The Study of the Characteristics of Successful English Language Teachers from the View Point of the English Language Students of Islamic Azad University, Hamedan Branch

AbstractA number of researchers have identified the characteristics of effective teachers both inside (Bernhardt & Hammadou, 1987; Lafayette, 1993; Mollica & Nuessel, 1996; Freeman & Johnson, 1998; Schulz, 2000; Vélez-Rendón, 2002) and outside (Demmon-Berger, 1986; Lowman, 1996; Witcher et al., 2001; Koutsoulis, 2003) the domain of foreign language education. These characteristics consist of several underlying constructs including subject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and socio/affective skills. During the present paper, our goal was to study the characteristics of effective English teachers perceived by college students of Islamic Azad University, Hamedan branch in Iran. A number of 200 subjects randomly selected from among other 400 students were given a questionnaire of 50 questions on a 1 to 5 Likert Scale. Results show that students held different perceptions to effective teaching. The high achievement students reported different characteristics from the low achievement students in pedagogical knowledge and socio-affective skills, whereas the male students demonstrated different characteristics from the female students in socio-affective skills. The findings provide implications to knowledge-based teacher education for current and prospective English teachers