An investigation into teacher's beliefs and practice about developing supplementary materials for ielts learners at language centers in Ho Chi Minh city

common than those who do not. This may be due to the wider context in which teachers are generally influenced by the examination.

However, there are also some beliefs that do not translate into actual practice. It is partly due to some internal and external factors. With respect to the former, the discrimination between teachers’ beliefs and practice was due to the lack of experience of particular types of supplementary materials. Although teachers may believe in the effectiveness of a material, they may not be inclined to deploy it if the material is unfamiliar to them. Another internal factor was related to the role of particular beliefs in the belief system. Even when teachers hold and express some beliefs, it was the more predominant ones that influenced the actual practice. In addition to the internal factors, the external ones appear to play a more influential role in the divergence of teachers’ beliefs and practices. It appeared that the teaching cultures and policies at language centers, to a great extent, impinged on the translation of teachers’ beliefs into practice in terms of supplementary materials development. This was in strong agreement with the idea of the role of external factors in mediating the association of belief and practice.

6.2. Implications

The common and widely shared subtheme to emerge from the study was the contribution of supplementary materials to the fulfillment of learners’ needs. However, only necessities and lack (based on the need framework by Nation and Macalister (2010)) were addressed, while what learners want is neglected. This finding had important implications for developing teachers’ ability to analyze learners’ needs as needs analysis can determine the content of learning input in a course (Nation & Macalister, 2010, p. 25). It is evident that the role of supplementary materials in the achievement of learning outcomes is significant. According to the results in a study by Nguyen and Ho (2019), using various types of supplementary materials may help improve learning outcomes in a test preparation course. They also note that learners may be keen on some types of

supplementary materials while unenthusiastic about the others. Hence, to augment the effectiveness of these kinds of materials, it is crucial for teachers to gain some insight into this matter. The process of needs assessment ranges from informal analysis to more formal procedures. The former involves informal conversations between teachers and students, which, according to Richards (2001), is an indispensable part of teachers’ “ongoing responsibility.” This informal approach can provide valuable data to complement those formal analyses conducted by the language center, including questionnaires, self-ratings, interviews, or observation. It is also vital to note that those formal strategies should not be applied individually but collectively because of the incomplete nature of data that emerged from each method. Therefore, the deployment of various strategies may help validate the reliability of information through triangulation (Richards, 2001). The data in the current study reflected a reality that teachers dedicated their time and effort merely to informal assessment, and their interpretation from the analysis process was rather tentative. Other formal forms of needs analysis, therefore, should be encouraged. This is not necessarily the responsibility of teachers but of the management of language centers as well. There ought to be adequate guidelines and training which teachers can count on for effective and accurate analysis; or more ideally, the language center should be the agent that conducts the formal analysis, making teachers the end-users of the analysis process. Teachers, on the other hand, are responsible for complementing the information provided by language centers through the means of informal analysis in classroom contexts.

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Another issue worth attention was the substantial imbalance in the selection of IELTS and none-IELTS materials to supplement the main coursebooks. It is ostensibly a sign of negative washback effect where the main focus of a program is to help learners achieve a high grade in the actual test by all means rather than promote their language competence. Previous studies have shown that candidates do not only focus on test preparation strategies alone (negative washback) but language ability (positive washback)

as well (Green, 2006; Rashidi & Javanmardi, 2011; Allen, 2016). Green (2007), cited in Hashemi and Daneshfar (2018), asserts that materials for the IELTS examination should merge “regular teaching and prior preparation” to achieve adequate results in the exam. One textbooks rater in Saville and Hawkey (2004) mentioned the similarity between skills developed in an IELTS-oriented book and academic skills. Likewise, Lewthwaite (2007) found a significant overlap between the requirement of IELTS writing tasks and what was needed in a writing course. Thus, to promote the positive washback effect, there should be guidelines and support from language centers. For instance, collections of non-IELTS materials that supplement the main textbooks may be introduced to teachers. In some cases, it is necessary to apply some strategies in order that teachers are less stressed and opposed to these changes, which may, for the most part, contradict teachers’ beliefs. Some strategies to be named include rational–empirical, where justification and explanation of the benefits brought about by the changes are put forward, and normative–re-educative, where consultation and arbitration are the leverage to achieve the change (Nation & Macalister, 2010, p. 177).

Additionally, teachers’ beliefs appeared to be impacted tremendously from the personal experience and the teaching context. Meanwhile, factors regarding education and theoretical knowledge play a minor role. This somehow indicated the neglect of teacher training in terms of materials development. It was evident in the current research that few teachers had access to such courses in universities. These results appeared to contradict what Hutchinson and Torres (1994) suggest that the main trait of “all teacher training and development should be to help teachers to […] evaluate textbooks properly, exploit them in the class, and adapt and supplement them where necessary” (p. 327). Those who attended a materials development course stated the knowledge in the course had a marginal impact on their beliefs. Professional preparation seems not to deal with teachers’ prior beliefs, and thus, may be less fruitful in affecting these. Pre-service and in-service training is aimed at changing teachers’ beliefs, and it is vital to note that

participants attending these training are not free from pre-existing and well-developed beliefs. Especially in the teaching field, there is a hypothesis that pre-service teachers recognize classrooms at a tertiary level in a way that is no less than those in lower levels, so it becomes “fertile lands” for adherence to previous experience (Pajares, 1992, p. 323; Borg, 2003, p. 81). Accordingly, understanding what beliefs teachers have already held contributes much to the success of teacher training courses. To do this, Nation and Macalister (2010) suggest using needs analysis tools such as questionnaires, free interviews, or inspection of the curriculum documents (p. 177).

