Characteristics Of Effective English Teachers
Asia Pacific Education ReviewCopyright 2006 by Education Research Institute2006, Vol. 7, No. 2, 236-248.The Characteristics of Effective English Teachers AsPerceived by High School Teachers and Students in KoreaGi-Pyo ParkHyo-Woong LeeSoonchunhyang UniversityKoreaKorea Maritime UniversityKoreaThis study investigated the characteristics of effective English teachers as perceived by 169 teachers and 339 studentsin high school in Korea, with a self-report questionnaire consisting of three categories: English proficiency,pedagogical knowledge, and socio-affective skills. Overall, the teachers perceived significantly differentcharacteristics than the students in all three categories with the teachers ranking English proficiency the highest incontrast to the students who ranked pedagogical knowledge the highest. The student subgroups also held differentperceptions of effective teaching. High achieving students reported different characteristics than low achievingstudents in pedagogical knowledge and socio-affective skills, whereas the male students demonstrated differentcharacteristics from the female students in socio-affective skills. The findings have implications for knowledge-basedteacher education for current and prospective English teachers.Key words: Characteristics of Effective English (Second/Foreign Language) Teachers1Introductionknowledge, and socio-affective skills.Some characteristics of effective teachers are universal,but others are domain-specific. Different groups such asteachers and students (Brosh, 1996; Lang et al., 1993), malesand females (Witcher et al., 2001; Minor et al., 2002), goodstudents and weaker students (Koutsoulis, 2003), and studentswith different majors (Check, 1986) held different views onwhat characterizes effective teachers. These studies, with theexception of Brosh’s, were conducted outside the domain offoreign language education. Considering the uniqueness offoreign language education in terms of subject matterknowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and socio-affective skills,the characteristics of effective foreign language teachers(EFLT) need to be investigated in-depth rather than merelyapplying what has been found in general education to foreignlanguage education.Investigating the characteristics of EFLT as perceived byteachers and students is beneficial to teachers and students aswell as researchers. For teachers, they can check theappropriateness of theirs and their colleagues’ beliefsregarding foreign language teaching and learning based onA number of researchers have identified the characteristicsof effective teachers both inside (Bernhardt & Hammadou,1987; Lafayette, 1993; Mollica & Nuessel, 1996; Freeman &Johnson, 1998; Schulz, 2000; Vélez-Rendón, 2002) andoutside (Demmon-Berger, 1986; Lowman, 1996; Witcher etal., 2001; Koutsoulis, 2003) the domain of foreign languageeducation. These characteristics consist of several underlyingconstructs including subject matter knowledge, pedagogicalGi-Pyo Park, Department of English Language and Literature,College of Humanities, Soonchunhyang University; Hyo-Woong Lee,Department of English Language and Literature, College ofInternational Studies, Korea Maritime University.The authors would like to express special thanks to Yong-Ho Jangfor his assistance in collecting and analyzing data.Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to GiPyo Park, Department of English Language and Literature, Collegeof Humanities, Soonchunhyang University, 646 Eupnae-ri,Shinchang-myun, Asan, Choongchungnam-do, 336-745, Korea.email: gipyop@ sch.ac.kr.236
The Characteristics of Effective English Teacherscurrent research. In addition, teachers can understand whattheir students expect from them and develop their pedagogicaltechniques through reflection on teaching, which will in turnenhance the complex process of teaching and learning. Forstudents, they can understand their teachers’ beliefs andchange their erroneous beliefs about foreign languageteaching and learning. This study seeks to promote theresearch into effective teacher characteristics in Korea and itis hoped that it will encourage researchers to explore newresearch avenues.The purposes of this study were to delineate thecharacteristics of effective English teachers (EET) in terms ofsubject matter knowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and socioaffective skills, to compare the characteristics of EETperceived by different parties of teachers and students, and tostimulate further discussion of the topic both in and outside ofKorea. For these purposes, the following four researchquestions were addressed to guide this study:1. What are the characteristics of EET as perceived byEnglish teachers and students in Korea?2. Are the characteristics of EET as perceived by theEnglish teachers different from those perceived by thestudents?3. Are the characteristics of EET as perceived by highachieving students different from those perceived by lowachieving students?4. Are the characteristics of EET perceived by malestudents different