Authority Versus Experience: Dialogues on Learner Beliefs

Abstract

This chapter reports on a study of the beliefs young learners hold about language learning and how those beliefs can change over time. Young learners were interviewed over a period of more than a decade about their beliefs about how English is learnt, and excerpts from the longitudinal data gathered are here analysed from a dialogical viewpoint. The data are used to trace the development of the learners’ beliefs in terms of Bakhtinian notions of voices and authority.