Relationship between EFL Teachers’ Efficacy and Productivity
Subject Areas : All areas of language and translationآزاده قربان زاده 1 , Seyyed Hassan Seyyedrezaei 2 , Behzad Ghonsooly 3 , Zari Sadat Seyyedrezaei 4
1 - گروه آموزش زبان انگلیسی، دانشگاه آزاد علی آباد کتول
2 - Department of English Language Teaching, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul, Iran
3 - English Department, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
4 - Department of English Language Teaching, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul, Iran
Keywords: adolescent students, English as Foreign Language (EFL) Teachers, Quality Education, Teachers’ Efficacy, Teachers’ Productivity,
Abstract :
The present study investigated the association between teachers’ efficacy and productivity among EFL teachers of adolescent students. On this premise, eighty high school English teachers from 34 public high schools in Mashhad were selected out of 100 English teachers through convenience sampling. Data were collected via two instruments, the Teachers’ Efficacy Questionnaire (Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk, 2001), and the Teachers’ productivity Questionnaire (Hersey & Goldsmith, 1980). Subsequently, the data analyzed through the Pearson correlation and regression toward the mean analysis. The results of the correlation tests uncovered that there was a critical connection between EFL teachers’ efficacy and productivity. Furthermore, the results of simple regression analyses confirmed that teachers’ efficacy was a noteworthy predictor of their productivity. Thusly, in light of the results of assessing teachers’ perception, policymakers and professionals might have the option to cultivate teachers’ competency by planning and determining their future professional paths and provide a clearer perspective for their professional growth and development.
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The Relationship between Efficacy of EFL Teachers of Adolescent Students and Productivity
Azadeh Ghorbanzadeh 1, Seyyed Hassan Seyyedrezaei 2*, Behzad Ghonsooly 3, Zari Sadat Seyyedrezaei 4
¹ Ph.D. Candidate, Department of English Language Teaching, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Islamic
Azad University, Aliabad Katoul, Iran
² Assistant Professor, Department of English Language Teaching, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Islamic
Azad University, Aliabad Katoul, Iran
³ Full Professor, Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Letters and Humanities, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran
⁴ Assistant Professor, Department of English Language Teaching, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul, Iran
ABSTRACT
The present study investigated the relationship between teachers’ efficacy and productivity among EFL teachers of adolescent students. On this premise, eighty high school English teachers from 34 public high schools in Mashhad were selected out of 100 English teachers through convenience sampling. Data were collected via two instruments, the Teachers’ Efficacy Questionnaire Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001), and the Teachers’ productivity Questionnaire (Hersey & Goldsmith, 1980). Subsequently, the data were analyzed utilizing Pearson correlation and regression toward the mean. The correlation tests’ results uncovered a critical connection between EFL teachers’ efficacy and productivity. Furthermore, simple regression analyses confirmed that teachers’ efficacy was a noteworthy predictor of their productivity. In light of the results of assessing teachers’ perception, policymakers and professionals might have the option to cultivate teachers’ competency by planning and determining their future professional paths and providing a clearer perspective for their professional growth and development.
Keywords: Adolescent Students, English as Foreign Language (EFL) Teachers, Quality Education, Teachers’ Efficacy, Teachers’ Productivity
INTRODUCTION
Today, inside the field of education, a teacher is the ultimate agent, who plays the role of an issue expert, apportions information, outlines the timetable, creates materials, assesses learning results, and causes the students to beat their obscurities. Dibapile (2012) submitted this statement that quality education in any nation relies upon the standard degree of its teachers. A class full of adolescents can be a big challenge for many teachers. According to Parker (2013), teachers should help them know the world and build knowledge beyond language. A language is a tool for communicating and expressing oneself in various fields of human understanding and relationships. Lesiak (2015) believed that teachers intuitively understand that when dealing with groups of adolescents, their function extends well beyond grammar, lexis, and pronunciation, all of which are vital. Adolescent students benefit from good teachers who encourage them to think and discover. Adolescents, particularly the younger ones, require assistance in their progress. They want assistance in developing their own sets of values, values that will lead them throughout their adult life; they want assistance in thinking and comprehending; and they want to make sense of the multitude of facts, opinions, and ideas surrounding them.
