Characteristics of Effective Language Teachers: Prespective of Iranian English Language Teachers

The present study aimed to investigate the Iranian teachers’ perceptions about the characteristics of effective language teachers. To achieve this, a questionnaire was adapted from different sources to examine the three aspects of an effective teacher, i.e., language proficiency, social skills, and teaching skills. The questionnaire was administrated to 96 Iranian English teachers with different experiences in different contexts, the results indicated that they see “recognizing English culture well” and “having high mastery in grammar , well remembers the students’ details such as their names”, “being punctual”, “being able to facilitate the learning process”, “being expert in teaching to a specific level of learners” are the most important factors of effective teachers. The results also indicated that the experience of teachers does not make any statistically significant difference in their perceptions of effective teachers while the contexts in which they teach do make statistically significant difference.The results of the study are expected to have implications for those who are involved in the process of teaching English as foreign language and teacher education.