Applied Linguistics 25/2: 243±272 # Oxford University Press 2004

Teachers' Stated Beliefs about Incidental

Focus on Form and their Classroom
Practices
HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS
The University of Auckland

This article reports a case study investigating the relationship between three
teachers' stated beliefs about and practices of focus on form in intermediate
level ESL communicative lessons. Focus on form was de®ned and studied in
terms of incidental time-outs taken by students and teachers to deal with issues
of linguistic form during communicative lessons. The teachers' statements of
belief about focus on form were compared to their management of focus on
form during lessons in which all the teachers used the same communicative
task. Results showed some inconsistencies in the teachers' stated beliefs, in
particular in relation to when it is legitimate to take time out from a
communicative activity to focus on issues of form, and preferred error
correction technique. While some statistically signi®cant di€erences in the
teachers' practices were re¯ected in di€erences in their stated beliefs, others
were not. These results indicated a somewhat tenuous relationship between the
teachers' practices and stated beliefs regarding focus on form. It is argued that
future investigations of teachers' beliefs, especially of unplanned elements of
teaching such as focus on form, need to be based on both stated beliefs and
observed behaviours.

INTRODUCTION
The study reported in this article takes up Borg's (2003) call for investigations
that address speci®c aspects of language teaching in relation to teacher
cognition. The speci®c aspect of teaching that will be considered is focus on
form instruction. The aspect of cognition to be examined is teachers' beliefs.
We brie¯y examine these below.

Focus on form
Focus on form is a feature of communicative language teaching (CLT). CLT
can be broadly de®ned, at least in its `strong version' (Howatt 1984), as
teaching oriented primarily towards exchanging meaning or messages. It
typically involves the use of communicative tasks, de®ned by Skehan (1998:
268) as activities where: meaning is primary; there is a goal that needs to be
worked towards; the activity is outcome-evaluated; and there is a relationship
between the task and real life. Although CLT, so de®ned, is meaning-centred,
244 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

it need not preclude attention to form if this takes place in the context of
performing a communicative task. Long (1991) uses the term `focus on form'
to refer to such attention to form and has argued that it promotes language
acquisition because it enables learners to `notice' linguistic elements
(grammar, vocabulary, pronunciation, and discourse features) that might
otherwise have been missed, and because it is compatible with the learners'
internal syllabus (that is learners are free to attend to forms that are
`learnable').
Ellis (2001) has pointed out that focus on form can be either planned or
incidental. In planned focus on form, the teacher/researcher preselects a form
for attention and designs a focused communicative task that will provide
opportunities for its use. This type of focus on form has served as the subject of
a number of experimental studies (for example Doughty and Varela 1998). In
incidental focus on form, the teacher/researcher makes no attempt to
predetermine which form or forms will be attended to; rather, the focus on
form arises naturally out of the performance of a communicative task with no
pre-targeted language forms. Our concern in this paper is with incidental
focus on form.
Recent research (Lyster and Ranta 1997; Lyster 1998; Ellis et al. 2001a, b)
has documented the fact that incidental focus on form occurs frequently in
CLT. It can consist of responses to errors made by students (`reactive focus on
form') or queries raised by either the teacher or the students about a linguistic
item even though no error has occurred (`preemptive focus on form'). Our
previous research (Ellis et al. 2001a, b) has shown that incidental focus on
form episodes (FFEs) (that is, episodes in which the discourse is related to a
speci®c linguistic item) varied across classes in a number of ways, such as in
the complexity of episodes, in their linguistic focus, and in the teachers'
responses within them.

Teachers' beliefs
In recent years, there has been a shift away from a view of teachers as people
who master a set of general principles and theories developed by experts
towards a view of teaching as a thinking activity and teachers as people who
construct their own personal and workable theories of teaching (Fang 1996;
Borg 2003; Richards 1998). Concomitant with this conceptualization of
teaching as a thinking activity has been an increase in research into teachers'
beliefs (Borg 2003).
Although the concept of belief has attracted considerable research interest
in education in recent years, there is a lack of consensus about what the term
denotes (S. Borg 2003, M. Borg 2001; Woods 1996). In the present study, the
term beliefs is de®ned as statements teachers made about their ideas,
thoughts, and knowledge that are expressed as evaluations of what `should
be done', `should be the case', and `is preferable'. This de®nition is in line with
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 245

Linde's (1980: 2) de®nition of beliefs systems as `values, that is, about what
ought to be the case' as reported in Woods (1996: 70).
It is generally acknowledged that teachers' stated beliefs play an important
role in relation to instructional practice. Burns (1992: 58) describes the `beliefs
that motivate' instructional practices in the classroom. Johnson (1992) reports
research in the teaching of literacy supporting the notion that `beliefs tend to
shape' teachers' instructional practices. M. Borg (2001) proposes that beliefs
`guide' teachers' thought and behaviour. Some writers emphasize the
mutually informing nature of the relationship (Borg 2003; Fang 1996; Pajares
1992). Pajares (1992: 307) states: `Few would argue [dispute the fact] that the
beliefs teachers hold in¯uence their perceptions and judgements, which, in
turn, a€ect their behaviour in the classroom.'
Researchers have made use of both observational and self-report data to try
to understand how teachers make sense of their work. Burns (1992)
investigating the beliefs of six teachers about the use of written language in
teaching beginner-level students, encouraged the teachers to re¯ect on their
lessons and was able to identify a number of themes in the teachers'
`personalised theories'. Borg (1999) attempted to get teachers to identify their
implicit theories by examining their own instructional decision-making, and
to make what was implicit in practice, explicit as theory. Breen et al. (2001)
investigated how eighteen teachers in one particular teaching situation
described their classroom practices and explained the pedagogic principles
they based these practices on. They investigated whether a particular shared
disposition among a group of teachers would be materialized through similar
or diverse practices. They found that in some cases shared practices appeared
to be driven by di€erent stated principles and that in other instances the
teachers associated a shared principle with diverse practices.
Some studies have used self-report and observational data to compare the
extent to which teachers' stated beliefs are correlated with their practices. For
a review of such research in general education, see Fang (1996). Johnson
(1992) studied the ®t between the `theoretical orientations' (in terms of
methodological preferences) towards teaching ESL literacy of three teachers
and their instructional practices over a number of lessons. Some studies have
found consistency between stated beliefs and practices. For example, Johnson
found that ESL teachers holding clearly de®ned theoretical beliefs provided
instruction consistent with their theoretical orientations. Hsiao-Ching (2000)
identi®ed the stated beliefs of a seventh-grade biology teacher about gender-
related di€erences in learning style and classroom participation, and found
these beliefs re¯ected in the teacher's classroom practices. However, a number
of studies have found inconsistencies between stated beliefs and practices. A
study by Borko and Niles (1982) found that teachers' stated educational
beliefs were unrelated to how they grouped students for instruction. ESL
studies of self-styled communicative teachers have shown that these teachers
may no more create conditions for `genuine communication' in their
classrooms than other traditional teachers (Nunan 1987; Kumaravadivelu
246 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

