Theory and Practice in Language Studies

2025

This study analyses the characterisation and evolution of the personal metaphors of a sample of 34 trainee foreign language teachers, through a questionnaire of open-ended questions that included asking the participants to make drawings representing the roles of the teacher. Four categories of metaphors were considered for the analysis: behaviourist/transmissive, cognitivist/constructivist, situated, and self-referential. The results indicate that most participants were able to conceptualise their image of the teacher in the form of metaphors. The pre-service teachers' metaphors represented are mainly cognitivist/constructivist and behaviourist/transmissive. When comparing them before and after the internship in the primary schools, most of them did not change their metaphors or their associated models about foreign language teaching; only two participants experienced a progressive change in their metaphors and three experienced a regressive change in their metaphors. The validity of metaphors as a tool for increasing the selfreflection and critical awareness of trainee teachers is confirmed.

Based on the understanding of the metaphor and on representation concepts, this study investigates implicit metaphors which were categorized in order to reveal the representations that the teachers have of their own role. The data were analyzed according to the thematic contents proposed by BRONCKART (1997) in his methodological proposal for linguistic analysis. The reflections are based on data obtained from a questionnaire answered by one group of Brazilian State School English teachers who are participants in a program of continuing education.

Following cognitive views to language pedagogy; there have been considerable studies particularly in English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) contexts via metaphor analysis as a reflective research tool. Considering the inadequate attempts in an Iranian EFL environment, the present study seeks to unpack metaphorical reflections by a group of Iranian non-English-major university students about EFL teachers' roles. To this end, a metaphor elicitation questionnaire was administered to a convenient sample of 187 Iranian bilingual (Kurdish-Persian) university students majoring different disciplines at three public and private universities in Ilam. Using content analysis, the metaphorical expressions collected via completion of the metaphor prompt "An English language teacher is (like) …. because …." were structured into dominant thematic categories for further analysis. The metaphors were also examined to determine whether they fit into the design of current language teaching and learning approaches and methods. Generally, the results revealed that the metaphorical images were comparatively for and against several proposed models of language learning and teaching about EFL teachers' roles. There were also several pedagogical implications for teacher education programs as well as suggestions for further investigations.

International Journal of English Language and Translation Studies , 2013

Following cognitive views to language pedagogy; there have been considerable studies particularly in English-as-a-Foreign-Language (EFL) contexts via metaphor analysis as a reflective research tool. Considering the inadequate attempts in an Iranian EFL environment, the present study seeks to unpack metaphorical reflections by a group of Iranian non-English-major university students about EFL teachers' roles. To this end, a metaphor elicitation questionnaire was administered to a convenient sample of 187 Iranian bilingual (Kurdish-Persian) university students majoring different disciplines at three public and private universities in Ilam. Using content analysis, the metaphorical expressions collected via completion of the metaphor prompt "An English language teacher is (like) …. because …." were structured into dominant thematic categories for further analysis. The metaphors were also examined to determine whether they fit into the design of current language teaching and learning approaches and methods. Generally, the results revealed that the metaphorical images were comparatively for and against several proposed models of language learning and teaching about EFL teachers' roles. There were also several pedagogical implications for teacher education programs as well as suggestions for further investigations. Keywords: Metaphor, Language teacher's roles, Bilingual, Iranian, University students

Research studies in the fields of general education and language pedagogy recognize the importance of metaphor as a research tool. Metaphors can help teachers articulate and construct their professional experiences (Kramsch, 2003) and ameliorate the classroom practice (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999). The majority of the previous studies that employed metaphors focused on the teacher-produced images and adopted a qualitative approach to metaphor analysis. The present study departs from this format. It focuses on the student generated metaphors about language teachers and employs a quantitative analysis to examine the dimensions around which these metaphors align. A questionnaire containing metaphors about language teachers was distributed to 98 students at Universiti Malaysia Sabah. Factor analysis was employed as a research technique to identify the dimensions along which the students’ perceptions aligned. The findings of the present paper lend support to the previous attempts at metaphor taxonomy by Oxford et al. (1998) and Chen (2003). In der Erziehungswissenschaft und Fremdsprachendidaktik gilt die Metapher als ein wichtiges Forschungsinstrument. Metaphern können Lehrern helfen, ihre beruflichen Erfahrungen zu formulieren (Kramsch, 2003) und die unterrichtlich Tätigkeit zu verbessern (Cortazzi & Jin, 1999). Die meisten bisherigen metapherngestützten Studien konzentrierten sich auf die von Lehrer n produzierten Bilder und bestanden in einer qualitativen Metaphernanalyse. Von dieser Prämisse ausgehend befasst sich der vorliegende Beitrag mit Metaphern, die von Studenten zu Sprachenlehrern produziert wurden, und verwendet eine quantitative Analyse, um die Dimensionen /Kategorien zu untersuchen, um welche diese Metaphern sich gruppieren. Ein Fragebogen mit Metaphern über Sprachenlehrer wurde an 98 Studenten der Universiti Malaysia Sabah verteilt. Um die Dimensionen/Kategorien, die sich aus den Wahrnehmungen der Studenten ergeben, zu identifizieren, wurde die Technik der Faktoranalyse herangezogen. Damit unterstreicht die vorliegende Studie die Untersuchungen zur Metaphernklassifizierung von Oxford et al. (1998) und Chen (2003).

