in this article. The significance of the existence of such images lies in the ’ fact that teacher expectations are believed to influence both the teacher’s behaviour and the student’s behaviour. It is recommended that teacher training should incorporate a social science perspective which would enable the trainee to heighten his or her awareness of the role of prejudiced beliefs as they may affect ELT The role of images in It often seems to happen that when the need for a service or product is great instruction and enthusiasm runs high, issues which are quite basic are overlooked. I believe this has happened in ELT, at least in some parts of North America. We have witnessed a series of attempts to improve curriculum and instruction in ELT, each one purporting to offer something which its predecessor had failed to deliver. Quite naturally, it has been these approaches, methods, and techniques which have attracted the most interest, as compared to the more mundane matter of teachers’ intuitive views of what ELT is all about. In the result, the tendency has been to ignore, or at least take for granted, teachers’ images of ELT. It is my belief, however, that these images have a significant effect upon ELT, notwithstanding their unofficial and unscientific nature, and that it would be wise to subject them to just a bit of scrutiny. Images are a factor of considerable significance in ELT, as in any formal education, because the ideal or intended curriculum is never implemented - it is the curriculum perceived by the classroom teacher which the students experience. If there is a single conclusion common to nearly all studies of curriculum implementation, it is this one. In a field such as ELT, the gap between the curriculum intended and the curriculum delivered may be especially large. Variation in how teachers perceive and attempt to implement the curriculum may be attributed in part to pre-existing images of ELT which the teachers harbour. In order for the teacher’s various opinions and views to warrant the term ‘image’, there must be something in the nature of a coherent pattern which can be recognized. Below I will attempt to describe three such patterns. ELT as special One image of ELT presents it as a branch of special education. While there education’ is no suggestion of physical handicap on the part of students, this image does portray the ELT student as having special (educational) needs. A limitation in terms of capacity for education is implied. The ‘evidence’ for this is immediate and striking: the student cannot communicate, or speaks strangely, haltingly. Trifonovitch (1981:214) reports having been told by