Chilean language learners' beliefs about learning English as a foreign language

Abstract

In the area of language teaching and second language acquisition, there has recently been an increasing emphasis on learners’ beliefs, since they impose a great potential in the learning process. Hence, learners’ beliefs have become an important part of research in the field. Consequently, research on this matter has been conducted in several countries but not in ours, leaving our perspective as educators with no additional and valuable information to support pedagogical practices when planning lessons and working with students. The present study focuses its attention on Chilean learners’ beliefs about learning English as a foreign language from a contextual perspective according to the themes selected from the BALLI--Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory by Horwitz. This study employed the semi-structured interview method to investigate the nature of learners’ beliefs. Consistent with previous findings, this study revealed that learners’ beliefs were born out of their previous learning experiences. Learners’ beliefs were context specific, related to social background, and individual differences; however, they were not immutable.