Turkish university EFL students' and instructors' views on the concepts of the good (English) foreign language teacher

The objective of this study is to investigate Turkish University EFL students‟ and instructors‟ views on the characteristics of a good (English) foreign language teacher. Additionally, the study attempts to explore whether cultural and contextual differences lead to different views of what constitutes a good (English) foreign language teacher with reference to the related literature. The participants of the study were 300 students of upper intermediate, intermediate and pre-intermediate classes and 56 instructors from Erciyes University School of Foreign Languages (EU SFL), in the spring term of 2008-2009 academic year. In order to gather the necessary data from the participants, a Likert type questionnaire developed by the researcher was used as an instrument. Quantitative data analysis techniques were used to analyze the data. Descriptive and inferential statistics both for the scales and the items in each scale of the given questionnaire were used in order to explore both students‟ and instructors‟ views on the qualities of a good (English) foreign language teacher. It is found that all aspects of good teaching were considered important by both groups, including personal qualities, socio-affective skills, academic qualitie and teaching qualities. The only significant difference between the students‟ and the instructors‟ views was seen in good language teacher‟s socio-affective skills. Compared to the instructors, the students endorsed this aspect more. The findings of the study may be beneficial for (English) foreign language teachers, language teacher education programs and trainers to improve effective foreign language teaching.