1993). Fang (1996) surveys research on this topic and concludes that studies
based on multiple sources of data, including classroom observation, have
tended to show inconsistencies between stated beliefs and practices.
A key issue, then, is why teachers' practices sometimes contravene their
stated beliefs. A considerable body of literature now exists documenting the
role of context, and particularly constraints, that can hinder teachers from
implementing their stated beliefs (Borg 2003; Fang 1996). For example, a
study by Graden (1996) investigated the stated beliefs and practices of
teachers of reading instruction. The study found that the teachers had a
number of clearly articulated beliefs about reading instruction (for example,
the bene®ts of using the target language in reading practice) that generally
guided their practice. However, mismatches between their stated beliefs and
their practices were evident in observations of their lessons. The teachers
explained these in terms of constraints, such as time and lack of appropriate
materials. Woods (1996) reports a case study investigation of the thinking and
practices of experienced ESL teachers in university settings in Canada. The
study revealed that the teachers' interpreted classroom events through their
evolving networks of beliefs, assumptions, and knowledge (BAK). Woods'
study related `hotspots' in the data (elements which seemed incoherent) to
the dynamic and evolving nature of the teachers' BAK over time (1996: 248)
and showed that these hotspots came to be resolved through developments in
teaching experience and expertise.
An apparent mismatch can also be explained in terms of con¯icting belief
systems. The teachers in Graden's (1996) study reported that, in the main, it
was their perceptions of poor student performance and lack of motivation
that prevented them from providing instruction consistent with their stated
beliefs. Graden concluded that the teachers subordinated their beliefs about
reading instruction to their beliefs about the motivational needs of their
students. We can draw similar conclusions from studies that have speci®cally
investigated the reasons for teachers departing from their lesson plans (see
review in Borg 2003). Studies by Richards (1998) and Bailey (1996) found
that student factors most often prompted teachers' to make modi®cations.
For example, the teachers in Bailey's study were prompted to make changes
by their perceptions of the need to promote students' involvement and to
encourage more equal distribution of participation in the discourse in the
classroom.
It may be the case that teachers draw on di€erent sources of knowledge
when planning for teaching, as opposed to when they make on-line
decisions during teaching. Eraut (1994) and Ellis (1997) distinguish between
teachers' technical and practical knowledge. Technical knowledge denotes
the body of explicit ideas derived by a profession from deep re¯ection or
empirical investigation. These are general ideas that can be applied to many
cases. Johnson's (1992) study, mentioned above, found consistency
between teachers' stated beliefs and their planned practices, such as the
types of activities the teachers included in their lessons. Practical knowledge
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 247

denotes the procedural knowledge an individual practitioner has derived

from experiences of teaching and learning languages. It is used as a
resource to be applied rapidly and intuitively. Golombek's (1998) study of
the personal practical knowledge of two ESL teachers examined the on-line
decisions that they made in their teaching practice, and found the teachers
were strongly in¯uenced by their own experiences of language learning. It
may be hypothesized that because technical knowledge is typically not
`procedural', teachers may be less likely to draw on it in their interactive
decision-making in on-line lessons than on their practical knowledge. We
return to this later.
In the study reported below, we examine teachers' stated beliefs about
communicative language teaching and the role of incidental focus on form
and compare their stated beliefs with their focus on form practices in the
performance of a communicative task. Unlike studies of the relationship
between stated beliefs and practices, which have addressed how practices are
correlated with planned instructional behaviour (for example, Johnson 1992),
our concern here is with teachers' interactive decision-making. That is, we
examine to what extent teachers' stated beliefs relate to instructional practices
that re¯ect on-line `improvisation' (Van Lier 1996).

RESEARCH QUESTIONS
Our research questions were as follows:
1 How do teachers practise incidental focus on form?
2 What beliefs do teachers hold about incidental focus on form? To what
extent are these beliefs internally consistent?
3 To what extent are teachers' beliefs about incidental focus on form
congruent with their observed practices?

METHOD
Teaching context and participants
This study focuses on the practices of three teachers. It is part of a larger study
(Loewen 2002) investigating focus on form in intact classes with di€erent
teachers all from the same private language school in Auckland, New Zealand.
The full data set consisted of 48 lessons from 12 teachers, from 40 to 65
minutes in length. In recognition of the fact that individuals have their own
interpretations of what constitutes communicative teaching, the researcher
simply asked to observe lessons that the individual teachers themselves
considered to be communicative. No e€ort was made by the researcher to
guide the teachers in their choice of lesson plans. Following the observations,
a second researcher interviewed the teachers to elicit their stated beliefs of
focus on form in communicative teaching.
In the school there is a set of `communicative tasks' prepared in-house that
248 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

teachers can elect to use. During the original observations, the researcher
noticed that three teachers used the same communicative task (the Prisoner
Task as shown in Appendix A). This provides the opportunity to investigate
the stated beliefs and practices of these three teachers in relation to their use
of the same instructional material. That is, it allows us to compare teachers'
practices while keeping the task variable constant. The observational data for
this study, then, consists of one lesson for each of the three teachers, using the
same task, and in the same school.
The three teachers were all male, native speakers of English. Table 1 shows
their experience in teaching ESL, the length of time they had been at the
school, as well as their ESL quali®cations and the class they were teaching.
The teachers are listed in order of teaching experience.

Table 1: Teacher and class information

Teacher Teaching Time at ESOL Class Number
experience the school Quali®cations of
(years) students

Steve 15 5 years Diploma Upper 7

intermediate
level 1
Mark 11 4 months Certi®cate Intermediate 8
level 4
Rick 1 1 year Certi®cate Intermediate 12
level 3

No demographic information, apart from nationality, was gathered from the

students; however, students at this school averaged 22 years in age and came
to New Zealand to study English for a variety of reasons, including
preparation for academic study and professional development (Director of
Studies, personal communication). The students participating in the study
came from a variety of countries with a majority (over 75 per cent) from
Korea, China, Japan, and Taiwan.

Data collection
The study involved a combination of observational and self-report data. The
observational component involved observation of the teachers' lessons. The
self-report component comprised statements of beliefs about focus on form
elicited from teachers through the use of in-depth interviews, cued response
scenarios and stimulated recall. These instruments will now be described in
further detail.
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 249

Observations of lessons
One researcher was present as a non-participant observer in the naturally
occurring communicative lessons of the teachers at the school described
above. Each lesson was audio-recorded using a wireless clip-on microphone
that was attached to the teacher. This arrangement allowed the researcher to
record all teacher±student interaction during the class, including talk between
the teacher and individuals, pairs, small groups as well as the whole class. The
lessons were transcribed in their entirety.

