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Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 957–969
When theory meets practice: What student teachers learn from
guided reflection on their own classroom discourse
Lily Orland-Barak
, Hayuta Yinon
Faculty of Education, The University of Haifa, Haifa 31905, Israel
Received 27 September 2005; received in revised form 6 June 2006; accepted 8 June 2006
Abstract
Drawing on extant theorizing and research on reflective teaching, this paper discusses the impact of an innovative
methods course designed around the activity of student teachers’ reflections on their own classroom discourse, for their
understandings of the connections between theory and practice. Situated in the context of foreign language pre-service
teacher education in Israel, and focusing on one aspect of a larger research study on the connections that student teachers
make between theory and practice, this paper presents three exemplary cases of student teachers’ learning. The connections
exhibited by these three student teachers between theory (principles of pedagogy) and practice (the classroom discourse
patterns that characterized their teaching) were interpreted as: (1) understanding how practice fits theory; (2) connecting
theory and practice to generate grounded theories of practice; and (3) developing practical theories. We discuss these
findings as related to the idiosyncratic character of students teachers’ learning and to activities in teacher education that
enhance reflection on the meeting between theory and practice.
r2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Teacher education; Learning to teach; Reflective practice; Theory and practice
1. The theory–practice debate in teacher education
Over the past three decades, the scholarship of
teacher education has articulated important con-
tributions to how theory and practice should be
conceptualized, inquired, and integrated in a curri-
culum for teacher education (Cochran-Smith, 2001;
Cochran-Smith & Lytle, 1993;Grossman, Smagor-
insky, & Valencia, 1999;Korthagen & Kessels,
1999;Loughran, 2003;Shulman, 1987;Smagorins-
ky, Cook, & Johnson, 2003). Specifically, the field
has engaged in serious talk and thinking about
competing tenets of the theory–practice debate
i.e. whether theory precedes or follows practice;
whether practice (re)constructs theory, or whether
theory and practice exist in dialectic relationship
(Smagorinsky et al., 2003). A broad outlook at the
sixties up to the early eighties reveals prevalent
views that dichotomize between theoretical knowl-
edge (knowing what) and practical knowledge
(knowing how) as two separate bodies of knowledge
(Smagorinsky et al., 2003). The impact of construc-
tivist and social constructivist thinking on learning
and education in the late eighties (Engestrom, 2001;
Tillema & van der Westhuizen, 2006), along with a
‘come back’ to concepts such as learning from
experience (Dewey, 1933), led to a shift from the
‘theory–practice divide’ to a view of theory–practice
ARTICLE IN PRESS
www.elsevier.com/locate/tate
0742-051X/$ - see front matter r2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.tate.2006.06.005
Corresponding author. Tel.: +97248102299;
fax: +97248102499.
E-mail address: lilyb@construct.haifa.ac.il (L. Orland-Barak).
as constituted dialectically (Korthagen & Kessels,
1999;Loughran, 2003), through the notion of
reflective practice (Schon, 1983). Despite the strong
move towards reflective practice in teacher educa-
tion agendas, there is a widespread call for moving
beyond conceptual discussions, to provide more
data-based accounts of the impact of particular
teacher education activities for enhancing under-
standings on the meeting between theory and
practice. This paper addresses such a call by
examining the impact of an innovative methods
course designed around the activity of student
teachers’ analysis of their own classroom discourse
for the kind of connections that they make between
theory and practice.
2. Merging theory and practice through reflective
practice
The shift towards integrating theory and practice
through dialectical processes of constructing, re-
constructing and co-constructing theory, assumes a
view of learning to teach as the development of
reflective practice (Schon, 1987). In this vein,
reflection for, in, and on practice has become a
major pursuit in pre-service teacher education
programs (Barlett, 1990;Gore & Zeichner, 1991;
Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005;Laboskey, 1994;
Loughran, 2003;Rodgers, 2002). This implies that,
in learning to become a reflective teacher, prospec-
tive teachers would ideally acquire competencies
that transcend technical thinking about ‘what to do
in the classroom’ and engage in trying to establish
relevant connections between theory and practice.
In this process of reasoning ‘why one does what one
does’ student teachers would be expected to learn to
become attentive to practical, ethical, critical and
transformational dimensions of the experience of
learning to teach, leading to more informed and
integrative understandings about their roles and
practices (Benner, 1984;Eisner & Powell, 2002;
Feiman-Nemser, 2001;Van Manen, 1991). To
enhance these connections, the development of
reflective tasks has become a major concern in the
design of teacher education programs.
3. Enhancing connections between theory and
practice through reflective tasks
The question of how to enhance and intensify
connections between theory and practice through
reflective tasks has been, and still is, a major
challenge in teacher education. Feiman-Nemser
(2001) attributes the difficulty in establishing con-
nections between theory and practice to the weak
relationship between course and field experiences,
evidenced in the overall lack of coherence, frag-
mentation, weak pedagogy and lack of articulation
in extant teacher preparation programs. In a similar
vein, Woods (1991) and Kwo (1996) maintain that
the structure of the preparation program often
provides little time for reflection and for engaging in
reflective tasks.
On the one hand, the difficulty to integrate
meaningful reflective tasks can be understood against
novices’ pragmatic concerns and demands to be
equipped with a concrete ‘toolbox of ideas and
activities’ to survive their initial induction stages
(Kagan, 1992;Olson & Osborn, 1991;Rust, 1994).
