English in the early years of elementary school at public schools in Brazil: a study of two teacher’s beliefs about the teacher and learning process

In this paper we intend to identify the beliefs of two English teachers for kids at public school about the teaching and learning process of foreign language. As theoretical background we discuss theories concerning beliefs on foreign language teaching and learning and, we also discuss aspects of teaching English for kids and the official documents that standardize the insertion of a foreign language at curriculum of basic education. The methodology adopted was a qualitative case study. The participants of the study were two English teachers for kids, and to generate data we used questionnaires, interviews, narratives and also the activities and lesson plans elaborated by the teachers. The results of this research suggest that the teachers have three distinct beliefs about English language learning: 1) general beliefs about teaching English for kids; 2) beliefs about the role of English teacher for kids; and 3) beliefs about the elaboration and material use for teaching English for kids.