Teachers’ views on the qualities of

effective EFL teacher educators

Rui Yuan and Yalin Hu

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This research explores the qualities of effective EFL language teacher educators
from the perspectives of pre- and in-service teachers at a university in China.
Drawing on data from focus group interviews with these teachers (from
different teacher education programmes at the university), the findings of
the study demonstrate the perceived qualities of effective language teacher
educators, including, in the words of some of the participants, being ‘fountains
of knowledge’, having ‘eyes on the stars and feet on the ground’, and ‘providing
a personal touch’. This study offers an important frame of reference for EFL
teacher educators to reflect on and improve their professional practice in order
to meet their students’ complex and diverse learning needs.

Introduction In many EFL contexts (for example mainland China and Hong Kong),
language teacher educators are centred in various teacher education
programmes provided by higher education institutions, and they
play a pivotal role in preparing and developing future generations of
language teachers through their teaching, practicum supervision, and
the collaborative research teacher educators and teachers engage in
(Golombek 2015; Yuan 2017). In spite of the significance of language
teacher educators, there is a lack of research into the qualities which make
them effective: a combination of knowledge, skills, attitudes, behaviours,
and personal dispositions (Koster, Brekelmans, Korthagen, and Wubbels
2005) which allows teacher educators to work productively and develop
successfully in their situated contexts. The present study thus seeks to fill
this void by investigating the qualities of effective EFL teacher educators
in China. Differing from the existing literature which focuses on teacher
educators’ perceptions and experiences (for example Murray and Male
2005), this study draws on the perspectives of their students, i.e. language
teachers in both pre- and in-service teacher education programmes. The
existing literature has emphasized the notion of ‘student-centredness’
in providing appropriate and sufficient experiences and guidance to
meet language teachers’ diverse learning needs in teacher education
programmes (Abednia 2012). To this end, it is important to explore and
understand how language teachers perceive effective teacher educators’
qualities; these qualities can shape teacher educators’ professional practice
and social interactions with teachers (Koster et al. op.cit.). Without such

ELT Journal Volume 72/2 April 2018; doi:10.1093/elt/ccx032  141

© The Author(s) 2017. Published by Oxford University Press; all rights reserved.
Advance Access publication July 29, 2017
 an understanding, teacher educators may run the risk of misleading
and even impeding their students’ professional learning and long-term
development.
Drawing on data from focus group interviews with both pre- and in-service
teachers in a normal (i.e. teacher education-oriented) university in China,
this study can add to our knowledge of EFL teacher educators, and, in
order to promote the effectiveness of language teacher education, can
provide an important reference point for teacher educators to consider.

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Teacher educators’ In recent years, research in general education has shed some light on the
qualities important qualities of teacher educators. For instance, some studies (Berry
2007; Chauvot 2009) have demonstrated that effective teacher educators
need to construct a comprehensive knowledge base, and strategically and
reflectively apply such knowledge in their work. Specifically, while teacher
educators need to be equipped with strong subject content knowledge
(relating to the subject matter) and pedagogical content knowledge
(relating to how to teach the subject), they should also possess rich
pedagogical knowledge about how to teach teachers, drawing upon a deep
understanding of the educational system, curricula, and policies in their
work contexts (Goodwin and Kosnik 2013).
In addition, some researchers (Cochran-Smith 2005; Klecka, Donovan,
Venditti, and Short 2008) have emphasized the significance of research
in guiding teacher educators’ professional work. In other words, effective
teacher educators need to take up the role of researcher by systematically
inquiring into various aspects of teacher education (such as its curriculum,
practice, and policy) to enrich the knowledge base of the field. They should
also examine their professional work (for example classroom teaching
and practicum supervision) through self-study and action research, which
can promote their teaching effectiveness and generate practice-oriented
theories (Golombek op.cit.). Apart from their own engagement in research,
teacher educators are encouraged to guide their students to engage in
classroom-based research, for example through practical courses and
university–school partnerships, in order to bridge the gap between theories
and practice (Yuan and Mak 2015). Given the social and emotional nature
of teaching (Zembylas 2005), teacher educators also need to demonstrate
strong collaborative skills by working with a range of different partners
(for example school leaders and mentors) in order to create a safe, open
environment, conducive to teacher learning (Yuan op.cit.).
Research also suggests that teacher educators’ professional qualities
are not context-free (for example Murray and Kosnik 2011); instead they
are subject to the institutional and sociocultural contexts in which the
teacher educators work, wherein different stakeholders (for example
school teachers and learners as well as institutional leaders) are involved.
In particular, language teachers, with their individual backgrounds,
experiences, and needs, play a crucial role in influencing how teacher
educators engage in their teacher education practice and construct their
professional qualities.
However, despite a growing body of research on teacher educators in
general education, scant attention has been paid to the professional

142 Rui Yuan and Yalin Hu

 qualities of EFL teacher educators from the perspective of language
teachers. This study seeks to address this gap by answering one central
research question: What are the essential qualities of effective EFL teacher
educators as perceived by pre- and in-service language teachers?