To some extent, this expressed need might cast doubt
on the relevance of ambitious expectations of teacher
preparation programs to ‘push’ novices to more
abstract connections and conceptualizations of learn-
ing to teach. On the other hand, however, there is a
growing recognition that such ‘survival kits’ will be
inadequate and useless if they are reduced to mere
technical solutions, devoid of critical scrutiny and
introspection into how novices’ beliefs and theore-
tical knowledge shape their understandings of these
tools in action (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005). To this
end, Feiman-Nemser (2001) draws our attention to
the central task of pre-service education to engage
prospective teachers in critical examination and
articulation of the entering beliefs (or personal
theories) which initially shape the meanings that
they attribute to the experiences they encounter in
light of compelling alternatives (p. 1017).
Acknowledging the need to critically scrutinize
experience, programs recommend that student tea-
chers be provided with direct experiences and ample
opportunities to interact with and study pupils in
systematic ways, and to make meaningful connec-
tions to the theoretical coursework (Bullough &
Knowles, 1992;Calderhead, 1991;Guyton & McIn-
tyre, 1990). For example, Barlett (1990) proposes
integrating tasks that display a series of key questions
for formulating and addressing relationships between
theory and practice at levels of mapping what they do
as teachers; of informing (dealing with the question of
the meaning of one’s teaching); of contesting how
one’s present view of teaching has emerged; of
appraising how might one teach differently, and of
acting (what and how one will teach in the future).
The outcome of such a process would eventually
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L. Orland-Barak, H. Yinon / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 957–969958
prompt a changed outlook on one’s practice, often
generating new grounded theories subsequently guid-
ing future actions (Cruickshank, 1987;Dewey, 1933;
McTaggert & Kemmis, 1983). Most recently, pro-
grams recommend engaging in ‘core’ reflection that
examines how core qualities such as empathy,
compassion, flexibility, creativity and sensitivity
operate to assist prospective teachers to make sense
of how implicit personal theories play out in explicit
practice (Korthagen & Vasalos, 2005). Programs also
propose structured reflective tasks to articulate
dissonance (Kagan, 1992) in supportive learning
environments (Jones & Vesilind, 1996), and to
enhance cognitive and metacognitive processes of
dynamic action and observation (Parsons & Stephen-
son, 2005). These proposals call for the need to extend
our understandings of how such envisioned opportu-
nities for merging between theory and practice are
actually evidenced in prospective teachers’ articula-
tions and actions. This paper examines one such
opportunity in pre-service education.
4. Research focus
Situated in the context of EFL pre-service teacher
education in Israel, this paper examines three
exemplary cases selected from a whole data set of
14 female EFL student teachers, as part of a larger
study on the connections that student teachers make
between theory and practice through examination
of their own classroom discourse (Orland-Barak &
Yinon, 2005). The purpose of this paper is two-fold:
(1) to introduce and discuss the activity of student
teachers’ analysis of their own discourse, designed
as a reflective task to enhance connections between
theory and practice in pre-service education (2) to
present three exemplary cases of student teachers’
learning from the activity of analyzing and reflecting
on their own classroom discourse.
The above discussed programmatic efforts to
engage prospective teachers in meaningful connec-
tions between theory and practice, served as tentative
theoretical templates for the design of the activity of
student teachers’ analysis of their own classroom
discourse, detailed in the following sections.
5. The research context
5.1. The course and the participants
The data examined in this paper were collected
during an EFL methods university course entitled
‘Classroom Discourse:Student teachers examine
their own practice’. The 1-year (two weekly aca-
demic hours) course, instructed by one of the
researchers, took place at the teaching department
of a major university in the north of Israel during
the academic year of 2002. The course required of
student teachers to conduct on-going readings on
EFL methodology and on EFL classroom dis-
course, and to record, transcribe and reflect on one
classroom lesson implemented in their practice
teaching.
Drawing on theorizing and design of reflective
frameworks in pre-service education, as described in
earlier sections (Barlett, 1990;Dewey, 1933;Labos-
key, 1994;Schon, 1983), the course set out to
encourage student teachers’ reflections on their
teaching experience. Thus, it was envisioned that
such a course would enhance reflection at levels of:
mapping and naming predominant teaching and
learning behaviors;
connecting between theoretical notions and their
realization in ‘action’;
surfacing gaps between expectations and reality;
interpreting teaching and learning in a particular
context;
scrutinizing and appraising particular teaching
and learning behaviors;
interpreting emergent views of teaching;
implementing new and more informed actions.
The course aimed at a balance between the
identification of strategies (what one does) and the
process of reasoning that underlies student teachers’
use of these strategies in the classroom (Orem, 1981;
Shulman, 1987).
The tasks reflected the content of the course: core
issues in communicative language teaching and their
connection to issues in classroom discourse (as
related to notions such as moves, patterns of turn-
taking, and patterns of interaction). The meaning of
the term ‘classroom discourse’ used in the course
was similar to what Macbeth (2003) describes as
‘naturally occurring discourse’ (NOD). According
to Macbeth this kind of discourse refers to ‘talk, or
conversation, or talk-in-interaction on ordinary and
actual occasions’ (p. 246). Since the course con-
stituted a component of last year of studies of the
teacher education program (within the Teacher
Education department) and not of the linguistics
program (in the English department), the course
was not envisioned as a Linguistics course on
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L. Orland-Barak, H. Yinon / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 957–969 959
discourse but rather as a Methods course with an
emphasis on the application of classroom discourse
to teaching. Thus, during the sessions student
teachers examined a variety of authentic classroom
excerpts focusing on theoretical and practical
connections between methodology and discourse.