from those perceived by female students?BackgroundThe Characteristics of Effective TeachersMany studies have investigated the characteristics ofeffective teachers which most strongly influence students'learning and achievement (Demmon-Berger, 1986; Koutsoulis,2003; Lang et al., 1993; Lowman, 1995; Witcher et al., 2001).These studies asked students to identify effective teachercharacteristics by means of self-report questionnaires orinterviews.Lang et al. (1993) developed a list of 32 characteristics ofeffective teachers through interviews with college teachers,and asked 167 participants (administrators, chairpersons,college teachers, and students) to identify and rank threecharacteristics considered important to teaching. They foundthat the teachers rated 16 characteristics significantly differentfrom the students and that the overall difference was237significant. The mean ratings for three characteristicsincluding being knowledgeable of world events and knowingstudents and teaching them in ways which they learn bestwere higher for student respondents, whereas the remaining13 characteristics including knowing the subject well andencouraging students to learn independently received highermean ratings from teacher respondents.The American Association of School Administrators(AASA) reported 15 characteristics of effective teachers intwo categories: management and instructional techniques andpersonal characteristics (Demmon-Berger, 1986). Thesecharacteristics were found among the teachers who tended tobe good managers, use systematic instruction techniques, havehigh expectations of students and themselves, believe in theirown efficacy, vary teaching strategies, handle disciplinethrough prevention, are caring, are demographic in theirapproach, are task oriented, are concerned with perceptualmeanings rather than with facts and events, are comfortableinteracting with others, have a strong grasp of subject matter,are accessible to students outside of class, tailor teaching tostudent needs, are flexible and imaginative.In a similar vein, Lowman (1995) found that exemplaryteachers excelled in one of the two dimensions: the ability togenerate intellectual excitement and interpersonal rapport instudents. To confirm this study, Lowman (1996) furtherinvestigated 500 teaching awards nomination letters from thestudents at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, andfound 39 descriptors of effective teacher characteristics. Eventhough all but six of the 39 descriptors fit into the twodimensional model of effective teachers, Lowman argued thatthe data fit better when two more dimensions of motivationand commitment were added to the two-dimensional model.The four dimensions found in order of weight wereintellectual excitement (16 items), interpersonal concern (10items), effective motivation (7 items), commitment toteaching (2 items), and others (4 items).In order to better understand the characteristics ofeffective teachers, efforts were made to find constructs in along list of effective characteristics. Witcher et al. (2001)examined pre-service teachers’ perceptions about thecharacteristics of effective teachers by asking the participantsto identify, rank, and define three to six characteristics thatexcellent teachers possessed. They found a total of 125characteristics which were classified into the following sixcategories in order of endorsement rate: student-centeredness(79.5%), enthusiasm for teaching (40.2%), ethicalness(38.8%), classroom and behavior management (33.3%),teaching methodology (32.4%), and knowledge of subject
Gi-Pyo Park, Hyo-Woong Leeattitudes toward native speakers and teaching in the targetlanguage. In addition, the teachers gave more weight thanstudents to items related to developing motivation andresearch orientation, whereas the students gave more weightthan teachers to items related to treating students fairly andmaking lessons interesting.To identify the characteristics of a good language teacher,Molica and Nuessel (1997) studied good language learnerbehaviors in the hope that knowledge of good languagelearner traits can help the good language teacher create aclassroom environment that will facilitate second languagelearning (Rubin, 1975). They outlined the traits of goodlanguage teachers as follows: Professional training such asprofessional meetings and instructional techniques; languageproficiency such as four skills and cultural comprehension;instructional materials such as visual and audio materials;evaluation such as assessment of students and professionaltesting; and classroom environment such as reduction ofsecond language anxiety and maintenance of classroomdiscipline.In the studies of foreign language teacher education,researchers have discussed effective teacher characteristicsbecause the goal of teacher education is to produce qualityteachers (Bernhardt & Hammadou, 1987; Freeman & Johnson,1998; Vélez-Rendón, 2002). The discussion has been centeredon a teacher’s knowledge base in terms of subject matterknowledge and pedagogical knowledge. Vélez-Rendón (2002)defined subject matter knowledge