recall would
not have been complete.
As for validity, the issue in stimulated recall revolves around uncertainty whether stimulated recall reports actually reflect the thought processes

53

Barbara Mullock
of the participants. In the current study (and in
that of Gatbonton, 2000), the aim was to discover
the domains of pedagogical knowledge that teachers used while teaching, and whether there is
consistency among teachers in their use of these
domains. As such, the current study was not designed specifically to uncover teacher planning,
interactive decision-making, or teachers theories or beliefs. Aspects of these processes and
thoughts, however, emerged in the pedagogical
thinking reported. In addition, allowing only a
small amount of time to intervene between the
event and the stimulated recall meant that the
pedagogical information reported was accessible
and available for reporting. Further support is
provided for validity and reliability by the correspondence between the teachers classroom behavior and the reported thought units relating to
Language Management, which will be reported in
a later section.
The Teachers. The participants were 4 teachers
of TESOL, whom I shall refer to as Teachers A,
B, C, and D, who volunteered to participate in
the study after a recruitment notice was placed in
their schools. Teachers A, C, and D were female,
and Teacher B was male. All were between 30 and
45 years old. Their teaching experience varied
from 3 months to 12 years. Coincidentally, all of
the teachers, including the 2 relatively less experienced teachers, were trained primary teachers,
and all had taught at the primary level for periods
between 2 months (Teacher B) and several years
(Teacher C). All of the teachers had undertaken
the Cambridge Certificate in English Language
Teaching to Adults (CELTA)3 or equivalent, but
only 1 (Teacher D) had completed any other formal study in TESOL. This teacher had undertaken
a Graduate Diploma of Education with methods
in Asian Languages and TESOL and was partway through a Master of Arts in Linguistics. The
teachers biographical details are contained in
Appendix A.
The Courses. The courses included two general English courses, one Business English course,
and one exam preparation course for the Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English [CAE]
(see Appendix B).
The students were not migrants or refugees but
were in Australia on work or study visas. They
were typical of students found in private language
schools: male and female adults, generally aged
between 18 and 30, originating from South America, Europe, and Asia. The two general English
classes contained students from all of these re-

gions. The Cambridge class, however, was composed entirely of northern Europeans, and the
Business English class was composed mostly of
Asian students. There were between 9 and 15 students in each class.
The Lessons. Teacher A presented a task-based
lesson focusing on reading and listening comprehension from the course book Cutting Edge
(Cunningham, 2000). The topic was related to recent scientific discoveries and the implications for
society. The lesson consisted of reading and listening tasks (with pre- and during-task activities), and
pronunciation practice.
Teacher B presented a task-based lesson with a
listening comprehension focus from the course
book Business Opportunities (Hollett, 1994), followed by a language focus on the past tense. The
topic for the listening comprehension was the
business of selling toys. The lesson consisted of
a warmer, pre-, during-, and posttask activities,
and a pronunciation game relating to past tense
endings.
Teacher Cs lesson (preparation for Cambridge
Certificate in Advanced English examination)
covered the formation of words (nouns, verbs,
adjectives, and adverbs) through the addition of
prefixes and suffixes and a small amount of vocabulary work (clarification of meaning). Most
activities were taken from the textbook Focus on
Advanced English CAE (OConnell, 1996), but the
lesson included a teacher-made game of snap,
where learners had to match prefixes and suffixes
with root words.
Teacher Ds lesson was aimed at improving
learners abilities in oral paraphrasing through
an information gap activity involving a crossword
puzzle. The class was divided into pairs, and one
member of each pair was given a crossword puzzle
with the down words missing. The other member was given the same crossword puzzle with the
across words missing. The objective was for the
pairs to complete the puzzle together by giving
each other clues or paraphrases, or both, for the
missing words. The activity was designed to correct
a class tendency to explain unknown vocabulary
to compatriots by resorting to the first language
and shouting it across the room (Teacher D,
transcript).
Method
In the current study, the research method
was essentially the same as that described by
Gatbonton (2000). Each teacher was videotaped
in class for 1 hour. Then, later the same day, the

54
teachers were shown the video and asked to recall what they had been thinking while teaching.
Their verbal recollections were recorded on audiotape, and this recording was later transcribed
and formed the raw data for analysis. The delay between teaching and viewing the video varied between 10 minutes and 3 hours, depending
on each teachers work schedule and availability. The reason for recording the recollections
the same day was to reduce the possibility of
corruption of memory structure caused by the
time lag between the thinking and the reporting of the thought, which Calderhead (1987) and
Gass and Mackey (2000) cautioned can result
in abstraction or reinterpretation of the original
thinking. However, due to a recording mishap,
Teacher Cs recollections made while she was
viewing the video were not recorded. The researcher returned 3 days later and repeated the
procedure. Teacher C was able to recollect the
lesson, but it is unclear how much fine detail
was forgotten. Indeed, the number of pedagogical thought units reported by Teacher C was far
lower than those reported by the other teachers.
At a later stage, the researcher interviewed the
teachers on their TESOL training and other influences on their teaching, and collected additional
biographical data.
Another aspect of Gatbontons study that was
adopted in the current study was the use of a
paid consultant for checks: a procedure regarded
by Gass and Mackey (2000) as crucial to improving reliability and validity, particularly to ensure
that the researcher did not read too much into
the teachers verbalizations. The paid consultant,
who was an experienced CELTA trainer and assessor, completed a 4-hour training session and
then analyzed two teacher transcripts in order
to reach consensus over segmentation and labeling of teachers reported thoughts. Financial constraints did not permit the consultant to replicate
Gatbontons stages of category definition, data
selection, and abstraction of pedagogical knowledge domains (the segmentation and analysis of
pedagogical thought units was extremely timeconsuming), and, in any case, these items had
essentially been provided by the Gatbonton study.
A random sample of 10% of the transcripts was
subjected to a check for interrater reliability and
revealed 86% agreement between the paid consultant and the researcher in the segmentation and
labeling of the teachers thought processes.
Analysis
Pedagogical Thought Categories. The analysis
performed was both qualitative and quantitative