One more critical issue worth noting is that not every teachers’ belief is translated into their actual practice. This is due to both internal and external factors. The latter seems to impinge a great deal on the relationship between beliefs and practice. According to Vartuli (2005), if teachers’ beliefs and practices are congruent, teaching will be less stressful, and hence, teachers feel less tired. It is the case of a teacher in Senior (2006) who described herself as “a round peg in a square hole” when not able to implement her personal beliefs into practice. A way of guaranteeing the congruence of beliefs and practice is from the implementation of the curriculum. Breen (2001) indicates any alternation or introduction of a new practice in a curriculum ought to be put under the “teachers’ own framework of teaching principles” (i.e., teachers’ beliefs). This does not necessarily mean letting teachers do whatever they want in accordance with their beliefs. It is because not every teacher’s belief is proper and advantageous to the process of language learning. Fives and Buehl (2012) assert that school administrators and even teachers should consider all the factors hindering their translation of beliefs into practice in order to overcome the impediment to beneficial beliefs and challenge unseemly those. The suggestion is that the vital role of professional development is indispensable in providing teachers with ample theoretical knowledge to direct their beliefs and practice. There are many means of preparation teachers can involve themselves in. Some to be named include pre-service, in-service training, reflection on experience, observation and

discussion with other colleagues, or reading research (Ur, 2002, p. 389). Besides the official training, self-training is of significant important. As for the reflection on experience, Farrell (2018) proposes two approaches, deductive and inductive approach, based on which teachers can track the alignment of their beliefs and practice. The aim of these monitoring schemes is to provide teachers with a systematic observation of their practice so that they can have a better understanding of learners, teaching methods, and themselves. Observation and discussion of other colleagues can be conducted through teacher discussion groups where teachers can “discuss goals, concerns, problems, and experiences” or participate in numerous activities such as “peer coaching, team teaching, action research, and classroom observation.” The benefits of such groups concern reviewing, reflecting on teaching, and materials development (Richards & Farrell, 2005a,

p. 51-52). In the same vein, the study of P. V. Nguyen (2020) about teacher tailored student evaluation of teaching augmented with peer observation of teaching yielded positive outcomes with respect to professional growth and development. The last self- training strategy concerns the way teachers acquire theoretical knowledge through evidence in relevant research. Nonetheless, the reality is that teachers rarely consult the research literature or apply the suggestions from such research. There are numerous reasons behind such phenomenon, and some are identified in Ur (2016) (pp. 134-135).

An overall implication of the mentioned findings is the possibility that educational administrators at universities or language centers should notice what teachers believe about the role of supplementary materials, and based on that, provide appropriate pre- service and in-service training (Levin, 2015, p. 50). Ur (2019) describes several approaches to presenting theoretical and practical ideas in a teacher education program. In the former case, theoretical input can be derived from teacher educators or research literature, and either of which is inherently followed by a discussion to bring about an appreciable effect. The latter, on the other hand, focuses on the exchange of teaching tips and ideas either online or face-to-face. Discussions are also of significant importance in

this approach. Moreover, seminars, workshops, or even informal talks should be regularly held at language centers for teachers to exchange ideas and share experiences of IELTS supplementary materials development. According to Richards and Farrell (2005b), a workshop helps create opportunities for participants to “absorb new information, participate in group discussion, discuss problems, and arrive at solutions and applications to their own classrooms” (p. 28). Teachers should also be encouraged to update their professional knowledge by consulting research in the field since merely based on experiences without theoretical background may lead to ineffectiveness in IELTS training. In case they are well-equipped with theoretical knowledge, teachers are still expected to reflect on their teaching as a part of efficacious professional development.

6.3. Limitations of the study

Findings in the current thesis were limited by the sample size and sampling method due to the shortage of human and financial resources. Only 132 teachers were conveniently selected to participate in the survey phase. In addition, the beliefs and practices of teachers in the interview section may not be necessarily representative of the other participants. However, the study managed to yield particular patterns from a number of language centers. Moreover, it also supported previous literature that teachers’ beliefs are influenced by internal and external factors and that beliefs do not always translate into practice. Despite that, themes and patterns in this study should be treated as a hypothesis for future research to test with a larger and more representative sample.

6.4. Suggestions for further studies

The current study merely focused on the relationship between teachers’ beliefs and practice about developing supplementary materials in IELTS classrooms at language centers. Therefore, there is abundant room for further progress in understanding teachers’

beliefs and practices in other educational institutions such as in primary or high schools. Moreover, only teachers were examined in the study, while students’ factors are also vital in language teaching and learning. Further studies taking these variables into account are highly encouraged to gain deeper insight into the subject matter. Finally, the relationship between beliefs and practice seems to be omnipresent in the field, and thus, the connection between beliefs and learners’ outcomes is of paramount importance. It has been evident in previous studies that differences in teachers’ beliefs may impinge on learners’ outcomes (e.g., Schroeder et al., 2011). A further study with more focus on learners’ outcomes is therefore suggested.

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