An Investigation into the Criteria for Selecting Teachers in English Language Institutes in Iran

Abstract

Teacher qualification plays a key role in selecting and recruiting English teachers. Since there was no straightforward framework for the quality of teachers, there was a lack of theoretical adequacy for conducting research in this field. Besides, there were few research studies especially about the teacher selection process in private English institutes. This study was an attempt to investigate the most important criteria in teacher selection for the managers of private English institutes. To fulfill the purpose of this study, over 100 private English institutes were selected randomly in four academic cities in Mazandaran Province, North of Iran. The managers of 100 institutes were asked to fill in a questionnaire containing 24 proposed criteria and an open question for any manager who had other criteria in his mind. After grouping the 24 criteria into groups with homogenous criteria, it was also revealed that in view of the managers of the private English institutes ‘English skills’, ‘discipline’, ‘interaction’, ‘degree’, ‘appearance’, and ‘teaching’ were the most important factors, respectively, whereas ‘living abroad’, ‘distance’, and ‘personal attributes’ factors were less influential in decision making process for teacher selection.