The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)

and followed the method and coding used by
Gatbonton (2000). In her study, the transcripts
were first segmented into small units of reported thought, which were then labeled according to the pedagogical thought (hereafter,
thought units or pedagogical thought units). Next,
the thought units were organized, according to
shared theme, into wider categories (hereafter,
pedagogical thought categories). These categories
were labeled and given a definition. Examples
of the pedagogical thought categories include
Call Students Attention to Correct Form of
Verbs, Echo Correct Forms, Elicit Language from
Students, and Note Students Interest in Whats
Going on. Around 21 such categories were established (the majority of these are contained in
Table 1). The categories were then reanalyzed to
exclude thoughts not directly used in the teaching
act. Such thoughts included irrelevant comments
(e.g., I have never been recorded before), comments comparing the current lesson to a previous
one (unless it was clear that the thought occurred
during the teaching), comments elicited through
the researchers leading prompts, and comments
whose meanings were unclear. The frequency of
pedagogical thoughts reported by the teachers according to category was then calculated and compared across all teachers. In the current study, the
categories of pedagogical thought were, wherever
possible, the same as those found in Gatbontons
study.
As an illustrative example, the following transcribed segment is presented and analyzed:
1. So now, yeah Im just looking at the picture and
trying to get them to elicit or, to describe what the
possibilities are. 2. That picture looks just like the
others so I was trying to think of a way to make it
more interesting. (Pause) 3. Im just um making it
very clear what I want them to do. 4. It was um, 5. Now
here Im getting them ready to do-. 6. I find some of
them just labor over the easiest task which is to pull
out a bit of information. (Teacher A)

Pedagogical thought unit 1 was labeled Eliciting

Possible Answers and placed in the pedagogical
thought category Language Management. Unit 2
was labeled Deal with Difficulties in the Materials
and placed in the category Comment on Materials. Unit 3 was Clarify What Students Have to Do
and was placed in the category Procedure Check.
Units 4 and 5 were Unclear, and hence not categorized. Unit 6 was Note Students Laboring over
Task and placed in the category Note Students
Behavior and Reactions.
As in Gatbontons (2000) study, the aim was to
examine only the pedagogical information that
the teachers used while teaching. Care was taken

Barbara Mullock
to include only thoughts about matters clearly
related to teaching, thoughts spontaneously offered by the teachers (and not prompted by
the interviewer), and thoughts that occurred
during the act of teaching. Decisions on which
thoughts to include or exclude were based on the
examination of linguistic features including specific phrasal cues and verb tenses. For example,
the second use of the word now in the following
example, together with the present continuous
tense, clearly shows that the comment occurred
during the viewing (and was thus excluded from
the data):
Now perhaps I shouldve stood and given them the
instruction there, Im just realizing now that I was
moving around as I gave the instruction, which is actually not the best thing to do, so I shouldve actually
given the instruction there before. (Teacher C)

However, the past verb form of the following

excerpt indicates that the teacher was reporting a
thought that occurred while teaching rather than
while viewing the video:
So I was actually thinking there too I dont think it
was the most challenging um focus question to give
them. (Teacher A)

Even so, in some cases it was not clear when the

thought occurred to the teacher. In such cases the
procedure followed by Gatbonton was adopted:
She stated that she included data as long as it
could be argued that [it] reflected knowledge
likely to have been used during the teaching act
(p. 593). Thus, although it relates to future planning, the italicized thought in the following sequence was included because it related to an
evaluation of an activity conducted during the
teaching act:
So tomorrow um as I said, I wasnt happy with this
activity so Ill do another one tomorrow using it because
um: it just wasnt, they didnt get much chance to
practice it. (Teacher A)

Gatbonton stated that she also included comments that described behavior rather than
thoughts, and this practice was followed in the
current research, including, for instance, the
following:
This just is a very brief warm-up. Basically were trying
to elicit the term Lego. (Teacher B)

Care was taken not to overinterpret pedagogical

thought units and pedagogical thought categories
(a serious danger in this type of research), and in
particular, the temptation to assign deeper motivations for pedagogical thought units was resisted

55
wherever possible. For example, the following reported thought was categorized as Self-critique,
rather than as Monitor Timing:
I wish Id waited another second because someone
actually got the word eventually. (Teacher A)

Similarly, the pedagogical thought unit Note Students Difficulty with Finding Correct Language
was categorized as Note Students Behavior and
Reactions, not as Evaluate, or Future Planning.
In some instances, there were difficulties with
interpreting the labels of some pedagogical
thought categories in Gatbontons (2000) study
because they were not always transparent, and
definitions were not always provided. For example, the category Language Management was not
clearly defined, but was partially described by
combining two major conceptual areas (the language students were exposed to, or input, and
language they produce [p. 592] or output). A
possible reason for combining these areas may relate to the nature of the materials used in Gatbontons study, which appear to be primarily oriented
towards the use of specific language items, and
towards speaking and listening skills (cf. Spada &
Frohlich, 1995):
Each module began with one major (or a series of
smaller) generic communication activities (e.g., role
plays, games) suitable for any level of learner. This
was followed by a series of form-focussed fluencyoriented and accuracy-oriented activities highlighting
utterances collected from the communication phase
of the lesson. (Gatbonton, 2000, p. 589)

The problem for this study was deciding in

which category to place the development of the
four skills. In the end, we decided to place it
in Language Management, given that elsewhere
Gatbonton (2000) wrote that the teachers reported thought units in the Language Management category indicate a combined concern for
both communication [italics added] and the promotion of specific language elements (pp. 604
605). In any case, there was no other category that
could comfortably have included language skill
development. The other option was to create a
new category, but it did not seem advisable given
that the study was a replication. What this decision meant, though, was that the category Language Management became extremely broad, a
problem that is discussed in more detail later.
There were other difficulties with coding. What
did Problem Check mean? (This question was
never entirely resolved, because no definition was
provided.) Could the category Group Work include pair work? (We decided it did.) Where

