Teachers' Perspectives of Difficulties Face Teaching English Language as a Foreign Language at the Intermediate Schools

Abstract

The study attempts to determine the most influential difficulties that face Iraqi-English teachers as they have experienced through teaching process and the extent to which the variable of gender could influence teachers’ perspectives toward the difficulties of teaching. A sample of (34) intermediate-school teachers were chosen randomly from different schools at Al-Karkh side of Baghdad city. A questionnaire of (37) items was administered to the study sample to collect the needed data. SPSS software version (20) was run to analyze the collected data. The findings of study revealed that there is no statistically significant difference between male and female teachers at the level (a=0.05) in their perspective toward the difficulties in teaching English. Additionally, the most influential difficulties encounter Iraqi-English teachers are the scarcity of equipment and facilities and difficulties with students. The study came out with a number of recommendations.

Teachers’ Perception of Difficulties Teaching Young Learners English with English-Only Instruction in Mainland China: A Case Study of an English-Only Institute in Shenzhen

“…In the previous studies of ELT challenges, a variety of data collection methods were adopted, namely survey, interview, and observation, among which surveys were used most frequently (Chen & Xu, 2009;Gong, 2020;Lalsangpuii, 2019;Mutar, 2019;Garton, 2013;Copland, Garton & Burns, 2014;Chen, Qi, Liang & Sha, 2018;Ayaz, Ozkardas & Ozturan, 2019;Chiou, 2014); Garton (2013), Ayaz, Ozkardas, and Ozturan (2019) and Copland, Garton, and Burns (2014) chose to use open-ended questions in the survey, while the other employed close-ended questions. Chiou (2014) and Chen, Qi, Liang, and Sha (2018) adopted a 4-point Likert scale in the questionnaire survey in order to "prevent neutral and ambiguous response" (Chiou, 2014, p.265) as well as to have the general information of participants' educational background, attitude toward the English-only instruction and difficulties in the English-only classroom.…”

“…However, data collected only through questionnaire surveys with closed-ended questions may miss some important but less prominent points. In the research conducted by Mutar (2019), participants could only select their teaching difficulties from a series of close-ended questions in the questionnaire; in this case, the ELT difficulties were first predicted by the researcher instead of being discovered by the researcher.…”

“…To further analyze the data collected in questionnaire surveys, most of the research only used descriptive statistical analysis (Chen & Xu, 2009;Gong, 2020;Lalsangpuii, 2019;Garton, 2013;Chen, Qi, Liang & Sha, 2018;Ayaz, Ozkardas & Ozturan, 2019), and some included both descriptive statistical analysis and inferential analysis (Mutar, 2019;Chiou, 2014). As for data obtained from a text-based interview, it was all transcribed by note-taking and summarizing key points and analyzed to understand what participants were thinking and facilitating researchers to dig out more information from participants' answers (Gong, 2020;Lalsangpuii, 2019;Hasanah & Utami, 2019;Chiou, 2014).…”

“…Although a lot of the previous studies were concerned about the difficulties of ELT teachers (Mutar, 2019;Garton, 2013;Hasanah & Utami, 2019;Demir-Ayaz, Ozkardas & Ozturan, 2019) with the research results being able to fit in the taxonomies mentioned above (teacher-related, student-related and institutional difficulties), their focuses were quite different including gender, education policy, and particular geographical region. Mutar's study (2019) presumed that ELT difficulties might result from the gender of ELT teachers and finally reported that "teachers' gender did not show a significant difference in their perspective toward the difficulties in teaching English," while Garton (2013) paid more attention to the relationship between Korean policy and ELT challenges.…”

“…As English is a world language and has gained a critical position in education, the difficulties of ELT teachers have been extensively studied, but only some are confined to the setting of ELT for young learners with English-only teaching in mainland China. Although some research concerned about the difficulties of ELT was conducted in Asian countries (Mutar, 2019;Hasanah & Utami, 2019;Demir-Ayaz, Ozkardas & Ozturan, 2019), they did not mention the use of EOI and ELT among young learners. Likewise, studies conducted to discover the difficulties of teaching English to young learners did not cover the aspect of EOI (Lalsangpuii, 2019;Straková, 2015;Copland, Garton & Burns, 2014;Cameron, 2001).…”