Background 5: Roles or professions of the
respondents
The respondents were
asked to state their roles or professions by listing them in the following way:
Your role / profession (mark all that apply):
Language
teacher/lecturer
Teacher
trainer/educator
Textbook / teaching
materials writer
Employee of a testing
organization / exam board
Head of a testing
organization / exam board
Head of institution /
programme
other
Table BG-5a: The respondents role /
profession in different regions of
|
Regions of Europe |
|
Respondent’s role / profession (note that one respondent may have several simultaneous roles, which
is why the row percentages add up to more than 100%) |
Total of region |
||||||
|
Language teacher /
lecturer |
Teacher trainer /
educator |
Text-book / teaching
materials writer |
Employee of a testing organ-ization / exam board |
Head of a testing organ-ization / exam board |
Head of institut-ion / pro-gramme |
Other |
|
||
|
Northern Europe |
Count |
239 |
56 |
39 |
43 |
5 |
22 |
13 |
272 |
|
|
% |
88% |
21% |
14% |
16% |
2% |
8% |
5% |
|
|
Baltic region |
Count |
46 |
14 |
12 |
12 |
1 |
4 |
3 |
54 |
|
|
% |
85% |
26% |
22% |
22% |
2% |
7% |
6% |
|
|
Western Europe |
Count |
114 |
55 |
39 |
48 |
4 |
20 |
22 |
158 |
|
|
% |
72% |
35% |
25% |
30% |
3% |
13% |
14% |
|
|
Central Europe |
Count |
47 |
39 |
13 |
15 |
2 |
9 |
9 |
64 |
|
|
% |
73% |
61% |
20% |
23% |
3% |
14% |
14% |
|
|
South-Eastern Europe |
Count |
116 |
42 |
22 |
22 |
5 |
7 |
4 |
133 |
|
|
% |
87% |
32% |
17% |
17% |
4% |
5% |
3% |
|
|
Eastern Europe |
Count |
107 |
41 |
19 |
24 |
6 |
8 |
7 |
120 |
|
|
% |
89% |
34% |
16% |
20% |
5% |
7% |
6% |
|
|
Southern Europe |
Count |
37 |
16 |
8 |
15 |
5 |
13 |
3 |
54 |
|
|
% |
69% |
30% |
15% |
28% |
9% |
24% |
6% |
|
|
|
Total count |
706 |
263 |
152 |
179 |
28 |
83 |
61 |
855 |
|
Total % (of 855) |
83% |
31% |
18% |
21% |
3% |
10% |
7% |
|
|
Not unexpectedly, the most common role or profession of our
respondents was that of a language teacher / lecturer. On average, 83% of the European-based respondents
worked in that profession – or, possibly, had been working, as it was
possible to answer that question either from the point of view of the current
profession only or from that of the current or past profession. The proportion
of language teachers was the highest among the Eastern European respondents
(89%) and almost as high among the Northern and South-Eastern Europeans (88%
and 87%, respectively). In contrast, ‘only’ 69% of the Southern
Europeans and 72-73% of the Western and Central Europeans reported to be (or
having been) language teachers. The overall differences between the regions
were statistically significant (χ2 = 34.2,
P=.000).
Tables BG-5b and BG-5c indicate that
a sizable proportion – almost 41% – of all the European
respondents worked only as language
teachers. They were the biggest group in our survey in terms of
professional background. This was true for the Northern European respondents in
particular: almost 53% of them worked only as language teachers. Teaching was
also the only role for almost half of the Baltic and South-Eastern European
respondents. In marked contrast, only a few (13 – 28%) of the Central,
Western and Southern Europeans surveyed in our study worked only as language
teachers. (Since calculating the statistical significance of these differences
would involve considerable data manipulation, it has not been done for this
report; however, the magnitude of the differences between regions makes it
almost certain that the differences, overall, are also statistically
significant.)
The combination of the teacher’s role with one or more other roles
was as common as working solely as a teacher – in fact, the total number
of all combinations of roles in which teaching was included was slightly higher
(359 or 42%) than working as a teacher only. The most typical combinations were
the following:
Since the number of respondents in
each of the above categories is nevertheless not very big, it has not been
studied if certain combinations the roles were more common in certain regions
of
After language teaching, the second most
common profession was teacher training / teacher education. About 31%
of all European respondents had worked in that profession. Again, regional
differences are considerable: whereas most of the Central European respondents
(61%) worked in that sector, only one fifth (21%) of the Northern Europeans did
so.