56
should we place learning strategies, a teaching
objective used a great deal by Teacher C? (We
decided to create a new category.). What did Content mean? (We assumed, after Spada & Frohlich,
1995, it meant the topic or task that is the focus of
instruction, though conceivably it could also have
included the materials/textbook.)
Domains of Pedagogical Knowledge. In the next
stage of the analysis, the transcripts and reported
pedagogical thought units were re-examined and
abstracted into domains of pedagogical knowledge. In Gatbontons study, these domains were
as follows:
1. Handling Language Items (knowledge of
how to manage specific language items so students
can learn them),
2. Factoring in Student Contributions (knowledge about the students and of the factors that
students bring with them to class),
3. Determining the Contents of Teaching
(knowledge of about the goals and subject matter of teaching, including awareness of keeping
the goals of the lesson in constant view),
4. Facilitating the Instructional Flow (knowledge about techniques and procedures: a sense
of how the lesson should unfold),
5. Building Rapport (knowledge about how to
achieve appropriate classroom relationships), and
6. Monitoring Student Progress (knowledge
about evaluating student task involvement and
progress during the lesson). (Gatbonton, 2000,
pp. 611616)
Gatbonton provided a summary list of all teachers
teaching thoughts for the six domains, and these
lists were drawn on in the current study.
It is interesting that one of Gatbontons domains of pedagogical knowledge was Handling
Language Items, yet this title, even more than
her term Language Management, as well as her
description of the category Handling Language
Items, did not appear to reflect a focus on language skill development. Though some pedagogical thought units comprising this domain reflect
language skill use, the major focus remains firmly
on form. However, as this study demonstrates,
there is still a strong tendency for some teachers (and course book writers) to think in terms
of teaching the four skill areas. Many teachers
(and teacher educators) believe that thinking in
terms of skills is helpful for planning and can ensure that all skill areas are covered appropriately.
In any case, I decided to classify reported peda-

The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)

gogical thoughts relating to skills under Handling
Language Items.
In the present study, a minor variation on
Gatbontons study was that all teachers were given
a copy of the videotape of their classes. In addition, 2 teachers were given the transcripts of their
recollections, segmented and labeled according
to pedagogical thought units and themes. The
teachers were asked to read through the transcripts and labels and write comments on the extent to which they agreed with the categorizations.
Originally, all teachers were to receive transcripts,
but because neither teacher made any comment
on or change to the transcript, it was decided not
to continue with this practice. In retrospect, it
may have been unrealistic to expect busy teachers to have the time and energy to examine 30 to
40 pages of transcript, checking the accuracy of
segmentation and labeling of each reported pedagogical thought. The teachers and the paid consultant were also given a draft of the current article
for scrutiny, fidelity, and comment. Any comments
made were incorporated.
Results and Discussion
Teachers Reported Pedagogical Thoughts. The
teachers reported a total of 1254 pedagogical
thoughts, representing an average of between
three and six thoughts per minute (Gatbontons
teachers reported between three and four
thoughts per minute). It is interesting that Teachers A and B reported an average of six thoughts
per minute, whereas Teachers C and D reported
between three and four thoughts per minute. It
may be significant that Teachers A and B were
less experienced than Teachers and C and D, although it may also be the case that Teachers C and
D were more taciturn in general.
As Table 1 shows, the most frequent category of
pedagogical thought was Language Management
(25% of the total number of reported pedagogical
thoughts). This finding appears to reflect the (reasonable) assumption that a TESOL professionals
job is to pay explicit attention to language items
(and skills) and to provide opportunities for comprehensible input and output. This category, together with six others, constituted around 75%
of the pedagogical thoughts reported (in Gatbontons study, the top six categories accounted for
68% of the total pedagogical thoughts). The second most frequent category was Knowledge of
Students (21%), followed by Procedure Check
(10%), Progress Review and Note Student Reaction and Behavior (tied at 7%), and Affective
(5%).

57

Barbara Mullock
TABLE 1
Frequency (and Percentage) of Teachers Reported Pedagogical Thoughts
Teacher A

Teacher B

Teacher C

Teacher D

All Teachers

96 (27%)1
50 (14%)2
24 (7%)4
28 (8%)3
22 (6%)5
19 (5%)7
6 (2%)
8 (2%)
13 (4%)
19 (5%)
21 (6%)5
8 (2%)
8 (2%)
17 (5%)7
4 (1%)
6 (2%)
9 (2%)
1 (<1%)
1 (<1%)
0
0
2 (<1%)
0
0

84 (22%)1
70 (19%)2
21 (6%)5
43 (12%)3
30 (8%)4
11 (3%)
18 (5%)6
1 (<1%)
16 (4%)
20 (5%)6
16 (4%)7
0
6 (2%)
3 (<1%)
8 (2%)
3 (<1%)
1 (<1%)
2 (<1%)
1 (<1%)
2 (<1%)
0
9 (2%)
0
0

79 (34%)1
40 (17%)2
10 (4%)6
34 (15%)3
8 (3%)
25 (11%)4
13 (6%)5
4 (2%)7
1 (<1%)
3 (1%)
2 (<1%)
0
1 (<1%)
2 (<1%)
5 (2%)
0
1 (<1%)
3 (1%)
2 (<1%)
0
1 (<1%)
0
0
0

60 (20%)2
100 (34%)1
35 (12%)3
21 (7%)5
33 (11%)4
6 (2%)
8 (3%)6
7 (2%)
1 (<1%)
2 (<1%)
1 (<1%)
0
5 (2%)6
0
2 (<1%)
4 (1%)
3 (1%)
2 (<1%)
1 (<1%)
0
0
2 (<1%)
0
1 (<1%)

