محمد شاکر خوشرودی

Classroom management constraints and how English teachers cope with or remove them effectively have significantly impacted both EFL teachers and teacher educators. However, the coping strategies employed by teachers with high and low levels of expertise have not been thoroughly explored yet. To this end, first 22 teachers in one language institute in Tehran were interviewed and their main coping strategies were extracted through qualitative analysis of the interviews. Then, the extracted strategies were worded into items carefully. The questionnaire of EFL teachers’ coping strategies was validated for the purpose of the study. The findings revealed that the participants used twenty-three coping strategies under two sub-constructs: problem-focused and emotion-focused strategies, based on exploratory factor analysis. One hundred EFL teachers with high and low levels of expertise (fifty in the high and fifty in the low group) responded to the items in the coping strategy questionnaire. The results revealed that highly expert teachers used the extracted coping strategies more frequently. Furthermore, the researchers confirmed that teachers need in-service training courses on coping strategies to manage their classes effectively. The results have some implications for stakeholders, namely English language teachers, teacher educators, language institutes, education departments, and EFL curriculum developers.

For years, effective classroom management and the constraints which affect teachers’ classroom management have been of much concern to both teachers and teacher educators. Despite such paramount importance, this issue has been far less explored in general and the Iranian EFL context in particular. Therefore, the current study employed a phenomenological inquiry to delve into the constraints which set hurdles in the way of effective classroom management. To that end, 20 Iranian EFL teachers from different branches of the same English Language Institute were selected through purposive sampling and interviewed in person to extract thick and in-depth data. The interviews then were transcribed verbatim and their content was inductively analyzed to let frequent themes emerge. Results of the analysis indicated that four major themes, namely ‘institute-related’, ‘learner-related’, ‘teacher-related’, and ‘social-cultural differences’ frequently manifested. It should be noted that each main theme also comprised several sub-themes. Some stakeholders such as teachers and teacher educators could benefit from the findings to promote the quality of EFL teachers’ classroom management.