Beliefs in initial English Teacher Education: an interpretative study

This qualitative case study aimed to explore the cognition (focusing on beliefs) of English teacher educators, from a state university in Paraná, about different aspects of initial teacher education (linguistic, theoretical and didactic-pedagogical knowledge). In this sense, teacher cognition is adopted both as a unit of analysis and as the theoretical foundation (BORG, 2003). For such purposes, a semi-structured interview with open questions was administered in the aforementioned context. Results reveal three dimensions: Linguistic Command (homogeneity, heterogeneity and expectations); Affordance (including agency, theoretical-methodological advancement, expectations in didactic-pedagogical and curriculum terms, identity factors, linguistic advancement and curriculum factors); and Hindrance (encompassing no agency; didactic-pedagogical factors; theoretical-methodological and linguistic gaps and physical and human factors). It is expected that this research can contribute to theoretical and methodological reflections in the scope of language teacher education, given that teaching practices are significantly based on the set of beliefs of individuals in such scenario.