The Portrait of a Good Foreign Language Teacher: A Cross-Interview Analysis of Private Language Course Administrators’ Opinions

Abstract

The attempt to present the profile of a good language teacher is an early arrival, dating back to 1920s. The literature to date abounds with much scholarly attention to exploration of mainly students' and teachers' point of view regarding the issue. However, the paucity of research into other different perspectives in Turkey serves as the backcloth of the current study qualitative in nature, which employs in-depth interviews with the six administrators of six private courses in a province in the northeast part of Turkey with the aim of filling this hiatus. The data gathered via individual indepth interviews were analysed via content analysis, in which the researchers went through the transcribed texts to find the recurring themes, enumerate them, create broad categories out of them, and pick excerpts that could support their interpretations. Although it was not intended to provide definitive good language teacher profile, issues such as a finely-tuned classroom authority, energy, tolerance, creativity, a sound knowledge of language, an ongoing professional development, enhancement of student autonomy, good communication skills, and teaching experience were found as the distinguishing effective teacher characteristics, analogous to the previous studies. However, the findings contradict with the seemingly omnipresent tendency towards describing native speaker as good language teacher in the existing literature in that local Turkish teachers were described as effective teachers with their in-class teaching roles, second language learning experience, strong empathy with students while their native counterparts were valued solely for their communicative ability and potential role to add to institution prestige. The current study with a glimpse of Turkey is believed to help capture the essence of the issue by providing a close scrutiny of a different perspective, in turn yield insight for prospective English language teachers and teacher education planners. Keywords: Teacher qualities; good language teacher; private course; cross-interview analysis Özİyi dil öğretmen profilini tanımlama çabaları 1920'lere kadar uzanan köklü bir gayrettir. Günümüze kadar uzanan bu alanyazın, meseleyi çoğunlukla öğrenci ve öğretmen açısından ele alan sayısız çalışmalarla doludur. Fakat Türkiye'de bu konuda farklı görüş açılarını araştırmak için yapılan çalışmalar yok denecek kadar azdır ve bu bariz açık, Türkiye'nin kuzeydoğusundaki bir ilde bulunan altı özel dil kursundaki toplam altı yönetici ile detaylı bireysel görüşmelerin yapıldığı özünde nitel olan bu çalışma ile doldurulmaya çalışılmıştır. İyi dil öğretmeni profilinin sabit tanımı hedeflenmese de Turkish Online Journal of Qualitative Inquiry, October 2014, 5(4) 42 alanyazında var olan çalışma sonuçlarına benzer olarak hassas dengelenmiş sınıf otoritesi, enerji, tolerans, üretkenlik, iyi bir hedef dil bilgisi, sürekli kişisel gelişim, öğrenci özerkliğini geliştirme, iyi iletişim becerileri ve eğitim tecrübesi gibi özelliklerin iyi bir dil öğretmeni ile özdeşleştirildiği g...

Pre-Service English Language Teachers Views of The Effective Teacher and Teaching

“…The findings of the current study in respect to teacher's authority are in line with the studies conducted both in Turkey and abroad (Kourieos & Evripidou 2013;Erbay et al 2014). However, the high frequency of "teacher's authority" in the present study contradicts the lower frequency of "teacher's authority" in the study by Arikan et al (2008) which was also conducted in the Turkish educational context.…”

“…The findings of the present study pertaining to being knowledgeable about the target culture as one of the important qualities of an effective language teacher are in line with the studies by Borg (2006), Arıkan et al (2008), Kourieos &Evripidou (2013), andErbayet al (2014) which concluded that the teacher's knowledge of the target culture was one of the important attributes of an effective language teacher. However, it might be noteworthy to mention that the present study differs from the related studies in that the item "being knowledgeable on target culture" had a higher frequency, as compared to the frequencies for the same item in the other studies by Arıkan et al (2008), Kourieos & Evripidou (2013), and Erbay et al (2014).…”

“…The results of the current study pertaining to the teacher being humanist are in line with other studies. That is, the importance of the teacher adopting the basic principles of humanistic education also appears in studies by Açıkgöz, 2005;Arıkan et al 2008;Baytur & Razı 2015;Dinçer et al 2013;Erbay et al 2014;Shahmohammadi 2015. The results of these studies also imply that an effective teacher should consider the students' feelings as well as their knowledge in the process of learning and create a non-threatening environment in which students learn better.…”

“…Yet dependence too is a situational attribute, one that is "momentary, situationally specific and therefore changeable" (Pratt 1988, 170). The reason why "teacher's having authority in the classroom" was highly emphasized in the current study may stem from "the culture in that in collectivist and high-context cultures such as Turkey, teachers have an unshakable authority in the classroom and respecting a teacher is in direct proportion to authority" (Erbay et al 2014). In the study by Erişti (2012), the focus on discipline was attributed to the education system of Turkey.…”

“…The data gathered through student essays and interviews were coded and categorized under the following four aspects: pedagogical knowledge, subject-matter knowledge, socio-affective skills, and personality characteristics. The aspects used in the current study were based upon previous studies and categories of the effective language teacher (Arikan et al 2008;Barnes & Lock 2013;Dinçer et al 2013;Erbay et al 2014). The results were analyzed both quantitatively and qualitatively.…”