Self-report data collection methods

In designing the instruments for eliciting teachers' stated beliefs we were
guided by the discussion of methodological issues in this ®eld presented in the
literature (Munby 1984; Kagan 1990; Grotjahn 1991; Woods 1996; Schwarz
2000).
The validity of ®ndings from some studies of beliefs has been questioned.
Methodologies based on a short-answer type questionnaire in which teachers
respond to standardized statements provide an etic rather than emic
perspective on beliefs, that is, they re¯ect the ideas of the researchers rather
than the teachers (Munby 1984). This risk is described by Kagan as follows:
`Any researcher who uses a short-answer test of teacher belief (i.e. an
instrument consisting of prefabricated statements) runs the risk of obtaining
bogus data, because standardized statements may mask or misrepresent a
particular teacher's highly personalised perceptions and de®nitions' (Kagan
1990: 426). In the present study we opted for an ethnomethodological
method, a method de®ned by Cohen and Manion (1989) as the attempt to
understand how the participants themselves (in this case, the teachers)
understand and make sense of their everyday world, and their assumptions
and conventions. To this end we designed a number of open-ended items
(such as sentence completion) and in-depth questions.
Beliefs can be held unconsciously and a teacher may not have the language
to express them or may be unwilling to express any unpopular beliefs they
hold, preferring to state beliefs viewed as socially desirable (Kagan 1990).
Thus it is preferable to access beliefs indirectly. Methodologies for this include
the use of extended interviews and stimulated recall in which teachers are
asked to recount speci®c cases and anecdotes (Kagan 1990; Woods 1996; Gass
and Mackey 2000).
For these reasons, a number of di€erent introspective techniques were used
to collect data about the teachers' beliefsÐan in-depth interview, cued
response scenarios, and stimulated recall. The interview aimed to enquire
about beliefs in the abstract by eliciting statements about the teachers'
orientations towards communicative language teaching and the role of focus
on form in it. The second and third techniques aimed to elicit the teachers'
interactive thinking and decision making on the subject.
250 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Our previous work on focus on form served as a basis for selecting the
speci®c aspects of focus on form to address using these introspective
techniques These aspects included the type of episode (reactive and
student-initiated or teacher-initiated pre-emptive episodes), the linguistic
focus of episodes (grammar, vocabulary, spelling, or pronunciation), the
reason for focusing on forms (because of problems in understanding the
message or because of concerns about language forms per se, that is accuracy),
and how the episodes are managed once they are in progress (the length of
episodes and the type of response given by the teacher).
(a) In-depth interview. The ®rst part of the interview was based roughly
around a semi-structured interview protocol. This involved some closed item
lead-in prompts that aimed to focus the respondents' attention on the subject
at hand. The main items were open-ended. Open-ended items have the added
advantage of eliciting ideas expressed in the respondents' own words
(Oppenheimer 1992). The principle that guided the design of the interview
was to avoid direct questioning in favour of indirect items. For example, we
did not ask the teachers what a good communicative lesson should be like, but
rather asked them to recall a successful communicative lesson they had
recently taught. See Appendix B for sample questions from the in-depth
interviews.
(b) Cued response scenarios. One problem in the design of some studies has
been that an attempt to assess beliefs has been made without instantiating the
context. To reduce this problem, the teachers were presented with a set of
scenarios of typical classroom situations and asked to comment on them.
These represented vignettes of critical incidents related to focus on form that
teachers might encounter in the classroom. The scenarios were derived from
our previous studies of focus on form in the communicative classroom (Ellis et
al. 2001a, b). They were based on typical focus on form episodes we had
observed in the CLT of a number of teachers at similar institutions. For
example, one scenario showed a student-initiated episode while another
showed a reactive (error correction) episode. One scenario was concerned
with pronunciation while others were concerned with grammar or
vocabulary. An example is shown in Appendix C. This scenario was devised
to represent a student-initiated enquiry about a vocabulary item. It re¯ected a
common type of focus on form episode, as demonstrated by our previous
research. However, it was not feasible to specify in the scenarios all the
individual and contextual factors which may a€ect teachers' responses, such
as a teacher's knowledge of the particular students involved and the mood of
the class.
The teachers were asked to comment on what they felt they should do in
these situations, because we wanted to ®nd out what they felt as desirable
behaviour in accordance with our de®nition of belief. We did not ask them
what they could do, as that would have invited them to list a number of
possibilities. All three teachers were shown the same episodes and this
technique enabled us to compare their responses to the same events.
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 251

(c) Stimulated recall. The third instrument in our elicitation procedure

involved stimulated recall (Gass and Mackey 2000) and centred on a subset of
four extracts recorded and transcribed from each teacher's lesson. Research
into teacher beliefs has been critiqued for eliciting abstract notions only and
failing to relate notions to the immediate and unique professional environ-
ment of the teacher (Munby 1984; Woods 1996). The use of stimulated recall
represented an attempt to provide a point of departure for the teachers to
articulate their beliefs in relation to their individual teaching contexts. These
extracts represented the various options for doing focus on form (Ellis et al.
2003), namely: (1) correction of an error by the teacher; (2) no response by
the teacher to a student language error; (3) teacher response to a student-
initiated language query; and (4) teacher initiation of a language focus even
though no error had occurred. The four recorded extracts were re-played to
the teacher who was also provided with a written transcript of them.
Appendix D provides an example. This shows an error correction episode
concerned with pronunciation. The teacher ostensibly deals with the error
because of a concern for language form, given that there was no discernable
problem in understanding the message. Again, our previous research had
shown that teachers in this type of school made a good number of error
corrections during lessons the teachers themselves labelled as communicative,
even though there had been no breakdown in understanding.
The aim of the stimulated recall was to provide the teachers with the
opportunity to verbalize their thoughts about their interactive decision
making. We wanted to ®nd out whether the episodes re¯ected what the
teachers felt they should have done in these events. The episodes in the
stimulated recall also gave the teachers the opportunity to talk about their
beliefs concerning focus on form in relation to the immediate context of their
own classroom. However, we acknowledge a danger of this technique, namely
that it may have led the teachers to simply o€er post hoc rationalizations.

Data analysis
Two of the researchers ®rst analysed the observational and self-report data on
their own and then compared their analyses. The teachers themselves were
not involved in analysing or commenting on the analysis of the data.
Although presenting teachers with an analysis and eliciting their comments
can provide a further source of validation for the analysis (see Woods 1996), it
was not possible to incorporate this into the design of the study.

Analysis of the observational data to identify teachers' focus on

form practices
The analysis of the classroom data involved identifying the focus on form
episodes in each teacher's lesson and coding the particular characteristics of
each episode.
252 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

(a) Identifying focus on form episodes (FFE). The recordings of the lessons were
transcribed and focus on form episodes (FFEs) were identi®ed. In line with
our wider research study, an FFE was de®ned as `the discourse from the point
where the attention to linguistic form starts to the point where it ends, due to
a change in topic back to message or sometimes another focus on form' (Ellis
et al. 2001a: 294). In order to check the reliability of the identi®cation of FFEs,
the data were coded by a second rater and an agreement rate of 89.9 per cent
was reached.
(b) Coding of characteristics. The FFEs were then coded, based on Ellis,
Loewen, and Basturkmen (1999) by the researchers for the characteristics
shown in Table 2. To illustrate this scheme, a number of focus on form
episodes will now be discussed.

