The Gap Between Belief and Practice

To start with, I dont have many strong agreements or

disagreements about the beliefs. Id rather give them 1 or 5 at
most. The dialectics embedded in Chinese culture warns me that
there is nothing in the world called absolute. Moreover, the
dialectics in sociocultural theories caution me that these all might
well be the two sides of one coin.
What surprised and, to some extent, vexed me is the gap
between what I believe and what I actually do. For example, the only
zero I gave to is the belief that the teacher must teach to the test. I
know its totally wrong and yet I cant get rid of it I teach TOEFL in
Mid-state Literacy Council. When I first started in teaching TOEFL at
Mid-state, I warned myself of falling into the pitfall of teaching
English for the sole sake of passing exams. I had sociocultural
theories in my mind (and hands), and I wished to apply the higher
mental functions to my teaching. But the more I taught, the more I
found myself teaching the English to pass the tests rather than the
English for students to succeed in the long run. Now looking back, I
think there are at least two reasons for me to doing so: first, the
students needed to take the TOEFL in the short term. Second, its
much easier for me to teach dull testing skills than dynamic
communications. One student even came to me and said that what
I taught was a great help for her to pass the TOEFL while the classes
she took in the IECP would not help her to go anywhere. I told her
that the classes in the IECP were much better than my class in every

single aspect. Another student came to her aid saying that they had
to pass the TOEFL first and only then can they started to appreciate
the efforts made by IECP teachers.
I wished my class in Mid-state could have been more dynamic
and active. Thats why I give 6 to the belief that students need to
be kept active and interested by the teacher. I had envisioned
some of the activities I could do with students in the classroom (the
central design process). But the reality was that students and I were
more occupied with how to cope with different types of TOEFL
questions than make any room for dynamic and engaging activities
to take place. This goes back to Graves article about curriculum
enactment as well as Richards article about needs analysis. Before I
taught the class, I had concluded that the class should be focused
on the language learning that students would eventually benefit
from in the long run despite their needs to pass TOEFL in the short
term. But when I was actually enacting the belief, the students
strong needs for passing TOEFL got better of me. I couldnt ignore
how purpose-driven they are, so I started to negotiate between my
belief and their needs. As suggested by Graves, learners agency
came into play. The only difference is: in Graves case, learners and
the teacher are working towards enacting the same (or at least
similar) needs, while in my case we were working on achieving
somewhat conflicting needs.