Dirasat, Educational Sciences, Volume 36, No. 1, 2009 - 226 - English Language Supervisors: Teachers' Perspective Abdalla Abu Naba’h, Nayel Al-Shara’h, Yahya Nassar and Muna Khattab* ABSTRACT The study aimed at investigating the opinions of English language teachers towards English language supervisors in Jordan. One hundred fifty teachers responded to a five-domain questionnaire designed by the researchers. The results indicated that teachers' opinions towards English language supervisors were almost negative on the five domains of the study and there were no significant statistical differences among the respondents towards English language supervisors due to gender, qualification, and experience. The study recommended that other studies be conducted in other areas and different domains and suggested that the Ministry of education specify standards for selecting and appointing English language supervisors. Keywords: English Language Supervisors, Supervisory Practices, Training Sessions, Curriculum, Evaluation. 1. INTRODUCTION There is a common belief among educators for the need of supervisory services on the part of teachers. This is due to the seriousness of the duties and responsibilities assumed by teachers in bringing up and preparing the pupils to lead a kind of fruitful life that serves the interests and welfare of the whole society. The significance of educational supervision stems also from the various purposes and roles it has in upgrading the teachers' competencies to improve the teaching process (Clickman, 1999). Another source of significance is the ability of educational supervision to diagnose the strengths and weaknesses of the teaching process which, along with proposing the suitable remedies, constitute the core and essence of evaluating the whole teaching learning process. (Sullivan and Glanz 2001). However, it has been noticed recently that in spite of the new trends of supervision and the new methods of teaching and supervising, the supervisory concept and the role of supervisor have not yet been clearly understood. Supervision is equivalent to inspection and still performed as a routine work in the form of unexpected traditional visits and a follow- up of exams and students evaluation. The lack of clarity of the educational supervision concept is attributed to the existence of different educational philosophies. Gordon (1997) defined supervision as "leadership for the improvement of instruction and, ultimately, student learning," and proposed that teachers be involved in all leadership tasks that directly affect instruction. These tasks are "improvement of the school environment, curriculum development, instructional program development, staff development, direct assistance, external relations, leadership development, and improvement of assessment". Waite (1998) believed that educational supervision is a kind of interactive process that involves the teacher and the supervisor, and results in providing the teacher with feedback to improve the teaching process. Anthony (2000) maintained that supervision is the broad concept that governs the whole process of teaching. He claimed that team teaching can be applied for both students and teachers. Hoy and Patrick (2003) defined supervision as a process of observing, evaluating and implementing the educational process, improving instruction by working with teachers, developing the curriculum, and cooperating in providing a wholesome learning environment for children. The most common purpose accepted by most educators and researchers is the improving of teaching and learning process (Waite, 1998). But within this common and main purpose, there are different views * Faculty of Educational Sciences, Hashemite University(1,3); Faculty of Educational Sciences, University of Jordan(2); Ministry of Higher Education(4). Received on 31/5/2007 and Accepted for Publication on 23/1/2008. © 2009 DAR Publishers/University of Jordan. All Rights Reserved.