Zia Tajeddin<\/strong> Aso Biri<\/strong> Hamid Allami<\/strong> Pedagogical reasoning, as one of the major components of teacher knowledge base, is crucially important in teacher education. Motivated by the dearth of research in this area, this study investigated the pedagogical reasoning of four novice language teachers in relation to speaking instruction in order to further our understanding of language teacher cognition. For this purpose, a qualitative approach was adopted and classroom observations and post-observation stimulated recall interviews were conducted over a period of eight months. The analysis of the data related to pedagogical reasoning episodes and reasoning complexity indicated that novice teachers employed varied pedagogical arguments for different aspects of teaching speaking to justify their pedagogical decisions, which included instruction-based, students-based, teacher-based, and context-based arguments. The findings also pointed to the developmental changes in terms of the complexity and comprehensiveness of novice teachers\u2019 pedagogical reasoning. Although they initially tended to focus primarily on the subject matter and instructional activities, their reasoning gradually expanded to include students\u2019 cognitive and affective characteristics. The findings of this study contribute to the research on the teacher knowledge base and cognition. Having a clear understanding of novice teachers\u2019 pedagogical reasoning and how they utilize it to explain their classroom practices provides us with valuable insights into the process of learning to teach.<\/p>\n Keywords<\/em><\/strong>: Teacher Education; Teacher Knowledge Base; Teacher Cognition; Pedagogical Reasoning; Speaking Instruction; Novice Teachers<\/p>\n Language teacher cognition has contributed substantially to the current understanding of teacher education (Li, 2020). As Johnson (2006) put it, no factor has been more influential in advancing our understanding of teachers\u2019 work than the emergence of teacher cognition research. Research on L2 teacher cognition has been prolific in the past few decades (Andrews, 2006; Borg, 2003, 2006; Cohen & Fass, 2001; Farrell & Lim, 2005; Kubanyiova, 2012; Li, 2017; Watson, 2015), and many aspects of teachers\u2019 cognition, including teacher knowledge, teacher beliefs, their instructional decisions, and teacher identity have received scholarly attention. This strand of research has contributed to our understanding of the mentality of language teachers. Moreover, it has provided second language acquisition (SLA) researchers and educational scholars with valuable insights into how teachers become engaged in the activity of teaching and how they cope with a multitude of issues happening in their classroom environments (Nishimuro & Borg, 2013). It is now uncontested that understanding language teaching would be difficult, if not impossible, without adding teacher cognition into the equation.<\/p>\n One aspect of teacher cognition which is argued to be crucially important in identifying a useful framework for understanding and examining the knowledge base of language teacher education is pedagogical reasoning (Kavanagh et al., 2020). It is one of the building blocks of pedagogical content knowledge (Deng, 2018), which allows teachers to utilize their instructional strategies in numerous instructional situations. Notwithstanding the crucial importance of pedagogical reasoning, it seems to have had scant visibility in teacher education research. Furthermore, studies on teachers\u2019 pedagogical reasoning in speaking instruction are quite a rarity in language teacher education. Against this backdrop, this study sought to examine the pedagogical reasoning of novice teachers in their initial teaching experiences in order to gain insights into how novice L2 teachers conceptualize their speaking-related teaching practices, and thus to advance our understanding of teacher cognition.<\/p>\n Pedagogical reasoning is \u201ca process of transformation in which the teacher transforms the subject matter of instruction into forms that are pedagogically powerful and yet adaptive to the variations in ability and background presented by the students\u201d (Shulman, 1987, p. 15). It is a theoretical construct that demonstrates the invisible cognitive dimension of professional thinking that informs discrete elements of teaching practice (Kavanagh et al., 2020). It is also referred to as instructional reasoning according to which teachers attach their pedagogical decisions to certain instructional purposes that arise in response to various issues in the classroom context (Tiilikainen et al., 2019).<\/p>\n Pedagogical reasoning is predicated upon a view of teaching that perceives it as reasoning and thinking. This view, as argued by Mullock (2006), highlights the significance of teacher thinking and the role that it plays in shaping teachers\u2019 classroom instruction, bringing to the fore the fact that what teachers do in the classroom originates from their thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and knowledge about language learning and teaching. That is, it originates from their cognition. Pedagogical reasoning is considered the thought underlying informed professional practice that helps illuminate the \u2018why\u2019 of teaching (Loughran, 2019), providing us with a window into the unseen aspects of instructional practice (Loughran et al., 2016). From this perspective, as Shulman (1987) pointed out, teaching is a process of sound reasoning in which teachers think about and reflect on their instructional activities. In this process, teachers learn to utilize their knowledge base, including a network of facts, principles, and experiences, and their cognition to provide the grounds for their choices and actions. Drawing on various types of knowledge, engagement in pedagogical reasoning helps teachers find more effective ways of representing a particular subject matter for learning, and therefore contributes to their pedagogical competence. This effort to better represent the subject matter not only enables teachers to construct a more comprehensive repertoire of pedagogical strategies but also, as Pang (2016) stated, helps them develop awareness to enhance the generation of these representations for specific language learners. Although the concept of pedagogical reasoning has begun to attract scholarly attention in the past few years, it is still considered one of the understudied areas in teacher education, and not many studies (e.g., Kavanagh et al., 2020; Loughran et al., 2016; Pang, 2016; Tiilikainen et al., 2019; Vesterinen et al., 2014) have investigated this aspect of cognition.