Pages: 11-17

Abstract

The present study aimed at finding out different perceptions of Iranian EFL teachers in teaching English ‎with respect to English learners' needs in order to shed light on the practice of language teaching in an ‎EFL context. It is surely worthwhile to investigate the possible perceptions among teachers and attitudes ‎towards learners' needs, as they can influence the effectiveness of classroom instruction. To this end, a ‎‎4/5-point Likert-scale questionnaire based on Atai and Shoja's (2011) questionnaire called ''Needs ‎Analysis and Self-assessment'' questionnaire was developed, piloted with 15 EFL teachers who were ‎representative of the main group, validated, and administered to 60 Iranian EFL teachers through mail ‎and in person. To enrich the data, 15 Iranian EFL teachers were interviewed, too. The teachers’ ‎perceptions of learners' needs were compared using mean scores and standard deviations. In order to ‎determine whether there was any statistically significant difference between teachers' perceptions ‎towards learners' needs, a questionnaire and interview were given to the participants. The results ‎indicated that there are not statistically significant differences among teachers’ perceptions in teaching ‎English with respect to learners’ needs for the whole scale. The results of the interviews confirmed ‎these findings, too. Based on the findings of this study, it is proposed that teachers and policy makers ‎consider giving learners more voice and autonomy in different stages of English language teaching and ‎learning especially “needs analysis”‎‎.

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