Accommodating these endeavours can raise the stressful responsibilities that teachers need to juggle, which is already causing hindering their productivity in schools. Accordingly, the endurance and accomplishment of the present educational systems rely upon teachers’ productivity and the new challenge of administrators; because of the expanding shakiness of the ecological circumstance on account of innovative, economical, social, and political changes and at last the unavoidable effect of these changes; is the craft of managing them searching for solutions to boost productivity and accomplish steady and safe conditions.
Alignment of individual objectives and hierarchical objectives and consistent performance improvement are among the elements that can influence the productivity of teachers. If the evaluation system is designed effectively, it can be helpful for purposes, for example, promotion, demotion, instalment of pay rates and benefits, and cultivating purposes, for example, planning (performance improvement and staff strengthening). Teacher evaluation systems should gauge teachers’ performance and use it as a benchmark to address wasteful techniques. Having a legitimate assessment system can be a factor in improving teachers’ inspiration. Therefore, the existence of a system that can react to these requests and give chances to the development and improvement of educators is a need. Focusing on human resources, attempting to make confidence and inspiration, invigorating creativity and initiative, gaining teacher’s participation to accomplish the objectives and missions of the education will expand efficacy and productivity in education. Subsequently, it is necessary to focus on teachers' needs and adjust them to educational objectives. Undoubtedly, one of the components that significantly affect productivity and assume a significant function in improving and expanding it is teacher training.
Bozonelos (2008) demonstrated that administrators could do their best to develop high teacher quality by enhancing good professional development opportunities, various assessments, coaching backing, a collective domain, and commendation for teachers. Furthermore, administrators are crucial in improving teachers’ productivity by strengthening school culture, offering interpersonal help, and providing instructional assets. In this way, the significance of satisfactorily trained teachers is pivotal in increasing teachers’ sense of efficacy and productivity. Precisely, as maintained by Pajares (2002), negative persuasion has been speculated to subvert teachers’ sense of efficacy more effectively than positive persuasion toward enhancing teachers’ efficacy. It is suggested to help teachers with the most significant sum as conceivable to ensure their confidence through qualified skills and achieving new victorious teaching knowledge to expand teachers’ productivity. Undoubtedly, teachers' self-perceptions are increasingly being explored as a significant predictor of their productivity.
Taken together, the current investigation intended to work out if there is a connection between the efficacy of EFL teachers of adolescent students and productivity. The criterion variable during this investigation was teachers’ productivity, measured in relationship to the predictor variable: teachers’ efficacy. This paper asserted that teachers’ efficacy of adolescent students might be a key driver of teachers’ productivity, and may be explicitly included as a focal concentration inside teachers’ professional development. The significance of this exploration lies within the proven fact that it is one in all the primary few attempts to investigate the association between teachers’ efficacy and productivity within the teacher education’ domain, specifically in the Iranian EFL context. Furthermore, there exists such a model in management science, and hence, the researchers sought to look at an analogous relationship among Iranian EFL teachers, towards an interdisciplinary research agenda in education.
REVIEW OF THE RELATED LITERATURE
Teachers’ Efficacy
To achieve the importance of teachers’ efficacy (or teacher self-efficacy) in teacher quality, the researchers initially introduced the concept of teachers’ efficacy, addressing its development process, theoretical framework, and measurement. Gibson and Dembo (1984) characterized teachers’ efficacy as a teacher’s belief in assisting uninterested or troublesome students. After that, Bandura (1997) introduced self-efficacy as convictions in one's abilities to arrange and implement the approaches needed to provide given accomplishment. In a while, Tschannen-Moran and Woolfolk Hoy (2001) conceptualized teachers’ efficacy along with teachers' judgment of their abilities to incite wanted results of student learning and responsibility, even among those students who are uninterested or troublesome. Williams (2009) identified teachers’ efficacy as teachers’ self-assurance in their capabilities toward masterminding and arranging productive teaching-learning situations. In line with this definition, for teachers’ efficacy, teachers who have shown authority in their teaching performance attended demonstrate high levels of teachers’ efficacy. That is, the successful fulfilment of professional development agendas includes a constructive outcome for teachers’ efficacy (Ross & Bruce, 2007). Moreover, Bandura (1997) contended that since convictions concerning self-efficacy were unequivocally reflexive, and coordinated within the direction of apparent capacities given explicit assignments, they were interpreters of performance. Self-efficacy could be the best predictor of behavior to accomplish the commission.
