engleski

The Importance of Learner Beliefs for FL Teaching

Foreign language teachers have long recognized that their students bring to the classroom a complex web of attitudes, beliefs, expectations and learning strategies. Research has shown that learner beliefs have a profound influence on learning behaviour and on learning outcomes. Supportive and positive beliefs help students to overcome initial problems, sustain motivation and thus become successful language learners. On the other hand, negative or unrealistic beliefs can result in decreased motivation, frustration and anxiety and lead students to the decision to give up learning foreign languages. Language learner beliefs are usually defined as general assumptions that students hold about themselves as learners, about factors influencing language learning and about the nature of language learning and teaching. Depending on the theoretical perspective, language learner beliefs have been called metacognitive knowledge, learners' naive psychology of learning, learner representations, mini-theories and implicit theories. Research has also shown that, despite teacher's efforts, learner beliefs are resistant to change. It is therefore very important for foreign language teachers to become aware of their students' past experiences and their assumptions and attitudes about language learning. This presentation describes a study of beliefs held by 120 primary school students. The Horwitz' (1987) BALLI (Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory) was used to collect data. Learner beliefs about foreign language aptitude, the nature and difficulty of language learning, learning and communication strategies and motivation and expectations are analysed and interpreted in the light of recent studies and practical experience in the classroom. The implications of these findings for EFL teaching are discussed in the final part of the presentation.

language learner beliefs; FL teaching

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