Example 1

Episode Characteristics Category

S: yeah I'm a patriost Type Reactive

T: a patriot Linguistic focus Pronunciation
S: yeah Complexity Simple
Source Code
Response Provide (Recast)

Example 1 illustrates a reactive FFE in which the teacher brie¯y focuses on

a student's incorrect pronunciation of patriot. Although the teacher appears to
understand the student, he decides to address the error by providing the
correct form. The FFE is simple because the student's error and the teacher's
response each comprise only one utterance.
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 253

Table 2: Characteristics of focus on form episodes

Characteristic De®nition Categories Inter coder
reliability
(k =)

Type When the FFE is Reactive (error correction) .900

instigated Student-initiated query
Teacher-initiated language
point*
Linguistic focus Aspect of language Grammar .970
targeted in the FFE Vocabulary
Pronunciation
Source Why an FFE is Code .879
instigated Inaccuracy in use of a
language form
Message
Problem understanding
meaning
Complexity Length of the FFE Simple .776
short, up to 4-turn
exchange
Complex
long, 5+ turn exchange
Teacher Type of feedback Provide .842
response provided by the T gives information
teacher about a language
form either by use of a
recast (reformulation of
a student's utterance
retaining the original
meaning but improving
the language) or an
inform (explanation of
the form)
Elicit
T attempts to draw out
from student(s) a
language form or
information about a
language form

* The teacher's initiation of the FFE parallels the options of provide or elicit described
in teacher response.
254 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Example 2

Episode Characteristics Category

S1: positive about the future Type Student-initiated

S2: what's mean positive Linguistic focus Vocabulary
S1: that means mmm
T: they are optimistic mm ok she Complexity Complex
she feels good about the future
S1: mhm Source Message
S2: oh Response Provide (Inform)
T: she feels like the future will be
good for her
S2: how you spell positive

Example 2 shows an episode in which a student raises a question about the

meaning of the vocabulary item positive. The episode is complex since there is
more than one response turn by the teacher. In both of the response turns,
the teacher provides information about the meaning of the vocabulary item.
The episode ends (and a new one begins) when the student changes the
linguistic focus from the meaning to the spelling of the linguistic item.

Example 3

Episode Characteristics Category

T: so if he has committed theft Type Teacher-initiated

what is he
S1: um he was in prison for 2 Linguistic focus Vocabulary
years
T: yeh that's where he was, what Complexity Complex
do we call a person who commits
theft?
S2: Thief Source Code
T: Thief Response Elicit
S1: Thief
T: Yeh ok
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 255

Example 3 shows the teacher initiating an episode about an item of

vocabulary (thief). There has been no problem in understanding meaning;
however, the teacher wishes to improve the student's ability to use the
language accurately (code). The teacher does this by eliciting the form from
the students, rather than by providing it for them. The episode is complex as it
involves the teacher and students in more than one turn each.
(c) Statistical analysis. In order to analyse and compare the characteristics of
FFEs occurring in the three lessons, raw frequencies as well as percentages
were calculated. Additionally, because the data consisted of frequency counts
of categorical data, Pearson's Chi-square analysis was performed on the raw
frequencies, using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS) 10.0.
An alpha level of p < .05 was set for all chi-squares. Since the analyses
involved variables with more than two coding categories (that is chi-squares
larger than 2  2), adjusted standardized residuals of greater than plus or
minus 2.0 were used to identify signi®cant di€erences. It was also necessary to
exclude some coding categories from the chi-square analyses because they did
not have suciently high cell counts. These instances are noted in the results
section.

Analysis of the self-report data to identify teachers' stated beliefs

Following Waeytens et al. (2002: 312) we aimed for `an immersion in the
data'. The teachers' introspective comments were transcribed and two
researchers read the transcripts and listened to the recordings a number of
times. We devised a coding matrix with empty boxes for each teacher's
de®nition of communicative teaching, ideas about when to focus on form,
why to focus on form, what aspects of language to focus on and how to
manage focus on form in communicative lessons. We used this matrix to
record how the teachers individually positioned themselves in regard to focus
on form. Two researchers independently searched for belief statements and
quotes in the data and listed them in the boxes. They also noted any other
themes in the teachers' statements of beliefs not related to the above and any
con¯icting beliefs expressed. The researchers independently wrote a pro®le of
each teacher based on their notes. Then the researchers came together and
compared the pro®les. In general the pro®les were similar, but where they
di€ered the researchers returned to the data and negotiated an agreement.

Comparing the two sets of data

We related the stated beliefs to observed practice as shown in Table 3. For
example, we searched the self-report data for statements made by the teacher
of his beliefs about why to focus on form during communicative lessons
(because of problems with accuracy or understanding the message a student
was trying to convey). For example, a teacher may make a number of
statements that it is best to interfere with the ¯ow of a communicative activity
256 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Table 3: Comparison of data on stated beliefs and observed practice

Stated beliefs Characteristics of FFEs in observed practice

What approach to adopt when Type (reactive, student-initiated or teacher-

focusing on form initiated)
Why to focus on form Source (message or code)
What to focus on Language focus (grammar, vocabulary, or
pronunciation)
How to best focus on form Complexity (simple or complex)
and
Teacher response (provide or elicit)

only when there is a problem of understanding. We then examined the

observational data to identify how often focus on form episodes were initiated
by the teacher because of a communication problem, as opposed to how often
focus on form episodes were initiated by the teacher to deal with a language
form despite no apparent diculty in understanding the message.
In relating the teachers' stated beliefs to observational data we did not want
to simply con®rm or discon®rm whether the stated beliefs were evident in
their practice. After all, we would hardly expect to ®nd no evidence of
teachers' stated beliefs in their teaching practice; furthermore, we would
expect that there would be occasions when a stated belief is contradicted by
practiceÐperhaps due to constraints. No one would expect a teacher's practice
to either always or never match his or her stated beliefs. Rather our aim was
to examine the extent to which the teachers' stated beliefs were re¯ected in
their practice.

RESULTS
The results are reported in two parts. In each part, the teachers are listed in
order of teaching experience, beginning with the most experienced teacher.
First, the teachers' focus on form practices are described in terms of statistical
information relating to the various characteristics of focus on form episodes.
Second, the stated beliefs of each teacher, as re¯ected in the introspective
data, are reported qualitatively. Finally the extent to which the teachers'
beliefs matched their practices was assessed.

The teachers' focus on form practices

Table 4 provides information about the length of time each teacher spent on
the task, the number of FFEs that occurred and the ratio of FFEs per minute.
Our observations showed that the amount of time spent on the task varied
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 257

Table 4: Frequency of focus on form episodes

Teacher Length of Number of FFEs Ratio of FFEs
observation per minute
(in minutes)

Steve 63 31 .49
Mark 58 26 .45
Rick 40 50 1.25

Note: Each teacher spent a di€erent amount of time on the task.

from teacher to teacher. Table 4 shows that Mark and Steve had similar ratios
of roughly 0.5 FFEs per minute, while Rick had a higher ratio of 1.25 FFEs per
minute.
Table 5 reveals the characteristics of focus on form that were present in each
class. Regarding type of FFE, we see that Rick had a signi®cantly higher
number of Reactive FFEs (82 per cent) than did the other two teachers.
Conversely, Steve participated in a signi®cantly higher number of student-
initiated FFEs (51.6 per cent) than did Mark and Rick. When examining the
complexity of the FFEs, the chi-square analysis indicated that Steve had a
signi®cantly higher frequency of complex FFEs (64.5 per cent) than the other
teachers. Although the complexity residuals for Mark do not reach the 2.0
threshold, they are very close (at 1.9), indicating a trend towards a
signi®cantly higher frequency of simple FFEs for Mark than for the other
teachers. For Response moves, the chi-square analysis indicated that Rick had
a signi®cantly higher frequency of Elicitation moves (26 per cent) than did the
other teachers. Again, Mark's residuals do not quite meet the 2.0 threshold,
but they come close (1.8), indicating a trend towards a signi®cantly higher
frequency of Provide moves for Mark than for the other teachers. With regard
to Linguistic Focus and Source, Table 5 indicates that there were no signi®cant
di€erences among the three teachers.