319 (25%)1
260 (21%)2
90 (7%)4
126 (10%)3
93 (7%)4
61 (5%)6
45 (4%)7
20 (2%)
31 (3%)
44 (4%)7
40 (3%)
8 (<1%)
20 (2%)
22 (2%)
19 (2%)
13 (1%)
14 (1%)
8 (<1%)
5 (<1%)
2 (<1%)
1 (<1%)
13 (1%)
0
1 (<1%)

TOTAL

362

365

233

294

1254

Thoughts Per Minute

6.0

6.1

3.8

4.9

5.25

1. Language Management
2. Knowledge of Students
3. Progress Review
4. Procedure Check
5. Note Behavior
6. Affective
7. Time Check
8. Group/Pair Work
9. Content
10. Self-Reflection
11. Self-Critique
12. Curriculum Fit
13. Decisions
14. Materials Comment
15. Beliefs
16. Institution Comment
17. Level Check
18. Problem Check
19. Comprehensibility
20. Probe Prior Knowledge
21. Name Check
22. Past Experience
23. Post Active
24. Planned Acts

Note. Superscripts indicate the simple ranks of the teachers dominant reported pedagogical thought
categories.

The rankings are, very broadly, similar to those

for Gatbontons study (see Table 2), but there
are some notable differences. First, the category
ranked second in the current study, Knowledge
of Students, was reported with considerably more
frequency than in either of Gatbontons groups:
21% as compared to 14% and 7% in the Gatbonton study. It is possible that this difference is
due to the fact that Gatbontons learner groups
were constituted for the purposes of research,
and were not naturally occurring intact classroom
groups.
Second, two categories that ranked highly in
Gatbontons study do not appear in the top rankings in this study: Beliefs (teacher beliefs about
language, language learning, and language teaching), and Decisions (teachers choices made while
teaching). The fact that Beliefs was not ranked
in the top six categories in this study may be
due to factors such as individual differences, and
differences in teaching experience and qualifications between the Australian and Canadian
groups. Clark and Peterson (1986) characterized

maturing professional teachers as those who are

more able to make explicit their implicit theories and beliefs about learners, curriculum, subject matter, and the teachers role. On average, Gatbontons teachers were more experienced
than the teachers in the current study. In addition, none of the teachers in the current study
had completed TESOL training at the masters
degree level (as Gatbontons teachers had). It is
more likely that, at the masters level, students are
explicitly required to articulate their theories of
teaching in order to understand them, compare
them with alternatives, and evaluate them for usefulness. Differences in teaching qualifications and
experience may also have been responsible for the
ranking of Decisions as 13th in the current study
compared to 4th and 6th in Gatbontons groups.
It is likely, however, that the difference was primarily due to the nature of the lessons and the
classes, and in particular to the fact that Gatbontons teachers were working with unfamiliar materials and learner groups convened merely for the
purpose of research.

58

The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)

TABLE 2
Comparison of Dominant Reported Pedagogical Thoughts
Rank
1
2
3
4

Current Study
(n = 4)
Language Management
(25%)
Knowledge of Students
(21%)
Procedure Check (10%)
Progress Review (7%)
Note Student Reaction and
Behavior (7%)

6
Percent of Total

Gatbonton Group 1
(n = 3)
Language Management
(18%)
Knowledge of Students
(14%)
Note Student Reaction and
Behavior (10%)
Decisions (7%)

Progress Review (6%)

Affective (6%)
Beliefs (6%)
Procedure Check (6%)
Affective (5%)
75%

It is surprising that in the current study there

was little difference between the more experienced and less experienced teachers. This finding was unexpected, given that the literature on
beginning teachers suggests that teachers with
the least experience have less to say about their
practical theory than more experienced teachers
(e.g., Mangubhai, Dashwood, Berthold, Flores,
& Dale, 1998a, 1998b). Perhaps the less experienced teachers were exceptional in this respect.
Teacher B, for example, with 3 months of TESOL
experience (and 2 months primary teaching experience), showed little difference from the other
teachers. What is unexpected is that, like the other
teachers, his second most frequent pedagogical
thought category was Knowledge of the Students.
According to the literature from general education (e.g., Fuller, 1969; Kagan, 1992), we would
expect this result to appear only after 1 year of
teaching. It is certainly possible that Teacher B was
atypical in this respect, but it is also possible that
concern for students develops far earlier among
TESOL practitioners, especially among teachers
in a commercial language school environment,
than among teachers in general education.
Returning to Table 1, there were two particularly interesting findings. One finding was that for
Teacher D, the most frequently reported thought
category, 34% of her total, related to Knowledge
of Students. This high frequency appears to be
due in part to personality, and in part to the
lesson structure, where there was little teacherfronting and a great deal of individual assistance.

Gatbonton Group 2
(n = 4)
Language Management (22%)
Procedure Check (11%)
Progress Review (10%)
Beliefs (8%)

Knowledge of Students (7%)

Decisions (6%)
Affective (6%)
66%

70%

The other interesting finding was that the 2 less

experienced teachers provided a higher number
of response tokens referring to their own failings and shortcomings (Self-Critique 6% and 4%)
and to comments on their own personality (SelfReflection 5% and 6%) than did the more experienced teachers (1% or <1%). There may be a
causal link here, but further research is required
to confirm this relationship.
Reported pedagogical thought categories
found in Gatbontons study but not found in
the current study included Aid Comprehension,
Name Check, and Planned Acts. However, there
were three pedagogical thought categories that
occurred in the current study but that did not
occur in Gatbontons data: Curriculum Fit, Comment on Materials, and Comment on Institution.
It is likely that these categories did not occur in
Gatbontons study because her classes were specially convened for the purpose of research. The
learners in Gatbontons study were not progressing through a number of institutional levels as
were the learners in the current study. Furthermore, Gatbontons teachers were unfamiliar with
the materials used in her study, which were written by Gatbonton herself, and they may have been
reluctant to comment on them, or on the curriculum. In the current study, the teachers used
course books prescribed by the institution, supplemented by materials they had designed themselves or adapted from other sources. Consequently, teachers in the current study may have
felt more at liberty to express their opinions than

