‘It's important to put yourself in any lesson that you teach’: self-efficacy in action in the primary modern foreign languages classroom

Abstract

This article explores how Bourdieu's notion of habitus might be employed to shed light on the self-efficacy of primary teachers as they take on an additional specialism when modern foreign languages becomes statutory in primary schools in the new English National Curriculum in 2014. The article argues that Bandura's four principles of self-efficacy—mastery experiences, vicarious experiences, verbal persuasion and physiological and social affect—may be influenced by the operation of habitus in their various school contexts. Teachers with a heightened sense of agency appear more successful in harnessing self-efficacy to achieve either greater competence in a new area if they are generalists or to maintain their proficiency if they are specialists. The study was conducted in a small number of primary schools in the West Midlands using semi-structured interviews to illuminate the teachers' lived experiences. This article contributes to the debate on the necessity of having specialists teach foreign languages in primary schools by suggesting that the dualism of the specialist and non-specialist may be arbitrary and that developing teacher self-efficacy may be beneficial in preparing all primary teachers to meet the demands of the new curriculum.