The study This research1 is situated in K University in Beijing, China, which is a

university known for its strong teacher education orientation, with both
pre- and in-service teacher education programmes in different subjects
including the English language. At the beginning of the study, research

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invitations were sent to all students in three EFL teacher education
programmes, i.e. a Bachelor of Education programme (BEd), a Master
of Arts in Applied Linguistics programme (MA), and a Professional
Development programme (PDP). A total of 18 students, 14 females
and 4 males, responded and joined the study on a voluntary basis. The
participants were divided into three groups according to the programmes
they belong to. Specifically, five participants were from the BEd
programme (named T1 to T5), six from the MA programme (named T6
to T11), and seven from the PDP (named T12 to T18), who had teaching
experience ranging from 3 to 12 years. Research ethics approval was
obtained from the university before the study commenced.
Participants in each group were invited to take part in a focus group
interview with the researchers to explore their perceptions about the
qualities of effective teacher educators based on their individual learning
and professional experiences. For instance, the student teachers from
the BEd and MA programmes were asked to reflect on their learning
experiences and interactions with teacher educators at the university site,
while the school teachers from the PDP were encouraged to look back
on their pre-service learning stage as well as school teaching experiences
and make comparisons between their previous and current teacher
educators. During the interview, the first author, who was from a different
university, mainly took the role of ‘facilitator’ by asking questions (for
example about their previous learning experiences and teacher educators),
while the participants took turns to answer the questions to ensure a fair
contribution. Then they were encouraged to share, discuss, and even
debate ideas freely with each other to construct an in-depth understanding
of an effective language teacher educator. The interviews were conducted
in Chinese, i.e. the participants’ mother tongue, in order to put them at
ease. Each focus group interview, lasting around 120 minutes, was audio-
recorded and transcribed by the researchers for analysis.
A qualitative, inductive approach (Miles and Huberman 1994) was
adopted during data analysis to shed light on the qualities of effective
language teacher educators. By carefully reviewing the data, the
researchers identified various codes related to language teacher educators’
qualities. For instance, eight participants emphasized an effective teacher
educator’s need for rich knowledge about language including its culture
and literature, while 16 participants focused on the ‘social knowledge’
of effective teacher educators in helping them learn how to interact with
different people (for example colleagues and school leaders). All the
identified codes were further compared, integrated, and modified with
reference to the existing research literature on teacher educators (Koster

Teachers’ views on the qualities of effective EFL teacher educators 143

 et al. op.cit.; Goodwin and Kosnik op.cit.), which generated three major
themes to answer the research question. The three themes, taken from the
participants’ own statements as ‘indigenous concepts’ (Patton 2002: 454),
are ‘fountains of knowledge’, ‘eyes on the stars and feet on the ground’,
and ‘providing a personal touch’. Table 1 shows the detailed codes with
frequency counts under each theme. To enhance the validity of the study,
we (the authors) conducted analysis independently and then engaged in
further discussion to reach a consensus about the findings.

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Findings This section summarizes the pre- and in-service language teachers’
perceptions of the qualities of effective EFL teacher educators, as
uncovered by this study.

‘Fountains of The participants depicted effective teacher educators as ‘fountains of

knowledge’ knowledge’ in supporting teachers’ professional learning and continuing
development (T15). First of all, all the participants believed that teacher
educators need to develop systematic, up-to-date knowledge about how to
learn and teach English:
The most important thing, of course, is to learn some effective ideas
and approaches from teacher educators to improve our classroom
teaching. (T13)
The majority of the participants also emphasized that effective teacher
educators need a rich knowledge of the English language itself, including
its literature and culture, which can help open up teachers’ minds and
stimulate their motivations towards language teaching. For instance, two
student teachers described how they were influenced by a teacher educator
whose rich knowledge of English literature not only added to their

