Iranian EFL Learners' Perceptions and Beliefs about their English Teachers: A Psycholinguistic Perspective

Abstract

The present study expolred English as a foreign language (EFL) learners' perceptions and beliefs concerning their English teachers. Through a mixed-methods research design and using descriptive statistics, 146 Iranian adult EFL learners were probed on different aspects of their interaction with English teachers. In addition, their objectives as language learners were investigated to discern how their perceptions and beliefs could be related to the learning goals they aimed at. The findings revealed that the participants generally believed English teachers were not competent enough as language users and the teaching materials they used, were not appropriate. Concerning the relation between EFL learners' beliefs and their learning objectives, the findings indicated that communicative, occupational and academic objectives for male participants and communicative, cultural and academic objectives for female participants were the three most important learning goals they had. It is recommended that EFL teachers direct their focus of teaching to more communicative language teaching approaches. This way, in addition to fulfilling their learners' primary objective, they are better able to create an interesting, diverse atmosphere in language classrooms. Such learning environment may also serve as a solution to the learners' lack of motivation and their perception of language class as a boring place.