as what teachers knowabout what they teach and pedagogical knowledge as whatteachers know about teaching their subjects. Put another way,subject matter knowledge in foreign language education refersto the target language proficiency in many cases, whereaspedagogical knowledge alludes to second/foreign languageacquisition theories, teaching methods, and testing.Indeed, foreign language proficiency has been considereda crucial variable important to foreign language teaching(Buchmann, 1984; Lafayette, 1993; Schulz, 2000). Buchmann(1984) argued that teachers' command of a foreign languagemade it possible to use the target language in class,personalize lessons according to students’ backgrounds, andfacilitate effective lesson planning. More specifically,Lafayette (1993) speculated that the recommended level ofteachers' foreign language proficiency ought to be theadvanced level as determined by the ACTFL proficiencyguidelines. Deploring foreign language teacher educationbased more on opinions than research, Schulz (2000)indicated that the adequate linguistic proficiency required foreffective foreign language teaching should be determined(31.5%). Among the demographic variables, gender made thestrongest contribution to the participants’ responses withfemales endorsing learner-centeredness and males endorsingclassroom and behavior management.More recently, Koutsoulis (2003) identified 94 characteristicsof effective teachers by 25 high school students in Cyprus.Koutsoulis found that the 94 characteristics could be classifiedinto three categories: human characteristics such as the abilityto show understanding and teacher friendliness; communicationcharacteristics such as the ability to communicate withstudents and to handle teacher-student relations; and teachingand production characteristics such as making lessonsinteresting and motivating and teacher’s subject matterknowledge. Another finding of this study was that students atdifferent achievement levels understood teacher effectivenessdifferently. The low achieving students endorsed more humanand communication characteristics than the high achievingstudents, whereas the high achievement students acknowledgedmore teaching and production characteristics than theircounterparts did.In sum, the studies on effective teaching summarizedabove revealed that some of the characteristics of effectiveteachers were universal, that other characteristics were groupdependent, and that numerous effective characteristics couldbe classified into a few categories including subject matterknowledge, pedagogical knowledge, and socio-affective skills,with different endorsement rates according to groups such asteachers and students, male and female students, and highachieving and low achieving students.Characteristics of Effective Foreign Language Teachers(EFLT)Compared with many studies done on the characteristicsof effective teachers in general education, there is a dearth ofstudies on the characteristics of EFLT (Brosh, 1996; Molica &Nuessel, 1997). This is deplorable because foreign languageeducation lags far behind general education in effectiveteacher and teacher education, and because foreign languageeducation, to date, has been undertaken with more intuitivethan scientific approaches.Brosh (1996) identified the characteristics of EFLT asperceived by high school teachers and students in Israel withinterviews and a questionnaire consisting of 20 items ofteacher characteristics. Both groups attributed the highestimportance to items regarding commanding the targetlanguage and teaching comprehensibly, whereas neither theteachers nor the students endorsed items regarding positive238
The Characteristics of Effective English TeachersProcedureimminently.Foreign language proficiency cannot be transmitted tolearners when teachers are not equipped with germanepedagogical knowledge (Shulman, 1986; Vélez-Rendón,2002). Shulman (1986) argued that pedagogical knowledgeincluded ideas, concepts, analogies, explanations, anddemonstrations used to make the subject matter comprehensibleto students. Shulman's argument implies that foreign languagelearning theories and teaching methods are crucial domains offoreign language education. These theories and methodsshould be studied in-depth and at the core of foreign languageeducation programs for prospective and in-service teachers.Otherwise, the scholars in related fields with subject matterknowledge and/or wisdom of practice will ask for the “pie” offoreign language education.As was discussed in the general teacher education and inthe studies by Brosh (1996) and Molica and Nuessel (1997),socio-affective skills are a crucial trait defining effectiveteacher characteristics. Indeed, the importance of these skillshas been recognized in many areas in foreign languageeducation such as research in foreign language acquisitiontheories (Krashen, 1985; Long, 1996), motivation (Dőrnyei,1998), and learning strategies (Oxford, 1990), to name a few.Thus, even though socio-affective skills overlap withpedagogical knowledge in a broad sense, these skills areworth being discussed as an