English teachers’ beliefs and practices in teaching vocabulary: The case of teaching experience

Abstract: Evidently, vocabulary learning has a vital role in learning a foreign language. Accordingly, the way teachers approach teaching vocabulary is also of tremendous importance. Moreover, the role of experience in teaching vocabulary is of significance when it comes to novice and experienced teachers. Thus, the present study set out to investigate the differences between second language (L2) vocabulary teaching beliefs and practices of novice and experienced English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. Initially, 100 male and female teachers of Modiran Institute in Tehran were selected via convenience sampling. Then, they were briefed about the purposes of the study and data collection. Next, they were asked to fill out the novice and experienced teacher questionnaire and the questionnaire of teachers’ belief about L2 vocabulary learning and teaching. Then three classroom sessions of 20 of the participants were observed using 15 items of the questionnaire of teachers’ belief about L2 vocabulary learning and teaching as an observation checklist. The results of statistical analysis indicated that there was no significant difference between the beliefs and practices of teachers in terms of L2 vocabulary teaching. However, there were significant differences among the externally observed practice (EOP), self-perceived practices (SPP) and self-perceived beliefs


PUBLIC INTEREST STATEMENT
Words are highly important in general and even more important when learning another language. Obviously, teachers have different opinions about how to teach words. Thus, having knowledge about the way teachers teach the words and the way they think about vocabulary teaching and learning is important. Moreover, experienced and novice teachers have also been found to practice teaching differently. Therefore, if teacher educators know about the way teachers teach vocabulary and how they think about vocabulary teaching and learning, they can help teachers select the best approaches towards vocabulary teaching which can be to the benefit of language learners. Thus, this study investigated the differences between L2 vocabulary teaching beliefs and practices of novice and experienced EFL teachers. The results revealed that novice and experienced teachers were different in terms of the way they thought about vocabulary teaching and also the way they taught vocabulary.

Introduction
In today's modern world of education, second/foreign language teacher education as an independent field of applied linguistics has gained upsurge attention because teachers are an integral part of any successful educational system. According to Evelein, Korthagen, andBrekelmans (2008, p.1137), "since the 1980s, the teacher-thinking paradigm, which emphasizes the rational system of teachers, has had a considerable influence on the research into teachers and teaching". On the other hand, the relationship between teachers' belief and what exactly they practice as their academic behaviors in the classroom and their decision making have been recently emphasized in the English Language Teaching (ELT) research. Hence, the present study is an attempt to address the experienced and novice English teachers' beliefs and practices in teaching vocabulary in the Iranian context. In the previous two decades, second language studies have progressively concentrated on educator perception, especially the connection between instructors' beliefs and their educational practices (Phipps & Borg, 2009;Theriot & Tice, 2009). Nevertheless, few investigations have analyzed L2 instructors' beliefs and practices about vocabulary teaching (Borg, 2006) in spite of the focal part that vocabulary learning plays in L2 acquisition (Schmitt, 2008) and the significance of teaching in cultivating learners' vocabulary (Niu & Andrews, 2012).
The assumption of the educators is that teachers' thinking guides their behaviors and their conscious decisions during their teaching (Clark, 1986, as cited in Evelein, Korthagen, & Brekelmans, 2008) based on the theories about learning and teaching they have in their minds. On the other hand, teaching is known to be a stressful profession (Borg & Riding, 1991). "In comparison with other professions, teachers show higher levels of exhaustion and cynicism, the core dimensions of burnout" (Schaufeli & &Enzmann, 1998, p.23). Teachers' beliefs about what they do is of paramount significance and could affect their classroom behaviors. Indeed, beliefs can be reformed or reoriented by being exposed to input from other professionals and different types of activity (Gross, 2008). Beliefs are halfway between information and activity; between people and their performance (Alarcón Hernandez, Ortiz Navarrete, & Díaz Larenas, 2015). They display the information that is most worth and has demonstrated itself in performance (Alarcón Hernandez et al., 2015).
Given the important role of etchers' beliefs and the fact that vocabulary learning is significant in the process of language learning and teaching, the present study was an attempt to investigate the differences between L2 vocabulary teaching beliefs and real practices of novice and experienced EFL teachers in the Iranian context. One of the main concerns of teacher education programs is enabling the teachers to be true decision makers when needed (in the so-called immediate situations). Such ability is influenced by various factors including teachers' beliefs (Alarcón Hernandez et al., 2015). On the other hand, the teacher-thinking paradigm and beliefs, which accentuate the rational system of decision making and teaching in the classroom, have had a considerable influence on the research into teachers' real practices and classroom behaviors (Kumaravadivelu, 2012). Teachers' beliefs about vocabulary teaching include memory, meaning, and function based lexical instruction (Ghaffarzadeh Hassankiadeh, Jahandar, & Khodabandehlou, 2012). Memory-based belief points to "concentrating on memorizing words, analyzing the parts of speech, focusing on affixes, listening and repeating, writing and practicing, imagining the written forms of the words and connecting the words with their synonyms and antonyms" (Ghaffarzadeh Hassankiadeh et al., 2012, p. 23). Instructors assert that utilizing keyword techniques to retain the words, focusing on the form of the words and utilizing techniques to recall the words (without much regard for meaning) is a powerful instructing technique to deal with vocabulary instruction (Bhasin & Baveja, 2010). Borg (2006) hypothesizes that teaching experience is an important factor which might shape the beliefs of EFL teachers. Previous studies suggested that there could be positive relationships between the enrichment of teachers' beliefs and their professional practices (Alarcón Hernandez et al., 2015;Amiryousefi, 2015;Ghaffarzadeh Hassankiadeh et al., 2012;Niu & Andrews, 2012). As the research findings might be a culture bound issue, different results might be achieved in different cultures. Based on the purposes of the study and the problems stated above the following research questions were raised:

