The influence of my beliefs regarding team teaching in the planning process of written activities

Abstract

Beliefs are an important factor to pay attention to when you are an educator; beliefs guide your practice, decisions, actions, and behavior when teaching. In this regard, this self-study research aimed to analyze the researcher’s beliefs on team teaching and its relation to the planning process of written activities. The investigation was done considering the context of a current team teaching event, having as participants a group of Chilean pre-service teachers in an English as a Foreign Language context (EFL). Concerning the written activities, the main objective was to analyze the approaches behind it; which are content-based and task-based. The methodology used to analyze the data was a qualitative approach, specifically, a descriptive coding system of three elements: artifacts, narratives and a focus group semi-structured interview. Then, portrayed into a coding scheme. Findings suggests that my beliefs when planning written activities collaboratively rely on being, primarily, goal-oriented and discuss how to reach that goal, which leads me to a communicative approach and to share ideas, to finally understand that although I acknowledge the fruitfulness TBLT has, I do not always apply it to my lessons plans even when I believe in a learner-centered approach