The Relation Between Teachers And Students Beliefs

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

After years working as a teacher of English and an academic officer at an English as a foreign language (EFL) private school in Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) of Vietnam, I have noticed that Vietnamese EFL learners evaluate school quality firstly and mostly through their perceptions of the teachers’ teaching methods. Remarkably, most of them would not sit patiently in any class if they feel that the teachers’ methods do not respond to their preferred learning styles. From unofficial surveys of students’ feedback on the school’s teaching quality, I found that the students seem to hold different beliefs on foreign language learning methods and teaching methods of the teachers. In fact, I am not alone in noting this; some of my colleagues often claim that they are often caught in the middle of meeting their students’ learning references and their own perception of how best the students should learn.

Pedagogical scholars believe that students and teachers come into class with their own experiences and beliefs about learning (Altan: 2006; Bernat: 2006; Gabillon: 2005; Nunan: 2000; Peacock: 1998a, 1998b). In addition, Horwitz (1988) stated that students’ beliefs about language learning seemed to have obvious relevance to the understanding of students’ expectations of and satisfaction with their language classes. I suspect that there is a relationship between a teacher’s and his/her students’ beliefs in approaches to learning and dissatisfaction might occur when there are gaps between these beliefs. This study is conducted in hope of addressing these issues.

CONTEXT and INTRODUCTION

Due to the adoption of a free market-oriented economy during the last twenty years, Vietnam has attracted a considerable number of English-speaking visitors as tourists and business people. Social demands have forced the emergence of English as the language for broader communication and cooperation. English has thus gained its crucial role as the most popular foreign language taught and used in Vietnam.

Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) in HCMC has become a competitive market where hundreds of private EFL schools and centers have been mushrooming during the last decade. Vietnamese learners thus have more choices and courses that meet their language needs. As the learners vary in terms of ages, career, social status, learning needs and goals, "preferred" schools are those that succeed in reconciling the commercial and pedagogical targets. The schools are trying to do so by improving quality of their teaching staff, hiring native teachers, continuously promoting marketing strategies such as opening "discount" courses, offering scholarships and other varieties of preferential treatments to their current as well as potential learners. Unlike the state’s schools or universities, EFL private schools are dynamic learning environments where students also take roles of educational customers. After paying studying fees, students can try some classes before deciding the class they want to sit in. Normally, students have the right to change class if they realize that the chosen class is not suitable, and, especially, their feedback on teaching quality during the course are highly encouraged.

In this study, the sites are planned at two of the EFL private schools in HCMC, the EL School and the Atlanta Language Center.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Studies of language learning beliefs

Over the last thirty years, there has been a considerable number of research studies on language learners’ beliefs. Many scholars have been convinced that language learners come to classrooms with different learning experiences and different criteria for how language should be taught and learnt (Altan, 2006; Bada & Okan 2000; Banya and Chen, 1997; Barcelos, 2003; Barkhuizen, 1998; Bernat, 2006, 2008; Bernat & Gvozdenko, 2005; Horwitz, 1987, 1988). While most of these studies have concentrated solely on finding learners’ learning beliefs, some other scholars have related students’ learning beliefs and the learning strategies they use (Griffiths, 2007; Griffiths and Parr, 2001). The findings have showed a noticeable correlation between learners’ beliefs concerning language learning and their use of learning strategies. Some scholars have tried to correlate learning beliefs with language proficiency (Peacock, 1998b) or with learning autonomy (Cotterall, 1995). Those studies have proved that what students believe about language learning strongly influenced students’ learning methods.

In the literature on teachers’ beliefs, a number of scholars, including Borg (2001), Borg (2003, 2006), Chan (2004), Farrell and Kun (2007), and Woods (1996) favored the exploration of EFL teachers’ beliefs and how those beliefs are reflected in teaching practices. It has been concluded that teachers’ practices are heavily influenced by their experiences and teachers’ beliefs about teaching play a crucial role in the way they formulate goals, define, and conduct the tasks of teaching.

Although the discussed studies exemplify a rich literature on the theory of teachers and learners’ language learning beliefs, none of them studies the interplay between the beliefs holders. Studies on relations or gaps between teachers and learners’ beliefs are few (Banya and Chen, 1997; Barcelos, 2003; Kern, 1995; Peacock, 1998a; Spratt, 1999), and regrettably, most of these studies have employed questionnaire, interview, or semi-structured interview to draw data, thus, the researchers could not get an emic perspective of the problem. Kenneth Pike (1954) distinguished emics - the intrinsic interpretation of others’ worlds as they appear to them and etics - the extrinsic interpretation from the observers. While teachers and students may hold beliefs that are unique to their own situations, questionnaire and interview are regarded as the conceptualization and interpretation of the matter from the researchers’ perspectives. In other words, most of the studies above are problematic as beliefs are taken out of actions and contexts by inferring from intentions and statements only. More important, they have dealt with a broad concept of language learning beliefs, but so far, none has concentrated on a single and in-depth study of beliefs in approaches to language learning.

