What makes an effective foreign language teacher? A quantitative study of Iranian EFL learners

This study aimed at investigating the characteristics of an effective English language teacher (EELT) as perceived by Iranian English language learners. For this purpose, a questionnaire comprising of two sections including 4 demographic questions, and 42 items based on a five-point Likert scale (from strongly disagree to strongly agree) regarding the characteristics of effective teachers, examining five categories rapport, delivery, fairness, knowledge and organization was utilized. The questionnaire was administered to 121 learners of English at universities in Kerman and Sirjan. The results showed that the participants considered English language knowledge as the most prominent characteristic of an EELT and the attribute fairness as the least important characteristic. Regarding the role of demographic information of participants including gender, age, and English ability and teaching experience. The findings of the present study indicated that male and female learners showed some mean differences on their attitude towards the mentioned categories of the questionnaire. However, statistical analysis revealed that these differences were not significant. Considering learners’ age, English ability, and teaching experience, no significant difference was observed among different groups except for the fairness attribute which was different among different age groups.

Keywords:

effective teachers attribute , gender , age , teaching experience , English ability