Language proficiency and pedagogical strategies in the English-language classroom: Determinants of preservice teachers’ level of self-efficacy

Abstract

Social Cognitive Theory explicates that teachers’ efficacy beliefs shape the kind of environment that they create as they instill the culture of learning among their students (Bandura, 1977). Accordingly, every teacher education program offered in various colleges and universities aims to produce self-efficacious preservice teachers with high expectations that they can affect both the kind of context they build and the various pedagogical activities they present in the classroom. It is therefore the purpose of this study to determine the relationships among the perceived levels of preservice English-language teachers’ self-efficacy beliefs, language proficiency, and pedagogical strategies. Findings revealed that the respondents have a moderate level of self-efficacy beliefs, and this is significantly associated to their speaking proficiency. Results also showed that their classroom management is linked to their writing self-efficacy; whereas, their communicative strategies are correlated to classroom and outcome efficacy. Recommendations to offer language-training programs that will help boost the levels of language proficiency and self-efficacy of preservice English-language teachers are likewise presented.

Keywords

• classroom management
• english profciency
• pedagogical strategies
• self-effcacy