Barkhuizen (1998) and Barcelos (2003) are two scholars who contextualize their studies in language learning beliefs. While Barkhuizen’s (1998) focus is solely on students’ beliefs in a high school, Barcelos (2003) reports her study of relations between teachers and students’ beliefs in an institute of English for academic purposes in the US. However, I am not very convinced of their findings as the former study is situated in a context where English is taught as a compulsory foreign language subject. The latter study collects data in short language courses of eight weeks; such a short period may not be satisfactory to observe any effect of the interaction between the beliefs. I suspect that, in a more dynamic environment and a longer period of study, radical effects on the beliefs and possible gaps between the beliefs and teaching practices or learning behaviours may take place.

Studies on approaches to learning

Cotterall (1995) used the term "approach to studying" to describe the "behaviours which learners engage in as they study, that is, the way in which they usually go about their learning" (p 203). The early studies on the matter identified major categories of approaches to learning (Biggs, 1987; Entwistle and Ramsden, 1982; Marton & Saljii, 1976) or compared them with quality of learning outcomes (Wat­kins, 1983; Beckwith, 1991). Later, Trigwell et al (1999) related teachers’ approaches to teaching and students’ approaches to learning; Zhang & Watkins (2001) researched relations between those approaches and student’s cognitive development. More recently, Cano (2005) and Phan (2006) linked students’ learning approaches to general beliefs about learning or epistemological beliefs.

Though research studies on beliefs in approaches to language learning are numerous, none has focused on relation between teachers and students’ beliefs in the approaches to language learning. Similar to the studies on beliefs, most of the studies on approaches to learning employed questionnaires or inventories; they might underestimate the effect of situated or contextualized teaching and learning.

PURPOSE OF THE STUDY

This study will focus on understanding rather than problem solving the interrelations between Vietnamese teachers and learners’ beliefs in approaches to language learning in the setting of private EFL schools in HCMC of Vietnam. The purposes are not only to examine how the learners’ beliefs and learning behaviours might influence their teachers’ practices, but also to explore how the teachers’ beliefs might affect their teaching practices and influence the learners’ beliefs and learning behaviours.

I am planning to contextualize this study by connecting beliefs with the teaching practices and learning behaviors in the natural settings – the EFL classrooms – where the EFL teachers come to classrooms as native speakers or successful EFL learners while the learners have less language learning experience but high expectations of the teachers.

RESEARCH QUESTIONS

The main research question (RQ) of this study is, what is the relationship between EFL teachers and students’ beliefs in approaches to foreign language learning? To investigate this matter, the following specific research questions (SRQ) are going to be analyzed.

What are the teachers’ beliefs? Do these beliefs inform their practices?

What are the learners’ beliefs? Do these beliefs direct their learning behaviors?

How do the teachers' beliefs and their practices influence the learners' learning beliefs?

How do the learners' beliefs and learning behaviors affect their teachers' beliefs and practices?

If the beliefs are mismatched, will the teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices, the learners’ beliefs and learning behaviors change across a given period?

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

The aims of this study are significant from both theoretical and practical perspectives. Theoretically, as an empirical investigation, it will contribute to the current theory on language learning beliefs in EFL by adding new research on beliefs in approaches to learning. Especially, this contextualized study relates not only teachers’ with learners’ beliefs but also the beliefs with their practices and behaviors in natural settings – the language classrooms.

Practically, results of this study will provide a practical reference for the EFL teachers and administrators to raise awareness of beliefs held by Vietnamese learners, from which they can implement more effective teaching and learning. Awareness about beliefs and learning behaviors will be useful for the teachers to meet their learners’ expectation, strengthen the competitiveness of the EFL schools.

POTENTIAL PROBLEMS WITH THE STUDIES

Below are some potential problems in the investigation of the relationship between teachers’ and students’ beliefs in approaches to learning.

One of the most pontentiale problems is that the subjects may articulate their own beliefs, even when they have structured beliefs, to themselves or to the researcher. This hypothesis may have an effect on the reliability of the declared beliefs, and the possible result is that the declared beliefs will differ from themselves and may not contradict their practices or behaviours.

Next, teachers’ beliefs are the results of their interaction with the various environments and situations in which they are working (Richards and Lockhart: 1994). In this light, the possible changes of beliefs may not solely be a consequence of teacher-students interaction but may also be resulted from the syllabi, textbooks, colleagues, or their own practices as commonly found in the cases of novice teachers. Importantly, it is necessary to notice that teacher’s beliefs might be affected not only by the research paticipants, but also by other groups of learners. On the other hand, the changes in students’ beliefs may not be result from their teacher’s "education". In stead, these might be changes in learners’ expectations when they start to appreciate that the teacher is not the whole answer to their progress, and when they learn or do not learn how to become good learners as well as demanding consumers.

CONCLUSION

I have stated the rationale and context for this study, after that I have provided a quick review of the problem of the previous studies related to my research problem. My main argument is that no previous study has contextualized and related teachers’ and learners’ beliefs in approaches to language learning. Next, I have stated my research purposes and the research questions. What I want to emphasize is contextualizing the study to investigate relations between the EFL teachers’ and students’ beliefs, the teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices and the students’ beliefs and learning behaviors. I have also noted the significance as well as the potential problems with this investigation. It is expected that the study’s results will contribute to the knowledge of the field.