Traditionally, some researchers have established two primary sources of teachers’ efficacy: Personal Teaching Efficacy and General Teaching Efficacy (Soodak & Podell, 1997; Tschannen-Moran & Woolfolk Hoy, 2001; Woolfolk & Hoy, 1990). In teaching, Personal Teaching Efficacy includes teachers’ certainty about their capacity toward framing a distinction in students’ output. In contrast, General Teaching Efficacy alludes to teachers' control in influencing students’ learning and teachers’ convictions about the ability of things outside the classroom. Within this investigation, teachers’ efficacy alludes to high school English teachers’ certainty about their abilities to give confinement to students revolutionize. Furthermore, Tschannen-Moran et al. (1998) considered teachers’ sense of efficacy within the recital of the attributes of successful teachers, confidently affecting their proficiency in arrangement and organization, their eagerness towards new ideas, additionally as teachers’ teaching practices.
Moreover, Henson et al. (2001) stated that teachers’ efficacy increases student commitment and better learning results. Schwarzer and Hallum (2008) conceptualized teachers’ efficacy as teachers’ apparent skill to manage all requests and difficulties inferred in their vocation. In this manner, they supposed that teachers’ efficacy can determine teachers’ performance and perhaps be associated with students’ efficacy. Additionally, when people suppose they will probably begin the necessary results by their activities, they will probably be more roused to utilize exertion and continue when stood up to with impediments. Individuals high in efficacy contribute extra exertion and continue longer than those low in efficacy; once an action has been taken.
Specifically, it is indispensable to accommodate measurement with theory. Most examinations have measured teachers’ efficacy as an appraisal of current capabilities. Bandura (2006) proposed that three models ought to be considered to gauge self-efficacy: Firstly, the subject of the statement ought to be ‘I’; secondly, all items ought to include utterances like 'can', and thirdly, all items should contain a hindrance. Consistent with Gibson and Dembo (1984), there are high and low efficacious teachers. Those with higher efficacy utilize their time in an exceptionally better way, and are more productive in controlling their students; however, teachers with lower efficacy are less helpful in guiding their students. In the same vein, Guskey (1988) believed that higher individual efficacy will lead to positive attitudes towards teaching, and teachers with a much better degree of confidence in their capacities are hospitable to the appliance of the most current practices. We pursued these standards to quantify teachers’ efficacy and concentrate on teachers’ apparent ability to influence students’ performance.
Teachers’ Productivity
Concerning the different variable of this study, which is teachers’ productivity, it is defined as the output produced by somebody or a unit of people and is generally identified with the business. The keyword of this explanation is ‘value-added’, which means high productivity performance demonstrates the superior degree of value-added to an enterprise. Conceptually, Gomez-Mejia et al. (2016) identified the notion of productivity as a measurement of the number of value-added employees have on goods or services produced by the organization. In this case, added-value is identified with products, services, or occupations produced by somebody. As a result, productivity is the work of employees who contribute considerably to hierarchical objectives in business.
Primarily, an overall explanation of the notion of productivity is that it is the connection involving the output or production created by the organization and the input or contribution to shaping the output above. Consequently, productivity is characterized as the practical and valuable usage of assets including work, power, funds, equipment, conditions, the information inside the construction of various merchandise and products. It may fluctuate based on gathered components, such as assessing an individual's capacity and endeavours, the gracefulness of assets, the arrangement of work, and so on. There is considerable doubt that increased productivity is at the heart of every individual system's activity, implying that the durability and the development of practically all individual accommodating rely on the productivity level of the organization, which in turn depends on the employees' productivity. Undeniably, low teachers’ productivity starting from low teachers’ enthusiasm and pledge to their activity represented the helpless training quality inside the nation (Adu et al., 2012).
