Chapter 8. Teachers’ and learners’ beliefs about task-based language teaching

This chapter provides a systematic review of studies on learner/teacher beliefs in the context of task-based language teaching (TBLT). This review aims to identify the foci, conceptualisation, operationalisation of beliefs in TBLT, methodological characteristics, and major research findings. The results showed a lack of consistent conceptualisation and operationalisation of the concept of beliefs, and the studies have focused more on teachers’ beliefs about TBLT than learners’. The results also demonstrated a number of methodological issues such as lack of important background information about the participants and the study’s context, an excessive focus on English as a target language, an over-reliance on the normative approach (as opposed to the contextual approach), and a lack of clear and rigorus procedure for construct validation and data analysis. Despite these issues, the results show that TBLT research on beliefs appears to head toward an appropriate direction by adopting multi-method approaches and using diverse data collection tools. Also, the results show a promising picture for adopting and implementing TBLT in diverse contexts from both teachers’ and learners’ perspectives.