خلاصة:
The present paper seeks to investigate the cognitive abilities of expert EFL teachers. To this aim, the existing literature was examined and ten cognitive themes were derived which were further investigated through interviews conducted with ten academics, teacher trainers and exemplary teachers of the field in the Iranian context. The ten extracted themes were attested by interviewees‟ comments. They include: fast pattern recognition, selective attention, holistic perception, superior memory, fast information encoding, anticipation power, perception of teacher‟s role, awareness of situation-specific class events, and awareness of their knowledge, linking prior and new knowledge. These themes are further explained and discussed along with extracts of the actual interviews. It is recurrently reminded that these cognitive issues are just one aspect of teaching expertise in ELT and the whole idea is part of a model of expertise being constructed which consists of 8 factors only one of which is teacher cognition.
ملخص الجهاز:
The majority of previous studies have focused on the superior performance of exemplary teachers, those who have obtained a social recognition in their community of practice; those who are nominated by the school or institute they work for as an exemplary and outstanding teacher; those who have been rewarded occasionally for their noticeable success in teaching; those who are necessarily experienced, motivated and interested in their job; those who are known to be knowledgeable in the realm of English; and finally those who are occasionally chosen to act as mentor teachers or even supervisors to guide or observe other colleagues.
Result and Discussion As concerning the cognition, schemata and perception of expert teachers of English, a perusal of previous studies and models on efficient, successful and exemplary language teaching guided us to 10 main themes: - Fast recognition of patterns and meaningful interpretation of them - Selective attention to class events - A holistic perception of class events - Superior long-term and short-term memory - Fast encoding of new information - High anticipation power of decisions made and students‟ reactions - Perception of one‟s role as a professional and a facilitator of learning - Awareness of the situation-specificity and context-dependence of class events - Awareness of what they know and what they do not know - Forming connections between prior and new knowledge Mind you that all these factors are under the main theme of an expert English language teacher‟s cognition and schemata.