6. Data collection: the reflective task
The final assignment required student teachers to
reflect on their classroom discourse through a series
of guiding questions provided by the course
professor. The guiding questions for analyzing the
transcribed lessons, drew on the cycle of reflective
questions aimed at mapping, informing, contesting,
appraising and acting (Barlett, 1990), as discussed in
previous section. Student teachers were encouraged
to address the following questions in their final
papers: (1) What did I plan to achieve in this lesson
and how do I plan to achieve these objectives? (2)
What has the analysis of my discourse revealed
about: gaps between what I think/I do/say/act and
what actually happens? What I was surprised to
discover? (3) What have I had learnt about myself,
my pupils, and about teaching and learning? (4)
What are my strengths as revealed in the discourse?
(5) What would I like to change in my classroom
discourse and how would I make those changes in
my future teaching?
As can be seen from the guidelines, the questions
aimed at the articulation of ‘the messy side of
teaching’, by encouraging student teachers to write
about gaps, surprises, discomforts and disappoint-
ments (rather than successes solely). The questions
legitimized the articulation of dissatisfaction and
dissonance, regarded as an important condition for
learning (Strike & Posner, 1982).
The guidelines for the task were adapted from
Fanselow’s (1987) procedures for the analysis of
classroom lessons but differed in various ways:
unlike Fanselow’s procedures which required stu-
dent teachers to analyze an aspect of their teaching
that they would like to focus on, participants were
asked to select a full lesson in their practice teaching,
audiotape it and transcribe it in its entirety.
1
The
decision to analyze a full lesson (as opposed to
specific aspects of their teaching) was based on
several considerations which we regarded as unique
advantages of the task: one, it prompted student
teachers to identify discourse patterns both at
macro levels of lesson development, and at micro
levels of connections between patterns of teaching/
learning and specific stages during the lesson. Two,
it created a context for reflection as close as possible
to the real life 45 min lesson, allowing to trace
specific patterns of teaching and of pupils’ language
behavior throughout the whole lesson. In particular,
we searched for a task that would drive student
teachers away from their tendency as novices
(Berliner, 2001) to ‘isolate’ particular instances or
activities in a lesson, and from an emphasis on
specific strategies and activities prevalent in tradi-
tional methods courses. Instead, the activity sug-
gested a ‘multiple perspective’ approach to the
interpretation of the 45 minute teaching experience.
We envisioned that the transcription of the full
lesson would enable student teachers to refer back
and forth to specific patterns that recurred at
various stages of the lesson, and to examine how
the same discourse patterns acquire different forms
and meanings throughout the discourse. A multiple
perspective approach towards reflection on practice
was, then, foreseen as potentially valuable for
encouraging novices to focus on what they perceive
as relevant i.e. their performance, but with a focus
on the broader array of interactions that develop
around their performance throughout the lesson,
hence pushing them to reflect at a more multi-
dimensional level.
Moreover, unlike Fanselow, student teachers
were not asked to repeat the procedure of recording,
transcribing and analyzing a new excerpt from their
classroom interaction to evidence the changes they
had implemented in their teaching in light of
their first analysis. Although we recognize the
value of the task for getting immediate and concrete
feedback on new insights gained about teaching
(Fanselow, 1987;Gebhard, Gaitan, & Oprandy,
1990), we opted for an in-depth single case
approach. The decision was also guided by prag-
matic considerations of the scope of the task of
transcribing and analyzing an entire full lesson.
The reflective end of the year papers, which
constitutes the data for the larger study, yielded a
corpus of about 200 pages (14 student teachers—
each paper around 15 pages) of reflections of
student teachers on their own classroom discourse.
Each paper included a reflective analysis of one
transcribed taught lesson, organized around the ten
guiding questions.
ARTICLE IN PRESS
1
Students were asked to document turn taking, numbering
each turn consecutively, drawing on transcription conventions
(Sinclair & Brazil, 1982).
L. Orland-Barak, H. Yinon / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 957–969960
7. Data analysis
The analysis of the whole data set was conducted
by the two researchers in two phases, following
grounded theory procedures (Strauss & Corbin,
1990). The first phase entailed hermeneutic cycles of
close interpretative readings (Kelchtermans & Van-
denberghe, 1994) of each paper, to identify recur-
rent themes that emerged from student teachers’
attributions to their learning as related to the 10
guiding questions of the activity. The same process
was repeated across cases to identify commonalities
across all data sources. The second phase entailed
the identification of categories of learning that
pertained to connections/gaps that student teachers
established between theoretical principles of peda-
gogy and the classroom discourse patterns that they
identified as characteristic of their teaching. This
was evident in the proliferation of phrases that
denoted what student teachers said they had
planned to do or had thought would be appropriate
to do, and what they actually realized had happened
during the lesson (Orland-Barak & Yinon, 2005).
In this paper, we focus on three exemplary cases
(Maya, Rina and Adda’s reflective papers) from the
whole data set (Orland-Barak & Yinon, 2005). Our
analysis focuses on student teachers’ reflections on
their transcribed lessons.
