Recurring Topics in English Language Teachers' Written Teaching Philosophy Statements

The present study analyzed in-service English as an additional language (EAL) teachers' written teaching philosophy (TP) statements in order to identify the dominant topics that comprise this supporting genre, as well as the use of personal pronouns and possessive adjectives. The sample included 27 in-service EAL teachers' TPs who were currently teaching, primarily, in the context of higher education and intensive English programs in North American settings. Each sentence was coded for a dominant topic, leading to the creation of 24 categories. To capture the unique characteristics of this genre, we created three success groups (i.e., Most successful, Successful, and Least successful) and compared their contents. Moreover, the first and last five topics for each TP for the three groups were compared, thus, establishing a pattern of opening and closing topics. Finally, we drew on corpus tools to uncover the manipulation of specific lexical features of this genre: the use of personal pronouns and possessive adjectives. The most prominent topics across the three groups included Teaching beliefs, Learning beliefs, Beliefs about learners, and Teacher growth. Differences were identified between the three groups in terms of both topics and organization.