Identifying and prioritizing factors influential on English language teaching at public schools

This study investigated major elements affecting English language teaching at Iranian public schools. It was a descriptive study and the research sample included 270 junior and senior high school male and female English teachers who were selected through cluster sampling method. Meanwhile, teaching methods of 64 English teachers from private institutes and public schools were observed through a checklist. Cornbach alpha was 0.90 for the questionnaire and 0.85 for the checklist. The results of one sample t-test and Friedman test indicated that according to teachers, inefficient factors were curriculum content, the low or no use of technology, few opportunities for student-teacher interaction, low teacher interest, negative socio-cultural views, inadequate teacher training and students’ participation at low level in public schools, respectively. However, integrative teaching of the four language arts, assessment techniques, teaching methods, and extra-curricular activities were not related to low level learning of English at school. The analysis of classroom observation of public schools and private language institutes showed that there were significant differences among classroom context, teacher motivation, using relic, students’ factors and the methods of evaluation between these settings, although this study did not find a significant discrepancy between private language institutes and public schools as far as teachers’ proficiencies were concerned. The findings of this study are very insightful in helping policy makers and public school EFL teachers to make a constructive transition towards implementing English teaching criteria that are of most concern in private language institutes.