What makes a good language teacher?

Xuan Minh Ngo

Friday 7 February 2025

What makes a good language teacher? What exactly makes them “good”? Is it their ability to connect with students? Is it their native-like proficiency? Or is it their knack for adapting to different classrooms? For decades, researchers in second language education (Tajeddin & Griffiths, 2020) have grappled with these questions. However, the answers remain elusive (Prodromou, 2020). To bring clarity to this debate, we conducted a systematic review of empirical studies on good language teachers published in peer-reviewed journals between 2010 and 2020 (Ngo & Nguyen, 2025).

Our systematic review

To uncover the above three domains, we followed a rigorous multi-phase systematic review process (Kitchenham & Charters, 2007). We searched Scopus and Web of Science, the two largest academic databases (Martín-Martín et al., 2018) and identified 62 relevant studies. These studies spanned diverse contexts, from kindergartens to universities, and covered both English-as-a-foreign-language classrooms to settings focused on other languages in countries across all continents, except Africa.

Attributes, knowledge, and contextual adaptability

From our analysis of the 62 empirical studies, we developed a model to describe the characteristics of good language teachers across three core domains: attributes, knowledge, and contextual adaptability.

Our first domain consists of both personal qualities, such as empathy, enthusiasm, sense of humour (Yazdanipour & Fakharzadeh, 2020), and professional attributes including active engagement in reflective practice (Farrell, 2015a) and continuous professional development activities (Tajeddin & Alemi, 2019).

The second domain, knowledge, includes pedagogical, common, and specialised knowledge. By pedagogical knowledge, we mean teachers’ knowledge about different methods, strategies, and techniques for teaching language. For example, good language teachers are often associated with communicative language teaching (Metruk, 2020) and learner-focused teaching (Mohamadi & Malekshahi, 2018). The common knowledge in the case of language teachers often refers to their command of the target language. Generally, good language teachers are expected to have a good command of the target language, with some studies also depicting them as having native/near-native language competence (Murphy et al., 2010) and being a language model (Yazdanipour & Fakharzadeh, 2020). Finally, the specialised knowledge involves teachers’ ability to use relevant linguistic terms (also called meta-language) to explain grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation (Sadeghi et al., 2020). 

Contextual adaptability is the teacher’s ability to tailor their teaching strategies to students’ diverse cultural and linguistic backgrounds and learning preferences (Pishghadam et al., 2016) and to adapt to different cultural and educational settings (Wu, 2017). While the former has attracted researchers’ attention, language teachers’ responses to the demands of diverse teaching contexts such as curriculum mandates, policies and resources are under-researched (Yoon, 2023). We recognise its importance in determining teacher effectiveness as suggested by recent literature (Seifoori, 2012). This is why we have included contextual adaptability as a separate domain in our model, alongside knowledge and attributes.

How can we prepare good language teachers?

Based on the above model, we argue that language teacher education programs must adopt a holistic approach. Teacher trainees need more than just subject knowledge – they must also develop the personal and professional attributes as well as contextual adaptability to become good language teachers. Specifically, we recommend that language teacher education departments need to:

• Foster teachers’ capacity for critical reflection: This involves reflection at different levels to understand their own philosophy, principles and theoretical knowledge as teachers and the broader moral, political and social issues which influence and are impacted by their practice (Farrell, 2015b). Capacity for critical reflection helps them adapt and remain effective teachers in the rapidly changing landscape of language education (Medgyes, 2020).
• Incorporate innovative pedagogical approaches into teacher education curricula: Language teachers in the rapidly changing world need to be equipped with a range of contemporary teaching approaches, such as communicative language teaching, linguistically responsive instruction, learner-focused teaching, and critical language pedagogy as well as the capacity to select and justify their choice of teaching methods for a particular context and learner profile. This will enable them to respond effectively to the needs of learners and contexts and to enhance classroom practices in general.
• Prioritise student teachers’ cultural competence and adaptability, preparing them to work effectively in diverse educational contexts (Evans, 2017). This involves enhanced understanding about the learners and contexts as well as the ability to exercise agency in response to situational challenges.

References

Evans, L. M. (2017). Lessons from two exemplary Latin@ teachers of emergent bilingual learners: How all preservice teachers can be prepared to teach culturally and linguistically diverse students. Action in Teacher Education, 39(3), 307–320. https://doi.org/10.1080/01626620.2017.1292159

Farrell, T. S. C. (2015a). It’s not who you are! It’s how you teach! Critical competencies associated with effective teaching. RELC Journal, 46(1), 79–88. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688214568096

Farrell, T. S. C. (2015b). Promoting teacher reflection in second language education: A framework for TESOL professionals. Routledge.

