AN EXPLORATION OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHER EDUCATORS’ COGNITIONS AND PRACTICES IN RELATION TO THE PEDAGOGICAL PURPOSES AND EFFICACIES OF 21ST-CENTURY DIGITAL TECHNOLOGIES

Abstract

This multiple case study investigates English language (EL) teacher educators’ cognitions and practices related to pedagogical technology integration. The focus concerns five native-English speaking teacher educators (TEs) within a teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) training program at a South Korean university. The goal was to determine 1) TESOL-TEs’ cognitions regarding the pedagogical purposes and efficacies of 21st–century digital technologies, 2) TESOL-TEs’ uses of such technologies in their practice, and 3) factors related to TESOL-TEs’ decisions of whether and how to integrate technologies into their praxis.

Data collected over twenty weeks in 2013 included four rounds of semi-structured interviews and two sets of classroom observations for each of the five focal participants, interviews with program administrators, written reflections, field notes, photographs, and document review. Data were coded using King’s (2004) template analysis method. Categories were based on constructs from the technological, pedagogical, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework (Mishra and Koehler, 2006) and the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT, Venkatesh et al., 2003) and UTAUT 2 (Venkatesh et al., 2012).

The focal participants displayed high levels of TPACK and used Web 2.0 applications extensively to facilitate interactions in their roles as teacher educators. It was found that UTAUT factors guided TEs’ decisions and use behaviour to varying degrees, but that the mediating factor of age did not relate to TEs’ decisions in the manner predicted by the UTAUT. TEs’ cognitions both coincided with and diverged from their practices.

This study contributes to research gaps on the roles, cognitions, and technology-related practices of TESOL-TEs in South Korea. Research on TEs in different contexts is recommended to gain further insights into the connections among these factors. TESOL program administrators and TEs will particularly benefit from the light shed on teacher educator cognitions and practices in this study.