EXPLORING PRIMARY SCHOOL PRE-SERVICE AND IN-SERVICE TEACHERS’ BELIEFS ABOUT EFL TEACHING TO PRIMARY SCHOOL STUDENTS IN BENIN

Like other individuals, primary school teachers also bring their unique sets of beliefs to bear in situations and decisions related to teaching, which influences significantly their actual teaching practices. There is then a need to understand their primary school teachers' specific beliefs about English teaching. That is why the current study investigates the teaching beliefs held by primary school teachers about English. The questionnaire was administered to 200 teachers randomly selected who agreed to participate to this study. A Likert-scale questionnaire with 28 statements was administered to 100 in-service and 100 pre-service teachers randomly selected throughout the country. It emerged from the results that participants have common beliefs about the nature of English language development in primary school children and teaching methods and techniques employed in the classroom, on the one hand, and a high sense of self-efficacy on the other hand. Divergences occurred in relation with the optimum age for children to start learning English, error correction and assessment techniques are concerned. It is hoped that future research will address the limitations of the study to better teacher education and English teaching in primary schools.