Themes
‘Fountains of knowledge’
(58)
‘Eyes on the stars and feet
on the ground’ (59)
‘Providing a personal
touch’ (40)
ta b l e  1
Data analysis results Note: detailed codes with frequency counts are included under each theme
Codes
Knowledge about language learning and teaching
(18)
Knowledge about language literature and culture
(8)
Knowledge about the institutional and social
context (16)
Knowledge about how to teach teachers (16)
Developing a vision about language education (10)
Collaborating with teachers and school leaders (18)
Providing extra learning opportunities (10)
Engaging in continuous learning to update their
expertise (12)
Modelling how to seek further learning (9)
Developing a caring and supportive relationship
with students (18)
Sharing their personal experiences, feelings, and
reflections (8)
Helping teachers learn how to cope with difficult
situations and negative emotions (14)

144 Rui Yuan and Yalin Hu

 interests in English, but also provided them with an ideal image of
‘a language teacher’ to model themselves on:
Her passion and knowledge about English literature really made me
see the meaning and fun in being a language teacher. I hope I can be a
teacher like her who can touch students with what I teach. (T8)
Despite their emphasis on various types of knowledge related to language
and its learning and teaching, the participants also attached importance to
effective teacher educators’ contextual knowledge of language curricula,

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policies, and school contexts, which play a significant role in shaping how
language education is perceived and practised in reality. For instance,
over half of the in-service teachers argued that while they believed in
some innovative teaching approaches (for example formative assessment)
promoted by the National English Curriculum Standards, they faced
strong obstacles in implementing such approaches in their teaching
due to the strong exam-oriented culture of the educational system. To
bridge the gap between the espoused curriculum and their teaching, they
believed that it is important for teacher educators to explore and provide
‘a contextualized language pedagogy to facilitate teacher innovation in
local classrooms’ (T16). Some participants further emphasized the need
for ‘social knowledge’ in guiding their social interactions and professional
development in schools (T5). For instance, due to the rigid school
curriculum and conservative culture, T8 found it challenging to engage in
meaningful collaborative learning with her school mentors who ‘simply
wanted to follow the established norms and practice’ during her teaching
practicum (T8). Therefore, she expected teacher educators to give more
guidance not only on how to teach English, but also on how to deal with
social relationships as an English teacher. Similar views resonated with
some in-service teachers who also encountered problems in their social
interactions:
I think we also need advice on how to deal with our colleagues and
school leaders who may share different values and beliefs in our daily
work. This kind of social knowledge is important for our career. (T13)
Thus, according to the participants, language teacher educators need
to develop ‘social knowledge’ based on their understanding of the
complexities of the school environment in order to help their students
socialize, develop, and innovate in their work.

‘Eyes on the stars Apart from a strong emphasis on teacher educators’ knowledge base, the
and feet on the participants argued that effective teacher educators also need to ‘keep their
ground’ eyes on the stars and feet on the ground’ (T7). By ‘eyes on the stars’, they
meant that language teacher educators need to develop a sense of vision
which captures their essential insights into language teaching and teacher
education. According to T15 and T18, their teacher educators’ vision served
as a ‘shining star’ which guided the educators’ own professional practice
and shaped their students’ learning to teach:

I saw a lot of teachers bury their heads in work and forget about the
meaning and goal of language teaching … I think teacher educators can
remind us of our missions and visions by sharing their own. (T15)

Teachers’ views on the qualities of effective EFL teacher educators 145

 Meanwhile, ‘feet on the ground’ means that teacher educators should
engage in continuous learning in order to update their expertise given the
dynamic nature of English and English language teaching:
Language is changing in the era of the internet and the information
explosion … So teacher educators need to keep learning and inform
us how language transforms and how we can better teach our
students. (T10)
In other words, while teacher educators put a lot of emphasis on language

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teachers’ continuing development of practice, they should also take up
the role of ‘learners’ to broaden their own knowledge of language and
language learning. More importantly, the participants hoped their teacher
educators could provide a model of how to continue their professional
learning based on their professional practice:
Our teacher educators often advocated that we should continue to learn
in our future practice. I agree with this idea but I hope they can actually
show us how to do it by sharing their experiences and strategies. (T2)
Also, the participants believed that language teacher educators need to
work closely with teachers, to guide them to learn and practise throughout
their professional lives. T17 gave a vivid example of how he interacted
with a teacher educator who served as his mentor in the first year of
language teaching. In a mentoring scheme established by their district
educational office, a teacher educator from a local university was invited
to help him improve his teaching. T17 recalled that at first the teacher
educator gave him a lot of suggestions, but these were, however, generally
abstract and included many theoretical terms. After a period of classroom
observation followed by rounds of discussion, the teacher educator came
to understand her student’s background and recognized his teaching
ideas. She also changed her language and picked up some terms used by
the teacher in his daily communication with colleagues in the English
department. Reflecting on this experience, T17 mentioned that:
It is critical for teacher educators to develop a language that teachers can
understand and to work with teachers as partners in real practice. (T19)
In addition, the vast majority believed that teacher educators should
‘get out of their ivory tower’ and engage in collaboration with different
stakeholders, such as school leaders, in order to enrich language teachers’
learning experiences at both pre- and in-service stages (T5, T10, and T21).
For instance, two student teachers (T8 and T9) shared their experience
of working as research assistants for teacher educators in collaborative
research projects between their university and local schools. In the
projects, they gained opportunities to visit different schools for class
observations and interaction with students and language teachers. Such
experience not only added to their teaching knowledge and competence,
but also enriched their self-understanding as prospective language
teachers:
I felt lucky to be involved in the project through which I gained a better
understanding of what it means to be a language teacher and what
preparation I need to do for my future in the program. (T9)

