THE USE OF INTERVIEWS IN RESEARCH ON BELIEFS IN THE TEACHING-LEARNING OF LANGUAGES DURING INITIAL TEACHER EDUCATION

Abstract

We investigated the use of interviews as an instrument to produce data in studies about beliefs in the teaching and learning of foreign languages during the initial teacher education of student teachers in bachelor's of education degrees with a major in a foreign language. We intended to assist the process of conducting interviews related to this topic. We conducted bibliographic research and reported our experience in preparing and applying the tool. We used as theoretical framework authors such as Manzini (2003), Gerhardt et al. (2009), and Edwards and Holland (2013), among others. Five questions guided our investigation: 1) What are the advantages of using interviews in research on beliefs? 2) What are the disadvantages of using interviews in research on beliefs? 3) What type(s) of interviews is/are more appropriate for research on beliefs? 4) How should interviews be planned for research on beliefs? 5) How can we conduct interviews in research on beliefs? The results indicated that interviews could successfully be used in investigations about the subject through proper planning and use of the instrument. It is a complex task that demands effort and attention from researchers.

Keywords

• Interview; Beliefs; Language teaching-learning; Initial teacher education.