ELT Student Teachers’ Beliefs About Language Learning: The Case ofBurdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University

Abstract

Learning English is a must because English is an inextricable element of people's academic lives and it is a highly popular and important issue that millions of people need to understand and learn in our global world. Beliefs about learning a foreign language are thought to be a key factor in determining why and how people learn English. Having a serious look at the beliefs of student teachers about language learning serves as a facilitator to find out and recover the roadblocks on the path to learning and teaching English. The goal of this study is to determine English Language Teaching (ELT) student teachers’ beliefs about language learning as well as whether there is any difference according to their gender and class using the Beliefs about Language Learning Inventory (BALLI) at Burdur Mehmet Akif Ersoy University. BALLI (Horwitz, 1988) is a self-report questionnaire with 34 statements and five categories elaborating on the beliefs about the difficulty of language learning, language learning aptitude, the nature of language learning, learning and The means of the four categories out of five -foreign language aptitude mean, the difficulty of language learning mean, the nature of language learning, learning and communication strategies- were high. Motivations and expectations mean is very high. The overall results of the inventory differed significantly according to gender in favour of females over males. Foreign language aptitude results, the nature of language learning results, learning and communication strategies results and motivations and expectations results of the student teachers differed significantly according to gender in favour of females over males. Difficulty of language learning results have not differed significantly according to gender. Neither of five categories’ results have differed significantly according to class.