Beliefs About SLA New Research Approaches [Paperback]

This edited collection of articles illustrates recent work on beliefs about second language acquisition, drawing on the thinking of educational philosophers and discursive psychologists including Dewey, Bakhtin, Vygotsky, and Potter. Coverage extends to beliefs held by second/foreign language learners and as well as teachers. The book includes detailed accounts of starting points, definitions, methods of data collection and analysis, main findings and implications for further research.

This edited collection of articles illustrates more recent work on beliefs about SLA, drawing on the thinking of (educational) philosophers and (discursive) psychologists, including Dewey, Bakhtin, Vygotsky, and Potter. The data for these reports have been collected by a variety of means, e.g., narratives, diary/journal entries, interviews, completion tasks, classroom observations, and subjected to a number of novel ways of analysis. The book puts past and present research into perspective by comparing and contrasting different approaches. Both beliefs from second/foreign language learners and teachers are subject of research. The contributions provide detailed accounts of starting points, definitions, methods of data collection and analysis, main findings and implications for further research.

Preface.- Acknowledgements.- Introduction.- Section 1: Key Issues in Research on Beliefs about SLA.- Researching Beliefs about SLA: A Critical Review.- Section 2: New Approaches to Doing Research on Beliefs about SLA: Focus on Students.- Evidence of Emergent Beliefs of a Second Language Learner: A Diary Study.- A Sociocultural Approach to Young Language Learners Beliefs about Language Learning.- Research on Students Beliefs about SLA within a Discursive Approach.- Metaphor and the Subjective Construction of Beliefs.- Section 3: New Approaches to Doing Research on Beliefs about SLA: Focus on Students and Teachers.- Beliefs in Dialogue: A Bakhtinian View.- Al³&