RQ1:
To what extent are Iranian EFL teachers' beliefs in teaching L2 vocabulary reflected in their classroom practices?
RQ2: Are there any statistically significant differences between the novice and experienced English teachers' beliefs and practices in teaching vocabulary?

Participants
The non-native English speaking teachers (NNESTs) taking part in the present study were 100 EFL teachers selected from among the male and female teachers of English teaching in Modiran Language Institute in Tehran. The reason behind this decision was that the researcher had already taught and supervised other teachers in some of these institutes and this familiarity facilitated the process of conducting research. The EFL teachers taking part in the present study received the Novice and Experienced Teacher Questionnaire (Rodríguez & McKay, 2010) based on which the researcher could determine if they were novice or experienced. Therefore, the participants were both experienced teachers (with more than 3 years of experience in teaching English in the institutes) and novice teachers (with 2 years of experience or less than that as well as the student teachers studying at the Bachelor of Arts (BA) level and working as teachers in the institutes). The participants were both male and female teachers and within the age range of 22 to 45 (M = 34). Out of the huge population of EFL teachers in different institutes in Tehran (N = 2700) (http://tehranedu.ir), based on Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table of sample size, 100 EFL male and female teachers working in different branches of Modiran language Institute were selected as the main participants of the study (n = 100).

Instruments
To collect the desired data, a Novice and Experienced Teacher Questionnaire, Questionnaire of Teachers' Beliefs about L2 Vocabulary Learning and Teaching and an In-depth Classroom Observation were used as the instruments of the study. The description of the instruments used in the study is as follows:

Novice and experienced teacher questionnaire
This questionnaire has been developed and validated by Rodríguez and McKay (2010) (See Appendix A). Novice and Experienced Teacher Questionnaire can relatively specify the teachers' level of experience. It consists of three scales with a total of 12 items. The Cronbach's Alpha reliability index reported for this questionnaire is (α = .72), which is a good reliability (Rodríguez & McKay, 2010). The minimum score is 12 and the maximum score is 60. The cut score specified is 30 to 36. It means that the teachers with scores below 30 are labeled as novice and the ones with scores above 36 are considered as experienced ones. The teachers with scores between 30 and 36 are left out to confirm the clear cut scoring system.

Questionnaire of teachers' belief about L2 vocabulary learning and teaching
This questionnaire had already been developed and used for surveying integration of grammar in the L2 classroom by Borg and Burns (2008). To be used as a means of data collection, the questionnaire was adopted and adapted to the L2 vocabulary learning and teaching and the questionnaire for the current study was developed (See Appendix B). Then, the questionnaire was piloted through being administered to a group of 30 EFL teachers and its reliability was checked again. The Cronbach's Alpha index for the questionnaire calculated in this study was .82.
The content validity of the questionnaire was put to the scrutiny of two experts who were TEFL PhD holders of Islamic Azad University in the Science and Research branch of the university. The questionnaire included 30 items in total. The initial 15 items on the questionnaire measured the self-perceived beliefs of the participants concerning vocabulary teaching while the second 15 items examined teachers' beliefs on their self-perceived practices regarding vocabulary teaching.

