The attitudes of secondary school students towards native and non-native english speaking teachers in an EFL context

Abstract

This thesis explores the attitudes of secondary school students studying at private schools towards native and non-native English teachers in an EFL context. In particular, what kind of attitudes these students had in terms of learning English and a good English teacher image were investigated. In addition, the students’ preferences for each group of teachers or both of them were sought besides the reasons for this preference. In order to reveal the attitudes, 680 students were surveyed through an attitude scale followed by an open ended question seeking the reasons for their preferences, six structured focus group interviews, for about 4, 5 hours in total, were held with 84 of them, and two English classes of students were observed both with two native English speaking teachers and two non-native English speaking teachers in a period of three months for 35 lesson hours. The quantitative results were analysed via SPSS by using means, percentages, and a t-test, and the qualitative data were analysed through the content analysis method. The results of the study indicated that these students had positive attitudes towards both their native English-speaking English teachers and their non-native English-speaking English teachers, so they mostly preferred to be taught by both groups of teachers. It was also revealed that the students perceived both of their teachers to be good English teachers but that they favoured their NNESTs in terms of pedagogical teaching skills. The findings also showed that these students mostly recognized their teachers’ different strengths and weaknesses. So, they mostly preferred their NESTs for the teaching of oral skills and vocabulary teaching, and they favoured their NNESTs mostly for grammar teaching and as they provided the use of L1 (Turkish) when necessary