رویا زمانی

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.

The role of teachers in affecting students’ attitudes and motivations to language learning and teaching cannot be denied. To improve the field of foreign language teaching and learning we need to improve the qualities of EFL teachers. To achieve this goal, recognizing and identifying the qualities of effective EFL teachers is essential. So this study attempted to investigate the view points of male and female English language students about the characteristics of effective English language teachers based on four categories: English proficiency, pedagogical knowledge, organization and communication skills, and socio-affective skills. For this purpose the researchers administered a questionnaire adapted from Park and Lee (2006) to 60 (28 female and 32 male) foreign language learners at Tabriz Islamic Azad University. The results of the U-Mann-Whitney test indicated that there was not a significant difference between the perceptions of the male and female students regarding the characteristics of effective teacher. However, the overall mean score of the female students’ perceptions was a little bit higher than the male students. For the female students the most important features of the teacher was his/her English proficiency, socio-affective skills, pedagogical knowledge and organization and communication skills, while the preferences of the male students were the organization and communication skills, pedagogical knowledge, socio-affective skills and English proficiency, respectively. The findings have some implications for EFL teachers and students.