In-depth classroom observation
To examine the real practices of the participants in classroom settings, items 16 to 30 of the Questionnaire of Teachers' Belief about L2 Vocabulary Learning and Teaching were used. The researcher observed 20 of the participants while they were teaching and recorded their performance in relations to vocabulary teaching on the 15 items checklist. Class observation helped the researcher to elicit the required data concerning the correspondence of beliefs about vocabulary teaching generally as well as specific beliefs and reported practices about the integration of vocabulary skills teaching. Teachers might have expressed strong beliefs in the need to avoid teaching vocabulary in isolation and may have reported high levels of integration of vocabulary in their practices. This in-depth classroom observation revealed how well they had put into practice their own beliefs. To be in line with the ethic codes in research, teachers already were informed two days prior to being observed that they would be observed. Also, the teachers were informed that the results of the observation were used only for research purposes and the data would be kept confidential with the researcher and would not be a part of the formal observations done by the institutes managers. Hence, they did their real job in the classroom without any anxiety or stress about being observed.

Procedure
At first 100 male and female teachers of English teaching English in different branches of Modiran Institute in Tehran were selected based on their teaching experience and considering convenience sampling. Then they were briefed about the purposes of the study and data collection and the specifications of the questionnaires. In the next step, they were asked to fill out the questionnaires of teachers' belief about L2 vocabulary learning and teaching. Then, three classroom sessions of the 20 of the participants filling out the questionnaires were observed, and analyzed. The data were analyzed via Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software; version 24, and then reported and checked against the research questions of the study.

Answering the first research question
The first research question of the study was: Question 1. To what extent are Iranian EFL teachers' beliefs in teaching L2 vocabulary reflected in their classroom practices?
Answering this question required two comparisons as follows: • Comparison of self-perceived practices (SPP) and self-perceived beliefs (SPB) means of 100 teachers in terms of total scores and item scores • Comparison of externally observed practice (EOP), SPP and SPB means of 20 teachers in terms of total scores and item scores

Comparison of SPP and SPB total scores
In order to compare SPP and SPB total scores, first the descriptive statistics were computed (Table 1). Then, skewness and kurtosis ratios (by dividing the values by their standard errors) were computed to check normality assumption, showing that the data met this assumption (i.e. ratios within −1.96), hence running t test as a parametric test requiring normally distributed data to compare the SPP and SPB mean scores. Table 2 presents the paired samples t test results showing that there is no significant difference between the SPP and SPB mean total scores of the teachers (p > .05). This result shows that on the whole there is no difference between the beliefs and practices of teachers in terms of L2 vocabulary teaching as perceived by the teachers themselves.

Comparison of EOP, SPP and SPB total scores
In order to compare EOP, SPP and SPB total scores, first the descriptive statistics were computed (Table 3). Then, skewness and kurtosis ratios (by dividing the values by their standard errors) were computed to check normality assumption, showing that the data met this assumption (i.e. ratios within −1.96), hence running repeated measures analysis of variance (RM ANOVA) as a parametric test requiring normally distributed data to compare the EOP, SPP and SPB mean scores.
Another assumption of RM ANOVA is sphericity measured by Mauchly's test whose results in Table 4 show that it is not met (p < .05); therefore, Greenhouse-Geisser results were checked in Table 5 of RM ANOVA results, which does not assume sphericity. Table 5 presents the RM ANOVA results showing that there is a significant difference among the EOP, SPP and SPB total scores (p < .05). In order to see where among the scores the significant difference exists, multiple post hoc pairwise comparisons were run having Bonferroni adjustment controlling for Type I Error.
The multiple post hoc pairwise comparisons result in Table 6 show that on the whole teachers' EOP is significantly different from and lower than their SPP and SPB (p < .05).

