Teaching English in the Priy Classroom | Page 43

approaches, and these results are compared to the special training each respondent has received in order find out whether this has had any influence on their teaching practices, overall. 3.1.1.1 The respondents’ answers This section is structured in relation to the structuring of the questionnaire and presents the distribution of the respondents’ answers to each particular question. In order to facilitate comprehension, percentages and, sometimes, graphs are employed. Moreover, the actual numbers of the people who answered each particular question are appended in a tabular form (see appendix IV, pp 110-131) and the reader is guided to the corresponding table for further reference each time a finding is discussed. 3.1.1.1.1 Personal details (answers to questions 1-10) The questionnaire was mailed to seventy-two teachers, out of which thirtyseven replied (51%). Of these, 32 were women and 5 men (see appendix IV, p. 110, table 1). The age distribution of respondents is shown in Figure 1 below (see appendix IV, p. 110, table 2). Age distribution of respondents 41-45 11% 36-40 35% 46-50 5% 26-30 19% 31-35 30% Figure 1. Age distribution of respondents As it is shown in figure 1, almost all teachers are of a young age, with 84% of them being under forty years. This can be explained by the fact that the teaching of English in primary education has a rather recent history, as the first teachers were appointed in primary schools in 1993. With the exception of one case, the respondents’ year of graduation ranges between the years 1982 and 2003 (for a detailed account see appendix IV, p. 110, table 4). Concerning the institute of graduation, the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki (AUTH) is mentioned by 33 respondents, while there are two teachers who graduated from the Kapodistrian 43