3.2 Summarising remarks and suggestions for the professional
development of teachers
This section summarises the research findings which have been presented so
far in this chapter by providing answers to the research questions, as these were stated
in the introduction to this book. These answers indicate that teachers need to develop
professionally, in order to become more efficient and effective in what they do. For
this reason, a suggestion is made for teachers to engage in programmes of in-service
training.
3.2.1 Providing answers to the research questions
For the reader’s convenience, the research questions are reproduced below,
before an answer is provided to each one of them.
Research question 1: What are primary English teachers’ beliefs concerning the way
Young Learners think and learn and the way they learn languages, and how are these
beliefs influenced by theories which are considered current nowadays?
As it is indicated by the research findings, there is a considerable number of
primary English teachers who lack the necessary theoretical knowledge which would
allow them to teach English to Young Learners effectively and efficiently. Rather,
they hold individual beliefs which are inconsistent (Nespor 1987), and which derive
from a combination of traditional approaches, and approaches which are fashionable
nowadays. For example, while they are expressed in favour of a transmission model
of learning, at the same time they adopt the view that children need to be actively
involved in the construction of knowledge. Beliefs such as the ones above are the
result of long and subconscious processes, which usually start from the time when
teachers were students themselves (Britzman 1986:450; Wilson 1990) and, as such,
they are implicit to them. Rokeach (1968) refers to such beliefs as ‘existential
presumptions’, stressing that they cannot be easily challenged, as to question them
would be to question one’s own sanity. This can be one of the reasons why, although
teachers state that they feel the need for some special training, they also believe that
what they do is effective.
Research question 2: Are the teachers’ practices consistent with their beliefs, and if
otherwise, what are F