59

Barbara Mullock
the teachers in Gatbontons study. An alternative
explanation may be that comments on materials
in Gatbontons study were included in the category Content (although this explanation seems
unlikely).
In the current study, there were a number of comments on how institutional factors
affected teaching decisions. These factors included institutional policy (e.g., on lateness, or
new enrollments) and teaching/learning facilities (e.g., classrooms without windows, classrooms
and furniture that allowed only certain student
groupings to occur). The following comments are
typical:
Also its hard um-, there are more students before
lunch, and there are full-time and part-time students,
and these are all full-time, and the class is bigger for
the first two sessions of the day, And it just makes um,
just the logistics of the classroom difficult because all
the chairs are around the edge of the classroom, and
because we dont have tables, its much more difficult
to um put it in any other way. (Teacher D)

Such comments were not reported in Gatbontons

study.
The Language Management Category. Given that
approximately 25% of all reported pedagogical
thought units in the current study related to
Language Management, we may wonder what
made up this dominant pattern. To what extent
were there commonalities among the teachers?
What thought units were predominant for each
teacher? What was the relationship between these
predominant thought units and the nature and
goals of the lesson? Table 3 shows the 20 most
frequently reported pedagogical thought units in
the category Language Management.
What was striking about these results is the
range and frequency of reported pedagogical
thought units produced: 98 different units were
found. A possible reason for this large number is
the difference in lesson focus among the teachers.
Another striking finding was that only 3 thought
units were shared by all 4 teachers (Elicit Possible

TABLE 3
Frequencies of Top 20 Reported Thought Units for Language Management
Thought Unit
1. Promote Learning Strategy
2. Conduct Classroom Activity
3. Elicit Possible Answers
4. Prompt Students
5. Revise Language
(Vocabulary/Grammar)
6. Push Specific Language
(Vocabulary/Grammar)
7. Compare Students Answers with
Correct Answers
8. Correct Errors
(Grammar/Vocabulary)
9. Note Student Difficulty with
Finding Correct Language
10. Know Curriculum
11. Get Students to Read and Describe
12. Recycle Vocabulary
13. Teach/Explain Vocabulary
14. Elicit Language
(Vocabulary/Tense)
15. Note Errors
16. See If Students Are Using the
Language Correctly
17. Concept Check
18. Write up Answers on WB/BB
19. Get Students to Paraphrase
20. Call Student Attention to
Language (Grammar/Vocabulary)

Teacher A
(N = 85)

Teacher B
(N = 84)

Teacher C
(N = 71)

Teacher D
(N = 61)

Total
(N = 301)

2 (2%)
4 (4%)
5 (5%)
0
0

0
5 (6%)
5 (6%)
0
2 (2%)

13 (16%)
3 (4%)
1 (1%)
0
7 (9%)

0
2 (3%)
3 (5%)
14 (23%)
2 (3%)

15 (5%)
14 (4%)
14 (4%)
14 (4%)
11 (3%)

7 (8%)

3 (5%)

10 (3%)

5 (6%)

4 (5%)

9 (3%)

1 (1%)

3 (4%)

3 (4%)

2 (3%)

9 (3%)

2 (2%)

5 (6%)

2 (3%)

9 (3%)

0
7 (7%)
3 (3%)
6 (6%)
0

3 (4%)
0
3 (4%)
1 (1%)
5 (6%)

5 (6%)
0
1 (1%)
0
1(1%)

0
0
0
0
1 (2%)

8 (3%)
7 (2%)
7 (2%)
7 (2%)
7 (2%)

4 (4%)
2 (2%)

1 (1%)
0

0
1 (1%)

1 (2%)
2 (3%)

6 (2%)
5 (2%)

1 (1%)
3 (3%)
1 (1%)
0

4 (5%)
0
0
1 (1%)

0
1 (1%)
0
4 (5%)

0
1 (1%)
4 (7%)
0

5 (2%)
5 (2%)
5 (2%)
5 (2%)

Note. All percentages have been rounded up. The four units with highest overall frequency are in boldface.

60
Answers, Conduct Classroom Activity, Correct Errors), and only 12 thought units were shared by
any 3 teachers. This lack of shared variance is a
surprising result, and one that points to the complexity of the teaching act.
There are likely to be a number of explanations
for this result, including differences in lesson focus and materials, individual teacher differences,
and differences in classroom contexts. On closer
analysis, the highest individual percentages of
reported thought units produced were Prompt
Students (Teacher D, 23%), followed by Promote
Learning Strategy (Teacher C, 16%). These two
reported thought units would seem to relate to
major objectives that the teachers had formulated for the lessons. On the one hand, Teacher
D wanted her learners to practice paraphrasing,
and she moved around the class assisting them
through the use of verbal and nonverbal prompts.
Teacher C, on the other hand, was concerned with
ensuring that her learners master certain lexicogrammatical features in preparation for the CAE
examination, and she consciously promoted certain strategies to help the learners achieve this
goal. For Teacher B the most frequently reported
thought unit was Push Specific Language (Vocabulary/Grammar, 8%) which would seem to correspond to the focus of his lesson, the production
of past tense forms within a business context.
Teacher As most frequently reported thought
unit was Get Students to Read and Describe (7%).
This finding appears to correspond to the reading
focus of her lesson. Her lesson also had a listening
component, but this component appears to have
received a lesser focus. Thus it would seem that
a major reason for the lack of shared variance is
lesson focus and materials.
It is interesting to note that the more experienced teachers had a lower number of reported thought units (71 and 61) than the less
experienced teachers in this category (both 85).
It may be the case that the experienced teachers had fewer but more focused objectives for
their lessons, and they worked steadily throughout the lessons to achieve these goals, whereas
the less experienced teachers paid more attention
to other factors, such as classroom management
(cf. Nunan, 1992). Differences in lesson focus
and type may also help to explain the fact that
the largest range of thought units was produced
by Teacher A (52 units), followed by Teacher B
(38 units), Teacher C (35 units), and Teacher D
(28 units). The range of Teacher Ds pedagogical
thought units is just over half those of Teacher A,
which may be because of the tight focus of her
lesson, and the low degree of teacher fronting.

