Learning English as a foreign language: learners’ beliefs in different contexts

Resumo

This paper is the result of a research conducted by Languages students from the Universidade da Região de Joinville (Univille), whose main objectives were to understand, identify and re-signify the beliefs held by high school students concerning the process of learning the English language. For this purpose, questionnaires about the issue were applied as a way to understand what the convictions were and how the context of education influences over the said convictions. The participants of this research were students of public and private schools from the city of Joinville. The results were analyzed according to some basic authors, such as Brown (2015), McKay (2002) and Tanaka (2003), in addition to authors that investigate the field of applied linguistics. This research has reached very meaningful results and reflections, bringing to light the fact that, though not so different on both scenarios, the context had a strong influence in the way that students perceive the foreign language learning, and how they see themselves in this process.