Only slightly over 10% of the teacher trainers
worked only in that role; most of them in fact worked in multiple roles (see
Table BG-5b). From the list above, we can see that quite often the roles of a
trainer and teacher were combined (for at least a quarter for all teacher
trainers). Also, teacher trainers often worked textbook writers or were
employed in testing organisations.
The third most common role or profession was working
for a testing or examining organisation / board. 21% were employees
of such organisations and 3% were responsible for directing them. The
differences between regions are rather big although not as marked as in the
case of teacher trainers. About a third of Western European respondents worked
for testing organisations in some capacity whereas less than 20% of the
Northern and South-Eastern Europeans were so employed.
Employment by a testing organisation as an
employee or as a head was the sole employment of only 39 European respondents,
21 of them coming either from Western or Central European countries.
Proportionately that is under 20% of all who reported working for testing
organisations; thus, in the great majority of all cases, professional language testing
was combined with other work – teaching in particular, but also teacher
training or textbook writing.
Writing textbooks or other teaching materials was almost as common a profession
as working for examination boards: 18%
of the respondents were engaged in this activity but practically nobody
reported doing only that. Rather, it was a role that was always combined with
language teaching in particular, but also with teacher training or working for
a testing organisation. Textbook writing was more or less as common, or rare,
in all regions of
On
average, one in ten respondents was a
head of an institution or a programme. For only eight of them, the role of
the head was the only one; typically, that role was combined with teaching (22
respondents or about 25%) or with textbook writing, teacher training, or a
combination of several roles.
There were
regional differences but since the number of persons working in the capacity of
an institution head was not very big, no firm conclusions can be drawn. Suffice
it to say that almost a quarter of the Southern European respondents stated
they were heads of their institution or programme. At the other extreme, only
5% of the South-Eastern European respondents worked in that role in their
institutions.
Finally, it could be noted that,
overall, a slight majority (53%) of the respondents worked in one role or
profession only. Almost as many (47%) combined two or more roles/professions in
their work. Table BG-5b gives an overall breakdown by the role, and Table BG-5c
compares the different regions of
To sum up the professional background of the respondents to this survey, it can be
noted that the great majority, almost 83% of those working in
Table BG-5b: Number of European-based respondents who
worked only in one role / profession
|
Role / profession |
Count |
% of all European-based respondents (n = 855) |
|
Language
teacher / lecturer |
347 |
40.6% |
|
Teacher trainer
/ educator |
31 |
3.6% |
|
Employee of a testing organization / exam board |
31 |
3.6% |
|
Other |
21 |
2.5% |
|
Head of institution / programme |
15 |
1.8% |
|
Head of a testing organization / exam board |
8 |
0.9% |
|
Text-book
/ teaching materials writer |
3 |
0.4% |
|
TOTAL: |
456 |
53.4% |
Table BG-5c: Respondents who had only one role or professions:
the three most common roles compared by the region
|
Region of
Europe |
|
Language teacher only |
Teacher trainer only |
Employee of testing
organization only |
TOTAL for region |
|
Northern Europe |
Count |
143 |
6 |
3 |
272 |
|
|
% |
52.6% |
2.2% |
1.1% |
100% |
|
Baltic region |
Count |
26 |
1 |
2 |
54 |
|
|
% |
48.1% |
1.9% |
3.7% |
100% |
|
Western Europe |
Count |
36 |
7 |
12 |
158 |
|
|
% |
22.8% |
4.4% |
7.6% |
100% |
|
Central Europe |
Count |
8 |
4 |
6 |
64 |
|
|
% |
12.5% |
6.3% |
9.4% |
100% |
|
South-Eastern
Europe |
Count |
66 |
8 |
1 |
133 |
|
|
% |
49.6% |
6.0% |
.8% |
100% |
|
Eastern Europe |
Count |
53 |
3 |
3 |
120 |
|
|
% |
44.2% |
2.5% |
2.5% |
100% |
|
Southern Europe |
Count |
15 |
2 |
4 |
54 |
|
|
% |
27.8% |
3.7% |
7.4% |
100% |
|
TOTAL |
Count |
347 |
31 |
31 |
855 |
|
|
% |
40.6% |
3.6% |
3.6% |
|