<\/p>\n Speaking skills are essential to the curriculum in L2 teaching as they enable learners to use the target language while interacting with others (Timpe-Laughlin et al., 2020). Speaking is also regarded as the most complicated and yet pivotal skill to acquire (Can, 2017). Two general approaches in this regard have informed speaking instruction in the past few decades. The first one focuses on the development of skills for accurate production and on isolated speaking skills. This approach, according to Burns (1998), is mainly concerned with structural accuracy, paying particular attention to the practice of language forms in order to raise L2 learners\u2019 awareness about the grammatical aspects of the target language. The activities within a direct approach involve analyzing structures of different spoken genres, learning formulaic expressions and institutionalized routines, discussing the use of feedback, learning activities to help learners build their grammatical awareness inductively, and developing metalinguistic knowledge. The indirect approach, on the other hand, as described by Goh and Burns (2012), emphasizes the fluency of speech by engaging learners in functional language use and providing opportunities to interact with other students in the classroom context. The assumption underlying this approach is that giving learners autonomy with a focus on the production of authentic and functional spoken language will eventually lead to transferring the speaking skills that they have developed through communicative activities to real-life contexts (Goh & Burns, 2012). The activities proposed in this approach highlight the importance of negotiation of meaning and sharing of information. These activities are information-gap activities, discussions, simulations, role plays, talking circles, and anecdotes.<\/p>\n Although these approaches have been taken up rather widely in the instructional circles and fit in well with the classroom context, their usefulness came under criticism given the fact that they failed to represent a comprehensive understanding of the processes involved in second language speaking development. Considering the shortcomings of direct and indirect approaches in providing a comprehensive framework for speaking instruction, Goh and Burns (2012) advocated a holistic approach that reflected a more comprehensive conceptualization of language, language learning, L2 learners, and speaking. Goh and Burns\u2019 framework, favors the adoption of a flexible positioning of these activities in order to maximize L2 learners\u2019 opportunities to attend to important features of communication and language use. Moreover, this flexible positioning has the potential to lower the cognitive demands that learners go through during processing their speaking.<\/p>\n Although the skill of speaking has been held in high regard in the fields of applied linguistics and second language teaching, only a few studies (e.g., Baleghizadeh & Shahri, 2014; Can, 2017; Chen & Goh, 2014; Farrell & Vos, 2018; Rahimi & Zhang, 2015; Webster, 2019) have examined the teaching of speaking in teacher education research. Most of the relevant studies have examined teachers\u2019 understanding and practical knowledge of speaking instruction. Research has shown that the teaching context and the teachers\u2019 learning experiences, known as ‘apprenticeship of observation\u2019, are influential factors in shaping their understanding of teaching speaking. For example, Baleghizadeh and Shahri (2014) explored teachers\u2019 understanding of teaching speaking and found a number of factors that contributed to teachers\u2019 conceptions of speaking instruction, including their prior learning experiences and the teaching context. Furthermore, they highlighted the importance of personal pedagogical knowledge (PPK) in shaping teachers\u2019 beliefs and conceptions of speaking competence, arguing that teachers\u2019 PPK enables them to make sense of their teaching and instructional practices. In another study, Chen and Goh (2014) investigated teachers\u2019 pedagogical content knowledge in teaching speaking. Three major factors, namely teachers\u2019 learning experiences, their self-perceived speaking ability, and their familiarity with instructional methodologies, were discovered to have a substantial impact on the teachers\u2019 knowledge.<\/p>\n Teaching experience is another factor that has received attention in the research on teaching speaking. In a study of teachers\u2019 speaking-related instructional knowledge about corrective feedback, Rahimi and Zhang (2015) compared novice and experienced EFL teachers\u2019 cognitions in terms of their feedback provisions in teaching English oral communication. The findings indicated that the teaching experience and context influenced teachers\u2019 practices of corrective feedback. The findings were also indicative of a statistically significant difference between novice and experienced teachers, pointing to novice teachers\u2019 rigidity and experienced teachers\u2019 flexibility in relation to their implementation of corrective feedback. One study by Can (2017) focused on the theme of teachers\u2019 perceptions in relation to teaching speaking. The findings revealed that teachers\u2019 lack of authentic teaching in actual classroom settings alongside the ineffectiveness of the teaching materials and the curriculum were responsible for learners\u2019 lack of speaking skills. It was also found that the teachers experienced anxiety in their speaking instruction, which was mainly due to their insufficient instructional knowledge and their failure in improving learners\u2019 motivation and participation in the class.