Tackling misleading assumptions and beliefs in language development and language instruction: A way forward in language teacher education

doi:10.65961/AJELT-2026-4-002

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Asian Journal of English Language Teaching ›› 2026, Vol. 35 ›› Issue (4) : 9-21. DOI: 10.65961/AJELT-2026-4-002

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Tackling misleading assumptions and beliefs in language development and language instruction: A way forward in language teacher education

Alessandro Benati

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Abstract

The nature of language, its representation in the mind of humans, and how it is processed and eventually acquired should constitute the basic knowledge in the development of an effective and evidence-based language teacher-education programme. The lack of language experts currently teaching in these programmes has often led to the perpetuation of misleading beliefs and wrong assumptions about language development and language instruction. For example, the old belief that language is a list of rules, such as those found in textbooks, and that ‘knowing a language involves knowing its rules’ has led to the misleading view that teaching grammar explicitly is necessary or even beneficial for language development. The main consequence of perpetuating misleading beliefs is one hand the development of ineffective language teacher education programmes which are not evidence-based, and on the other hand the development of misleading assumptions for language instruction. Language teacher education programmes are often about training language instructors to use textbooks and perpetuating the use of traditional language teaching methodologies. In this paper, the mismatch between misleading beliefs, assumptions and facts based on scientific evidence in language development are highlighted with the view of providing an effective way forward in the development of appropriate language teacher education programmes.

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Evidence-based practice, language teacher education, misconceptions, grammar instruction, language processing and development

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Alessandro Benati. (2026). Tackling misleading assumptions and beliefs in language development and language instruction: A way forward in language teacher education.Asian Journal of English Language Teaching , 35(4): 9-21. https://doi.org/10.65961/AJELT-2026-4-002

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