2
We have chosen to
present these cases in depth because the three
student teachers were particularly articulate about
their learning, thus providing examples of ‘exemp-
lary cases’ of connections between theory and
practice (Shulman, 1986). Their reflections were
particularly rich, vivid and sophisticated, exhibiting
intricate levels of articulation of connections be-
tween theory and practice. Specifically, we describe
and interpret how each student teacher reflected on
her own discourse and conceptualize what kinds of
connections between theory and practice each
student teacher exhibited as a result of reflecting
on the meeting between theory and practice.
The analysis revealed that Maya’s learning was
mainly oriented towards formulating understand-
ings of how her practice accommodates with the
theories that she learns. Thus, we conceptualized
her learning as ‘Understanding how practice fits
theory’. Rina’s learning exhibited complex connec-
tions between theory and practice leading her to the
articulation of grounded theories of practice. We
interpreted her learning as ‘Connecting theory and
practice to generate grounded theories of practice’.
Adda focused primarily on taking a critical stance
towards her practice, which we conceptualized as
‘Developing practical theories’.
8. Maya’s learning: understanding how practice fits
theory
Maya’s analysis of her teaching in a ninth grade
level A class is characterized by her constant
attempt to understand how practice fits the theory
that she encountered in the methods course.
Addressing the first questions about lesson objec-
tives and activities, Maya begins by giving a detailed
account of her lesson, which she planned according
to theory, using theoretical terminology such as
fluency, previous knowledge and inference: ‘Since
this is a strong class, one of the things I wanted to
achieve is to allow for a variety of responses and
ideas related to the main idea of the passage. In this
way and following the new curriculum, I hoped to
develop fluency and also to focus on specific
language points that surface from their answers y
I also wanted to build on their previous knowledge
and experiences, creating maximum opportunities
for using English and for inferring from context
rather than translating through the use of L1 y’
Maya addresses the reflective questions that focus
on both the gaps between stated objectives and their
realization, and on her learning about herself. First,
she uses theoretical notions from the literature to
‘name’ her moves, connecting the ‘telling move’ that
she identifies in her discourse to its various
functions in the literature: ‘according to Sinclair
and Brazil (1982), [telling connects to] informing,
describing, explaining and finally demonstrating
things to pupils y’. She also makes connections
between recurrent discourse patterns in her teach-
ing, being critical about their impact on encoura-
ging pupils’ use of the target language (one of her
stated objectives): ‘ythe analysis of my moves
however has taught me that I focus mostly on
‘telling’ which has an effect on the limiting amount
of target language used by the pupils y’. Finally,
she elaborates on her realization of how these
patterns reflect her tendency to dominate the
discourse and what the implications are for student
participation: ‘I have realized that I tend to give a
lot of informing remarks, which although serving to
ARTICLE IN PRESS
2
Due to constraints of length and given the scope of the present
paper which focuses on the analysis of students’ reflections on
their classroom discourse, the transcribed lessons have not been
included.
L. Orland-Barak, H. Yinon / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 957–969 961
organize a discussion and giving a sense of
structure, dominate the lesson, producing very long
teacher talk chunks of language and limiting
opportunities for free expression as I had initially
envisioned in my plan y’
Maya’s reflections are mainly developed around
the guiding questions in the reflective task that
aimed at pushing student teachers to identify
connections and gaps between theory and practice:
(1) what the analysis reveals about gaps between
plans, beliefs and actions, (2) what student teachers
were surprised to discover about their teaching, and
(3) what they learned about themselves as a result of
reflecting on their discourse. In focusing on these
questions, she makes connections and surfaces
inherent gaps between the type of questions that
she thinks she asks (i.e. her espoused theories) and
what actually happens in the discourse: ‘I also
realized that although I thought I had asked many
higher order, open questions, aiming at longer
answers and at a more natural discourse on the
part of the stronger pupils in class, I didn’t. On the
contrary, I used mostly informative-direct questions
which required short answers, impeding from the
stronger pupils to fully realize their potential and
competence in English’.
Focusing on the question of what she has learned,
Maya articulates an informed principle about
teaching in general: ‘My analysis reinforces the idea
that a teacher’s initiation controls the subsequent
pattern of discourse (Sinclair & Brazil, 1982, p. 38).
This means that I, as a teacher, by asking a
particular type of questions stimulate a particular
kind and length of answers y’ and about her
teaching style in particular: ‘this has shown me that
my teaching style is definitely a controlling one y’
In her reflections, Maya ‘names’ her predominant
‘moves’ using relevant theoretical notions, generates
possible explanations on their effect on the quality
of pupils’ participation and learning and ramifies
selected hypothesis on their consequences for
enhancing a particular language point, becoming
aware of inner complexities that her discourse
generates and its implications for the controlling
nature of her teaching style.
Consider the following excerpt from another
section in her paper. First, she identifies and names
another predominant move in her discourse: ‘Re-
warding moves provide positive feedback. This is a
repeated pattern in my discourse. Usually I use an
expression ‘very good’ in order to give positive
feedback y’, connecting between ‘rewarding
moves’ and effective language teaching: ‘I use
positive feedback a lot because rewarding is one of
the ways to encourage the development of a positive
self-image, which is one of the principles of effective
language teaching’. She then expands on this
connection applying concepts from theory: ‘y
Nunan supports this by claiming that positive
feedback has two functions ytherefore the positive
reinforcements that I gave, encouraged my pupils,
according to Nunan, to suggest new ideas, and to
perform the tasks that I gave them during the
lesson. Nunan (1990) claims that according to
research, stronger pupils are more likely to receive
praise than weaker pupils’.
