Promises and Challenges of the Teaching Profession among Iranian EFL Teachers

In order to scrutinize Iranian English language teachers’ job satisfaction, 62 English language teachers responded to open-ended questions and 7 domain experts were interviewed. The aim was to research the main motives of Iranian English language teachers for choosing teaching as their career, their job satisfaction and the main de/motivating factors for them. The analyses of the semistructured interviews and qualitative questionnaires indicated that extrinsic factors, including: ‘family poverty’, ‘fear of unemployment’, ‘teaching as a fallback career’, ‘family pressure’, ‘exemption from military service (for men)’, ‘a female friendly (and safe) job’, and ‘long holidays’, are the main motivations for teachers to choose teaching as a career. ‘Desire to teach’ and ‘interest in English language’ were the main intrinsic factors, and ‘serving society’ was the only altruistic factor reported. Based on the findings of the study, 74.19 percent of the participants consider changing their career, 58 percent consider quitting their job, and 72.58 percent of them like to retire as soon as possible, which are signs of the high level of job dissatisfaction among Iranian English language teachers. Finally, some suggestions have been made to recruit, motivate, and retain the most qualified teachers.