Brazilian pre service english teachers' perceptions about difficulties to develop abilities

Abstract

Under the light of applied linguistics, this paper reflects on the difficulties to develop abilities in the English language. It introduces data of an ethnographic study, based on the ‘need analysis’ approach, carried out with a group of 26 pre-service English teachers. The main goal of this study was to identify the difficulties related with the development of the four basic abilities – speaking, listening, reading and writing- in the English language, based on the participants’s perceptions. That way, the research intended to map the difficulties related with the development of abilties in this language. For this purpose, two instruments of data collection were used: a questionnaire and an interview. The data were analysed based on the qualitaive and quantitative paradigmas and pointed out that the difficulties were related with lack of practice, supposed judgements, school culpability, approaches and teaching methods, block (affective filter), fear, insecurity, shyness, shame and self-critic. The relevance of this study is in the possibility to shed light on a problem that requires attention, to make changes possible and to reach better outcomes in the English language teaching and learning process.