Teachers' Attitudes towards Teaching in Formal vs. Informal ELT Contexts

Subject Areas : Journal of Teaching English Language Studies

Farid Ghaemi ¹ , Farshid Mohammadbeigi ²

1 - Ph.D. of TOFL, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Teaching English and Literature, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran
2 - Ph.D. of TOFL, Department of Humanities, Faculty of Teaching English and Literature, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Iran

Received: 2012-11-10 Accepted : 2012-12-08 Published : 2013-02-01

Keywords: Attitude, Formal context, Informal context,

Abstract :

Up to now, many studies have been done to show the origin of attitudes and their relationships with behaviors or actions. Some of those works have focused on students' attitudes and some have introduced the various contexts of language teaching and learning. These studies were enough to give a new impetus for conducting the present investigation. This paper investigated the teachers' attitudes towards teaching in high schools versus English institutions. For this reason 87 teachers (males and females) teaching English in both school and English institution asked to reply three sets of teacher questionnaires (TQ), i.e. their teaching course attitudes, teachers' attitudes towards their students, and teachers' practices. The main purpose of this investigation was to identify the teachers' attitudes when they encounter with different ELT contexts. The results of this study revealed that teachers have different attitudes towards teaching in high schools versus English institutions. The statistical analyses of the data demonstrated that: (a) teachers had different attitudes towards their teaching courses ( school versus English institution), (b) they showed different attitudes towards their students in high school and English institution, (c) the experience of teachers ( low, medium, high), their degrees (MA, BA), and their background of education ( Azad, State) had no influences on teachers' attitudes towards their teaching courses and towards the students attended those courses, (d) except for some cases, the experience of teachers, their degrees (MA,BA), and their background of education ( Azad, State) had no influences on teachers' teaching activities done in high school and English institution, (e) teachers' attitudes contributed to their activities done in schools as well as English institutions. These results will expectantly help ELT teachers and course designers to step firmly in improving the language teaching and learning issues in Iran.

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