Ideally, to work out teachers’ productivity, measures of inputs and outputs may well be controlled through an objective function to assess the commitment that as an estimate of the efficiency of the production cycle, every one of the inputs makes to the congregation of output. Nonetheless, supported by several previous research journals, productivity could be practical to the world of education. In this respect, Yusuf and Adigun (2010) established that productivity in the educational sector is quite often considered as a proportion of task completion, which may contribute to the conviction of the sector's goals and aspirations for the future within the economy, as well as pertinent to numerous sectors or organizations. Likewise, they represented that teachers’ productivity is the proportion of teachers' output. At this juncture, the output alludes to the value and amount of qualified students produced by the teachers. Johnson and Birkeland (2003) additionally portrayed teachers’ productivity as a proportion of the amount and nature of the result, to their contributions to every aspect of their performances as instructors, similar to teacher responsibility, teacher authority, school climate, test outcome, graduation rates, and dropout rates. Adu (2015) further portrayed a high workplace wherein individuals are components of a corporation that challenge the human soul that motivates self-awareness and improvement, which completes things. Belonging uniqueness augments the feeling of belonging and endorses productivity.
Adolescence Education
According to Bharti (2017) perceptions, adolescence is a time of transition, where the individual is fuller of doubt than certainty. More than mere biology, adolescence is psychologically the period between childhood dependency and being a functionally independent autonomous adult. In this regard, Crone and Dahl (2012) specified adolescence education as critical to improving many aspects of the transition of adolescents to adulthood and quality of life. In Bharti’s review of the teaching adolescent literature, adolescence education must provide evidence relevant to good mental and physical health, which includes reproductive health, as well as the knowledge and means to preserve health throughout adulthood, a proper stock of human and social capital to enable individuals to be a productive adult member of society, and the acquisition of pro-social principles and the ability to contribute to the collective well-being.
The current investigation was theoretically upheld by the self-efficacy theory of Bandura (1997) and the productivity theory of Taylor (1997). Self-efficacy is characterized by Bandura (1997) as an individual’s belief in their ability to impact behaviors necessary to produce explicit execution accomplishments. Meanwhile, Taylor’s philosophy emphasizes that making individuals function as hard as possible, was not as efficient as upgrading how the work was finished. Taylor (1997), the pioneer of scientific management research, recommended that productivity heighten by upgrading and streamlining jobs. As a result, laborers are urged to strive to earn more, and the production of the business is as efficient as it tends to be, and benefits are expanded subsequently.
Given these imperatives, this study addressed two statistically testable research questions:
RQ1. Is there any significant relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ efficacy and teachers’ productivity?
RQ2. Does teachers’ efficacy predict teachers’ productivity?
METHODS
Participants
The current study took place in 34 public high schools in Mashhad, Iran. The participants were adolescent English teachers from the academic year 2020-2021. A sample of EFL teachers affiliated with the ELT department comprised the teachers. Convenience sampling was utilized as the sampling procedure in the present study. Out of 100 English teachers, 80 female English teachers of adolescent students were chosen to participate in the examination supported Krejcie and Morgan (1970) table for sample size. The participants, who were the first researcher's colleagues in various high schools around the city of Mashhad, were all Iranians and local speakers of Persian (Farsi).
Instrumentation
Two questionnaires were used to collect data on teachers’ efficacy and teachers’ productivity. The questionnaires for this study were test-piloted by 30 teachers. In ensuring reliability, the researchers used the Spearman Rank correlation formula. Researchers requested three expert professors within the faculty of education to appraise the instruments concerning face and content validity to validate the instruments. Their comments assisted the researchers to improve the quality of the final instruments administered. An in-depth description of these instruments is presented below.
Teachers’ Efficacy Questionnaire (TEQ). The researchers used the Teacher Sense of Efficacy Scale (TSES) developed by Tschannen- Moran and Woolfolk (2001) to measure teachers' efficacy. This scale has 24 items. The items were measured on a five-point Likert scale ranging from 1: none at all to 5: a great deal. The sum of scores of all items represents the overall efficiency score. High scores indicated higher efficacy. The questionnaire yielded a reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) of 0.92, and also the validity of the instrument was proved by three university professors furthermore.
