ABSTRACT

Highschool EFL Students’ and Teachers’ Beliefs
about English Learning:
The Relationship between Beliefs and English Achievement


Lee, Yu-Jeong
Advisor: Kim, Kyung-Ja, Ph.D.
Department of English Education,
Graduate School of Chosun University


The purposes of this study were to identify Korean highschool students’ English learning beliefs and compare their English learning beliefs with their English teachers’ perceptions about the beliefs. The study also investigated the effects of students’ beliefs on their English achievement and analyzed the differences in beliefs depending on the English proficiency levels. A total of 300 students(160 boys, 140 girls) and 17 teachers(11 male, 6 female) at a highschool completed a questionnaire containing 35 items about the English learning beliefs. Two hundred fifty-four students’ final English exam scores were used to measure their English achievement.
The study identified five underlying constructs: nature of learning English, aptitude for learning English, difficulty of learning English, strategy for learning English and motivation of learning English. Students believed that it was difficult to learn English but anybody could learn it. However, they believed that they didn’t have good ability to learn English. They had extrinsic motivation toward learning English for an entrance exam to a college and getting a job. Some beliefs of the students corresponded with teachers’, but the others did not. The items that students’ beliefs agreed with teachers’ were about the importance of acquiring rich vocabulary, memorizing and repeating for learning English. But the items about the importance of learning English culture and their own English ability showed disagreement between the students and teachers. The factors of aptitude for learning English, difficulty of learning English, strategy for learning English and motivation of learning English had positive correlation with the students’ achievement. The factor of difficulty of learning English had significant effect on the students’ achievement. All factors except nature of learning English had significant differences depending on the students’ English proficiency level: advanced, intermediate, beginning. Based on the findings, some pedagogical implications to improve English instruction were suggested.