Change in Beliefs on Language Learning of BA Students in Language Teaching (original) (raw)

This paper analyzes changes in students' beliefs on language learning in a Mexican public university BA in Language Teaching. The study monitors the beliefs held by students in an initial stage, when they enter the educational program to the final stage of a four-year program, by implementing the instrument BALLI (Beliefs About Language Learning Inventory), developed by Horwitz (1985, 1987, and 1988). Although considerable amount of research has been conducted about language learners and language teachers' beliefs, there are few studies that monitor the changes in beliefs over a longer period of time. Moreover, the results of current studies in the ESL (English as a Second Language) or EFL (English as a Foreign Language) field are rather inconclusive in the sense that some of them report beliefs in language learning, which have not been modified substantially in pre-service language teachers (Peacock, 2001), while others suggest the contrary (e.g. Debreli, 2012). The authors of the present article describe the beliefs of a selected group of students from a 2009-2 cohort reporting changes over the four year period in the following thematic lines: difficulty of the language, foreign language aptitude, nature of language learning, learning and communication strategies, and motivations and expectations. The authors argue that beliefs play a central role in the process of pre-service teacher development as they anticipate changes in teacher's practices. The study´s theoretical and pedagogical implications for the educational program are also discussed in this paper. Keywords beliefs on language learning, ELF teacher beliefs, BALLI, changes in beliefs, BA in language teaching Introduction This investigative project on students' beliefs on language learning circumscribes into mayor national project that searched for factors effecting terminal efficiency of BA language teaching majors from the cohort 2009-2 in 22 Mexican public universities (Tapia, 2009) Besides following the academic trajectory of selected students and describing indicators traditionally associated with academic success, the project focused on factors that are perhaps less visible, but nonetheless important in formation of future language teachers, that is the beliefs they hold towards language learning and language teaching. Our