The Epistemic Climate of a High School English Language Classroom in Iran: An Ethnographic Case Study

The “epistemic climate” of a classroom can be thought of as a major determinant of classroom procedures and the learning outcome. The present ethnographic case study involved the investigation of the epistemic orientation of the instructional materials, teacher, and students of an online tenth-grade high school English language classroom in Iran, regarding the core dimensions of their L2 learning-specific epistemologies: beliefs about the nature of L2 knowledge’s simplicity, certainty, source, and justification. The researcher’s observation and reflective notes paired with semi-structured interview data were qualitatively analyzed. Nine epistemology-related themes were extracted from the interview data. The results showed the predominantly absolutist orientation of the materials and students; the teacher, on the other hand, subscribed herself to a view of L2 knowledge as context-contingent and integrated, obtainable from multiple sources and subject to contextual evaluatism; however, there was a conspicuous incongruence between her beliefs and the epistemological orientation of her teaching practice, materials, and students. She attributed this observation to the mandatory instructional materials and stakeholders’ conceptions of L2 achievement. The findings reveal the significance of investigating the epistemic orientation of L2 teaching and learning in order to better facilitate students’ epistemological development and enhance their recognition of the context-contingency of L2 knowledge and knowing.