146 Rui Yuan and Yalin Hu

 Therefore, while an effective language teacher educator needs to engage
in continuous learning in line with his or her vision about language
education and teacher development, he or she should also be a supportive
and resourceful collaborator in creating rich opportunities to facilitate
language teachers’ learning to teach.

‘Providing a Another important perceived attribute of effective language teacher

personal touch’ educators relates to their emotional connections with their students
during the complex journey of learning to teach. As T12 mentioned:

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Learning to teach can be emotionally challenging. When we need some
support and encouragement, some teacher educators were quite distant.
I think they wanted to maintain their images as authorities and experts,
but all we need is a personal touch to cheer us up. (T12)
When asked what ‘a personal touch’ entails, some pre-service teachers
described a caring and supportive relationship with their teacher
educators, which can inject a sense of motivation into their professional
learning. One critical example was that T5 received constructive guidance
from a teacher educator through individual consultation:
I told her that I was not confident about my English proficiency, so she
asked me to meet after the class and gave me useful suggestions on
how to improve my English. We also chatted about my future career
plans. Although the consultation was short, I felt that she really listened
and tried to help me improve. I think I want to be a teacher like her in
the future. (T5)
The quotation above suggests that teacher educators’ care and support
could not only facilitate student teachers’ professional growth, but
could also influence their future practice in language classrooms. The
significance of ‘a personal touch’ was also recognized by school teachers
who stated that teacher educators should be sensitive to language teachers’
individual differences and affective needs. Some participants who were
exposed to various teacher development activities such as seminars and
workshops felt disappointed at ‘the standardized training with little
attention paid to what they were really going through in everyday work’
(T21). Instead, they argued for a more personalized approach which
embraces not only cognitive but emotional learning and interaction:
Emotional support is important given our heavy workload and pressure
from the school … We need someone who can understand our
situations and help us learn how to cope with negative emotions and
stay strong in our job. (T23)
Thus, the teachers expected a strong emotional dimension in teacher
education so that they could receive guidance on how to navigate negative
experiences and feelings, and continue their ongoing improvement. T18
shared how her English department engaged in long-term collaboration
with teacher educators from a local university via lesson study. On one
hand, through lesson observation and collective reflections they received
concrete suggestions on how to improve their teaching and cope with the
challenges in their daily work; on the other hand, they felt the teacher

Teachers’ views on the qualities of effective EFL teacher educators 147

 educators valued their teaching experiences and voices, which added to
their professional confidence and motivation to continue learning:
I often shared my joy and difficulties with the teacher educator and
she would show her sympathy and try to give me suggestions. This
respectful relationship has become an important source of support for
my work and learning. (T18)
Overall, informed by their previous experiences and observations, the
participants highlighted the need for teacher educators to be student-

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centred and humanistic in catering to their practical and emotional needs
with sympathy and respect.

Discussion This article reports on an exploratory study about pre- and in-service
teachers’ perceptions about the qualities of effective language teacher
educators. Echoing some previous studies (Koster et al. op.cit.; Goodwin
and Kosnik op.cit.), the results show multiple dimensions of the perceived
qualities of language teacher educators in relation to their capacity for
cognitive engagement, social interaction, and engaging at an emotional
or affective level. For example, while the participants argued that teacher
educators should help them develop a comprehensive knowledge base
about language (for example literature and culture) as well as its teaching
and learning, they pointed out the need for guidance from teacher
educators as to how to construct their social knowledge to survive and
thrive in school contexts. Given that learning to teach is charged with
complex and difficult emotions (Zembylas op.cit.), the participants also
expected to receive support from teacher educators in developing coping
strategies to navigate challenging situations and negative emotions in
their daily work.
The study also extends the existing literature by shedding light on how
teacher educators can design and implement effective approaches to help
language teachers’ practice and their cognitive, social, and emotional
development. Differing from the traditional transmissive mode of teacher
training, the participants expected language teacher educators to broaden
their horizons and adopt a nuanced and integrative approach in their
professional work. In classroom teaching and practicum supervision,
for example, language teacher educators need to show respect for their
students’ previous experience and knowledge, and co-construct meaning
with them through open sharing and dialogic negotiation (Golombek
op.cit.). Although it is useful to introduce relevant research and theories,
teacher educators need to avoid the overuse of technical terms and develop
a language that is accessible to language teachers for mutual learning in
specific discourses. Given their professional status and expertise, teacher
educators should also be active in reaching out to local communities and
using their social resources to create opportunities (for example through
university–school collaborative research) for their students to engage
with their situated educational contexts and expand and deepen their
learning in practice (Yuan op.cit.). Moreover, while teacher educators need
to develop their vision about language education through their teacher
education practice and research (Klecka et al. op.cit.), the participants in
the study also expected teacher educators to help them construct their own

