Unraveling Teachers^ Beliefs about the Primary Goal, Focus Areas, and Effective Instructional Strategies in Second Language Education
Deddy Amrand

Halu Oleo University

Abstract

Examining teachers^ pedagogical beliefs is critical to understanding their assumptions about students learning, curriculum, instruction, and materials. Such assumptions, in turn, affect students^ performance and their learning outcomes. This paper presents findings from a qualitative inquiry on teachers^ beliefs regarding second language (L2) pedagogy in the classrooms. Three specific belief topics were under investigation, including the primary goal of language teaching, focus areas, and effective instructional strategies. The template coding technique was executed to analyze data gathered from (a) semi-structured interviews with five dual language teachers in central Florida, USA, (b) their reflective teaching journals, and (c) related instructional artifacts. To establish the credibility of the qualitative data, three methods were adopted. Results show that the participants^ beliefs about the topics were generally aligned with current thinking and best practices in the field. Specifically, they understand that (1) communicative competence should become the primary goal of L2 teaching- (2) speaking, reading, and fluency should take precedence- (3) promoting learners^ interactions are of paramount importance- and (4) nonverbal supports are valuable tools-. The implications of these findings for L2 education are discussed, and recommendations for enhancing second language pedagogy are offered.

Keywords: teachers^ beliefs, second language education, dual language teachers

Topic: Education