A Study On The Relationship Between Primary School English Teachers’ Beliefs And Classroom Decision Making

With the deepening reform and enriching experience of education around the world, the role of teachers has received increasing attention in the process of education reform. As the real practitioners of the educational reform, the change of teachers’ beliefs is the key factor that determines the success or failure of the reform. However, teachers’ beliefs can’t change within a day. Instead, with constant denying and frequent decision making, the change of teachers’ beliefs is a long-lasting process during which teachers’ beliefs are influenced by various factors as well. Therefore, in order to better understand teachers’ beliefs and further explore the relationship between teachers’beliefs and their teaching practice, scholars abroad and at home have carried out considerable research concerning teachers’ beliefs and their teaching behaviors.Throughout the related literature abroad and at home, it can be found that researchers abroad usually take native English teachers or ESL teachers as their research objects and researches on the relationship between the EFL teachers’beliefs and their teaching practice are relatively insufficient and need to be further investigated. In addition, research at home normally focuses on university or college English teachers’beliefs and their teaching behaviors and few of them are carried out to investigate the primary school English teachers’ beliefs. Taking these into consideration, the present study, employing the primary school English teachers in the urban region of Tongshan County as its objects, aims to investigate the current primary school English teachers’ beliefs and explore the relationship between those teachers’ beliefs and their classroom decision making. Employing questionnaire, classroom observation and interview, the study formulated its research questions as follows:(1) What are the current primary school English teachers’ beliefs about English language, learning, teaching, learners, teachers’ role and professionalism?(2) What is the level of match between primary school English teachers’ beliefs and their classroom decision making? What are the attributing factors to that level of match?It was found that urban primary school English teachers embrace comparatively advanced beliefs, but at the same time, they are also influenced by traditional teaching ideas. What’s more, the study also showed that primary schools English teachers’ beliefs comply with their classroom decision making in most cases, however, their beliefs are sometimes inconsistent with their classroom decision making due to various external and internal factors. Furthermore, on the basis of the six observed teachers’explanations, the influencing factors of teachers’beliefs and the causing factors of the inconsistencies of teachers’ beliefs and classroom decision making have been thoroughly analyzed. At last, some practical suggestions are offered for the real change of teachers’ beliefs.