Researching Beliefs About SLA: A Critical Review

The interst in beliefs about Second Language Acquisition (SLA) in Applied Linguistics begain in the mid 1980s, which is fairly recent compared to other fields such as Sociology, Anthropology, Psychology, and Education. However, the interest in beliefs in Applied Linguistics has been increasingly lately. The special edition of System (vol. 27, n. 4) on beliegs about SLA, the first sysmposium on beliefs about SLA held at AILA 1999 in Tokyo, and this volume suggest that the interest in beliefs has grown. Several studies, MA theses and dissertations have been written on beliefs about SLA. Yet, very few of them have done a review of common methodologies used in the investigation of beliefs about SLA.

In this chapter, I review select studies on learners’ beliefs about SLA, discussing their methodology, their definition of beliefs, and their view on the relationship between beliefs and actions, as well as advantages and disadvantages.