people and events, and their characteristic relationships”.
3
While according to Richardson beliefs can be
defined as “psychologically held understandings, premises, or propositions about the world that are felt to be true”.
4
In another word, beliefs are something that you cannot see or touch but it is something
in your mind that you feel true. Belief also means as the root of our thought. It influenced the way we think. In addition, Woods wrote
in Thu’s journal that
“Beliefs refer to an acceptance of a proposition for which there is no conventional knowledge, one that is not demonstrable, and for which there is
accepted disagreement”.
5
Beliefs are powerful and they can greatly influence human behaviours. In language learning, beliefs define as previous
experiences as language learners as well as cultural background are both likely to influence and shape learners’ beliefs about foreign or second
language learning.
6
So, the background culture of the learners and their experiences or their background knowledge is possible to be one of the
factors that can build learners’ beliefs. Beliefs also can be far more influential than knowledge in determining how individuals organize and define tasks and
problems.
2. Teachers and Students Beliefs
If beliefs have indeed that much power, they must be seriously studied in language learning and teaching as they may be factors that can have
tremendous effects on the process of learning and teaching. In language learning and teaching, the role of learner
s’ and teachers’ beliefs about language learning has generally been researched due to its influential nature.
3
Ruben Hermans, Johanvan Braak, and Hilde Van Keer, “Development of the Beliefs
about Primary Education Scale: Distinguishing a Developmental and Transmissive Dimension ”, in
Helenrose Fives and Michele Gregoire Gill ed, International Handbook of Research on Teachers’ Beliefs, New York: Routledge, 2015, p.1.
4
Virginia Richardson, “Preservice Teachers’ Beliefs”, in James Raths and Amy Raths McAninch ed, Teacher Beliefs and Classroom Performance: The Impact of Teacher Education,
Greenwich: Information Age Publishing, 2003, p.2.
5
Tran-Hoang-Thu, Teachers’ Perceptions about Grammar Teaching, Alliant
International University, 2009,
6
Mustafa Zülküf Altan, Pre- service EFL Teachers’ Beliefs about Foreign Language
Learning, European Journal of Teacher Education. 2012. p.481
Teachers’ attitudes and beliefs about L2 acquisition received much attention in the literature and, more recently, they have resurfaced as key to
understanding what motivates teachers’ actions. Teachers are highly influenced by their beliefs, which in turn are closely related to their values, to
their views of the world, to their conceptions of their place within it. In Altan
’s study, teachers in this study hold a variety of beliefs about language learning, some of which may constitute an impediment to successful language
learning and teaching, such as some of their beliefs about pronunciation, error correction, and the time required to become proficient in a foreign language.
7
In addition, according to Ganjabi research, he found that the teachers also put strong emphasis on the communicative activities and the timing of error
correction
8
. In contrast, the students tended to agree or vary their opinions of these issues. The students preferred focusing primarily on the grammatical
items which caused by less appropriate idea about the value of communication and communicative activities. These findings support the
general contention that language teachers may hold certain beliefs about language learning that may have an impact on their instructional practices.
Furthermore, according to Kern, the different beliefs between students and teachers and found that over the period of a 15-week program, the
mismatches between student and teacher beliefs still found.
9
He found stability of student beliefs at the global level when analysing beliefs of all the
students and all the teachers as a single group. He explained that the persisting mismatches might be resulted from factors other than teacher
beliefs such as teachers’ actual classroom practice, the nature of instructional activities, students’ assessment of their own progress, students’ expectations
of achievement, students’ awareness of mistakes, textbooks, tests, and written exercises, teachers’ individual differences such as personalities, personal
7
Ibid, pp. 481-493.
8
Mahyar Ganjabi, Effective Foreign Language Teaching: a Matter of Iranian Students’
and Teachers’ Beliefs, English Language Teaching Journal, 2011, p.50
9
R.G. Kern, Students’ and teachers’ beliefs about language learning. Foreign Language
Annals , 281, 2000, pp. 71-92.
