A Sociopsychological Study of Professional Competencies of a 21st Century EFL Teacher

This article reports on a sociopsychological study designed to investigate the components of 21st century teachers’ professional competencies in the English as a foreign language (EFL) context in Iran. A total number of 30 members of the English language teaching (ELT) professional community including experienced university teacher educators, supervisors in the private sector, teacher trainers, and EFL teachers in the public and private sectors, participated in this study. Data were collected through semi-structured interviews. For data analysis, qualitative content analysis was used. An independent coder who was an expert in this field was suggested to code one part of interview transcription randomly. An inter-coder agreement of 94.77% was gained. After analyzing the data, six main categories of professional competencies of a 21st century EFL teacher were identified: personality factors, interpersonal factors, professional factors, factors related to teaching materials, learner factors, and assessment factors. The findings contributed empirical evidence to an understanding of Iranian EFL teachers’ professional competencies in their teaching profession in the 21st century that can be utilized as a framework for the improvement of teacher education policy and the design and implementation of teacher-training programs.