An Assessment of the Linguistic Competence of Intermediate School Teachers of English as a Foreign Language

Abstract

The present study aims at assessing the linguistic competence of EFL (henceforth English as a foreign language) intermediate school teachers. The study is limited to the teachers of English who teach at the intermediate day schools for boys and girls in the city of Ramadi schools during the academic year 2012-2013. To achieve the purpose of the present study, it is hypothesized that there is no significant difference between the mean scores of intermediate school teachers' achievement, on one hand and the theoretical mean scores of the linguistic competence test, on the other hand. Also, it is hypothesized that there is no significant difference in the linguistic competence between male and female EFL teachers. The researcher constructed a test as the main tool in this study for collecting data . The sample of this study includes 56 EFL teachers (28 male and 28 female) from the intermediate schools in Ramadi which has been randomly selected. The EFL teachers of the sample have been subjected to the linguistic competence test. The collected data has been analysed by using t-test formula. The findings reveal that there is a significant difference between the mean scores of intermediate school teachers' achievement, on one hand and the theoretical mean scores of the linguistic competence test, on the other hand. Concerning the second hypothesis, results reveal that there is no significant difference in the linguistic competence between male and female EFL teachers. On the basis of the findings, the study suggests a number of conclusions and recommendations.