Iranian EFL Teachers’ Beliefs and Practices on Effective Teaching: The Case of Gender and Level of Experience

This study was an attempt to investigate Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs about effective teaching in foreign language classrooms. More specifically, the study addressed the need for a clear understanding of the role of teaching effectiveness in EFL classrooms by looking at Iranian EFL teachers’ own beliefs. To this end, 90 Iranian EFL instructors of the English language voluntarily participated in the study. A closed-ended questionnaire was employed as a prime quantitative data collection tool to investigate teachers’ beliefs about effective teaching in EFL classrooms. The respondents answered the three parts of the “Effective Teacher” Questionnaire. The data analysis indicated that (a) there was no significant difference in teaching effectiveness between male and female Iranian EFL teachers, (b) there was no significant difference between experienced and novice Iranian EFL teachers’ stated beliefs regarding their effective teaching, and (c) there was no significant relationship between Iranian EFL teachers’ beliefs about effective teaching and their practice of effective teaching.