1. 186 ELT Journal Volume 55/2 April 2001 © Oxford University Press
Teachers’ beliefs
Michaela Borg
The concept of belief, which has been a common feature of research
papers in education for the past decade, has recently come into favour in
ELT. Despite its popularity, there is as yet no consensus on meaning, and
the concept has acquired a rather fuzzy usage. So, what are beliefs? The
concept becomes clearer if we consider some common features of its
definition:
1 The truth element—drawing on research in the philosophy of
knowledge, a belief is a mental state which has as its content a
proposition that is accepted as true by the individual holding it,
although the individual may recognize that alternative beliefs may be
held by others. This is one of the key di¤erences between belief and
knowledge, in that knowledge must actually be true in some external
sense¡.
2 The relationship between beliefs and behaviour—most definitions of
belief propose that beliefs dispose or guide people’s thinking and
action.
3 Conscious versus unconscious beliefs—on this point there is
disagreement, with some maintaining that consciousness is inherent
in the definition of belief, and others allowing for an individual to be
conscious of some beliefs and unconscious of others.
4 Beliefs as value commitments—many definitions of belief recognize
an evaluative aspect to the concept, and this is not surprising as the
word itself originates from the Aryan word lubh, meaning ‘to like or to
hold dear’, from which the word love also originates (OED 1989).
To sum up, a belief is a proposition which may be consciously or
unconsciously held, is evaluative in that it is accepted as true by the
individual, and is therefore imbued with emotive commitment; further,
it serves as a guide to thought and behaviour.
Beliefs play an important role in many aspects of teaching, as well as in
life. They are involved in helping individuals make sense of the world,
influencing how new information is perceived, and whether it is accepted
key concepts in elt
articles welcome

2. or rejected. Beliefs colour memories with their evaluation and
judgement, and serve to frame our understanding of events. They can be
problematic to research, however, so caution needs to be exercised when
reading articles on beliefs. Considering the features raised earlier, we can
read articles with the following questions in mind. Is the writer
distinguishing clearly between belief and knowledge with regard to the
truth of the proposition, and to its evaluative aspect? Is the writer looking
both at what is said (espoused beliefs) as well as what is done (beliefs-in-
action)—and if not, are they overlooking di¤erences between the two?
Are unconscious beliefs included—and if so, how are they uncovered,
and how does the researcher check their interpretation?
Teachers’ beliefs From beliefs in general we now turn to consider teachers’ beliefs, a term
usually used to refer to teachers’ pedagogic beliefs, or those beliefs of
relevance to an individual’s teaching™. The areas most commonly
explored are teachers’ beliefs about teaching, learning, and learners;
subject matter (i.e. EFL or language); self as a teacher, or the role of a
teacher (Calderhead 1995).
The role and importance of beliefs have been studied in several key areas
of interest to ELT professionals: the influence of teachers’ pedagogic
beliefs on their classroom behaviours, for example, Woods’ (1996) study
of ESL teachers in North America, and Borg’s (1998) case study of a
practising EFL teacher’s beliefs about, and knowledge of, grammar
teaching. The influence of teachers’ beliefs on both pre-service and in-
service teacher education programmes has also been a focus of research,
for example, that carried out by Richards and Pennington (in Richards
1998) writing on the impact of a BA degree on Hong Kong teachers’ first
year of teaching, and by Lamb (1995) on the impact of an in-service
teacher training programme in Indonesia.
Further reading There is a wealth of literature in both the more theoretical and the more
practical realms. In addition to those studies mentioned above, see also
Pajares (1992) for a more detailed discussion of defining belief. On a
more practical front, a recent book by Gebhard and Oprandy (1999)
o¤ers teachers practical awareness-raising activities that aim to help
them explore their pedagogic beliefs.
Key concepts in ELT 187
References
Berliner, D. C. and R. C. Calfee (eds.). 1995.
Handbook of Educational Psychology. New York:
Simon & Schuster, Macmillan.
Borg, S. 1998. ‘Teachers’ pedagogical systems and
grammar teaching: A qualitative study’. TESOL
Quarterly 32/1: 9–38.
Calderhead, J. 1995. ‘Teachers: Beliefs and
Knowledge’, in D. C. Berliner and R. C. Calfee
(eds.).
Fenstermacher, G. D. (1994). ‘The knower and the
known: the nature of knowledge in research on
teaching’. Review of Research in Education 20: 3–56.
Gebhard, J. G. and R. Oprandy. 1999. Language
Teaching Awareness. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press.
Lamb, M. 1995. ‘The consequences of INSET’. ELT
Journal 49/1: 72–80.
Oxford English Dictionary (2nd edn.). 1989.
Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Pajares, M. F. 1992. ‘Teachers’ beliefs and educa-
tional research: cleaning up a messy construct’.
Review of Educational Research 62/3: 307–32.
Richards, J. C. 1998. Beyond Training. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press.
Wenden, A. L. (ed.). 1999. ‘Metacognitive
knowledge and beliefs in language learning’.
System 27/4 (Special Issue).
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3. 188 Key concepts in ELT
Woods, D. 1996. Teacher Cognition in Language
Teaching. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Notes
1 Knowledge is commonly defined as ‘justified
true belief’ (Fenstermacher 1994)
2 Research into beliefs may also be of interest to
ELT practitioners: ‘learners’ beliefs’ usually
refers to beliefs about language and language
learning—the topic is dealt with in some depth in
a recent special issue of System (Wenden 1999)
The author
Michaela Borg is a PhD student at the School of
Education, University of Leeds.
Email: mborg3@yahoo.com
articles welcome