Abstract:

The purpose of this study is to search English language teachers’ perceptions about common mistakes regarding their personality traits. It aims to examine common mistakes made by English language teachers to find out the effects of teacher personality to language teaching process. In this study, both qualitative and quantitative research methodology have been applied. In the light of the literature and the opinions of the experts in the field, a questionnaire was designed. The questionnaire was administered to 175 English language teachers working at primary schools, secondary schools, high schools and universities. Data were analyzed with descriptive statistics, Cronbach Alpha Reliability, Non-parametric Kruskal-Wallis Test and Non-parametric Mann-Whitney U-Test by using SPSS 20. 15 English language teachers were also asked to answer semi-structured interview questions to explain unclear points in the study. The interviews were transcribed and the qualitative data were analyzed via content analysis. Non-parametric tests indicated that there is a significant difference between teachers’ workplace/gender/teaching experience and mistakes regarding teacher personality. The results show that teachers believe that they do not respect what students believe or say and they do not have to be friendly; their responsibility is just to convey their instructional knowledge. These are the most common mistakes made by the participants. Besides, female teachers make more mistakes regarding their personality traits than male teachers. Participants who have less teaching experience have been observed to make more mistakes regarding their personality traits more than the others who have more experience in teaching. On the other hand, teachers who show ‘extraversion’ and ‘agreeableness’ dimensions of five-factor model of personality were observed to make mistakes more frequently.

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