Revisiting Foreign Language Teacher Beliefs

Zehra Gabillon (1)

1 EASTCO - Sociétés Traditionnelles et Contemporaines en Océanie (EA 4241)

This state of the art paper revisits foreign language teacher beliefs. The first part of the paper reviews some factors that have an impact on foreign/second language (L2) teachers' beliefs. The second part outlines some characteristics of teacher beliefs by providing examples from a range of research studies conducted in the field. In the final part, the paper attempts to illuminate the complex nature of L2 teacher beliefs and belief formation processes by addressing Moscovici's social representations theory. The author argues that Moscovici's social representations theory, and Abric's central kernel theory developed as a sub-theory of social representations theory offer the theoretical foundation to explain differing aspects of L2 teacher beliefs. The author claims that central kernels theory provides a clear distinction between peripheral and core beliefs. The author concludes by suggesting future research focusing on L2 teachers' peripheral and core beliefs.

Mots clés: L2 beliefs; L2 teacher education; core beliefs; peripheral beliefs; foreign language learning

Mots clés: didactique d'anglais; L2; représentations; formation enseignants; langue étrangère

Domaines: Education

Zehra Gabillon. Revisiting Foreign Language Teacher Beliefs. International Online Language Conference 2012, Nov 2012, Online/en ligne, pp.190-203. ⟨halshs-00799937⟩