The teachers' stated beliefs about focus on form

Each teacher's stated beliefs about focus on form will be considered in turn.
Apparent inconsistencies in their beliefs will be noted. This section will also
compare each teacher's practices and stated beliefs, pointing out both
congruences and incongruences.

Steve
Below are the main themes to emerge from the analysis of Steve's beliefs
about focus on form:
Table 5: FFE characteristics
Teacher Type Complexity Response Linguistic Focus*** Source

Reactive Student- Teacher- Simple Complex Provide** Elicitation Vocabulary Grammar Pronunciation Code Message
initiated initiated*
Recast Inform

Steve 13 16 2 11 20 9 20 2 13 10 6 25 6
(41.9%) (51.6%) (6.5%) (35.5%) (64.5%) (29%) (64.5%) (6.5%) (44.8%) (34.5%) (20.7%) (80.6%) (19.4%)
Residual ±3.8 3.8 ±2.4 2.4 1.6 ±1.6 .9 ±.6 ±.4 ±.4 .4

Mark 16 6 4 18 8 15 10 1 12 5 7 19
(61.5%) (23.1%) (15.4%) (69.2%) (30.8%) (57.7%) (38.5%) (3.8%) (50.0%) (20.8%) (29.2%) (73.1%) (26.9%)
Residual .2 ±.2 1.9 ±1.9 1.8 ±1.8 1.4 ±2.1 .8 ±1.6 1.6

Rick 41 6 3 28 22 29 8 13 13 24 10 45
(82%) (12%) (6%) (56.0%) (44.0%) (58%) (16%) (26.0%) (27.7%) (51.1%) (21.3%) (90.0%) (10.0%)
Residual 3.3 ±3.3 .5 ±.5 ±3.0 3.0 ±2.0 2.3 ±.4 1.8 ±1.8

n 98 107 107 100 107

df 2 2 2 4 2
w2 15.82 6.75 9.08 7.05 3.70
p .001 .034 .011 .331 .157

* Teacher-initiated FFEs were not included in the chi-square analysis due to low cell counts.
** Recasts and Informs were combined as Provides for the chi-square analysis.
*** Spelling FFEs (n = 7) were excluded from this table.
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 259

. Steve believed that the role of the teacher in communicative lessons should
be as a resource for students to consult if needed and not as a director. He
recalled one particularly successful lesson in which just a few students had
turned up to class. The lesson had been truly communicative, he felt,
because he had what he termed a `natural' conversation. He described this
as a discussion in which the students had led the discourse. It was
successful he felt because it was `directed by the students not by me'.
. Steve believed self-correction was the best form of error correctionÐ`self
correction is my favoured mode' (response to scenario 4). He felt his role
should be to indicate that an error had occurred, but not actually to repair
it. He reported the techniques he used, such as the `thumbs down' sign.
. Steve did not emphasize any particular aspects of language for focusing on;
however, he believed that special attention should be paid to language
forms that had been taught in previous lessons.
. Steve said that he was not keen on student-initiated language queries, but
felt he should answer such questions if asked.
. Steve had nothing to say about the need for focus on form to be
unobtrusive.

Steve was inconsistent about why to focus on form. He stressed several times
in the in-depth interview that communicative lessons should not be about
accuracy and that he was `very suspicious of error correction'. He talked of
wanting students to feel safe, expressed his view that learning takes time, and
pointed out that the research literature reports that correction of errors does
not lead to immediate acquisition. He stated a preference for refraining from
interfering during communicative activities unless there was a problem with
message comprehension. In his response to scenario 4, for example, he stated
that if diculties with language forms `were not impeding a ¯uent exchange,
I'd wait'. Yet Steve also stated his belief that errors related to target (that is
taught) structures should be corrected: `Target structures are fresh in the
students' minds and should be worked on while hot' (response to scenario 6).
Congruence between Steve's stated beliefs and practices was evident in that
the fact that, in accordance with his conviction that the teacher should serve
as a resource during a communicative task, in the Prisoner Task the students
were working on their own for approximately two-thirds of the time.
Otherwise there were a number of incongruences between stated beliefs
and practices. Table 5 shows that the proportion of student-initiated FFEs in
Steve's lesson was high (51.6 per cent), even though Steve's beliefs about this
issue were mixed. Also, in contrast to his stated beliefs, Steve rarely used
elicitation in response to FFEs (6.5 per cent) and mostly used informs (64.5
per cent). Finally, and in contrast to Steve's stated belief that he should refrain
from interfering in communicative activities unless there was a problem in
message comprehension, few FFEs in Steve's lesson arose from problems in
message comprehension (19.4 per cent).
260 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Mark
The following are the main themes to emerge from the analysis of Marks'
beliefs about focus on form:

. Mark referred mostly to pronunciation and vocabulary rather than to

grammar in discussing his ideas about communicative instruction. For
example, in response to one scenario, Mark emphatically stated `Pronunci-
ation is important!' He also talked about helping students when they are
struggling with vocabulary as a legitimate `time-out' from actual commun-
ication.
. He felt that students should try their best to solve language problems for
themselves rather than asking him: `I do prefer them to work things out'
(response to scenario 2). His lack of enthusiasm for student-initiated
language queries was revealed again in his response to stimulated recall
episode 2: `If I was asked directly . . . it would be unfair of me not to give
them a word . . . so if I am asked directly I suppose I usually give them the
answer'.
. Mark saw communication as paramount. He made statements, such as:
`communication is more important than going into linguistic forms', `I
don't like to impede communication unnecessarily (response to scenario 4)
and `I didn't want to stop the communication' (stimulated recall).
. Corollaries of this belief were (1) that time-outs from communication to
deal with linguistic form should be as short as possible and unobtrusive;
and (2) time should be taken out from communicative activities to deal
with issues of language form only when necessary for understanding. He
stated `I will actually allow linguistic form to lie dormant, and I will allow
communication to continue. But if I feel some obstacle is impeding the ¯ow
of communication, then I think it is very important to stop' (in-depth
interview).

Mark appeared to be inconsistent in his beliefs about error correction.

Although he stated a preference for not stopping the ¯ow of communication,
he also referred to the importance of helping students with pronunciation and
vocabulary. He stated his preference for providing error correction after a
communicative activity via some whole-class activity (in-depth interview).
However, he also stated a preference for recasting, a technique allowing the
teacher to provide linguistic information indirectly and unobtrusively. When
presented with examples of recasts in the interview, he stated that this type of
response was `de®nitely typical of me. . . . Yeah that's typical to actually give
them the word without it seeming like I'm giving them the word' (stimulated
recall). Elsewhere in the interview, Mark stated a preference for student self-
correction (for example in response to scenario 5). One possible explanation
for these apparent inconsistencies can be found in his statements of belief
about a€ective variables (for example his appraisal of the class mood and of
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 261

