| Summary: | The difference between roles prescribed by teaching methodology and roles that classroom participants are or are not willing to adopt is sometimes cited as one reason for the problems in the implementation of new teaching policy. Personal experience, consistent with such an argument, formed part of the rationale for this research into students’ and teachers’ perceptions of roles in language classrooms in Hong Kong. This thesis presents a pathway for exploring perceptions of roles of students and teachers through the development and use of a conceptual framework. This conceptual framework highlighted the need to explore the concepts of perceptions and roles, and the factors influencing roles. Exploration of these indicated that the research should include an analysis of the research context and two empirical studies. These studies focused on attitudes, beliefs and cultural dimensions and data were collected through questionnaires and interviews. The findings identified differences between the perceptions of roles expressed by students and teachers. Comparison was also made with reports from teachers and stereotypical images portrayed in the literature. While findings and differences may in part be associated with the social and economic changes in Hong Kong, they also provide insights that potentially offer greater understanding about the role relationship between students and teachers. These insights include possible implications of these findings for teaching approaches, curriculum and materials design, educational change and teacher education. The findings illustrate that students’ and teachers’ beliefs need to be investigated more deeply to ensure that further information is gained that can be applied to the teaching and learning process.
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