A Comparison between ELT and ELL Graduates with regard to Their Perceptions of Effective Teacher Behaviours

Abstract

It is mostly agreed that learning is a life-long process and teachers are mostly required to be equipped with sufficient and recent knowledge in their own fields (Torf and Sessions, 2008; Atay, 2006). In Turkey there are two departments graduating teachers of English. One of them is English Language and Literature (ELL) department, in which student teachers are exposed to all professional development (PD) courses during the last one and a half year and they have no chance to digest and practice these courses. The other department is English Language Teaching Department (ELT), in which all PD courses were spread to all four years of education, during which student teachers have the chance to digest and practice them. The purpose   of this study is to investigate whether there is a significant difference between English Language Teaching department pre-service teachers’ and English Language and Literature department pre-service teachers’ perceptions of effective teacher behaviours. For data collection, a questionnaire prepared by Brown (2009) was used. It was administered to 22 ELL and 22 ELT pre-service teachers. Firstly data were analyzed quantitatively in order to see whether there is a significant difference between two groups of teachers. Later, an interview, consisting of significant items, was made with 4 participants from each group in order to confirm the findings gathered from quantitative analysis. It is considered that the findings may present some significant differences between two groups of teachers. It is considered that the results of the study may indicate there is a significant difference between these two groups of teachers’ attitudes about PD.

Key words: teachers’ perceptions, effective teacher