the con®dence of individual students) a€ecting decision making about

whether to do error correction.
The relationship between Mark's stated beliefs and his practice showed a
mix of congruence and incongruence. Congruent with his stated beliefs, more
of the FFEs initiated by Mark were concerned with pronunciation (29.2 per
cent) and vocabulary (50 per cent) than grammar (20.8 per cent). Table 5
shows also that, largely in line with his stated views on student queries about
language forms, there were few instances of student-initiated language
queries (23.1 per cent) in Mark's lesson. It is also possible that the behaviour
of Mark's students in this respect re¯ects their perceptions of their teacher's
attitude to this aspect of focus of form. Additionally, Mark stated that time-
outs from communication to deal with language form issues should be as
short as possible and unobtrusive. Table 5 shows this belief was re¯ected in his
practice. The FFEs in his lesson were predominantly short and simple (69.2
per cent).
There were also some of Marks' practices that seemed incongruent with his
beliefs. Although Mark clearly indicated that he thought he should attend to
form only when there was a breakdown in communication, the great majority
(73.1 per cent) of the FFEs in Mark's lesson had their source as code, and only
26.9 per cent of the episodes arose because of diculties in understanding (see
Table 5). Also, his actual practice of error correction did not accord closely
with his stated beliefs. Table 5 shows that Mark often interrupted the ¯ow of
the activity to focus on error correction on the spot (61.5 per cent), whereas
he had in fact stated that he believed error correction was best done after the
task was ®nished. He responded to errors with recasts (as indeed he claimed
he did), but he rarely used elicitation to allow students to self-correct even
though he had indicated the desirability of doing this.

Rick
The main themes to emerge from the analysis of Rick's beliefs about focus on
form were as follows:

. Rick believed that grammar was particularly important. In his interview he

made continual references to `target grammar structures'. He recalled a
recent successful communicative lesson as a `desert island consensus
activity . . . negotiations . . . the groups of language that we had gone
through in that lesson were being used particularly well and I remember
coming away from that thinking, we'll do that with it again in the next
course' (in-depth interview). He also stated that the class often had
grammar lessons `perhaps 90 or 100 per cent' of lessons (in-depth
interview). He talked about writing up on the board each day the structure
of the day.
. In regard to other language areas (such as pronunciation and vocabulary),
Rick had a more `it depends' policy and stated that his decisions as to
262 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

whether to intervene were tempered with considerations about the relative

importance of the error (stimulated recall).
. A corollary of his belief about the importance of grammar was that Rick
viewed communicative lessons primarily as a means to practise grammar
items taught in previous lessons. He stated, `I would be using a
communicative activity to give the students the opportunity to use that
item' (in-depth interview). Rick's view that the students should be using
the target structure was repeated again and again: `the students should use
the target grammatical structure' (in-depth interview), `I wouldn't like
them to go through a lesson on a particular item, get to the communicative
activity and then not need to use it. So I would manipulate that activity so
that they either had to use it, or I would insist on them using it' (in-depth
interview). For Rick communicative lessons are `the place to work on
language . . . done . . . previously' (stimulated recall) and his criteria for a
successful communicative lesson was that `the form has been used
accurately and successfully and regularly' (in-depth interview).
. Because Rick saw targeted grammatical structures as important, he also felt
they should be corrected: `I would correct it if it was the target language of
the lesson (Response to scenario 3), and `the target language simply wasn't
being used and I thought ok we can stop this and revisit this' (stimulated
recall).
. Rick expressed his belief that focus on form including error correction
should be unobtrusive. He talked about the need for focus on form to be
brief, using the expressions `in and out' and `unobtrusive' to refer to his
preferred strategy. Rick believed that there was a need to avoid what he
termed `disjointing the discourse' (response to scenario 1). In relation to
error correction and discussion of language issues, he stated that it is
preferable to `try to get it over as quickly as possible' (stimulated recall).
. In terms of teacher responses to language queries and problems during
communicative activities, Rick expressed a strong preference for student
self- and peer-correction.
. Rick stated that he did not see recasts as an e€ective way of correcting
student errors. He was distrustful of this implicit form of error correction
because it does not signal clearly enough to students that an error occurred
and gives a mixed message: `just saying your behaviour (not your behaving)
con®rms to them that they are being understood' (response to scenario 4).
Thus, Rick believed that error correction should be explicit: `Unless
correction is done fully (directly) it can lead to con®rmation of the mistake'
(scenario 1).

Rick expressed inconsistent beliefs about why to focus on form. He stated that
a legitimate time-out from communicative activities was when there was
incorrect use of a previously taught grammatical form. However, in relation to
one scenario he stated that the only legitimate time-outs from communicative
activities were when there was a problem with meaning. He stated that he
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 263

would not interrupt the communicative activity, on the grounds that `the
success of interaction is more important to the students than accuracy'. Yet
elsewhere he talked of success in terms of students using the target structure
accurately and of the need to interrupt them if they do not do so. Rick also
said several times that he believed he should avoid stopping the ¯ow of a
communicative activity. Thus, there appeared to be a tension, or indeed
con¯ict, for Rick, between trying to get the students to use the targeted
language items correctly, and not stopping the ¯ow of a communicative
activity. Rick also had inconsistent beliefs about students raising questions
about language forms during communicative activities. At one point he stated
he thought he should try to `get around it. I'd prefer them to carry on talking'
(response to stimulated recall episode 2). However, elsewhere (response to
scenario 2), he stated he believed he should supply linguistic information
even if this was not essential for meaning, since `students look to the teacher
for guidance and recommendations of appropriate language'.
In two particular respects Rick's stated beliefs were congruent with his
practices. Table 5 shows that the preponderance of FFEs in Rick's lesson
concerned grammatical structures (51.1 per cent), a ®nding that was
congruent with his stated beliefs. Secondly he talked a good deal (if somewhat
inconsistently) about accuracy, which was in line with the high number of
reactive FFEs (82 per cent) in his lesson that con®rmed his preparedness to
address learner errors.
In other respects, however, there was incongruence. Table 5 shows that, in
contrast to his somewhat inconsistent beliefs regarding whether to address
code or communicative problems, the great majority of FFEs in Rick's lesson
(90 per cent) concerned code, and very few episodes arose as a result of
diculties in message comprehension. Also, although he stated that he should
attend to student-initiated problems, there were only a few student-initiated
episodes (12.8 per cent) in his lesson. Rick's stated belief about the purpose of
communicative activities (that is to provide opportunities for practising
grammatical structures) was also not clearly re¯ected in his focus on form
practices. There was no evidence of his using the Prisoner Task to focus on
pre-targeted structures; in fact he addressed a range of grammatical items (for
example, gender pronouns, conditionals, plurals, prepositions) in much the
same way as the other teachers. Further incongruences between stated beliefs
and practices were evident in how errors were corrected. Rick spoke strongly
and often of his belief that any focusing on form in a communicative activity
should be done unobtrusively, but, in spite of this, he manifested a fairly high
rate of complex episodes in his lesson. Table 5 shows that 44 per cent of the
episodes were complex (that is, longer and thus more obtrusive). Table 5 also
shows that, contrary to his stated belief, Rick used recasts (an indirect
correction technique) more often (58 per cent) than other error correction
types.
264 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Summary
In order to highlight the main areas where the teachers' beliefs and practices
were congruent and incongruent, Table 6 summarizes their beliefs and
practices in relation to the main features of focus on form. There were three
aspects of focus on form (type, complexity, and response) where the teachers'
di€ered amongst themselves, and two aspects (linguistic focus and source)
where there were no di€erences. There are some points at which the teachers'
practices clearly re¯ect their beliefs (for example their lack of enthusiasm for
student initiated FFEs) and several where they do not. A good example
concerns the source of FFEs. All three teachers focused on form predomi-
nately for its own sake (that is, where the motivation for the episode was the
`code', that is, source = code) whereas in fact all three stated that form should
be focused on only when there was a problem of comprehension (that is,
source = message). There are also several cases where one teacher's practice
di€ered from the other two, and this was re¯ected in this teacher's stated
beliefs (for example Mark used more recasts than either Rick or Steve and also
stated a preference for this type of response). But there were also cases where
a teacher's practice di€ered from the other two even though this did not
correspond to his stated belief (for example, Steve predominantly dealt with
student errors by providing linguistic information, whereas he stated that
student self-correction was preferable).

