Students’ and Lecturers’ Perspectives on the Qualities of an Effective English Language Teacher at Al-Balqa Applied University in Jordan: A Comparative Study

Abstract

The study aimed to compare the perspectives of English Foreign Language (EFL) students and English instructors in Jordan on the characteristics of effective English instructors. The researcher selected (250) students and 25 English instructors randomly from different English departments at Al-Balqa Applied University. The researcher designed a questionnaire of 57 questions according to the Likert Scale and distributed it to the participants of the study to know their responses. The data were analyzed to determine differences between the students' and the teachers' responses toward the characteristics of a good teacher. In general, the results of the study indicated that the students and teachers placed a high level of importance on four categories of the questionnaire included in the survey. The students gave the highest ranking to ethics and personality, class management and discipline followed by academic quality and English proficiency, and pedagogical knowledge and planning. This contrasted with the teachers, who ranked academic quality, English proficiency, class management and discipline the highest followed by pedagogical knowledge and planning and ethics and personality. There were significant differences between the responses of teacher participants and student participants on many items of the survey. The study provided several implications for future research for example adopting the qualities of effective EFL teachers mentioned in the study in the process of teaching and learning English and other languages.