The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)

It may be argued that the pedagogical thought
category Language Management is the predominant category because it has been defined very
broadly, and there may be some truth in this assertion. In fact, Gatbonton seems to argue for a
broadness of definition. Her justification for this
broadness of definition appears to lie in a need
to establish the fact that teachers indeed focus
on form in the language classroom, rather than
merely following a Krashenesque procedure of
presenting comprehensible input, believing that
this input is sufficient to drive acquisition of the
target language (p. 604). Her results suggest that
a major concern for the teachers in her study was,
in fact, the explicit focus on certain language elements, a focus that may have been imposed by
the materials. The other major concern for her
teachers was to provide comprehensible input and
ensure that genuine communication occurred,
again a concern that may have been imposed by
the materials. Given that Gatbontons definition
combines teachers concerns for both communication and the promotion of specific language
elements, perhaps we should not be surprised
that the category of Language Management is so
wide.
Domains of Pedagogical Knowledge. The greatest difference between this study and Gatbontons
was in the domains of pedagogical knowledge (see
Appendix C for definitions). Gatbonton reported
only that the domain of pedagogical knowledge
most frequently consulted by her teachers was
Handling Language Items (no other details were
provided). However, for the current study, this
was not the domain most frequently consulted.
Instead, for 3 out of the 4 teachers, the most frequently consulted domain was Factoring in Student Contributions (29%; see Table 4). This result
may appear to be skewed by Teacher Ds data, but
it is to be noted that even when Teacher Ds data
is removed, this domain still remains in first position. A number of studies support this finding
(Breen, 1991; Breen et al., 2001). Breen (1991)
found that focus on the learners (p. 222) accounted for approximately half the justifications
of techniques used in teaching. He commented
that such learner-centeredness can be seen as primarily a matter of the teacher attuning himself or
herself to the cognitive processes of the learner.
Mullock (2003) found that knowing and understanding students, their needs, strengths, and
weaknesses was the most frequently mentioned
characteristic of a good TESOL teacher. The importance of focusing on the learner is echoed
in general education: Clark and Peterson (1986)

61

Barbara Mullock
TABLE 4
Frequency, Percentage, and Rank of Consultation of Domain of Pedagogical Knowledge

1. Factoring in Student Contributions

2. Handling Language Items and Skills
3. Facilitating the Instructional Flow
4. Monitoring Student Progress
5. Determining the Goals and
Content of Teaching
6. Building Rapport
7. Institutional Factors/Other
TOTAL

Teacher A

Teacher B

Teacher C

Teacher D

All Teachers

64 (18%)3
70 (20%)2
104 (29%)1
54 (15%)4
43 (12%)5

105 (30%)1
55 (16%)3
95 (27%)2
39 (11%)4
39 (11%)4

60 (26%)1
53 (23%)2
47 (20%)3
23 (13%)4
31 (13%)4

132 (45%)1
37 (13%)3
39 (13%)3
63 (21%)2
17 (6%)5

361 (29%)1
215 (17%)3
285 (23%)2
179 (15%)4
130 (11%)5

6 (2%)7
14 (4%)6

14 (4%)6
4 (1%)7

13 (6%)6
5 (2%)7

355

351

232

2 (<1%)7
4 (1%)6
294

35 (3%)6
27 (2%)7
1232

Note. Superscripts indicate the simple ranks of the frequency with which the domains of pedagogical
knowledge were consulted by the teachers.

reported six studies where a predominant proportion (35%60%) of teachers interactive thoughts
related to the learner. Because these six studies
originated in general education rather than in
TESOL, it might be argued that the interactive
thoughts related to student misbehavior (i.e., behavior that was not within tolerance). However,
Marland (1977, as cited in Clark & Peterson, 1986)
found that the majority of reported interactive
decisions occurred in response to other factors,
such as student-initiated questions, comments, or
responses, the selection of student respondent or
participant, or when a choice of appropriate technique was needed.
It may be argued that a number of reported
pedagogical thoughts falling under the domain
Factoring in Student Contributions may fall more
properly under the domain Building Rapport.
However, according to Gatbontons definitions,
the latter domain relates to teacher awareness of
the need to make contact with and have good rapport with students, to ensure student comfort, to
protect them from embarrassment, and to reinforce and encourage them to go on. It also includes developing a desirable class atmosphere,
not interrupting students, and being aware of
the appropriate relationship between teacher and
students (Gatbonton, 2000). In contrast, Factoring in Student Contributions reflects teachers
knowledge of students and their sensitivity to
what students bring with them to the classroom
(their personalities, abilities, needs, attitudes and
reactions, individual learning styles), as well as
knowledge of the accommodations necessary for
this diverse range of students. Studies of foreign
language teachers by Mangubhai et al. (1998a,
1998b) and Mangubhai, Marland, Dashwood, and
Son (in press) show similar results, with teachers
appearing to consider and treat their students as

individuals who need to be approached in different ways.