Teachers’ Productivity Questionnaire (TPQ). The researchers adapted the existing questionnaire by Hersey and Goldsmith (1980) to suit the aim of the study better. This modified scale had 26 items. Each item was calculated on a five-point Likert-type scale from one: very low to five: very high. High scores on the scales determined a high chance of being productive. The questionnaire yielded a reliability coefficient (Cronbach’s alpha) of 0.91. Also, the instrument’s validity was proved by three university professors further.
Procedure
The subsequent procedure was followed to achieve the aim of the investigation: After arranging meetings with the manager of the Head Office of Education in Mashhad, the researchers presented the aim of the research and the research instruments briefly and to gain their permission to conduct the research. English teachers of adolescent students were also asked for permission to enter their classes and to conduct the research. Afterwards, all the participants were instructed to respond independently to express their true feelings freely. Finally, from the data taken from the questionnaires, the association between the factors was investigated.
Study Design and Data Analysis
To examine the association between the measured variables, a Pearson coefficient correlation analysis was conducted with no intervention on the part of the researchers. Data analyses were executed using SPSS (version 22). The normality of the items was checked using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test. Effect sizes, i.e., R2 for correlational analysis (Creswell, 2012), were utilized to decide the commonsense noteworthiness of the association since measurable importance may show results that are down to earth of little pertinence. Data were further analyzed by linear regression modelling to spot the predictive power of the independent variable over the dependent variable.
RESULT
Table 1 depicts the detailed results for the two questionnaires. No outliers or other abnormalities were found.
Table 1.
Descriptive Statistics for TE and TP
| N | Range | Minimum | Maximum | Mean | Std. Deviation | Variance |
TE | 80 | 56.00 | 66.00 | 122.00 | 98.17 | 13.53 | 183.13 |
TP | 80 | 30.00 | 64.00 | 94.00 | 80.10 | 6.63 | 44.04 |
Valid N (listwise) | 80 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Note. TE= Teachers’ Efficacy; TP= Teachers’ Productivity.
To make sure that the data were distributed normally, the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test was run. Table 2 displays the results of this test.
Table 2.
One-Sample Kolmogorov-Smirnov Test
| TE | TP |
| |
N | 80 | 80 |
| |
Normal Parameters a,b | Mean | 98.17 | 80.10 |
|
Std. Deviation | 13.53 | 6.63 |
| |
Most Extreme Differences | Absolute | .09 | .09 |
|
Positive | .06 | .07 |
| |
Negative | -.09 | -.09 |
| |
Test Statistic | .09 | .09 |
| |
Asymp. Sig. (2-tailed) | .06c | .06c |
| |
a. Test distribution is Normal. | ||||
b. Calculated from data. | ||||
As shown in Table 2, the p-values of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov tests for both TE and TP are 0.06, respectively. It can be concluded that the distribution of data is normal since these values are higher than .05; therefore, the parametric tests may be employed. At that point, to respond to the principal research question of this investigation, the Pearson coefficient correlation test was utilized. Table 3 shows the consequences of this test.
Table 3.
Correlation between Teachers’ Efficacy and Teachers’ Productivity
| TE | TP | |
TE | Pearson Correlation | 1 | .39** |
Sig. (2-tailed) |
| .00 | |
N | 80 | 80 | |
TP | Pearson Correlation | .39** | 1 |
Sig. (2-tailed) | .00 |
| |
N | 80 | 80 | |
**. Correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). | |||
Note. TE=Teachers’ Efficacy; TP= Teachers’ Productivity
As it is illustrated in Table 3, teachers’ efficacy was significantly related to teachers’ productivity (r=.39, n=80, p=.00). To determine how much of the variability in the dependent variable (teachers’ productivity) could be accounted for by the independent variable (teachers’ efficacy), regression analysis was employed. Table 4 demonstrates the results of running the linear regression test.
Table 4.