Comparison of SPP and SPB item scores
In order to compare SPP and SPB item scores, first the descriptive statistics were computed (Table 1). Then, skewness and kurtosis ratios (by dividing the values by their standard errors) were computed to check normality assumption, showing that the data for the majority of items did not meet this assumption (i.e. ratios within −1.96). Moreover, since the items were scored on a Likert scale, the item data were considered as ordinal data, hence running Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test as a non-parametric test not requiring normally distributed data to compare the SPP and SPB items mean scores. Table 7 displays the descriptive statistics for the items. Tables 8 and 9 present the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test results for each item showing that there is a significant difference between some SPP and SPB items, that is items 1, 5, 7, 9, 12 and 15.
These items along with their means are listed in Table 10. In sum, the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Tests results and the observed means demonstrate that in teachers' belief, teachers consider:   • More significance for "presenting vocabulary to learners before expecting them to use it" in comparison to their own actual practice.
• Less significance for item 5, which is "During lessons, a focus on vocabulary should come after communicative tasks, not before" than their actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
• More significance for item 7, which is "In a communicative approach to language teaching vocabulary is not taught directly." than their actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
• Less significance for item 9, which is "In teaching vocabulary, a teacher's main role is to explain the rules." than their actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
• More significance for item 12, which is "Vocabulary learning is more effective when learners use them repeatedly by themselves." than their actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
• More significance for item 15, which is "It is necessary to study the vocabulary of a second or foreign language in order to speak it fluently." than their actual practice of vocabulary teaching.

Comparison of EOP, SPP and SPB item scores
In order to compare EOP, SPP and SPB item scores, first the descriptive statistics were computed (Table 11). Then, skewness and kurtosis ratios (by dividing the values by their standard errors) were computed to check normality assumption, showing that the data for the majority of items did not meet this assumption (i.e. ratios within −1.96). Moreover, since the items were scored on a Likert scale, the item data were considered as ordinal data, hence running Friedman Test as a non-parametric test not requiring normally distributed data to compare the EOP, SPP and SPB items mean scores.
Tables 12 and 13 present the Friedman results for each item showing that there is a significant difference among some EOP, SPP and SPB items, that is items 2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13. In order to see where among EOP, SPP and SPB items these significant differences exist, pairwise post hoc comparisons were run, who results are presented in Table 14.
These items along with their means are listed in Table 15. In sum, the Friedman test results, post hoc comparisons and the observed means demonstrate that based on when teachers are externally observed, teachers give less significance to the following items: • Item 2, which is "Learners who are aware of vocabulary rules can use the language more effectively than those who are not." than their self-perception of their belief and actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
• Item 3, which is "Exercises that get learners to practice vocabulary structures help learners develop fluency in using vocabulary." than their self-perception of their belief of vocabulary teaching.
• Item 8, which is "In learning vocabulary, repeated practice allows learners to use structures fluently" than their self-perception of their belief and actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
• Item 9, which is "In teaching vocabulary, a teacher's main role is to explain the rules." than their self-perception of their actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
• Item 11, which is "Correcting learners' spoken vocabulary errors in English is one of the teacher's key roles." than their self-perception of their belief and actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
• Item 12, which is "Vocabulary learning is more effective when learners use them repeatedly by themselves." than their self-perception of their belief and actual practice of vocabulary teaching.
All in all, it seems that in all the items identified above, teachers show less practice of the issues addressed in the items when compared with what they believe and practice in their classrooms.

Answering the second research question
The second research question of the study was: Question 2. Are there any statistically significant differences between the novice and experienced English teachers' beliefs and practices in teaching vocabulary?
To answer this question, first the teachers participating in this study were divided into novice and experienced based on a questionnaire. Then they were compared in terms of EOP, SPB and SPP total and item scores.

Comparison of SPP and SPB total scores of novice and experienced teachers
In order to compare SPP and SPB total scores of novice and experienced teachers, first the descriptive statistics were computed (Table 16). Then, skewness and kurtosis ratios (by dividing the values by their standard errors) were computed to check normality assumption, showing that the data met this assumption (i.e. ratios within −1.96), hence running one-way ANOVA as a parametric test requiring normally distributed data to compare the SPP and SPB mean scores of novice and experienced teachers.
Another assumption of ANOVA is Equality of Error Variances measured by Levene's test whose results in Table 17 show that it is not met for SPP scores (p < .05); therefore, a stricter Alpha level (i.e. .025) was considered in ANOVA results for SPP.
According to Table 18 of ANOVA results novice and experienced teachers differ significantly in terms of their SPB total scores (p < .05). Based on the descriptives above, experienced teachers have a significantly higher SPB than novice teachers.

