Qualitative study on EFL teachers’ self-perceived beliefs about teacher autonomy

Teacher autonomy has been debated for a long time as a term and for its possible functions. It is a multi-faceted term which has lots of definitions in the literature. And more studies have been conducted to investigate it but there is still a need for in-depth analysis of the term and its dimensions. The purpose of this study is to explore EFL teachers’ self-perceived beliefs about teacher autonomy. The present study seeks out the answers to what EFL teachers know about teacher autonomy, how they define it, whether they have had any practices in their teaching career so far or not regarding teacher autonomy and what assumptions are underlying behind their self-reported practices. The participants of this study were EFL teachers (12 female and 2 male) who work in different contexts. The data was collected through written interviews/self-reports and primary data was further discussed in a focus group interview. The findings of the study reveal that all the participant teachers have an idea about teacher autonomy. While most of the teachers have a broader perspective about the issue, a few of them have some views about the term even if they don’t perceive themselves as a fully autonomous teacher. It also shows that most of the participant teachers are aware of the importance of teacher autonomy. Key Words: Teacher perceptions, teacher beliefs, teacher autonomy, ELT, EF

THE EFFECTS OF USING RUBRICS AND FACE TO FACE FEEDBACK IN TEACHING WRITING SKILL IN HIGHER EDUCATION

The use of rubrics in assessing the writing performance is very popular. In general, educators in universities use rubrics for more accurate assessment of students writing performance. The first aim of this study is to investigate how using of rubrics in teaching writing skill can affect writing performance of students. The second aim is to investigate how giving of face to face feedback by teachers can have influence on students writing performance. To this end, ESL Writing Grading Rubric was used in teaching of writing skill to the preparatory school students (n=36) to help them understand the targets for their learning and the standards of quality for writing skill in order to improve their writing performance. Also, face to face feedback were given to the writing assignments of students to promote the students’ awareness about their writing drawbacks. The qualitative analysis of the findings based on open-ended questionnaire and focused group interview showed that using rubrics in teaching writing skill and also giving face to face feedback improved the students writing performance. Students reported that by gaining awareness about the rubric, they could check their writing work, give feedback to their peers’ work, produce high quality writings, and got better grades. Keywords: writing skill, writing rubrics, preparatory school students, face to face feedbac