English language teachers’ beliefs and practices concerning pluricentric language learning in Hungary: A pilot study

Imré Maté HUBER

University of Szeged, Hungary
(hubermate@gmail.com)

Keywords: Teachers’ beliefs, pluricentric language teaching, English as a foreign language, Hungary

The beliefs of both teachers and learners play an essential role in language teaching and learning. Often enough there are substantial discrepancies in terms of teachers’ and learners’ beliefs concerning a certain aspect of learning. This can make it problematic for both parties to achieve their goals, since the teacher and the learner(s) need to cooperate, i.e. work together for the same aim, and as long as their beliefs concerning the learning process differ, their cooperation cannot really be successful.

My hypothesis, which I base upon my own experience both as a learner and as a teacher of English as a foreign language, is that there are significant differences as to how teachers and learners approach the pluricentricity of English, its role in learning, as well as its different varieties. This is what I would like to investigate in a complex project, part of which is the questionnaire-based study that I am going to present in this paper. The research is still at a rather initial stage – at a later point in my project, my aim is going to be to compare the findings that I have gathered from teachers to the ones I have collected from learners, and also to conduct in-depth interviews with at least some of my subjects to arrive at a more complex understanding of the situation. However, in this initial pilot study, I am only going to present the findings I have obtained from my questionnaire for teachers, before I take my investigations any further.

I have obtained data from 26 respondents, and I am going to present them in 6 categories. I categorized the statements of the questionnaire based on what exactly it is about pluricentric language learning that they expect the respondents to report on. This is the categorization that I finally arrived at:

(1) The role of age groups and proficiency levels

(2) The role of the activities used in class

(3) The characteristics of pluricentric teaching

(4) The role of the teacher

(5) The role of the learner

(6) The role of the materials used in teaching

There is a general tendency observable towards accepting the importance of pluricentricity in teaching, and this manifests itself – to various degrees – in all the above categories. However, the extent to which the respondents consider pluricentric language teaching desirable and feasible varies from category to category, with the role of the learner and the materials used often seen as factors that hinder pluricentric language teaching in various ways.