Perceived and Preferred Teaching Styles (Methods) of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) Students

Abstract

This study aims to identify the dominant teaching styles of the English Language lecturers asperceived by the students. This study also investigates the perception and preference of thestudents with respect to their English language lecturers’ teaching styles. Comparisons weremade between (i) male and female students’ perceptions with respect to their lecturers’teaching styles (ii) male and female students’ preferences with respect to their lecturers’teaching styles and (iii) the students’ perceptions and preferences with respect to theirlecturers’ teaching styles. The teaching styles mentioned are based upon Grasha’s Model(1996) consisting of Expert style, Formal Authority style, Personal Model style, Facilitatorstyle and Delegator style. This study is a survey method using 5-point Likert Scalequestionnaire as the instrument to collect data. The data collected was analysed using SPSSversion 13.0. Simple random sampling was employed in this study. The samples were 175semester 5 students from the three Engineering Departments of Sultan Salahuddin Abdul AzizShah Polytechnic, Shah Alam, Selangor. Descriptive ststistics such as frequency, percentage,mean and deviation were used to describe the respondents’ profile and, perceptions andpreferences with respect to their lecturers’ teaching styles. Meanwhile, t-tests were used toanalyse the differences between (i) gender with respect to the lecturers’ teaching styles, and(ii) perceived and preferred teaching styles. The results of the study showed that the threemost dominant teaching styles of the lecturers perceived by the students were Expert, followedby Personal Model and then Delegator. It was also found that the students’ most preferredteaching style was Facilitator style while Formal Authority style being the least preferred. Interms of gender, there was no significant difference in perceptions as well as preferencesbetween the male and female students in any of the mean scores of all teaching styles. Thestudents’ perceptions and preferences differed significantly in all teaching styles of theGrasha’s Model (1996) except for Expert teaching style. The results demonstrated statisticallysignificant higher scores in terms of preferences to Formal Authority, Personal Model,Facilitator and Delegator styles. There was no significant difference between the students’perceptions as well as preferences for Expert teaching style.