Teacher beliefs are an important area of inquiry because research has found that these beliefs are often diverse (Breen et al., 2001) and strongly impact classroom practices (Borg, 1998, 2003; Burns, 1992; Farrell & Bennis, 2013). Therefore, uninformed teacher beliefs could be to the detriment of the L2 learner. Despite the fact that knowledge of idioms is a sign of proficiency (Kjellmer, 1991) and many adult L2 learners want to know them (e.g. Liontas, 2002), the classroom tends to be generally devoid of figurative words and expressions (Danesi, 1995). It is possible, however, that teacher beliefs contribute to such overly literal L2 input, especially when they are responsible for curricular choices in the classroom. To further investigate this, 15 native speaker university level EFL teachers in Japan completed a survey that elicited both quantitative and qualitative data on their beliefs about the value of metaphorical idioms for L2 learners. The data showed a considerable divide between participant raters on a number of measures. Much of this divide was due to differences in the raters' emphasis on a top-down or bottom-up view of language learning, as well as the relative importance they placed on the perceived frequency of individual idioms.