The second most frequently consulted domain
in the current study was Facilitating the Instructional Flow (23%) followed by Handling Language Items (17%), Monitoring Student Progress
(15%), Determining the Goals and Content of Instruction (11%), Building Rapport (3%), and Institutional Factors (2%). It is interesting to note
that the domain Facilitating Instructional Flow
was consulted considerably more often by the less
experienced teachers than by the experienced
teachers. Nunan (1992) reported a similar result.
However, lesson content and learner group factors may also have contributed towards its relative
importance.
A further finding was that participants in the
current study consulted a domain of pedagogical study not mentioned by Gatbonton: Institutional Factors. This domain may have emerged
because real-world teaching settings were used.
The importance of taking institutional factors
into account is found frequently in the literature
(e.g., Burns, 1996; Clark & Peterson, 1986; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Johnson, 1996; Shulman,
1987).
Before leaving the broad analysis of the data,
it may be worth observing that categories or domains involving planning and the formulation of
objectives do not occur in the data. This is so not
because the lessons were unplanned or lacked
careful structure. On the contrary, all lessons
showed clear evidence of having been logically
planned with clear stages. The reason such categories and domains did not occur is because
the teachers were not required to verbalize their
pre-active thoughts (the planning process occurring before the lesson); they were only asked to
recall their pedagogical thoughts at the time of

62
teaching. Pre-active thoughts were not a focus of
this study.
Origins of Pedagogical Knowledge. All 4 teachers attributed the major sources of their pedagogical knowledge to their initial primary teacher
training and their CELTA training. Two teachers
listed in-service teacher development activities as
providing them with additional knowledge, especially preparation courses for teaching Cambridge
examinations, classes such as First Certificate in
English (FCE). Other influences included noneducational work experience in the field of communications (the strongest source of knowledge
used in teaching for 1 teacher), TESOL experience after CELTA (but not teaching experience
before CELTA), and self-study (TESOL journals
and magazines). Further research is needed to
explore these apparent trends.
CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS FOR
TEACHER EDUCATION
This study supports the finding of Gatbonton
(2000) that seven categories of reported pedagogical thoughts constitute over two thirds of the
total number of reported pedagogical thoughts,
and that these thoughts can be organized into
approximately 20 categories. The relative ranking of these thoughts for any teacher in any
lesson appeared to depend on a number of variables, including: student proficiency levels; course
focus and lesson objectives; materials; teacher personality, qualifications, and experience; and classroom and institutional context. In the current
study, all of these variables differed from those
in Gatbontons study, and may have contributed
to what were at times quite major differences
in rankings. This apparent trend needs further
research.
In addition, there were six categories of
reported pedagogical thought that were not common to both studies. I have argued that this difference is most likely due to the fact that Gatbontons
classes were created for the purpose of research,
whereas the current study used intact classes.
As in Gatbontons study, the most frequently reported pedagogical thought category for the current study was Language Management, and this
category constituted 25% of all reported pedagogical thoughts in the current study (compared
to 20% in Gatbontons study). It is difficult to see
how this category would not be dominant, given
Gatbontons definition, and the fact that language
is both the content and the medium of instruction
in TESOL classes.

The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)

On deeper inspection, Language Management
was found to contain a very large number of
thought units (98 categories, 301 tokens), but
there were very few units that were common
among the teachers. This lack of similarity in
thought units appeared to be due primarily to
differences in lesson focus and materials; but
language proficiency levels, teacher personality and experience, and classroom and institutional context may also contribute. There is,
though, a need for further research to confirm
the reasons for this difference and their relative
importance.
The study did not provide support for Gatbontons finding that the most frequently consulted
domain of pedagogical knowledge was Handling
Language Items, and it was able to shed light
on the ranking and frequency of the other domains. In the current study, the most frequently
consulted domain was Factoring in Student Contributions. Handling Language Items was ranked
third, after Facilitating the Instructional Flow. The
latter domain was consulted considerably more often by the less experienced teachers than by the
experienced teachers. Further research is needed
to confirm whether this difference is a marker of
relative lack of teaching experience, or related
to factors such as lesson content, materials, and
learner group factors.
One aim of both studies was to discover the extent of consistency among teachers in their use
of pedagogical knowledge patterns. Some consistency was evident in that 18 of Gatbontons 21
reported pedagogical thought categories and six
domains of pedagogical knowledge occurred in
the current study. However, less consistency was
found in pattern use between the Australian and
Canadian teachers than we might have expected.
Again, this difference was probably due to the variables listed above.
In summary, many of the differences between
the two studies appear to be the result of differences in samples (teachers, student proficiency
levels, type of course, lesson objectives, lesson
focus, materials, institution, etc.) and research
contexts (the intact class vs. the research class).
Of these differences, it is postulated that the
most significant differences were in lesson focus, structure, and materials. Research context is
also important, and it is possible that Gatbontons
teachers may have placed more emphasis on content and on the instructional process than would
be the case if they had been in a normal classroom
setting. Again, these results need to be verified
with larger and more varied groups of teachers,
students, courses, and lessons.

63

Barbara Mullock
An important feature of this study lies in its
broad support of Gatbontons finding that there
is a degree of shared pedagogical knowledge
among teachers of TESOL courses, and that this
type of knowledge may differ sharply from that
held by subject teachers or teachers of more
content-oriented courses. What is important is
that this shared knowledge appears to transcend
student language proficiency level, course types,
lesson focus, materials, classroom and institutional contexts, teacher qualities, and geopolitical
context. However, what the present study shows
clearly is that there is also considerable variation in how often and when this knowledge is
consulted.
Although the current study is clearly limited
in the number of teachers and classes studied,
it suggests that an important feature of TESOL
is knowing ones studentstheir backgrounds,
personalities, proficiency levels, strengths, and
weaknessesand being able to adjust ones teaching to suit their needs. This kind of knowledge
was the first or second most frequently reported
pedagogical thought for all teachers, and the
most frequently consulted domain of pedagogical
knowledge for 3 of the 4 teachers. It suggests that
TESOL teachers use this knowledge of student
characteristics together with their knowledge of
Language Management factors to fine-tune their
attempts to promote both communication and
the use of specific language elements and skills
in order to meet the goals they have set for the
lesson.
There are implications here for teacher education. Calderhead (1987, 1991) observed that
learning to teach has an affective aspect: Becoming a teacher involves having or developing certain attitudes towards learners, towards the tasks
of teaching and learning, and towards oneself and
ones relationship to the teaching role. What I
would like to suggest is that the first of these attitudes is a crucial, but perhaps underrated, factor
in TESOL teacher training and in becoming an
effective TESOL teacher.
Another implication for teacher education may
lie in how we prepare students to learn how
to teach. Research in both general education
and TESOL has shown that, in the initial stages
of teacher education programs, student teachers
may have understandings of teaching and learning that are inappropriate, unrealistic, or vague
(Brookhart & Freeman, 1992; Calderhead, 1991;
Cumming, 1989). Calderhead (1991) pointed
out that although student teachers are not without a rich source of knowledge about teaching,
this knowledge has been extracted from their
classroom experience as students, and they may