Using illustrative excerpts from her discourse,
Maya articulates gaps between what she thought
she was doing and what she actually did: ‘yFor
example, notice how in moves 85–88 I address the
question to a particular pupil to involve her more in
the lesson. Although I provide a rewarding state-
ment at the beginning of her answer to indicate that
she is ‘‘on the right track’’ in order to stimulate her
to continue the answer and to raise her motivation I
do not supply her any feedback at the end of her
answer. Moreover, I do not give her an opportunity
to end the answer she started with but I complete it
myself. She then continues to give another example:
‘Another example is in moves 137–140. This weak
pupil who has addressed a question in order to
involve her more in the discourse does not get any
positive reinforcement about her answer, which is a
correct one’.
As a result of articulating the gaps that she
identifies, Maya articulates an emergent insight
about her role in relation to the weaker pupils in
the class: ‘From these examples, I can conclude that
weaker pupils do not receive the necessary feedback
from me so that they can increase their motivation
in order to continue to participate and contribute to
class discussion. I, actually, intended to take upon
myself the role of ‘mother goose’ who takes care of
the weaker pupils when in fact I do exactly the
opposite y’
Finally, she consolidates the insights that she has
gained by describing a plan for future action: ‘I
want to reduce the amount of teacher talk ythis
will make the discourse more symmetrical in terms
of the amount of teacher talk and student talk. This
in turn will provide pupils with the opportunity to
express themselves more in the target language y’.
Her plan of action suggests her new awareness of
specific pupils’ contribution to the discourse and of
ARTICLE IN PRESS
L. Orland-Barak, H. Yinon / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 957–969962
the type of teacher talk that hinders or encourages
participation. What characterizes the meeting be-
tween theory and practice in Maya’s reflections?
Maya’s reflections on her classroom discourse
have enabled her to map what she does as a teacher,
to inform on the implications of her actions for
pupils’ learning as well as to contest her view of
teaching. Specifically, she has become aware that
she focuses mostly on ‘telling’ and on its effect for
limiting the amount of target language used by the
pupils. She has also realized how her telling moves
reflect her tendency to dominate the discourse and
to produce very long stretches of teacher talk
limiting, eventually, opportunities for free expres-
sion (one of her stated aims in her lesson plan). She
has also learned that she uses mostly informative-
direct questions which require short answers,
impeding the stronger pupils from fully realizing
their potential and competence in English.
Maya has also learned to connect theoretical
notions to her own discourse, and as a result to
better understand how theoretical principles (such
as the way in which a teacher’s initiation controls
the subsequent pattern of discourse, or the way in
which rewarding moves operate to provide feed-
back) actually play out in her own discourse and
uncover the controlling nature of her teaching style
and of her feedback. As a result, she is able to
appraise her teaching by concluding that weaker
pupils in her lessons do not receive the necessary
feedback to be prompted to continue participating
in the class discussion. From examining how theory
fits with her practice, she also describes a plan for
future action to reduce the amount of teacher talk
so as to make the discourse more symmetrical and
provide pupils with the opportunity to express
themselves in the target language.
9. Rina’s learning: connecting theory and practice to
generate grounded theories of practice
Like Maya, Rina makes connections between
theory and practice. In her analysis she reflects on
how predominant discourse patterns in her teaching
actually unfold her tacit views about communicative
language teaching and shape, to a great extent, her
teaching orientation. Unlike Maya, however, her
reflections focus less on identifying theoretical
notions in her practice and more on generating
new theories of practice as a result of examining
practice in light of theory. In the process, she
articulates new insights and redefines ‘known’
principles of pedagogy and of communicative
methodology, generating more informed and local
understandings of her practice.
Two main questions guide Rina’s reflections: the
question concerning gaps between theory and
practice, and the question pertaining to what she
has learned about herself and about teaching in
general as a result of the activity. Already at the
outset of her paper, Rina is critical about ‘common
theories’ regarding language teaching: ‘Contrary to
what might be a common belief, lessons rarely begin
with the mythical ‘‘good morning pupils–good
morning teacher’’ interchange. Yet, this is not
necessarily a bad thing. The more the pupils are
exposed to authentic spontaneous discourse in the
target language, the better’. In her reflections she
exhibits, on the one hand, a theoretical under-
standing of the need for authentic exposure in
communicative teaching, and on the other hand, a
critical stance towards the ‘myth of authentic
exposure’ as it plays out in the ‘real’ classroom
situation. Notice how her elaboration continues:
‘Nevertheless, too much of an ‘‘authentic mess’’
right at the very beginning may be unadvisable and
even hazardous to the whole lesson in classes that
are weaker, more problematic and even at a later
time of the day. Therefore, even though spontaneity
and authenticity are desirable, they may not always
be suitable y’
In a later section, Rina critically reconsiders the
function of organizing talk in the discourse. First,
like Maya, she defines or ‘names’ the term using
relevant literature: ‘Sinclair and Brazil (1982) refer
to ‘‘organizing talk’’ as ‘‘the kind of talk which
concerns time other than the immediate moment of
the utterance’’ and which ‘‘may focus on the activity
that is to come, or has recently passed y’.
