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Abstract
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English language teaching job is moral in nature. This moral nature can be approached from
different perspectives. Studying language teachers’ moral personality as part of teacher cognition
research has been proved to be an insightful viewpoint for studying the moral meaning of the
teaching profession. The main purpose of this qualitative study was: 1) to explore possible
situations related to teacher-student relations which cause moral dilemmas for teachers, 2) to find
out how teachers make decisions or react to these moral dilemmas by using their moral
intelligence, and 3) to find out how teachers interpret these ethical matters they face and how
they reflect on their own moral judgment and moral reasoning. A systematic coding system
analysis of the recorded interviews held with 8 experienced EFL teachers, yielded the following
results: Moral dilemmas of language teaching, regarding teacher-student relations, belong to both
disciplinary and educational areas; teachers as different individuals react to and interpret moral
dilemmas they encounter differently by ethically considering some points; regarding their
relationships with their students, EFL teachers do not have any specific yardstick generalizeable
to all contexts of their relations but they always consider some factors important in their
relationship; teachers base their moral reasoning on several resources which shape their
justifications and these moral reasoning resources, as reasoning basis for teachers, are the result
of moral teaching identities they have developed through receiving personal treatment and
educational training.
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