A Qualitative Study of Experience in Forming Teachers’ Cognition on the Concept of Language Noticing

Awareness, in language learning, is a focused area of debate encompassing many different aspects of language teaching research, especially that of grammar. Although the learner’s awareness has been widely taken into account, noticing, which embraces the meaning of awareness, is something that lacks empirical data and literature in teacher’s cognition when it comes to second language teaching studies. Therefore, this qualitative study aimed to explore the teachers’ theoretical and practical cognition in conceptualizing and using noticing in teaching and practicing language; in addition, the congruency between teachers’ theoretical beliefs and actual practices were investigated. To this end, a total of 30 novice and experienced teachers were interviewed and the role of teaching experience as an overarching concept affecting teachers’ beliefs and performance was detected by using constant comparative analysis. Findings revealed seven conceptual themes out of the collected data as pedagogical effects, type of input, skill type, when to notice, noticing techniques, time allocation, and measurement. Then, six teachers from the same sample group were observed for possible inconsistencies in their teaching practices and their cognition about the concept. The discrepancies between the teachers’ stated beliefs and actual practices revealed that teaching experience has a relative impact on teacher’s performance.