However, in contrast to Maya, who focuses on
finding the ‘equivalent’ of theoretical notions in her
own discourse, Rina contests the notion of ‘organiz-
ing talk’ in the literature: ‘I believe this kind of talk
to be predominant in every teacher’s discourse and
while it may generally be an attempt to clarify
things for the pupils, it is very often the teacher who
benefits from it even more’. Her argument is then
extended to the generation of a refined, grounded
principle: ‘organizing talk gives the teacher an
opportunity to organize his or her own thoughts
and moves, especially when switching from one
activity to another’.
Throughout her reflections, Rina does not only
identify and name predominant patterns sustaining
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them with relevant theory but also takes a critical
stance towards the dissonances that she identifies
between theory and practice as they play out in her
teaching. In doing so, she contests and appraises
‘theory’ from different perspectives: ‘On the one
hand, if future research confirms the value of
elaboration over modification, it will strengthen
the view that when talking to second language
learners, teachers should try to use elaborated
rather than simplified language y(Nunan, 1991,
p. 191). On the other hand, I am not certain whe-
ther this approach is adequate when giving instruc-
tions’.
Rina considers the advantages and disadvantages
of her predominant patterns: ‘In an attempt to be as
lucid as possible, I come up with a rather tedious
and confusing explanation yYet, my preference
for authentic language which actually enhances
exposure in the target language ycomes at the
expense of clarity perhaps’. Furthermore, in her
appraisal of the advantages and disadvantages of
her elaborations during the lesson, she formulates a
principle: ‘Even though diversions and digressions
from the original topic are features of every real life
communicative situation, they may not be advisable
when giving second language learners instructions
in the target language’. The new principle develops,
in turn, into a plan for future action: ‘Hence, in this
particular case it would have been better to clear out
the meaning of the word ybefore giving instruc-
tions’.
Notice how, by contrast to Maya who focuses
on what ‘she does or does not do according to
theory’ in relation to her questioning and initiation
moves, Rina focuses on challenging the conven-
tional meanings attributed to the notion of ‘initia-
tion moves’ in theory: ‘It is not sufficient to initiate a
discussion as Sinclair and Brazil (1982, p. 22)
contend by ‘‘questioning, probing for answers,
stimulating various kinds of talk and involving
pupils to commit themselves’’y’. In doing so, she
also offers a new conjecture regarding initiation
moves, one which is grounded in her own experi-
ence: ‘It is not enough to initiate a discussion only
once. In order to keep that kind of talk going, one
has to keep questioning and in a sense initiating
again and again y’
The activity of analyzing her own discourse has
prompted Rina to contest her views with theory and
as a result, to better appraise what she does as a
teacher, and how her views about teaching reflect
her actions. In the process, she formulates new
hypotheses and grounded theories regarding key
notions in communicative language teaching such as
spontaneity and authenticity, organizing talk, ela-
borate and simplified language, diversions and
digressions, and social distance. What characterizes
the meeting between theory and practice in Rina’s
reflections?
The kind of connections that Rina makes between
theory and practice can be described as of a complex
and critical nature. Throughout her reflections, she
does not only focus on redefining ‘known’ pedago-
gical principles in light of practice, but also on
generating more informed and local understandings
of ‘taken for granted’ educational values and
principles. Finally, in the last section of her paper,
Rina turns to her agenda as educator, sharing with
the reader the new insights that she has gained
about the notion of ‘social distance’ as a result of
her reflections: ‘yI have become aware that I get
through the pupils much more easily when I
maintain less ‘social distance’ as Holmes refers to.
Being less formal does not however mean breaking
all boundaries of courtesy and respect. I do believe,
however, that respect should be mutual. I thought it
may sound quite obvious, but in practice it is sad to
see how many teachers demand respect from their
pupils but fail to return it’.
10. Adda’s learning: developing practical theories
Our third illustrative case considers Adda’s
learning. Like Maya and Rina, Adda focuses her
analysis on identifying gaps between theory and
practice. Unlike the former, however, her major
concern is on the practical applications that emerge
from her reflections ‘on action’.
Throughout her paper, Adda focuses mostly on
the question of what her analysis reveals about her
own teaching, and on the gaps that she identifies
between her planning (according to theory) and her
actions. In her analysis she describes her actions in
detail: ‘The analysis of my discourse has revealed a
serious gap between what I think I do and what
actually happens yI was counting on a rich,
opening discussion, then a nice, oral analysis of the
passage, followed by tasks in a worksheet and
finishing with a task regarding home schooling, its
advantages and disadvantages yinstead the lesson
took a different turn and unfortunately did not
come out as smoothly as planned y’.
Like Maya, the gaps that she identifies prompt
her to reflect on how her discourse patterns affect
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L. Orland-Barak, H. Yinon / Teaching and Teacher Education 23 (2007) 957–969964
the development of the lesson: ‘I try, throughout
this discussion, to elicit the idea of ‘‘shortening the
school week’’ from the students, but it just does not
work. Instead of realizing after three or four tries
that they are not going to mention this idea, I insist
on asking them the same question over and over
again. Moreover, not only the discussion itself turns
out to be very poor, the students do not interact,
they just list things y’.
As she examines gaps between her stated objec-
tives and her discourse she becomes aware of the
gap ‘between [her] explanations and repetitions of
things and pupils’ reaction to them’. Like Maya, she
also learns about the type of responses that
characterize particular pupils: ‘ythe only interac-
tion that occurs is when Roman tries to help Dekel
with his answery’, something which she claims to
have been unaware of prior to analyzing her
discourse.
