A Survey Study On Primary School English Teachers' Teaching Beliefs

English teaching is a complicated process which can be affected by many elements among which teachers' teaching beliefs are the factors of great importance.However,up till now,only few studies have been carried out to explore the Primary School English teachers' teaching beliefs.Therefore,this paper is undertaken to investigate the status quo of Primary School English teachers' teaching beliefs by both questionnaires and interview.The research questions in this paper are:1)What is the general situation of Primary School English teachers' teaching beliefs?2)Are there any differences in Primary School English teachers' teaching beliefs between lower grade teachers(grade 1-2)and higher grade teachers(grade 5-6)?If yes,what are the differences?3)Are there any differences in Primary School English teachers' teaching beliefs between novice teachers(fewer than 5 years)and experienced teachers(more than 10 years)?If yes,what are the differences?In this study,both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted.The questionnaire used in the quantitative research is adapted from the one designed by Xu(2011)whose whole internal reliability reaches.773.The questionnaires are handed out to 81 English teachers in 8 Primary Schools in Suzhou on November 15th,2017 and finally 76 are found valid.Then,SPSS 21.0 is used to deal with the data in the quantitative research.The qualitative research mainly involves a semi-structured interview with 4 English teachers selected from those whose questionnaires are confirmed valid.The interview is carried out in Chinese and the whole process is tape-recorded.Afterwards,the results are transcribed into English and the transcriptions of the interview are carefully analyzed.After the overall analysis of the information collected from the quantitative and qualitative research,this study yields the following findings:Firstly,the results show that in general,teachers are relatively in favour of all English teachers' teaching beliefs.Among these broad categories,the highest mean score appears in Beliefs of English teaching profession,which indicates that teachers highly endorse the statements in this category.On the other hand,the mean score of Beliefs of English learning is the lowest.When it comes to nine minor categories,all the mean scores of them are above 3.00.In terms of the specific forty-two items,most of the mean value of them are above 3.00,with the exception of six item's scores,which suggests that teachers hold positive or affirmative attitudes towards the left thirty-six statements.Secondly,there do exist some differences between lower grade teachers and higher grade teachers in their English teachers' teaching beliefs.Generally speaking,differences between the two groups mainly lie in two dimensions:Beliefs of English teaching and Beliefs of English learning.Within the category of Beliefs of English teaching,differences appear in Beliefs of Grammar Translation Method and Beliefs of Audiolingual Method.In Beliefs of Grammar Translation Method,higher grade teachers are more convinced of two specific items(Explanation and analysis and Writing and speaking).In Beliefs of Audiolingual Method,lower grade teachers are the supporters of three statements(correcting students' mistakes quickly,practice and imitation and listening and speaking).As for Beliefs of English learning,the distinct difference between the two groups only appears in Beliefs of learning nature.To be more specific,higher grade teachers hold a more positive attitude towards The importance of grammar.Thirdly,novice teachers and experienced teachers differ from each other in many aspects in English teachers' teaching beliefs.In general,differences appear in four dimensions:Beliefs of English teaching,Beliefs of English learning,Beliefs of the role of teacher and student and Beliefs of English teaching profession.First,within the category of Beliefs of English teaching,their differences appear in Beliefs of Grammar Translation Method and Beliefs of Communicative Approach.In Beliefs of Grammar Translation Method,experienced teachers show more positive attitudes towards Writing and speaking.Within the category of Beliefs of Communicative Approach,there are significant differences in practice of structures and sentence,common expressions and authentic language materials.Second,the significant difference between the two groups in Beliefs of English learning only consists in one aspect:Beliefs of learning nature.It turns out experienced teachers are more convinced of The importance of grammar.Third,in the category of Beliefs of the role of teacher and student,novice teachers hold more positive attitudes towards Beliefs of the role of teacher and Beliefs of the role of student.In Beliefs of the role of teacher,differences appear in Guide,teacher-centered class and teacher's status.In Beliefs of the role of student,difference can be found in student-centered class.At last,within the category of Beliefs of English teaching profession,the two group differ from each other in Ordinary career.According to the findings,this paper puts forward some useful pedagogical implications.First,the communication on English teaching and learning between lower grade teachers and higher grade teachers should be strengthened in order to help them establish correct teaching beliefs.Second,schools are responsible for the cultivation of novice teachers' teaching beliefs and the update of experienced teachers' teaching beliefs.Both of the two group are supposed to learn from each other on beliefs of English teaching,English learning,the role of teacher and student and English teaching profession.