Tanzanian Secondary School Learners’ Beliefs about EFL Learning, Teaching and Testing: Exploratory Account

Abstract

The current study explored EFL secondary school learners’ beliefs about language teaching, learning and testing in Tanzania. Specifically, it sought to find out the EFL learners’ beliefs about language assessment, explore the EFL learners’ beliefs about language learning and establish degree of EFL learner variability in their beliefs about language teaching. The study involved 48 secondary school learners, 36 (75%) males and 12 (25%) females. From these 20 (all boys) (50%) were from a private secondary school in Temeke and the rest (16 boys and all 12 girls) from another secondary school in Kinondoni District, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. Data were collected via a questionnaire, which was one and only tool for data gathering and it consisted of 25 items, five on language assessment, 9 on language teaching and 11 on language learning to which the respondents were asked to react and register their level of agreement about pre –developed assertions. Findings showed that while the learners differed in their beliefs about language teaching, a grand majority shared a belief about primacy of grammar teaching and on role of teacher in error correction and disfavoured communicative language teaching. The same was the case for language assessment where the most shared belief was testing grammar and correcting errors. It is concluded that these set of beliefs are hinged upon years of grammar-focussed teaching in Tanzania which still characterize language teaching in Tanzania despite the introduction of communicative language teaching approach in the national language curriculum more than ten years ago.