<\/p>\n Research into teachers\u2019 beliefs about speaking instruction has received less attention to date. Farrell and Vos (2018) examined the relationship between teachers\u2019 beliefs and classroom practices of L2 speaking. The results indicated that the teachers\u2019 speaking-related practices were mainly a reflection of their beliefs. This correspondence between teachers\u2019 beliefs and practices and the fact that teachers\u2019 beliefs impact their decision-making in the class are reflected in previous studies (e.g., Borg, 2019; Kubanyiova, 2012). Borg (2003) highlighted the importance of teachers\u2019 beliefs and argued that they act as a filter through which teachers interpret new information and employ their instructional decisions.<\/p>\n Another area that has received attention is the developmental trajectory of teachers\u2019 practical knowledge in teaching speaking. In his study of teachers\u2019 practical knowledge development in speaking instruction, Webster (2019) pointed to the limited and atheoretical nature of teachers\u2019 practical knowledge. This was evident in the teachers\u2019 lack of reference to public theory related to the pedagogical approaches to teaching speaking. Webster referred to this issue as a practical knowledge plateau and suggested that meaningful engagement with different professional issues is required to overcome teachers\u2019 atheoretical knowledge development. The developmental aspect of the teachers\u2019 knowledge base has been the subject of previous studies. Teachers’ professional knowledge and understanding are constantly constructed and reconstructed by the sociocultural and institutional contexts (Li, 2013). As teachers gradually gain more teaching experience, they undergo a great deal of development throughout their careers (Anthony et al., 2015). Research has also shown that acquiring teaching experience leads to enhancing complexity and diversity in teachers\u2019 pedagogical knowledge. Gatbonton (2008) studied the pedagogical knowledge of novice L2 teachers and found that as they gained more instructional experience, they managed to acquire many teaching skills that were expected of experienced teachers. Similarly, Akbari and Tajik (2009) pointed out that gaining teaching experience contributed to the transformation of teachers\u2019 cognitions.<\/p>\n As demonstrated above, a number of studies have provided evidence for the importance of pedagogical reasoning and for the teachers\u2019 understanding of speaking instruction. Nevertheless, there is a paucity of context-specific and classroom-based studies in this regard, and research has yet to generate a genuine understanding of teachers\u2019 pedagogical reasoning in the teaching of the speaking skill. In particular, the field lacks insight into how novice teachers\u2019 cognition and pedagogical reasoning are represented in the context of teaching speaking in the classroom. As such, the current study grew out of a concern to explore teacher cognition in second language teaching, particularly in speaking instruction, and to understand how novice teachers\u2019 pedagogical reasoning is formulated and represented. This study aimed to fill this gap in teacher education research by tapping into the pedagogical reasoning skills that novice teachers utilize in their speaking instruction. To achieve the purposes of this study, the following research questions were addressed:<\/p>\n The current study was conducted in the Iranian EFL context. The setting was a local private language institute that offered general English courses to L2 learners at different proficiency levels, including elementary, intermediate, and advanced. The teachers employed in this institute came from various educational backgrounds and were recruited primarily based on their command of English and teaching skills. Moreover, similar to many language institutes in Iran, this institute ran a customized teacher training course that prospective teachers needed to pass in order to be qualified for teaching. Using global textbooks (such as the Touchstone<\/em> series), this language institute promoted a teaching methodology that placed great emphasis on developing communicative competence in L2 learners.<\/p>\n Four novice teachers of English as a foreign language, one male and three females, with less than two years of teaching experience were recruited for participation in this study. The selected teachers, who will be referred to by their pseudonyms (Hamid, Sarah, Mona, Roya), were all involved in the activity of teaching at the language institute. These teachers were selected on the basis of their instructional experience and their availability in the research context. They all had undertaken teacher training courses at the institute, but only one teacher (Roya) had completed a formal study in the field of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL). Table 1 provides more details about the teachers taking part in this study.<\/p>\n Table <\/strong>1<\/strong>. Demographic information about teachers participating in this study<\/strong><\/p>\n
\nTarbiat Modares University, Iran
\n<tajeddinz![\"atmark\"](\"http:\/\/www.tesl-ej.org\/atmark.png\")
modares.ac.ir><\/p>\n
\nTarbiat Modares University, Iran
\n<aso.biriyahoo.com><\/p>\n
\nTarbiat Modares University, Iran
\n<h.allamimodares.ac.ir><\/p>\nAbstract<\/h3>\n
Literature Review<\/h3>\n
Teacher Pedagogical Reasoning<\/h4>\n
Speaking Instruction<\/h4>\n
Teacher Knowledge Base and Speaking Instruction<\/h4>\n
\n
Method<\/h3>\n
Participants<\/h4>\n