Comparison of SPP and SPB item scores of novice and experienced teachers
In order to compare SPP and SPB item scores of novice and experienced teachers, first the descriptive statistics were computed (Table 19). Then, skewness and kurtosis ratios (by dividing the values by their standard errors) were computed to check normality assumption, showing that the data for the  showing that there is a significant difference between novice and experienced teachers in terms of some SPP and SPB items, that is items 2 of self-perceived practice, 3 of self-perceived practice and belief, 8 of selfperceived belief, and 9 of self-perceived practice. Table 23 lists the items of difference between novice and experienced teachers along with their observed means. These results specifically show that according to teachers' self-perceived practice: • Experienced teachers give more significance to item 2, which is "Learners who are aware of vocabulary rules can use the language more effectively than those who are not" than novice teachers.
• Novice teachers give more significance to item 3, which is "Exercises that get learners to practice vocabulary structures help learners develop fluency in using vocabulary" than experienced teachers.
• Experienced teachers give more significance to item 8, which is "In learning vocabulary, repeated practice allows learners to use structures fluently" than novice teachers.
• Experienced teachers give more significance to item 9, which is "In teaching vocabulary, a teacher's main role is to explain the rules" than novice teachers.

Comparison of EOP total scores of novice and experienced teachers
In order to compare EOP total scores of novice and experienced teachers, first the descriptive statistics were computed (Table 24). Then, skewness and kurtosis ratios (by dividing the values by their standard errors) were computed to check normality assumption, showing that the data met this assumption (i.e. ratios within −1.96), hence running independent samples t test as a parametric test requiring normally distributed data to compare the EOP mean scores of novice and experienced teachers.
According to Table 18 of t test results novice and experienced teachers do not differ significantly in terms of their EOP total scores (p > .05).

Comparison of EOP item scores of novice and experienced teachers
In order to compare EOP item scores of novice and experienced teachers, initially an independent samples t-test was run (Table 25). After that, the descriptive statistics were computed (Table 26). Then, skewness and kurtosis ratios (by dividing the values by their standard errors) were computed to check normality assumption, showing that the data for some of items did not meet this assumption (i.e. ratios beyond −1.96). Moreover, since the items were scored on a Likert scale, the item data were considered as ordinal data, hence running Mann-Whitney U Test as a nonparametric test not requiring normally distributed data to compare the EOP items mean scores.
Tables 27 and 28 present the Mann-Whitney U Test results for each item showing that there is a significant difference between novice and experienced teachers in terms of only item 15. Table 29 shows the observed mean of item 15, which specifically shows that according to teachers' EOP, the experienced ones give more significance to items 15, which is "I insist on studying the L2 vocabulary in order to make my students speak fluently." than novice teachers.