have difficulty appreciating the complexity of the

teaching and learning context. Using segments
of videotapes of classroom teachers in action, together with annotated transcripts of stimulated
recall protocols, such as those used in this study,
can demonstrate to student teachers the complexity of teacher thinking during classroom interaction and provide models for them. Videotapes of
different teachers may also show student teachers
some of the variety present in the ways teachers
conceptualize the teaching process, thus helping
to dispel beliefs that there is only one correct way
to teach ESOL.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
This study was made possible by a UNSW University Research Support Program grant. I would like to
thank Francis Mangubhai for his helpful comments, and
also Julianna Zimmermann, and the teachers, students,
and senior staff of the two anonymous Sydney language
schools, without whose support this study would not have
been possible.

NOTES
1

Researchers, such as Elbaz (1981), Clandinin and

Connelly (1987), and Golombek (1998) use the term
teachers personal practical knowledge, but, for example,
in Golombeks (1998) study this term extends beyond
pedagogical knowledge base to include the categories
of Environmental Context and Personal Knowledge (which includes moral, affective, and aesthetic
factors).
2 I am indebted to an anonymous reviewer for reminding me of this point. It should be noted, though,
that Gatbonton herself also calls for replication and extension studies of her work.
3 The Cambridge CELTA is an initial TESOL teacher
training certificate certified by the University of Cambridge Local Examinations Syndicate and accredited to
providers in many countries.

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APPENDIX A
Biographical Details of the Teachers
Teacher

Teaching Qualifications

Teacher A

CELTA, Teaching degree

(Primary)
CELTA, Teaching degree
(Primary)
CELTA, Teaching degree
(Primary)
CELTA, B.A., Dip. Ed.
(Primary + Secondary
LOTE + TESOL)

Teacher B
Teacher C
Teacher D

Teaching
Experience

Class Type

Level

4 years (1 year
post-CELTA)
3 months

General English

Upper Intermediate

Business English

Upper Intermediate

12 years

Cambridge
CAE
General English

Advanced

6 years

Intermediate

Note. CAE = Cambridge Certificate in Advanced English; CELTA = Certificate in English Language Teaching
to Adults; Dip. Ed. = Graduate Diploma in Education; LOTE = Languages other than English; TESOL =
Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.
APPENDIX B
Course and Lesson Details
Teacher

Class

Teacher A

General English

Teacher B

Business English

Teacher C

Cambridge Advanced
Certificate
General English

Teacher D

Level
Upper
Intermediate
Upper
Intermediate
Advanced
Intermediate

Textbook
Cutting Edge
Business Opportunities
Focus on Advanced
English C.A.E.
Supplementary Activity

Lesson Focus
Reading and
Listening Skills
Listening Skills +
Grammar
Lexico-grammar
(Word Formation)
Speaking Skills +
Paraphrasing

66

The Modern Language Journal 90 (2006)

APPENDIX C
Domains of Pedagogical Knowledge (adapted from Gatbonton, 2000)
1. Handling Language Items
Knowledge of how to manage specific language items so that students can learn them (Gatbonton, 2000, p. 599).
What to give students, how much, and when. The need to provide more than input. Knowledge that language must
be highlighted, fine-tuned, modelled, and illustrated. Includes how to handle language produced by students, for
example, eliciting language from students, correcting rephrasing, and drilling. (Needs to include knowledge of how
to improve specific language skills).
2. Factoring in Student Contributions
Knowledge about students and what they bring to the classroom (Gatbonton, 2000, p. 599). Accumulated knowledge about students personalities, abilities, needs, attitudes and reactions, backgrounds, and individual learning
styles. Knowledge about student diversity and how to accommodate it.
3. Determining the Contents of Teaching
Knowledge about the goals and subject matter of teaching (Gatbonton, 2000, p. 599). Refers to larger stretches
of language. Keeping goals in constant view, including the development of accuracy and fluency, teaching certain
grammatical points, and useful utterances. Also suggests what activities are to be used. (Needs to include knowledge
of curriculum materials, and promotion of particular learning strategies.)
4. Facilitating the Instructional Flow
Knowledge about techniques and procedures with respect to control of the classroom (Gatbonton, 2000, p. 600).
Shows a sense of how the lesson should unfold or progress. Content comments about starting activities, reviewing
past lessons, pushing students to go on, directing students towards their intended goals, managing time, anticipating
future activities, recapping activities. Shows familiarity with certain techniques and procedures such as brainstorming,
explaining, demonstrating, distributing turns, conducting group activities, and choosing materials.
5. Building Rapport
Knowledge about appropriate teacher-student relationships and desirable classroom atmosphere (Gatbonton,
2000, p. 600). Making contact with students and developing good rapport. Knowledge of the need to ensure student
comfort, to protect students from embarrassment, reinforce and encourage students to continue.
6. Monitoring Student Progress
Knowledge about evaluating student task involvement and progress during the lesson (Gatbonton, 2000, p. 600).
Knowledge of how and when to check if students have understood instructions, if they are on task and making
progress, noting their successes, difficulties, and failures. Anticipating potential difficulties and moving to minimize
these difficulties. Includes progress review, comprehensibility check, and problem check.
7. Institutional Factors
Knowledge about institutional policy (e.g., lateness, new enrollments), teaching/learning facilities (e.g., classrooms size, shape, furniture and permissible arrangements).

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