M.A. Thesis:

The Relationship between Iranian EFL teachers Spiritual Intelligence and their Autoonomy in Teaching

Abstract Regarding the significanceof the teacher’s effect on the students’ motivation, achievement, and academic success, the present surveywas an endeavor to disclose the relationship between EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ spiritual intelligence and their level of autonomy. For this end, two questionnaires, the Spiritual Intelligence Self-Report Inventory (SIRI-24) (King, 2008), and the Teacher Autonomy Scale (TAS) developed by Colak (2016) were distributed among 50 males and females EFL teachers working at different contexts including private language institute and public schools in Sabzevar, Iran.Via a mixed method research design, data were analyzed first through Pearson product-moment correlation and a subsequent semi-structured interview. The findings of the study revealed that there was no positive significant relationship between teachers’ spiritual intelligence and their autonomy unless in one subscales of SI scale that was Discovery of personal meaning which was significantly correlated with TAS scores among sampled teachers (p<.05). Moreover, the findings also revealed that the higher the teachers’ SI, the more they provided appropriate solutions to the learning difficulties of the EFL learners rather than those with lower SI.

Keywords: Key Words:Spiritual Inteligience, Teachers Autonomy, EFL learners, Spiritual awareness.