Abstract
There is a substantial amount of research in the field of language teacher cognition reiterating that teachers' beliefs influence their classroom practices; however, teacher beliefs and practices do not always correspond because of the differences in both researchers' and teachers' conceptualization of beliefs and practices. This study aims to investigate the beliefs and practices of 96 language teachers in Turkey. A mixed-method research design was employed to answer the questions to what extent teachers' beliefs and practices reflect the issues stated in the literature on second language listening, what their beliefs and listening instructional practices are, whether their beliefs and practices converge, and if so, what factors underpin them.
TopBackground
Numerous studies (Barcelos, 2003; Borg, 2003; Borg, 2006; Borg & Burns, 2008) on teacher beliefs and language teacher beliefs (Graham et al., 2014; Kumaravadivelu, 2012; Phipps & Borg, 2009; Sah & Shah, 2020; Utami, 2016; Zeng, 2018) followed the combined approach to explore teacher beliefs. Language teachers’ beliefs were represented in a belief system, which governed their thoughts, words, and actions in classroom practices (Kumaravadivelu, 2012). Language teachers reflected their beliefs as the driving force behind decisions they made throughout their professional career. Hence one might assume that teachers follow practice based approach, in which they think, say and do as a reflection of their beliefs. The belief system of language teachers can be explained with a set of fundamental assumptions. First of all, language teacher beliefs are formed early and tend to self-perpetuate, persevering even against contradictions caused by reason, time, schooling, or experience. The earlier a belief is incorporated into the belief structure, the more difficult it is to alter. Second, teachers tend to hold on to beliefs based on incorrect or incomplete knowledge, even after scientifically correct explanations are presented to them. Beliefs about teaching are well established by the time a student teacher enters a teacher education program. Lastly, teacher beliefs affect teaching behavior, and guide teachers in defining, selecting, organizing knowledge and information presented to students. By their nature, some language teacher beliefs are more incontrovertible than other beliefs (Borg, 2015).
Key Terms in this Chapter
Attitude: It is “a learned predisposition to respond to an object in a consistently favourable or unfavourable manner” ( Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975 , p.336).
Self-Efficacy: It is one’s beliefs on his/her potential or capacity to cope with the prospective situations. Self-efficacy beliefs determine how people feel, think, motivate themselves and behave ( Bandura, 1994 ).
Belief: It is “a preposition which may be consciously or unconsciously held, is evaluative in that it is accepted as true by the individual, and is therefore imbued with emotive commitment; it serves as a guide to thought and behaviour” ( Borg, 2001 , p.186).
Teacher Beliefs: It is defined as “Teachers’ psychologically held thinking, conceptions and understanding about EFL teaching and learning” ( Zheng, 2015 , p. 14).
English as a Foreign Language (EFL): It is the context where English has no official status, it is taught in classroom setting, and the role of English in communication inside the country is very limited such as in Turkey.