Unlike Rina, however, she does not articulate a
revised principle about her teaching, but rather
contests the consequences of her actions for pupil
participation: ‘It is as though the pupils are
detached from the lesson. This bothers me because
this is not the regular case of a noisy class where one
cannot hear the other. While I was explaining
something, the class was quiet, so I expected
everyone to hear me, and therefore understand
what I was saying y’. Indeed, a unique aspect of
Adda’s reflections pertains to her strong emphasis
on the linguistic behaviors of particular pupils in her
class, a perspective which she claims to have been
insensitive to and unaware of prior to her analysis.
Quoting from her own lesson transcript she writes:
‘yI have realized that Arik, Dror, Roman and
Dekel [boys in the class] have a good level of
vocabulary. The girls Lilach, Dana and especially
Tali, need a lot of revision. Arik is always the first
and last to speak during the lesson. Dana seems to
be having quite a hard time understanding the
answers when we go over them. This is first noticed
in move 247yAfter I explain the answer to Tali she
tells me to explain again (move 252). I tell Dana to
explain the answer to Tali but it is Arik who
eventually does the job for her yAs for Dekel, he
comes back to life when I ask the class a question
related to adjectives (276) y’
Adda does not extend the insights that she gains
about particular pupils to the generation of a
grounded principle about her practice or to the
formulation of a personal theory as Rina does.
Nevertheless, the analysis serves to uncover pre-
dominant moves as well as to learn about particular
pupils’ level of proficiency. These understandings
help her, in turn, to think about appropriate
strategies to modify future practice: ‘yI could
have sat down with the girls and helped them to
answer the questions in the worksheet or I could
have told the strong pupils to sit next to the weaker
ones and do the worksheet together yI could have
addressed some of the oral questions to specific
pupils and not to the general class—maybe that
would have enhanced participation. As mentioned
earlier, I tend to say ‘‘No’’ quite often when pupils’
answers are incorrect. This is something I know I
have to change, because it creates an atmosphere of
testing and it can basically shut the students, de-
motivating them yI believe also that pausing
between questions or between explanations can
decrease tensions and does not accelerate the
pupils into making a quick move yI would like
to change my habit of repeating everything I believe
it is not a good technique y’. What characterizes
the meeting between theory and practice in Adda’s
learning?
Adda has shown evidence of a developing
personal practical theory. In her reflections she
maps and appraises her teaching by becoming aware
of what she does as a teacher, about what particular
pupils do in her lessons, and how this reflects her
teaching style on the one hand, and specific pupils’
learning style on the other hand. Adda is also very
explicit about the new insights that she has gained
regarding future actions, which led her to articulate
a detailed, revised plan of action. Her reflections
highlight her strong orientation towards applica-
tion, as well as her shift in thinking about teaching
from a teacher focused view to a more student-
focused view.
The multifaceted and distinctive connections that
Maya, Rina and Adda exhibited at levels of
mapping, naming, generating explanations, contest-
ing, formulating theories, appraising and planning
for action, shed light on the idiosyncratic forms and
meanings that the meeting between theory and
practice can take in student teachers’ learning. They
also illuminate on the potential of the activity of
student teachers’ analysis of their own discourse for
enhancing manifold articulations of learning. So,
what can be learned about the potential of a
methods course structured around the activity of
student teachers’ analysis own classroom discourse
for fostering connections between theory and
practice?
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11. When theory meets practice: idiosyncratic
connections
The study reveals that, indeed, the structure of the
course was conducive to new and multifaceted
understandings about the meeting between theory
and practice, and that these understandings were of
a highly idiosyncratic nature. Consequently,
although we could roughly align the three cases
along a linear continuum of ‘applied theory’
(Maya’s case), ‘grounded theory’ (Rina’s case) and
‘practical theory’ (Adda’s case), each case exhibited
unique connections between theory and practice at
various levels of mapping, contesting, informing,
appraising and planning. Furthermore, although
the three cases might share the characteristics of
what Laboskey (1994) would describe as an ‘alert
novice’, Maya’s ‘alertness’ as related to the applica-
tion of theory, to strategic thinking as a teacher, and
to children’s learning differed inherently from
Adda’s alertness as related to practical insights,
and from Rina’s alertness pertaining to her
grounded understandings of theory and practice.
The idiosyncratic character of the meeting be-
tween theory and practice exhibited in each case,
thus, makes us wonder, whether as teacher educa-
tors it is altogether possible (or desirable) to expect
student teachers to exhibit particular ‘targeted’
connections between theory and practice through
certain forms of reflection. Rather, given the
complex web of tensions and gaps that were eminent
in the meeting between the theory and practice in
the three cases, academic spaces designed to foster
connections between these two need to take into
account the multiple and arbitrary outcomes that
the meeting might engender, and which seem hard
to anticipate.
