Do Our Perceptions of Students’ Activity Preferences Come True?

Abstract

In order to have an effective second language education, students, and teachers should share beliefs and assumptions about language and learning as well as educational goals.  Achieving such efficiency requires deep understanding of students’ and teachers’ beliefs, and considering them in the process of syllabus design and materials preparation for English courses. To provide a deeper understanding of Iranian university students’ preferences regarding activities in General English classes, this research tried to find the participants' preferences and expectations in foreign language learning and teaching through finding out  whether there is any correspondence between teachers' and learners' preferred activities,  and to what extent teachers’ beliefs about language learning and class activities correspond with those of the learners'. To obtain the required data, this study made use of a questionnaire that covered areas such as language skills, feedback, testing and evaluation, participation mode, and class size. statistical analysis of the data (Independent samples t-test) showed that only 43.75%; namely, twenty one out of forty eight of the differences were significant at 0.05 or below. These findings indicate a need to take more time to share ideas with students regarding classroom practices.