A Study of Metaphor for Writing Skill in EFL Contexts

To communicate effectively in any language, one needs to be competent in using four language skills; that is, reading, listening, reading, and writing- and accordingly the integrative skills instruction has come into prominence in L2 teaching. EFL teachers’ beliefs, ideas, perceptions, attitudes are known to have a significant impact on their profession. Termed as “teacher cognition” by Borg (2003), the mentioned beliefs or perceptions are not directly observable. In this study, it is argued that teachers’ perceptions about four language skills as a part of their teacher cognition will give insight to their instruction. This is a qualitative study which aims at finding out the prospective EFL teachers’ perceptions about writing skill through metaphors. The participants included the undergraduate students studying English as a foreign language at two universities, Istanbul and Amasya. The data were analyzed with the content analysis technique. The findings revealed that prospective EFL teachers had various views regarding the nature of writing. These perceptions, either positive or negative, will influence their future practices; thus, it is essential that the awareness of prospective EFL teachers should be sharpened to help learners to understand the complicated nature of writing and proceed in writing.