Teachers’ beliefs and practices in English language teaching at the tertiary level

Abstract

The paper will seek to understand the connection between the beliefs of teachers and their teaching methods in ELT on the tertiary level. It aims to determine the level of correspondence or the lack of the correspondence between what the teachers think are good English teaching and what they actually teach in terms of teaching and find out the contextual factors that contribute to the relationship. The methodology is likely to be mixed-methods; quantitative surveys to measure beliefs of the teachers are used and then the actual teaching behavior and rationales were measured by a combination of qualitative classroom observations and semi-structured interviews. The study sample can consist of English teachers of different institutions of higher education to have diversified representation. Thematic coding and correlation could be used in the data analysis to investigate the congruence of beliefs and practices. The research finds should bring out similarities and contradictions between teacher espoused beliefs and reality in the classroom. Although it is possible that most teachers now support communicative or learner-centered philosophy, institutional policies, testing systems, and abilities of students can cause them to rely on conventional, teacher-centered practices.