Language Teachers’ Social Cognition

Description

This Element aims to elucidate the theories of social cognition and to delineate their implications for the professional development of language teachers in primary and secondary schools. The Element first explores the concept of social cognition. The three key dimensions, that is, representation of social reality, social cognitive processing, and social mental abilities, of the social cognition theories are further elaborated with examples closely associated with language teaching and teacher development. The Element continues with more specific issues such as impression, attitude, emotion, and self-efficacy, which arise and develop as language teachers code, store, and retrieve information from social situations. The Element then discusses how social cognition influences teacher learning and development as observed and promoted within different social realities, and it ends with a call for a social-cognitive perspective on understanding language teachers’ learning and development situated in diverse and changing contexts in and out of schools. Cover Title page Copyright page Language Teacher’s Social Cognition Contents 1 Introduction 2 What is Social Cognition? 2.1 Defining Social Cognition 2.1.1 The Origin and Development of the Concept 2.1.2 Social Cognition as Mental Representation 2.1.3 Social Cognition as Cognitive Processing 2.2 Representations of Social Cognition 2.2.1 Impression 2.2.2 Attitude 2.2.3 Emotion 2.2.4 Self-efficacy 2.3 Formation and Transformation of Social Cognition 2.3.1 Dual Process Model 2.3.2 Implicit and Explicit Processes 3 How is Social Cognition Explored? 3.1 Examining Mental Representations of Social Reality 3.1.1 Categorising Mental Representations 3.1.2 Contextualising Mental Representations 3.2 Investigating the Processing of Social Information 3.2.1 Factors Influencing Social Cognition Processing 3.2.2 Changes Brought by the Processing 3.3 Unravelling the Abilities of the Social Mind 3.3.1 Reflection as the Initiative to Reconstruct 3.3.2 Mindfulness as the Disposition to Concentrate 3.3.3 Self-efficacy as the Strength to Persevere 4 Social Cognition and Language Teachers 4.1 Language Teachers’ Social Cognition and Teaching 4.1.1 Language Teachers’ Views of Teaching 4.1.2 Language Teachers’ Thinking about Teaching 4.2 Language Teacher’s Social Cognition and Teacher Development 4.2.1 Developing Knowledge and Competence 4.2.2 Promoting Emotional Growth 5 Social Cognition and Language Teacher Development 5.1 Knowledge and Competence 5.1.1 Suggestions for Future Research 5.1.2 Suggestions for Teacher Education Practice 5.2 Motivation and Emotion 5.2.1 Suggestions for Future Research 5.2.2 Suggestions for Teacher Education Practice 5.3 Resistance and Resilience 5.3.1 Suggestions for Future Research 5.3.2 Suggestions for Teacher Education Practice 6 Towards a Social-Cognitive Perspective on Language Teacher Development References