An Empirical Study On The Relationship Between EFL Teachers' Interpersonal Behaviors And Students' Achievement

Since the late 1960s and early 1970s, researchers abroad have begun to investigate the learning environment. The empirical studies indicate that the learning environment is a main determinant affecting students'learning outcomes. One of the key factors of learning environment is teacher-student interaction in the classroom, whose quality can be analyzed and assessed through interpersonal teacher behavior (ITB). As a result, the Questionnaire on Teacher Interaction (QTI) comes into being and has been widely used abroad to assess ITB, and the cross-cultural validity and usefulness of the QTI have been confirmed by volumes of empirical studies abroad. Most of those studies at home and abroad focus on the discrepancy between student perception (SP) and teacher perception (TP) of ITB, and the association between ITB and student subject-related attitudes and motivation. Some of them have set foot in the relationship between ITB and students' achievement. However, almost all the related studies which are traceable pay their attention to the ITB of science, mathematics, physics and biology teachers in junior middle schools.Based on these considerations, this paper explores to study the discrepancy between SP and TP of interpersonal behaviors of EFL teachers in senior middle schools, and the correlation between the discrepancy, SP of ITB and their English achievement. A series of statistical tests is run with SPSS 16.0, with all data collected based on the teacher's individual interview and students'group interviews and the QTI, which was administered to sixty students and their EFL teacher from a key senior middle school in Hunan. Through a combination of quantitative and qualitative approach, significant differences are found between SP and TP in some sectors of ITB. However, they agree on most of the sectors. It is also found there is not any significant correlation between SP of ITB and their English achievement.Some discussions on the reasons why there does not exist any correlation between SP and their English achievement in terms of the discrepancy between SP and TP are followed. The results of the study indicate there is a significant difference of SP of ITB between their actual teacher and an ideal teacher. Results also indicate that students' English achievement will not be affected by their perceptions if the teacher and the students have similar perceptions of ITB of actual and ideal English teachers. Therefore, in line with the findings concerned, the author proposes some implications for English teachers in senior middle schools and English teacher education project, the limitations of the present study, and brings out some suggestions for further research as well.