DISCUSSION
The ®rst research question concerned whether the teachers' practices
regarding focus on form di€ered. Overall, the results showed a number of
striking similarities in the three teachers' management of focus on form in the
Prisoner Task. However, there were also a number of di€erences (see Loewen
2003). These di€erences cannot be readily explained by contextual factors,
since, as stated earlier, the three teachers were teaching students of the same
pro®ciency level in the same institution and were using the same commun-
icative task. A more likely explanation for the di€erences, then, is to be found
in the personal teaching styles of the three teachers and the belief systems that
underlie these styles, including their notions of what communicative
language teaching entailed. These di€erences in practice are evident in the
summary provided in Table 6.
The second research question addressed the nature of the teachers' beliefs
about focus on form, and the extent to which their beliefs were internally
consistent. The teachers all expressed very de®nite beliefs about how to focus
on form. In a number of respects their beliefs were the same. For example, all
three teachers were unenthusiastic about students initiating FFEs, on the
grounds that this would interrupt the communicative ¯ow of the lesson. All
three teachers stated that it was important not to attend to form unless this
was needed to address a problem of understanding. Finally, they all expressed
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 265

Table 6: Summary of main di€erences between stated beliefs and focus on

form practices
FFE feature Teacher Observed Beliefs Comments
preferences

Type Steve Signi®cantly more Students should Steve's higher

Student-initiated lead the discourse frequency of student-
FFEs initiated FFEs is
re¯ected in (one of)
his beliefs; this belief
is not expressed by
other teachers.
Target incorrect use No `previously taught'
of previously taught linguistic structures
structures were identi®ed in the
FFEs.
Unenthusiastic All three teachers
about student- made similar
initiate FFEs statements
Mark No observed Unenthusiastic All three teachers
preference about student- made similar
initiated FFEs statements
Rick Signi®cantly more Preferred reactive Practice re¯ected in
Reactive FFEs FFEs beliefs
Target incorrect use No `previously taught'
of previously taught linguistic structures
structures were identi®ed in the
FFEs.
Unenthusiastic All three teachers
about student- made similar
initiate FFEs statements
Complexity Steve Signi®cantly more Did not comment Unlike Mark and
complex FFEs about the length or Rick, Steve stated no
obtrusiveness of preference for simple
FFEs or complex FFEs,
although his practice
di€ered signi®cantly
from the other two
teachers.
Mark Trend towards Preferred short, Practice re¯ected in
signi®cantly more simple FFEs beliefs.
simple FFEs
Rick No observed Preferred Practice not strongly
preference unobtrusive FFEs re¯ected in beliefs.
Response Steve No observed Preferred student Steve's preference for
preference self-correction student self-correction
is not strongly
re¯ected in his
practice.
266 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

Table 6: cont.
FFE feature Teacher Observed Beliefs Comments
preferences

Response Mark Trend towards Preferred recasting Only Mark expressed

(cont.) signi®cantly more and student self- a preference for
Provide responses correction recasting and this
preference is re¯ected
in his practice.
Rick Signi®cantly more Preferred student Although all three
Elicitation responses self-correction teachers expressed a
Distrusted recasts preference for student
self-correction, Rick
had signi®cantly more
elicitation responses.
Linguistic Steve No observed Preferred grammar Although the three
focus preference (previously taught teachers expressed
structures) some di€erences in
beliefs, no statistically
signi®cant di€erences
were found in the
linguistic focus of the
FFEs.
Mark No observed Preferred
preference vocabulary and
pronunciation
Rick No observed Preferred grammar
preference (recently taught
structures)
Source Steve No observed Preferred not to All three teachers
preference interfere except to expressed similar
deal with statements about
comprehension focusing on form for
problems the sake of message
Target previously comprehension;
taught structures however, the teachers
did not di€er in that
they all focused on
form primarily for the
sake of linguistic
accuracy (i.e. code).
Mark No observed Preferred not to
preference interfere unless
necessary for
communication
Rick No observed Preferred not to
preference stop the ¯ow of
communication
Target incorrect use
of previously taught
structures
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 267

a preference for student self-correction. In other respects, there were clear

di€erences in their beliefs. One interesting di€erence concerned their beliefs
about the value of recasts. Mark expressed a clear preference for this type of
correction, whereas Rick expressed distrust. Another di€erence was evident in
their views on what linguistic forms should be the object of focus on form.
Mark indicated a preference for focusing on vocabulary and pronunciation,
whereas Rick and Steve both felt it was desirable to focus their attention on
previously taught grammatical structures. It is perhaps not surprising that
there were di€erences in their beliefs, given the complexity of focus on form
as a behavioural phenomenon and individual di€erences (for example, with
regard to experience) between the teachers.
All three teachers demonstrated inconsistencies in their stated beliefs about
focus on form, giving support to the arguments of Grotjahn (1991) and Schutz
(1970) that beliefs need not necessarily be consistent. Schutz states that a
person `may consider statements as equally valid which are in fact
incompatible with one another' (p. 76). The results also con®rm the ®ndings
of a study by Sato and Kleinsasser (1999: 510), who found that teachers `held
varying, even fragmentary views' of CLT. Inconsistencies emerged with regard
to reactive FFEs (for example, Mark's belief in the utility of recasting learners'
deviant utterances on-line, versus his belief that error-correction was best
delayed until the task was completed). In particular, the teachers demon-
strated inconsistency with regard to their beliefs about the importance of not
interfering with the communicative ¯ow of the lesson, and their beliefs about
the need to focus on errors relating to previously taught structures, or to
address student-initiated enquiries about form, both of which are likely to
impede the ¯ow.
How can these inconsistencies in stated beliefs be explained? One possibility
is that the statements of belief the teachers made in the abstract (that is in the
in-depth interviews) re¯ect technical rather than practical knowledge (Eraut
1994; Ellis 1997). For example, in the interviews, the teachers emphasized the
need to maintain the communicative ¯ow of the lesson by refraining from
correcting errors, whereas in their responses to the scenarios they indicated
their belief in the need for teacher action to address the incorrect use of
linguistic forms. The explanation for this inconsistency could be that, in the
abstract, the teachers drew on their technical knowledge. However, when
confronted with contexts from the classroom, the teachers drew on their
practical knowledge. It is possible that over time teachers will be able to
proceduralize their technical knowledge, thus making it more accessible. In
such cases, the inconsistencies may disappear with experience. It is noticeable
that Rick, the least experienced of the three teachers, was also the most
inconsistent. Inexperienced teachers such as Rick may ®nd it especially
dicult to integrate their technical and practical knowledge. It should be
noted, however, that Eraut's account of the two types of knowledge suggests
that such proceduralization often does not occur. He argues, for example, that
experienced doctors tend to rely on their knowledge of previous cases rather
268 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

