The effective English language teacher from the perspective of Ecuadorian university students

Studying EFL teacher effectiveness has been a constant issue in the last decade. These investigations focused on teachers’ and education administrators’ perceptions. Most of them were conducted in countries different from Latin America. This research aimedto create a profile of university students’ perceptions concerning the qualities of an effective EFL teacher. For doing so, a quantitative approach was used involving the application of the Effective English Language Teacher (EELT) questionnaire of Roya Zamani & Ahangari (2016) to learners from a public university (N=324). The findings revealed that the participants value pedagogical knowledge as the most relevant dimension of an effective EFL university teacher above organization and communication skills,socio-affective skills, and English proficiency. According to the surveyed student population, the three main relevant features of an effective EFL university teacher are being flexible with grading(1.70), having a good sense of humor(1.65), and avoiding direct criticism of students when they make errors(1.61). The article concludes by outlining some recommendations.