Abstract:
Abstract Literature review indicates that an effective and good teacher has an important role in students' performances and their success. Pivotal roles of teachers may affect students’ attitudes and motivations to language learning. Improving the field of foreign language teaching and learning without improving the qualities of EFL teachers seems impossible. This attempt, at first hand, requires recognizing and identifying the qualities of effective EFL teachers. The purpose of this study was to characterize and investigate qualities of an effective English language teacher (EELT) as perceived by Iranian English language learners. A questionnaire which was based on four categories including English proficiency, pedagogical knowledge, organization and communication skills, and socio-affective skills was administered to 60 foreign language learners at Azad University of Tabriz. The collected data were statistically analyzed. The results showed that students expect a good English teacher to have the ability to develop proper relationships with students, ability to build students’ confidence, ability to maintain discipline in the classroom as the most important points. The findings of the present study have some useful implications for language teachers to know more about the perceptions and opinion of the students about themselves. They can plan and implement behaviors and activities that would encourage learners to get involved more in the English language learning process.
Machine summary:
A questionnaire which was based on four categories including English proficiency, pedagogical knowledge, organization and communication skills, and socio-affective skills was administered to 60 foreign language learners at Azad University of Tabriz.
Studying characteristics of an effective English language teacher from the learners’ point of view in such a context is worthwhile in that it is in fact a kind of needs analysis intended to help teachers improve the quality of their teaching in an attempt to meet their students’ needs.
Many studies have investigated the characteristics of effective teachers which most strongly influence students' learning and achievement (Demmon- Berger, 1986; Koutsoulis, 2003; Lang et al.
These studies asked students to identify effective teacher characteristics by means of self-report questionnaires or interviews.
Research Questions Q1: What are the qualities of an Effective English Language Teacher (EELT) from students' point of view?
Data Analysis and results The first research question intended to examine the characteristics of effective English language teachers.
According to the perceptions of the participants of this research, the first and most important point in teaching English language and for English language teachers is the Ability to develop proper relationships with students, the next important characteristic of an effective teacher is the Ability to build students’ confidence.
As the results show some of the least important characteristics of an effective teacher as perceived by students are the Ability to be flexible and vary techniques according to students’ level and the teaching/learning situations( =3.