Exploring EFL Teachers’ Cognitive Models Through Metaphor Analysis

This study aims to investigate how a group of Chinese university teachers developed their cognitive models by using “English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers†metaphors. The research method includes an open-ended questionnaire, a checklist questionnaire, and verbal reports. The goal for this research is twofold. First, we will present those metaphors we believe to be the most frequently used or most central in shaping the thoughts or ideas they have had for EFL teaching and learning. Second, we will provide a description of their internal process of developing cognitive models, as well as factors that could account for such models. The findings showed that (a) most of us had three ways of understanding EFL teachers in terms of the educational journey metaphor, the educational building metaphor, and the educational conduit metaphor; (b) we used such a cluster of converging cognitive models as the instructor model, the transmitter model, and the builder model to construct definitions for EFL teachers, with the instructor model as a central model; and (c) metaphor can actually serve as a useful, effective, and analytic tool for making us aware of the cognitive model underlying our conceptual framework.