independent category rather thandiscussed under the category of pedagogical knowledge.In sum, the characteristics of EFLT consist of threedifferent categories of knowledge: subject matter knowledge,pedagogical knowledge, and socio-affective skills. Thesefindings imply that the English teachers in Korea whodemonstrate these dimensions of knowledge will be moreeffective than those who don't. More specifically, Figure 1illustrates the interdependent nature of the characteristics ofEFLT. The authors mean by interdependent that effectiveteaching requires all the three categories of knowledge.ParticipantsThe participants constituted two different groups. Thefirst group consisted of 169 high school teachers teachingEnglish in the port city of Busan. The English teachers were87 males and 82 females. They held a BA (103), MA (58), orPh.D (8), with a major in English education (86), Englishliterature (55), English linguistics (19), or others (9). Specificcare was taken to control the teachers' age so as to maintainconsistent samples, with the ages over 50 (32), 46-50 (34), 4145 (31), 36-40 (29), 30-35 (19), and under 30 (24). Withrespect to the experience of studying abroad, 77 teachersreported study experiences in English speaking countries, with39 teachers for less than six months and 38 teachers for morethan six months. The teachers taught about 17 hours a week inthe regular classes and about seven hours in thesupplementary classes, with an average class size of 35students.The second group consisted of 339 high school freshmenlearning English in the same city of Busan. The students were173 males and 166 females, with an average age of 16. Theywere also divided into a high achievement group (116) and alow achievement group (121), based on a mock test used tomeasure students' achievement levels. With regard to Englishclasses in school, they studied 4.8 hours a week in regularclasses and 1.8 hour a week in supplementary classes. Morethan half of the students were studying English outside ofschool at private institutes (159) or through private tutoring(32) to improve their English proficiency.Development of the QuestionnaireThe characteristics of effective teachers as perceived byhigh school English teachers and students in Korea weremeasured by a questionnaire developed by the authors. For thesake of reliability and validity, the development of thequestionnaire underwent the following three stages as per therecommendation of Devellis (1991): generating an item poolunder three categories, reviewing the items by experts, andselecting the final items.In the first stage, the authors generated a total of 35 itemscontributing to effective English teachers based on previousstudies and teaching experiences. Then, the authors revisedthe items into 24 under three different categories: Englishproficiency (8 items), pedagogical knowledge (8 items), andsocio-affective skills (8 items).Figure 1. The Characteristics of EFLT239
Gi-Pyo Park, Hyo-Woong Leedistributed 15 questionnaires to each of them, asking them tocontact 6-12 other English teachers (the second group) and toadminister the questionnaires to the second group of teachers.Specific care was taken to collect the data about Englishteachers with similar numbers in the six cells in age and twocells in gender, as described in the "participants" above. Thus,the first group of teachers was advised to contact the secondgroup of teachers according to their age and gender to fit thecells.For the data regarding the students, the second authorcollected the data in class with the cooperation of the Englishteachers who were in charge of the classes. The students wereattending two high schools in 10 classes. The author explainedbriefly the nature of this study to the students and asked theircooperation by responding to the questionnaires sincerely andhonestly. The students were assured that their responses to thequestionnaires would be kept confidential and not be used forother purposes. After assuring their cooperation, the authorexplained how to answer the questionnaires which had nocorrect or incorrect answers. The students were encouraged toask questions if the meaning of the items were not clear tothem and they were informed that they could respond to thequestionnaires, taking as much time as they wanted to. It tookabout 20 minutes to administer the questionnaires. TheKorean versions of the questionnaires were used for bothEnglish teachers and students to minimize any possible biasresulting from their comprehension of English and tomeaningfully compare the effective teacher characteristicsperceived by the two groups.The characteristics of effective teachers as perceived bydifferent groups were compared on
Pyo Park, Department of English Language and Literature, College of Humanities, Soonchunhyang University, 646 Eupnae-ri, Shinchang-myun, Asan, Choongchungnam-do, 336-745, Korea. email: gipyop@ sch.ac.kr. knowledge, and socio-affective skills. The Characteristics of Effective English Teachers As Perceived by High School Teachers and Students in .
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