Linear Regression Analyses Predicting Teachers’ Productivity from Teachers’ Efficacy
Model | Unstandardized Coefficients | Standardized Coefficients | t | Sig. |
|
|
| ||
B | Std. Error | Beta | F | R | R2 | ||||
1 | (Constant) | 61.00 | 5.05 |
| 12.07 | .00 | 14.56 | .39 | .15 |
TE | .19 | .05 | .39 | 3.81 | .00 |
|
|
| |
a. Dependent Variable: TP |
|
|
| ||||||
Closer scrutiny of the results in table 4.2, shows that the regression analysis created a statistically significant model (F = 14.56, p = .00). Overall, the model accounted for 15% of the variance. All the more explicitly, it was found that teachers’ efficacy (β = 0.39; t = 3.81; p =.00) was a significant predictor of teachers’ productivity.
DISCUSSION
The study was conducted to probe the association between the efficacy of EFL teachers of adolescent students and productivity. The correlation test results specified that there was a meaningful connection between the efficacy of EFL teachers of adolescent students and productivity. Furthermore, the regression analysis revealed that teachers’ efficacy of adolescent students can be a vital determinant of their productivity.
Based on the correlational results, teachers’ efficacy is one critical idea that is postulated to possess a dominant influence on the teacher as well as adolescent students’ outcomes. Simply put, teachers’ efficacy has been shown to enhance teachers’ and adolescent students’ performance. As supported by our findings, there is a reciprocal association between teachers’ efficacy and teachers’ productivity. Meanwhile, teachers’ absence of confidence in their capabilities ends up in considerably low productivity and an absence of achievement of the praiseworthy objectives of adolescent education. The findings may well be perhaps legitimized in such ways that, the teachers’ lack of interest, inspiration and low job fulfilment consecutively contribute to low productivity. Following teachers’ perception, the dearth of concentration and stability within the teacher vocation diminishes their productivity and output, particularly when joined by the dearth of in-service professional development programs, workshops, and conferences toward invigorating their insight and abilities.
Subsequently, the results of linear regression modeling evidenced that knowing the teachers’ recognitions and convictions, empowers every person within education including administrators, teachers, adolescent students, and parents to create predictions about the teaching and evaluation process. As a result, our findings assume that teachers who are optimistic about their teaching skills would be destined to blemish teachers as one of the principal significant agents in improving school outcomes. In reality, the lifetime of teachers in the work recommended being improved by establishing such an instructional situation that will lead to enhancement of teachers’ efficacy and productivity of adolescent students, which is obliged to be approved via the tutorial organization and policymakers. As an overall self-evaluation to process teaching competence, our findings offered a launch line used for educators to make judgments on the subject of efficacy and productivity.
Our results reprise findings from the early research conducted by Ghonsooly et al. (2014) examined the predictability of the107 teacher students’ academic achievement supported their self-efficacy and metacognition scores. Based on their data analysis, when teachers have high dynamic authority over the cognitive developments connected to their learning, they have a more robust performance. Additionally, Ghonsooly et al. (2014) contended that people would not refute the teachers' confidence in their abilities and skills for arranging the methods to accomplish the goals of education. Besides, Wood and Bandura (1989) concluded that self-efficacy by implication and legitimately influenced performance through its effects on diagnostic systems, which recommends an intervening metacognition impact on the reciprocal association between teachers’ performance and teachers’ efficacy. In the same vein, Adu et al. (2012) argued that teachers, similar to individuals in the business, play a critical role inside the education segment. The teachers’ efficacy must be contemplated for an education system to accomplish the ideal objectives and goals. Adu et al. (2012) ascertained that the fate of every learning stage relies upon the mental and emotional variables of the teachers. Taken together, these two sources can be coordinated into the triadic structure of teachers’ productivity.
Consistent with Emunemu et al. (2010), the teachers’ confidence and also the common sense of responsibility would (taking everything into account), essentially sway the level of the productivity of education concerning the instructional products as evidenced by the qualified adolescent students bring into being in the nation. Moreover, this finding confirms the exploration results of a research study investigated by Adu (2015) that the level of productivity of a school relies on the efficacy and teachers’ accomplishment. Similarly, Ozturk (2001) highlighted education in each sense is one of the fundamental elements of progress. In line with this statement, qualified education expands individuals' imagination, creativity, and productivity and advances innovative and business enterprise improvement.
