Exploring the Relationships Among Teacher Confidence, Learning, and Test Performance Within the English‐for‐Teaching Course

Abstract

In responding to the increasingly expanded emphasis on English language teaching (ELT) around the globe, Educational Testing Service (ETS) collaborated with National Geographic Learning to develop the ELTeach™ program (http://www.elteach.com), an online professional development program consisting of two courses, English‐for‐Teaching and Professional Knowledge for ELT, with the goal of improving ELT teachers' classroom English language proficiency. Within the English‐for‐Teaching course, there are three interrelated components: a precourse planner that asks teachers to rate their confidence in using English to teach English, a learning course that teaches the type of English needed to carry out essential classroom activities in English, and the TEFT™ assessment, which is developed based on the same framework as the learning course. Using data collected during the pilot administration of the ELTeach program in 2012, this study examines the relationship between self‐reported confidence level and engagement with the learning course, and the relationship between self‐reported confidence level and performance on the TEFT assessment. The findings suggested how users with different confidence levels might make use of the learning materials and how they might score on the TEFT assessment.

Problems and Challenges Met by Novice Teachers in Johor

“…They also believe that confident level will be increased through experiences. This is supported by the Gu's study which found out that there was an association between the confidence level during the pre-course planning and the time spent on learning course [7].…”

In-service Teachers’ Training: The Case of University Teachers in Yangon, Myanmar

“…The improved confidence of the teachers after attending to any professional development program has also been reported in the studies of Brown (2014);Gatt and Karppinen (2014);and Jung, Cho, and Ambrosetti (2011). Gu and Papageorgiou (2016); Anderson, Bartholomew, and Moeed (2009) revealed that teachers' confidence is an important tool to carry out classroom discussion since it affects learning and teaching. Teachers who have less confidence may be spending more time on learning activities which do not cater to the language needs of the students (Ulla & Winitkun, 2017).…”

“It is impossible to teach English in English”: Preservice teachers’ struggles to facilitate L2 comprehensibility in English

“…These include such functions as classroom management, explaining complex vocabulary and grammatical structures, supporting comprehension, and connecting with students emotionally (Barahona, 2020; Cenoz, 2017; Goodman & Tastanbek, 2020; Khonamri, 2017). Yet other studies situated in English as a foreign language (EFL) teacher education programs have found that some teachers prefer to use L1 because of their own fears of students’ lack of understanding, fear of being ridiculed, and lack of confidence to deliver the lesson in English (Gu & Papageorgiou, 2016; Viáfara, 2011).…”