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Chapter One Introduction

1.1 Research background
Beliefs are one of the essential points of all fields which deal with humanbehaviors and learning (Fishbein & Ajzen, 1975). Williams and Burden (2006)suggested that teachers were greatly influenced by their beliefs. As is claimed in manystudies, teaching was a cognitive process regarded as a complex cognitive activity thateach teacher must perform (Lin, 2010). Therefore, it is important to understand andinvestigate teachers’ thoughts and cognition, which are essential for effective teaching.In Education, exploring teachers’ beliefs is a hot topic for study, which plays a criticalrole in teachers’ career because they filter teachers’ perception and interpretation ofnew knowledge. Teachers’ beliefs appear to be instrumental in shaping how teachersinterpret what goes on in their classroom. Teachers’ beliefs influence their educationalpractice in the classroom: teaching methods, interaction with students, and theexpectation they hold of students etc.Review of development course of teacher’s beliefs showed that teachers’ beliefscame to be a focus of attention as the cognitive science came to front in 1970s. Sincethen, researches on teachers’ beliefs developed rapidly. In China, since the beginningof 20thcentury, New English Curriculum Reform brought forward both requirementsand challenges to current English teachers. The researches on EFL teachers’ beliefs,both theoretical and empirical, began to emerge. Teachers’ beliefs, as anindispensable part of teachers’ quality, became the key factor to the success of reform(Cao, 2009). It is crucially important to consider the beliefs of EFL teachers. However,the previous findings show that there is a large discrepancy between teachers’ beliefsand their action in classroom. Teachers’ self-awareness of their belief system inlanguage teaching and learning is relatively weak. Therefore, the current state ofteachers’ beliefs deserves more attention.
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1.2 Purpose and significance of the study
The purpose of this study is to explore specific beliefs that those future EFLteachers hold and check the similarities and differences between senior students’ beliefs who have attended the educational practices and junior students who haven’t.The study is significant for both theoretical and practical reasons. Theoretically,as an empirical investigation, the review in this study contributes to the issues of thedevelopment of teachers’ beliefs, which is highlighted by applied linguists (Barcelos,2000). The proposed study will also provide practical and comparative informationconcerning beliefs about foreign language learning as well as teaching amongpre-service EFL teachers who have got the practical teaching for three months andthose who have not in China. First, through the description of the general beliefs thatthose future EFL teachers hold, EFL teachers and administrators of Teacher Educationin normal university can accordingly tailor their language courses to eliminate anydetrimental beliefs in pre-service EFL teachers before they start to teach. Second, theresult of the comparison between senior students and junior students can be used as anassessing factor to evaluate the effect of educational internship. Third, pre-serviceEFL teachers can thus identify and assess their own implicit beliefs in relation to therequirements and challenges of New English Curriculum Reform.
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