than on their technical knowledge in handling individual patient consulta-

tions.
It may be better, however, to view these stated beliefs as potentially
con¯ictual rather than inherently inconsistent. That is, they are hot-spots
(Woods 1996) that present a challenge to the teacher. Mark, for example, will
need to work out how far to respond on-line to error through the use of
recasts, or to delay treatment to later. All three teachers will need to work out
just how much attention to form they can give during a task without
interfering with the communicative ¯ow. These `tensions' re¯ect major issues
to do with the practice of focus on form, issues which remain controversial
even at a theoretical level. It is, perhaps, not surprising, therefore, that they
are also manifest in the data from the teachers.
The third research question concerned the relationship between the
teachers' practice of focus on form and their stated beliefs. In certain respects
the teachers' management of focus on form in the Prisoner Task re¯ected their
stated beliefs. For example, Rick talked about the importance of attending to
target grammar structures, and a higher percentage of the FFEs in his lesson
were grammar oriented than in the lessons of the other two teachers
(although we do not know, however, how many of these grammar items had
been previously taught by Rick). However, as Table 6 shows, there were also
clear examples of mismatches between the teachers' practice and their beliefs.
The most obvious example is to be found in the lack of congruence between
the teachers' belief that focus on form should arise in response to problems in
understanding the students' messages, and the fact that in practice focus on
form was motivated by perceived breaches of the code. In short, the teachers'
stated beliefs o€ered only a partial window on practice, thus con®rming
Pajares' (1992) conclusion that (stated) beliefs are an unreliable guide to
reality.
Discrepancies between behaviour and beliefs are often attributed to
situational constraints (Oskamp 1991; Vaughan and Hogg 1998). However,
we found that in responding to the stimulated recalls, the teachers did not
refer to constraints or factors hindering them from doing what they should
ideally do. They simply justi®ed their actions despite the fact that these actions
sometimes contradicted the beliefs they had expressed earlier in the interview.
However, it should also be acknowledged that the fact that teachers did not
refer to any constraints may have resulted from the nature of the elicitations,
since the prompts did not directly ask them to consider contextual factors
in¯uencing the decisions they made. It is also possible that the teachers would
have been more likely to recall contextual factors in¯uencing their on-line
decision-making if the stimulated recall episodes had been recorded on video
rather than audio-tape.
Argyris and Schon (1974: 6±7) make a distinction between `espoused
theories' and `theories in use'. The former are the beliefs people communicate
to others and which they are aware of having. Such theories can more easily
re¯ect technical knowledge. The latter are the beliefs that are implied by
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS 269

people's behaviour and are based primarily on their practical knowledge. The
two sets of beliefs may or may not be compatible and an individual may or
may not be aware of any incompatibility between the two. One teacher,
Steve, expressed his awareness of some incompatibility. In the stimulated
recall he said, `And it probably shows, I don't know if there is some
inconsistency here on my part or not when I'm looking at it [that is reading
the transcript]. Yeah I think that's probably what was going on.' How teachers
resolve such incongruences remains uncertain. Possibly, with experience,
they are able to reduce the mismatches between their espoused theories and
theories in use by proceduralizing their technical knowledge. Possibly, they
eradicate the mismatches by bringing their espoused theories more in line
with their practical theories, which they develop through experience of `cases'
of what works for them. However, this remains an issue in need of further
study.
The present research centred on a phenomenon (focus on form) that arose
incidentally as part of the process of accomplishing the task. The fact that we
found tenuous links between the teachers' stated beliefs and their practice of
focus on form might be because the links between stated beliefs and incidental
behaviours are weaker than those between stated beliefs and planned
behaviours (as evident in lesson plans and instructional materials). Pajares
(1992) has argued that inferences about teachers' beliefs should be based on
assessments of what teachers say, intend to do, and actually do. We would
agree but add that this may be particularly important for an understanding of
teachers' thinking in relation to on-line decision making in the classroom,
such as incidental focus on form. Enquiry into teachers' beliefs of unplanned
elements of teaching needs to be based on both stated beliefs and observed
behaviours.
Final version received January 2003

APPENDIX A: PRISONER TASK

Instructions: Read the situation and then read about your prisoner below. Make notes
under the headings on your chart and then ask the other people in your group about
their prisoners using the headings to help you ask the questions. Fill in the chart with
the information you get and, once you have completed the chart, discuss in your group
of four, which prisoner should be released. You will need to agree and ®nally choose
one prisoner.
The situation: The local prison is so overcrowded that, from a group of prisoners who are
due to be released on probation in the future, one will be able to be released
immediately. He or she will be able to resume his/her normal life, but will have to
report to the probation ocer regularly and will go back to prison if he/she commits
any other crimes. Which prisoner should be chosen?
Your Prisoner: Anne. Anne is 37 years old and was a very hard-working and popular
doctor. Once, when she was very tired after working 23 hours in the hospital, she
mixed up some medicine and, as a result, a child died. She has served 5 years in prison
270 INCIDENTAL FOCUS ON FORM AND CLASSROOM PRACTICES

already. She was married, but her marriage broke up after she went to prison. She has
a mother who is very sick. Her father is dead. She has a large family and many nieces
and nephews whom she is very close to. They visit her regularly. She has continued to
study medicine in prison so she keeps up to date. She is very positive about the future
and thinks she should be allowed to practise medicine again once she comes out of
prison. She thinks she has paid for her mistake.

APPENDIX B: SAMPLE QUESTIONS FROM INTERVIEW

PROTOCOL
First of all, I am going to ask you about communicative language teaching.
1 Do you sometimes teach communicatively?
2 Tell me about a successful communicative activity you've recently done in your
class.
Cue: Why was it successful?
3 Tell me about a communicative activity you've recently done in class that you felt
was not really successful.
Cue: Why not successful?
Could you please complete this sentence in your own words.
During communicative activities, there are times in my class when I or my
students focus on the form of linguistic items because . . .

APPENDIX C: EXAMPLE OF A SCENARIO

Below are a number of possible situations that can occur in communicative activities.
For each situation, please state what you think you should do and why.
1. The class is working in small groups exchanging information about their future
plans. One student turns to you and asks ± In the far future, is this correct?
What should I do?
Why?

APPENDIX D: EXAMPLE OF STIMULATED RECALL

In this ®nal part of the interview I am going to ask you about what actually happened
during communicative lessons in your classroom and your role as the teacher. We will
listen to a number of episodes (short pieces on interaction) recorded from your
teaching.
For each episode, please comment on what this is about. Then state if this is how you
prefer to deal with this kind of event.

Episode 1
In this episode, a student makes a linguistic error and you respond to it.
T: have you ever betrayed China
S: no, never
T: never
S: yeah I'm a patriost
T: a patriot
 HELEN BASTURKMEN, SHAWN LOEWEN, and ROD ELLIS
S: yeah,
S: not like this, like this
T: yes, a patriot
1. Can you tell me what this is about?
2. Is this how you prefer to deal with linguistic errors? If not ± why not?
NOTE
1 We are grateful to an anonymous reviewer for drawing our attention to this limitation.
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