This finding is in congruence with those of Lesiak (2015) study who concluded that teaching English to adolescents is a challenging matter. It is strongly related to adolescents going through a very stormy period, including significant psychological and physical transformations. Therefore, the teacher has to know the characteristics of adolescents to have a correct attitude to them. For Vera-Estay et al. (2014), it is necessary to devise activities that encourage and develop critical thinking. Teachers may urge adolescent students to study and discuss the values inherent in a text's content, rather than merely its structure while teaching English. It is also feasible to conduct an activity that teaches adolescents to distinguish between 'truth' and 'opinion,' or to examine if a certain online piece is critiquing a concept or a person's personality.
Bharti (2017) proposed that adolescent education is an educational intervention for imparting information, providing encouragement and support, and clarifying doubts and myths so that adolescents can make sense of their world and grow as productive members of society, which is consistent with this result. In the same vein, Cloud et al. (2010)postulated that the organization is often king when teaching adolescents. A teacher needs explicit activities and presentations to maintain the respect of adolescents. Due to their longer attention span, a teacher will probably need fewer activities that last a long period. Consequently, discussion and questions are expected when engaging most adolescents. In conclusion, teachers need to have flexible approaches for dealing with diverse students. Adolescent students have distinct needs when learning a language. Understanding this can help a teacher to have success in the classroom.
CONCLUSIONS
Teachers are ostensibly the most powerful set of connoisseurs for all country's prospects. The expanded significance inside the teacher’s career output has made it unbelievably persuasive to detect the variables impacting a teacher’s performance inside and outside schools. Supported the statement above, this study conducts to explore the association between the efficacy of EFL teachers of adolescent students and productivity. This exploration indicated that teachers’ efficacy of adolescent students had a significant association with their productivity and teachers’ efficacy was a noteworthy predictor of teachers’ productivity.
Teachers’ efficacy and teachers’ productivity must be a priority since they will influence the output of overall school organization objectives. Teachers assume a crucial function in accomplishing the instructional objectives given that their efficacy determines adolescent students’ output. Efficacy in the domain of education is characterized as the apparent capacity to supply a planned impact and productivity is yielding supposed outcomes or progress. Breaking down these two concepts in education necessitates inspecting schools' achievements as perceived by their members, and contrasting teachers’ performances with their commanded duties.
Notwithstanding, the examination has a few limitations. It is a methodical limitation that teachers’ efficacy and teachers’ productivity were analyzed uniquely in sync with teachers’ recognitions. In this respect, further examination can be carried out with the involvement of school principals and students. It is likewise suggested hunting out variables hindering teachers’ efficacy and teachers’ productivity of adolescent students in the EFL context specifically in Iran. In future research, some experimental procedures can even be examined for analyzing the effect of coaching on expanding the efficacy and productivity of EFL teachers. An exploratory plan would have permitted a considerably exact, additionally convincing, and intense investigation of teachers’ efficacy and teachers’ productivity a lot farther than a correlational plan.
Biodata
Azadeh Ghorbanzadeh is a Ph.D. candidate at Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Iran. She has also been teaching English as a foreign language at Ministry of Education, Mashhad, Iran, for over 15 years. Her main areas of interest are EFL teaching and learning, Second Language Skills, and Teacher Education.
Email: Azadeh.Ghorbanzadeh@gmail.com
Dr Seyyed Hassan Seyyedrezaei is the assistant professor of TEFL at Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Iran. He has taught undergraduate and graduate courses for more than 18 years, and published a number of books and papers related to Applied Linguistics. His main interests are Language Testing and assessment, Language Teaching Methodology, and Second Language Acquisition Research.
Email: srezaei.sh@gmail.com
Dr Behzad Ghonsooly is a full professor of Applied Linguistics at Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran. He has published 10 books in the EFL field and more than 60 papers in various national and international journals. His main research interests are language testing, and introspection psychology.
Email: Ghonsooly@yahoo.com
Dr Zari Sadat Seyyedrezaei is an assistant professor in TEFL at Islamic Azad University, Aliabad Katoul Branch, Iran. She has published some papers in international and national academic journals and presented some papers in International conferences in different countries. Moreover, she published some ESP books. Her major areas of interest are Computer Assisted Language Learning, TBLT, EFL teaching and learning.
Email: Zariseyyedrezaie89@gmail.com
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