The multifaceted connections that student tea-
chers exhibited on the meeting between theory and
practice also shed an optimistic light on the
potential of novices to reflect at levels beyond ‘what
works in the classroom’ (Almarza, 1996). The
connections evidenced in the three cases, and
especially in Rina’s case, challenge prevalent con-
ceptions that pre-service teachers are mostly con-
cerned with establishing a positive rapport with
their pupils (Antonek, McCormick, & Donato,
1997;Kwo, 1996), and pay less attention to the
‘educational’ side of teaching (Hollingsworth, 1989),
and to possible connections to the theory of their
course work (Fuller & Bown, 1975;Kwo, 1996;
Popkewitz, 1978). As the study suggests, it is
possible to contend that pre-service teachers can
reflect beyond survival skills, articulate multiple
concerns about their practice, and think about them
in an integrative manner (Conway & Clark, 2003;
Guillaume & Rudney, 1993;Kalekin-Fishman &
Eden, 2003), if given the appropriate conditions to
do so (Orland-Barak & Yinon, 2005).
12. Analyzing your own classroom discourse:
conditions that foster connections between theory and
practice
The various forms and meanings exhibited in
student teachers’ reflections of their classroom
discourse have also shed light on the conditions
that allowed for connections between theory and
practice to be articulated. For one, we have learned
that the activity of student teachers’ examination of
their own discourse constituted an important
opportunity for becoming aware of unexpected
student behavior, such as in Adda’s case, and for
‘experiencing dissatisfaction with initial ideas’
(Jones & Vesilind, 1996). These, in turn, challenged
them to examine connections and gaps between
theory and practice, beliefs and actions. As student
teachers analyzed how ingrained patterns of inter-
action in their discourse affected the development
of the lesson, pupils’ production of language, and
their quality of participation, they began to ‘break’
with certain initial rigid beliefs about what consti-
tutes ‘good’ and effective communicative language
teaching.
We have also learned that a formal academic
course structured around specific guidelines for the
analysis of student teachers’ own classroom dis-
course, seems to offer a context for experiencing
discomfort in a safe learning environment. Having
stated this, however, the question of how much
control pre-service teachers need to be given, in
order to reflect on their actions (Johnson, 1996)is
still valid. In this respect, the three exemplary cases
show that contrary to orientations that forward
open-ended and non-evaluative tasks, the structured
conditions provided for by the guidelines of the
course assignment, along with its formal and
evaluative nature, promoted reflection. Specifically,
the instructions encouraging student teachers to be
critical about their practice, together with the
knowledge that they would be ‘graded’ on their
ability to portray and reflect on the messy side of
their teaching, were important instrumental incen-
tives that ‘pushed’ student teachers to reflect beyond
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their technical performance. Thus, the activity
seems to have allowed for the right combination
of novices’ instrumental motives to succeed in the
task (getting a good grade) and legitimizing
problems and dilemmas (congruent with their need
as novices to voice frustrations).
In addition to emphasizing the legitimate value of
‘being critical towards practice’, another condition
that enhanced reflection was the fact that student
teachers were asked to reflect on their own practice.
Indeed, student teachers could see the relevance of
their reflections for their future teaching because
they themselves taught the lessons that they
analyzed (and not their cooperating teachers). This
created ‘intensified ownership, responsibility and
increased opportunity to experience the unexpected’
(Jones & Vesilind, 1996, p. 115), as well as
preparation to enter the real world where the
responsibility is shifted onto them (Bailey et al.,
1996;Gebhard, 1990;Kierstead, 1985).
We also wonder, as Kagan (1992) does, about the
amount of tension that is helpful or harmful to pre-
service teachers as they learn to teach. The ‘right
amount of gap’ to enable student teachers to
transform discomfort into a learning opportunity
is, however, difficult to predict, and seems to depend
on a variety of personal, interpersonal and con-
textual factors. We might wonder, for example,
whether a student teacher with different dispositions
from those exhibited by Maya, would describe his/
her awareness of the gaps between theory and
practice as a sign of growth. We also raise the
question of the stage at which student teachers
would benefit most from being ‘pushed’ to identify
gaps and to establish meaningful connections
between theory and practice during pre-service
education (Mazor, 2003).
13. Creating spaces for observing teaching from
within
Constituting a kind of ‘interim’ situated practice,
student teachers’ analysis of their own discourse
created a new form of ‘vivid practice’, one which
provides a space for integrating the recall of a
memorable and emotionally charged event, such as
the classroom teaching event, with a more analytical
and ‘objective’ stance towards performance by
encouraging student teachers to ‘observe teaching
from within’. We also believe that student teachers’
reflections on their own discourse can be transferred
to other courses in teacher education programs.
Student teachers can be assisted, for example, to
conceptualize experiences during student teaching
as they relate to theoretical notions acquired in
theoretical courses.
We are, however, aware that ‘observing teaching
from within’ through systematic reflection on one
full lesson rather than over a series of lessons, does
not allow for surfacing the changes that student
teachers might experience throughout a course. We
acknowledge this as a limitation of the study, when
compared to studies that followed processes of
change in practice teaching over time (Gebhard,
1990). Furthermore, although student teachers’
reflected on the value of the experience for becom-
ing aware of inherent gaps between plan and
action, we believe that conducting student teachers’
interviews at the termination of the program, would
have served as further evidence for validating
understandings about the potential of a reflective
task that is designed within a formal course of
instruction.
We are also aware that one should be cautious of
the long-term effects of the experience. We might
ask, for example, whether student teachers’ newly
articulated insights about their teaching, will
eventually stand the ‘test’ of novices’ professional
socialization during the first years of induction into
school, usually marked by regression to known and
safe patterns (Zeichner & Gore, 1990). With this
insight in mind, our research is now being extended
to focus on the long-term impact of the course on
the focal participants’ practice during their first
years of teaching.
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