Lecturers' Approaches to Teaching and the Relationship to Conceptions of Teaching and Learning

Abstract

The present study aims at investigating Algerian lecturers’ conceptions of teaching and learning, the approaches to teaching they adopt, and the correlation between the conceptions and approaches identified. The study was carried out with fourteen Algerian EFL lecturers in the department of English. These lecturers teach diverse courses: listening/speaking, reading/writing, grammar, cultural issues, schools of linguistics, study skills, applied statistics and research methods, research paper writing, methods of teaching, critical writing, literary genres, and Anglophone literature. This research uses a phenomenographic method of data collection and analysis including three instruments: interview, questionnaire, and classroom observation. A lecturers’ conceptions of teaching and learning interview along with a lecturers’ conceptions of teaching and learning questionnaire were constructed to explore lecturers’ conceptions of teaching and learning. A lecturers’ approaches to teaching interview was designed in addition to a classroom observation scheme in order to investigate lecturers’ approaches to teaching. A lecturers’ training experience questionnaire was also designed to explore the teacher training experience of the three lecturers who fell in the highest categories of conceptions and approaches