The evolution of pre-service teachers’ beliefs about teaching and learning english

Abstract

INTRODUCTION. One of the most controversial issues found across the research on teacher thinking is that of the stability of teachers’ beliefs and their resistance to teacher education interventions. Along this line, the research presented in this article is aimed at investigating whether the beliefs about language learning and the teaching of prospective Primary English teachers could experience any changes as a result of their training in the teaching of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) and, if so, whether a trend can be detected in those changes. Apart from this, the study intended to establish whether the teacher education program (that of the former Degree in Primary Teaching –with a specialization in EFL) versus the current Bachelor Degree in Primary Education – also with a specialization in EFL) influences the evolution of these beliefs. METHOD. A survey was carried out following two prestigious and widely used questionnaires to investigate language teachers’ beliefs. The data were obtained before and after the participants (N=129) followed modules in EFL teaching and analyzed by descriptive and inferential statistics (means, a paired Student’s t-test, a 2x2 mixed factorial ANOVA and effect size calculation). RESULTS. The results show that participants moved away from the traditional conceptions and adopted new perspectives promoted by the EFL teacher education curriculum, which are in line with a communicative notion of language and an interactive view of language learning. The findings also reveal more substantial changes in the beliefs held by the Bachelor Degree in Primary Education group, which received a longer, more intense training in ELT teaching albeit inspired in the same principles. DISCUSSION. This study provides evidence that the beliefs that prospective teachers of English bring to pre-service teacher training courses are flexible and modifiable, and amenable to be influenced by the teacher education program.