The Power of EFL Teacher’s Beliefs to Drive Practice

Abstract

In a test-driven instructional development such as that in Indonesia, teachers spend most of his time, energy, and thoughts to strive for his students’ excellent performance in the final test. This is due to the indicator used to judge the success of a school. One particular teacher of English is, however, different. I have collected data on his class and conducted an in-depth interview with him. The results of data analysis revealed that the teacher is creative and innovative as he strives to help his students of different levels and types of abilities to make as high achievements as they can. In other words, he strives to enable their students to reach their full potential development. He is also very productive, with more than 180 books as his works and creative and innovative in his teaching, enabling his students to speak English fluently in communicative situations evidenced in their performance in the final test of speaking witnessed by the students’ parents. This particular teacher is a rare asset in the development of English language teaching. More importantly, he confessed that his strong beliefs in students have driven him to do his best to facilitate his students’ learning. This is in line with the findings of numerous research studies. This implies the importance of developing and strengthening the teachers’ beliefs through redesigning the English language teacher education curriculum, both pre-service and in-service.