Discussion
The present study sought to investigate to which extent Iranian EFL teachers' beliefs in teaching L2 vocabulary are reflected in their classroom practices. Moreover, the study aimed to probe any statistically significant differences between the novice and experienced English teachers' beliefs and practices in teaching vocabulary. The results of statistical analysis for research question one indicated that on the whole there was no difference between the beliefs and practices of teachers in terms of L2 vocabulary teaching as perceived by the teachers themselves. However, there was a significant difference among the EOP, SPP and SPB total scores. Moreover, on the whole teachers' EOP was significantly different from and lower than their SPP and SPB. The results concerning    the second research question revealed that novice and experienced teachers differed significantly in terms of their SPB total scores and experienced teachers had a significantly higher SPB than novice teachers.
Given that in the present study instructors' beliefs and their practices were in line with one another but their actual practice was different from their self-perceived practices, it can be concluded that the instructors' beliefs and practices were not in line with each other. This finding has already been supported by many other studies (Attardo & Brown, 2005;Richardson, 2007). Some of these investigations report significant interactions between instructors' beliefs and their teaching activities. Johnson (1992) surveyed L2 language teachers to profile their teaching theories and perspectives. He examined 30 L2 instructors' theoretical views and beliefs regarding L2 instruction and learning. In other words, he intended to investigate L2 teachers' ideas of L2 teaching and learning. Based on his observation, the teaching practices of these 30 teachers did not match with the respective instructors' theoretical ideas. In simple terms, the way teachers thought of L2 teaching and learning did not correspond with their teaching behavior and practices. Johnson (1992) concluded that the results of this study lent credit to the notion that ESL instructors teach based on their theoretical beliefs.
Moreover, some other studies have yielded results that are consistent with the findings of this study. They report that there is sometimes some inconsistency between instructors' acknowledged beliefs/attitude and their teaching activities. For example, Van der Schaaf, Stokking, and Verloop (2008) examined the effects of 18 instructors' pedagogical beliefs obtained from their portfolios on the teaching status as well as their teaching practices assessed by students using a questionnaire. The results revealed that the relationship between instructors' beliefs and attitudes as reported by themselves and students' rating of their teaching activities lacked consistency in some cases. For instance, the instructors pointed to their desire to teach research skills to their students. On the contrary, the raters reported that the same instructors were mostly busy talking during class time and not working on research skills. The students perceived the role of their teachers as of little help in their classroom research activities.   Given the fact that available literature lacks conclusive findings concerning the relationship between instructors' belief and practice, it follows that instruction and the learning context influence such relationships. According to Brown and Cooney (1982) beliefs, are described as orientations to action, with time and context serving as the main determinants of behavior which need to be included in research and measurement.
The results of the present study concerning the observation of the factors more by experienced teachers in comparison with novice teachers can be justified in the light of self-efficacy. Teacher efficacy is the teacher's self-confidence in his or her ability in order to form and implement courses of action vital to successfully achieve a specific teaching task in a specific context (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). According to Bandura (1977), teacher efficacy can be defined as a kind of self-efficacy in which people can make beliefs about their capability in performing at a particular level of achievement. This kind of self-efficacy is future-oriented and affects thought arrangements and feelings. Based on this theory, efficacy may be simply affected in learning; as a result, the first years of teaching could be critical to the long-term improvement of teacher efficacy. Two elements about teacher efficacy are personal teaching efficacy and general teaching efficacy. According to Riggs and Enochs (1989), the general teaching efficacy is also called outcome prospect which means people evaluate the significances of the performance level which they expect to attain. In addition, efficacy belief of novice teachers differs from experienced teachers (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001). The efficacy belief of experienced teachers seems unchangeable in comparison with novice teachers. Moreover, there is a difference between novice teachers and experienced teachers based on three aspects of professional training which are knowledge base, pedagogical action and fundamental influences (Angell, Ryder, & Scott, 2005). Correspondingly, novice and expert teachers were compared by Hogan, Rabinowitz, and Craven (2003) following Shulman's (1986) classifications (content knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, and pedagogical knowledge). And they came to the conclusion that experts and novice teachers differed in four key features: • Experienced teachers were able to plan both long-term and short-term syllabus, while novice teachers were able to plan the short-term syllabus.
• Experienced teachers used more strategies in teaching specific skills while novice teachers can use fewer ones.
• From experienced teachers' point of view, the class can be considered as unique individuals, while from novice teachers' point of view the class is regarded as a whole.
• Student accomplishment and improvement was more important than anything else for experienced teachers, while for novice teachers, the attention was just paid to class interest.
Overall, the results of the current study corroborate Hogan et al.'s (2003) findings in that novice and experienced teachers in the present study were found to differ significantly in terms of their SPB total scores with experienced teachers having a significantly higher SPB than novice teachers.

Conclusion
The results of the present study shed more light on the differences between novice and experienced teachers when it comes to beliefs and practices concerning vocabulary learning. Thus, teacher educators are encouraged to consider the differences between novice and experience teachers' beliefs and practices in vocabulary teaching in teacher education courses. Moreover, based on the findings of the present study, teacher educators and trainers may devise and plan courses through which teacher trainees become familiar with how their belief systems can possibly affect their practice in real classroom environments. In this way, teachers will gain more awareness, which will ultimately affect their practices positively. Teachers should receive explanations about the benefits of thinking about the way their teaching beliefs may interact with their teaching practice so as to be encouraged to become reflective practitioners. Giving more explanations to the teachers would help them have a better understanding of the procedures involved in reflective teaching practices as well. Teacher educators are encouraged to be more sensitive to teaching and learning theories they intend to transfer to L2 teachers. The more up-to-date they are about teaching and learning theories, the more they can familiarize L2 teachers with more modern theories.
The relationship between teachers' beliefs and practices suggests that theory and practice are not separated. This is of great importance to language teaches. In other words, any attempt to change teachers' theories and beliefs about teaching and learning would have consequences for their actual teaching in classrooms. Thus, the results of the current study can lay the foundation for teachers to acknowledge the point that theory and beliefs are interwoven and thus teachers can be encouraged to stay up-to-date with theories of learning in order to establish beliefs which can lead to their best practice in the classroom.