148 Rui Yuan and Yalin Hu

 visions which could inform and guide their classroom practice and future
development as language teachers.
Another significant finding of this study relates to the way EFL teacher
educators act as role models, with powerful impacts on language teachers’
professional learning and practice. The participants stated that language
teacher educators need to demonstrate the useful theories and effective
approaches they advocate in their own practice so as to enhance their
students’ understanding and uptake. This thus testified to the cognitive

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dimension of teacher educators’ modelling in helping language teachers
acquire and integrate what they learnt from teacher education courses
into their classroom teaching. Emotionally, while some participants were
influenced by their teacher educators’ passion for English literature,
which enhanced their interest in language teaching, they also emphasized
a caring and supportive relationship with their teacher educators, which
can exert a ‘modelling’ effect on how they will interact with their own
students in the future. Furthermore, the participants expected teacher
educators to model how to engage in continuous learning by openly
sharing the challenges, coping strategies, and gains of their professional
work. This, however, is often a neglected area in many educational
contexts where teacher educators are regarded as ‘experts’ who have
no need or opportunity for revealing their difficulties and vulnerability
(Yuan and Mak op.cit.). Thus, it is important for teacher educators to
transform their mindsets and move out of their comfort zones by explicitly
demonstrating their professional practices (for example in teaching and
continuous learning) and sharing the rationale, reflections, and feelings
that accompany their practices. In this way, not only can they foster a
closer relationship with language teachers through positive influences on
the latters’ learning motivation, but they can also help language teachers
develop contextualized knowledge and metacognitive strategies as they
pursue self-improvement.
Overall, drawing on pre- and in-service teachers’ perspectives, the study
sheds light on the essential cognitive, social, and emotional qualities of
effective language teacher educators, which are in line with previous
studies of teacher educators’ views (Golombek op.cit.). Such congruence
can provide teacher educators with a sense of assurance in practising
what they believe in their teaching of teachers. More importantly, the
study contributes to our understanding of how effective teacher educators’
qualities can be actualized in their daily practice. In particular, modelling
can serve as a critical strategy for catering to teachers’ learning needs
at the cognitive and emotional levels. It needs to be noted that, while
it is important to take language teachers’ views and expectations into
consideration, language teacher education is a highly complicated and
dynamic enterprise influenced by various institutional and sociocultural
factors (for example language policy and curriculum reforms). The findings
of the study can thus serve as a point of reference for teacher educators to
actively and critically reflect on, examine, and improve their professional
practice in order to prepare and develop competent language teachers.

Conclusions To conclude, this research adds to our knowledge of the qualities of

effective EFL teacher educators, including being ‘fountains of knowledge’,

Teachers’ views on the qualities of effective EFL teacher educators 149

 having ‘eyes on the stars and feet on the ground’, and ‘providing a
personal touch’, from the perspectives of pre- and in-service teachers. As
this study only draws on interview data, future research can make use of
observational methods to explore how teacher educators interact with their
students in practice in order to generate more insights into the effective
practices and qualities of language teacher education.
Final version received June 2017

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Note
1  This research is supported by Start-up Research
Grant of The Education University of Hong Kong.
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The authors
Rui Yuan is an Assistant Professor in the Department
of English Language Education at the Education
University of Hong Kong. His research interests
include language teacher identity and teacher
development. His publications have appeared in
TESOL Quarterly, System, ELT Journal, and Teaching
and Teacher Education.
Email: eryuan@eduhk.hk
Yalin Hu is a PhD candidate in the School of Foreign
Languages and Literature, Beijing Normal University.
Her research interests include language assessment,
teacher education, and action research.
Email: michelle827@163.com

150 Rui Yuan and Yalin Hu