The relationship between Vietnamese EFL students’ beliefs and learning preferences and native English-speaking teachers’ beliefs and teaching practices

This study examines the relationships between foreign language learning beliefs and preferences of 2 Vietnamese learners and beliefs and practices of 2 Native English speaking teachers in a private English school in Vietnam. The learners were not satisfied with learning English in public schools and had many expectations on the course and the teachers while the teachers had to make their learners pleased. Beliefs were reviewed as determinations of actions; beliefs entail knowledge, values, and attitude, and relate closely to identity and experience. The researcher adopted an interpretivist paradigm and three qualitative methods: Repgrid interview, Stimulated recall interview, and The COLT as an observation schedule. The interview data was coded inductively with content analysis method to build up the subjects’ beliefs and belief systems. Then, the systems were compared to find the relationships between their beliefs. To see how their beliefs related with learning preferences and teaching practices, the researcher analysed what they said and made use of the video record of their classroom activities; besides, the teachers’ beliefs were compared with the timing calculation of the activities in their classes. The results showed that beliefs about language learning affected strongly the participants’ preferred ways of teaching and learning and there were tight matches between the teachers’ beliefs and actions in class. There were influences of beliefs of the teachers and learners on each other, they were not direct influences but through their interpretations of the classroom events. However, the influences from the teacher were much clearer. After the course, the learners’ preferences and beliefs about some learning activities were changed and became more reflective. They also started to recognize the benefits of different ways of learning English. Meanwhile, the teachers’ interpretation of their learners’ expectations, learning preferences, and levels strongly affected what and how they taught.