Oral language instruction: Teacher and learner beliefs and the reality in EFL classes at a Colombian university

This paper presents the results of the work of nine teacher researchers who took an in-depth look at instructional practices and beliefs about oral language and its assessment. There are three sets of research questions: (1) How do teachers and students believe oral instruction should be handled in the classroom and to what extent do the beliefs that teachers have about students ' oral production in the classroom and the students ' own beliefs match the reality? (2) How are teachers using the required materials for oral language production? and (3) How do teachers assess students orally? Forty teachers and 63 students at all levels of a Colombian university's adult English program participated in this study. It was found that both teachers and students generally believed successful oral production was based on accuracy. Teachers ' believed instruction was more student-centered, which was inconsistent with their actual classroom practice. Consistent with student beliefs, student evaluation was in fact accuracy-based. Th