Applied Linguistics for Language Teachers: an Awareness Raising Questionnaire

This paper addresses three important questions:a. What is the relationship between theory and practice in language teaching;b.What are the sources which can influence teachers' methodologies;c.What sort of pre-service/ in-service courses do language teachers need. These questions are connected to the axiom that an awareness and understanding of theoretical aspects together with the ability to translate these aspects into classroom procedures will help the language teacher to espouse a more effective methodology.A pilot study based on a research project carried out at the University of Durham provides data that throws light on the three questions addressed.The first part of the paper reports on the preparation of language teachers. The second part refers to previous research on teachers’ thoughts and the third part deals with the pilot study