The characteristics of an effective school teacher of the English language in secondary schools as perceived by the students of these schools

Abstract EN

This study aimed to investigate the characteristics of an effective teacher of the English language in secondary schools in Tulkarm educational directorate as perceived by eleventh grade students of these schools.

To achieve this purpose, the researcher developed a thirty-item questionnaire in Arabic, consisting of three domains including personality, professionalism and communication skills.

For the purpose of statistical analysis, the items of the questionnaire were translated into English.

The sample of the study consisted of 331 male and female students, selected randomly from secondary boys’ and girls’ schools in Tulkarm Educational Directorate.

The results revealed that there are differences in the characteristics of an effective school teacher of the English language due to place of residence between city and village in favor of village, and between city and camp in favor of camp.

Moreover, there are significant differences in the characteristics of an effective school teacher of the English language between literary and scientific streams in favor of scientific stream, and between literary and commercial streams in favor of commercial stream.

But there are no significant differences in the characteristics of an effective school teacher of the English language due to gender.

Students gave greater attention to characteristics relating to personality,(friendly, fair to all, sense of humor, and highly motivated), professionalism (fluency and knowledge on the content of the subject he/ she teaches, giving clear instructions, preparing well for his /her classes, maintaining class discipline) and communication skills (respecting students’ opinions, having a positive attitude towards his / her students, arousing students’ interest and motivation, reinforcing students and encouraging them to participate ).The researcher ended this study with two recommendations: First, teachers of the English language should seek the important qualities that help them make their teaching procedure and activities more effective.

Second, this study is by no means comprehensive and other similar studies are recommended to be conducted to shed some light on other qualities of an effective teacher that may be absent in this study to help the teacher give better teaching.