Kitchenham, B., & Charters, S. (2007). Guidelines for performing systematic literature reviews in software engineering version 2.3. https://legacyfileshare.elsevier.com/promis_misc/525444systematicreviewsguide.pdf

Martín-Martín, A., Orduna-Malea, E., Thelwall, M., & Delgado López-Cózar, E. (2018). Google Scholar, Web of Science, and Scopus: A systematic comparison of citations in 252 subject categories. Journal of Informetrics, 12(4), 1160-1177. https://doi.org/https://doi.org/10.1016/j.joi.2018.09.002

Medgyes, P. (2020). Foreword. In C. Griffiths & Z. Tajeddin (Eds.), Lessons from good language teachers (pp. xxi–xxiv). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108774390.001

Metruk, R. (2020). Qualities of a good and effective teacher: Slovak EFL pre-service and in-service teachers’ perspectives. Journal of Language and Education, 6(3), 80-93. https://doi.org/10.17323/jle.2020.10593

Mohamadi, Z., & Malekshahi, N. (2018). Designing and validating a potential formative evaluation inventory for teacher competences. Language Testing in Asia, 8(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40468-018-0059-2

Murphy, L., Shelley, M., & Baumann, U. (2010). Qualities of effective tutors in distance language teaching: Student perceptions. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 4(2), 119-136. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501220903414342

Ngo, X. M., & Nguyen, M. H. (2025). Good Language Teachers. In Z. Tajeddin & T. S. C. Farrell (Eds.), Handbook of Language Teacher Education: Critical Review and Research Synthesis (pp. 1–33). Springer Nature Switzerland. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-43208-8_24-1

Pishghadam, R., Shayesteh, S., & Rahmani, S. (2016). Contextualization-Emotionalization Interface: A Case of Teacher Effectiveness. International and Multidisciplinary Journal of Social Sciences – RIMCIS, 5(2), 97-127. https://doi.org/10.17583/rimcis.2016.1907

Prodromou, L. (2020). Epilogue: Good language teachers – What do they do? What do they know? In C. Griffiths & Z. Tajeddin (Eds.), Lessons from good language teachers (pp. 309–312). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108774390.027

Sadeghi, K., Richards, J. C., & Ghaderi, F. (2020). Perceived versus Measured Teaching Effectiveness: Does Teacher Proficiency Matter? RELC Journal, 51(2), 280-293. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688219845933

Seifoori, Z., Mozaheb, M. A., & Beigi, A. B. (2012). A profile of an effective EFL writing teacher (A technology-based approach). English Language Teaching, 5(5), 107-117. https://doi.org/10.5539/elt.v5n5p107

Tajeddin, Z., & Alemi, M. (2019). Effective language teachers as persons: Exploring pre-service and in-service teachers’ beliefs. TESL-EJ, 22(4). https://tesl-ej.org/pdf/ej88/a3.pdf

Tajeddin, Z., & Griffiths, C. (2020). Good language teachers: Past, present, and future directions. In C. Griffiths & Z. Tajeddin (Eds.), Lessons from good language teachers (pp. 298–308). Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/9781108774390.026

Wu, M. H. (2017). Examining Mandarin Chinese teachers’ cultural knowledge in relation to their capacity as successful teachers in the United States. Asian-Pacific Journal of Second and Foreign Language Education, 2(1). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40862-017-0034-y

Yazdanipour, N., & Fakharzadeh, M. (2020). Effective Language Teachers’ Characteristics as Perceived by English Language Private Institutes’ Administrators in Iran. Qualitative Report, 25(8), 3111-3128. https://doi.org/10.46743/2160-3715/2020.4566

Yoon, B. (2023). Research Synthesis on Culturally and Linguistically Responsive Teaching for Multilingual Learners. Education Sciences, 13(6).

Written by

Xuan Minh Ngo is an Associate Lecturer in TESOL and International Education at the University of St Andrews, Scotland, UK. Minh’s PhD thesis on the development of teacher language assessment literacy (LAL) from a sociocultural perspective received UQ (University of Queensland, Australia) Dean’s Award for Outstanding HDR Theses in 2023 Round and DuoLingo Doctoral Research Award in 2021. His research interests lie in the intersection of language assessment, language policy, and teacher education. His works have been published in System, Language Teaching Research, English Today, Asian Englishes, Asian EFL Journal, Journal of World Languages, and recent Routledge, Springer, and Cambridge edited collections. Minh also serves on the Editorial Board of the journal of AsiaTEFL.

Minh Hue Nguyen is a Senior Lecturer in EAL/TESOL Teacher Education in the School of Curriculum, Teaching and Inclusive Education, Faculty of Education at Monash University, Australia. Her research, supervision, teaching and engagement are in the areas of teachers’ professional learning, curriculum, and pedagogy in TESOL and EAL. Her research has been recognized through, for example, the Penny McKay Award Special Commendation for Outstanding Doctoral Thesis in Language Education, Monash Education Research Community’s Publication Award, Monash University’s Postgraduate Publication Award, the ATEA/Kay Martinez Award for Best Paper at the ATEA Conference, the Monash Dean of Education’s ECR Project Award, Monash’s Advancing Women’s Research Success Grant, and the ATEA Earlier Career Researcher Grant.

Views: 332