The purpose of this study is to understand university preparatory class students' mental images about their English language instructors through metaphors. With regard to this aim, 148 students enrolled in 16 different programs were required to write metaphors on the metaphor elicitation task including the statement analysis technique including naming, elimination, deciding unit of analysis, categorization, quantitative analysis of data was employed for the analysis. 153 metaphors were sorted into 9 conceptual themes. While 'teacher as nurturer' was the leading category with 40 metaphors, 'teacher as someone good-hearted' followed it with 37 metaphors. It was seen that male participants emphasized good-hearted nature of language instructors and their ability to provide knowledge whereas female participants focused on their teachers' nurturer side. A closer interaction between the instructors and students could be attributed to the reason why students mostly had positive views concerning their language instructors.

2021

This paper employs the innovative method of Elicited Metaphor Analysis to present original research in Malaysia into students’ metaphors for ‘language’. We summarize reasons why language and first/ second language learning are centrally important in education, and show patterned features of language metaphors in proverbs and in teacher talk about literacy. These may be one strand of student socialization into language-literacy conceptions. We then report our study of 408 university students in Malaysia who gave 977 metaphors for ‘language’. Using a socio-cultural extension of conceptual metaphor theory from cognitive linguistics, we analyse these data into thematic clusters and metaphor networks of meanings. In student voices, this presents a surprisingly rich picture of language and shows evidence of linguistic meta-functions: student metaphors for language can be seen not only cognitively with affective and socio-cultural meta-functions, but also with moral-spiritual and aesthetic functions. These meta-functions accord with some educational theories. To show wider insider metaphor perspectives we cite our research with ‘teacher’ and ‘learning’ metaphors in Malaysia, and ‘language’ findings from China, Iran, Lebanon and the UK. The metaphor meanings and meta-functions broaden our conception of language as a medium of learning with strong implications for the teaching of languages and literacy.

The purpose of this qualitative study is to examine the metaphors a foreign language teacher used to describe her teaching experience and the role she adopted. The study tries to follow the conceptualizations of an experienced EFL teacher in regard to her teaching experience and the role she adopted. The data for the present study were collected by means of metaphor elicitation sheet, interview, and diary. The data were collected every month over a period of 24 months. The results revealed that during the first period of data collection (12 months), the participant teacher developed 10 different metaphors with regard to the concept of “teacher”. The number of new metaphors developed in the second period of data collection (the second 12 months) was 7, most of which implied the democratic teacher. Even though the same metaphor was used at different times, the rationale behind using the same metaphor always yielded differences. Keywords Teacher beliefs; Teacher perceptions; Metaphor; ...

A large number of studies focusing on language teachers' and learners' understandings of teaching and/or learning have used metaphor analysis as their tool of enquiry, however, very few studies to date have begun to examine students' conceptualizations of specific language skills, such as academic writing through metaphor analysis. In the light of this, the present study set out to fill this lacuna by investigating the various perspectives of Saudi English majors about the concept of learning essay writing through metaphor analysis. To elicit learners' metaphors, 77 English majors studying at Qassim University were given a questionnaire that solicited their metaphors for the concept of learning essay writing.They completed a metaphor elicitation questionnaire with the prompt “Learning essay writing is like . . . because ...” by focusing on only one metaphor to indicate their conceptualization of learning essay writing. To triangulate the data collected by metaphor elicitation questionnaire, semi-structured interview is adoptedto find out about the participants' underlying reasons for the metaphors they offered. Results of the current study lead to five major conclusions:(1)metaphor is aneffective tool to better understand English major students’ conceptualizations about learning essay writing; (2) learners mostly perceived writing as a skill requiring much effort and also giving pleasure; (3) learners perceived learning essay writing as a difficult process and that being a successful writer requires a variety of demands such as hard work, perseverance, patience, and a positive attitude;(4) the elicited metaphors also highlight both positive and negative perceptions of learning essay writing and (5)the Saudi students’ metaphorical perspectives were related to three approaches of teaching writing: the product approach, the process approach and the genre approach.