Exploring EFL Teachers’ Perceptions of Classroom Video Surveillance: A Qualitative Study

Abstract

The theory and practice of language teacher autonomy seems to be contradictory in terms. While, in theory, language teaching is conceptualized as a reflective process wherein teachers exercise their professional expertise, in many contexts including some private language schools of Shahrood and Semnan, teaching performance is tightly monitored through closed-circuit cameras. This study attempts to explore language teachers' perceptions of teaching under video surveillance through elicitation data gathered and analyzed based on grounded theory. Iterative data collection and analysis and the constant comparative techniques revealed that video surveillance negatively affects language teaching since the participants believed it violates their rights to privacy, induces artificial practice, suppresses teacher initiatives, and deskills teachers by inducing disused atrophy. Through the counter-evidence presented by the language teachers, it was also found that the rationales for using video surveillance are unjustified. The findings of this study have clear implications for managers, supervisors and language teachers teaching in private language schools in the context of this study and other similar contexts.