Effect of EFL Teachers’ Experience and Empowerment on Their EFL Students’ Achievement

The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of Iranian EFL teachers’ years of experience and their empowerment on Iranian EFL students’ achievement. To this end, 70 EFL teachers and 60 intermediate students were selected from different English language institutes in Shiraz, Fars province. The instruments used in this study include the Oxford Quick Placement Test, Demographics, and Teacher Empowerment Questionnaire. The results were analyzed using One-way ANOVA, frequency analysis, independent samples t-test, and Multiple Regression Analysis. The result from the descriptive analysis regarding the distribution of means based upon the responses provided by the participants of the present study indicated that highly experienced teachers view their most empowered subscale as autonomy, status, self-efficacy, impact, decision-making and professional growth, respectively. These results suggested that teachers perceive their highest level of empowerment to reside in their ability to make decisions on what is taught or about curriculum, and to have control over daily schedules. In addition, it is important to mention that low-experienced teachers view their most empowered subscale as self-efficacy, professional growth, status, autonomy, impact and decision-making. The findings of the current research suggest that teachers perceive their highest level of empowerment to reside in their ability to share their skills and knowledge with students to help them learn.