Issues With Effective Design of an Esl Teacher Professional Development Programme in Sabah, Malaysia

Abstract

Abstract
 This study investigates English as Second Language teachers’ perceptions and the impact of the Professional Up-skilling of English Language Teachers programme, which was designed and conducted by the British Council Malaysia. A review of previous studies revealed a paucity of research focusing on large-scale, standardised teacher professional development programmes that involved English language teachers from both heterogeneous teaching levels (i.e. primary and secondary schools) and heterogeneous districts (i.e. urban and rural). The limited published studies available have been critical of this mode of professional development for a number of reasons, and the purpose of this study was to investigate these issues in the Malaysian context. A mixed methods explanatory sequential design was adopted, which utilised a questionnaire survey, interviews and focus group with the teachers and District English Language Officers. However, this article will focus on the qualitative findings. The findings reveal four major limitations of the programme: in the coursebook materials; negative emotional impact on the teachers, which compromised the potential benefits of the programme; selection of participants; and the amount of follow-up support. The findings have implication on programme designers and providers in designing future teacher professional development programmes.
 Keywords: Teacher professional development, English language teachers, standardised program, developing country, Malaysia.

Enhancing Huber’s evaluation framework for teacher professional development programme

“…Comparisons were made between Kirkpatrick's (1994) four-level evaluation model, Adey et al's (2004) model of factors which influence the effectiveness of professional development and Huber's evaluation framework. Each model has its strengths and limitations, but it became evident that Huber's framework served as a more suitable and robust framework in line with the aim and objectives of Hiew and Murray's (2018) study.…”

“…The six adult learning principles include the need to know, learners' self-concept, learners' experiences, readiness to learn, orientation to learning and motivation (Knowles 1980). The quantitative findings in Hiew and Murray's (2018) study indicated that these six principles were only partially incorporated into the ProELT and the programme did not completely fulfil the learning needs and learning approaches of the teachers. This was supported with findings from the teachers interview and focus group whereby the teachers lamented the lack of relevance of the ProELT coursebook to their curriculum.…”

“…Huber's (2011) framework was adopted in the present study on the ProELT to evaluate the programme's impact on the English language teacher participants (Hiew and Murray 2018). Before the decision was made to adopt Huber's framework, we had considered applying two other models of evaluation namely Kirkpatrick's (1994) four-level evaluation model and Adey et al's (2004) model of factors which influence the effectiveness of professional development.…”

“…There are many excellent examples of professional development that had incorporated comprehensive assessments on teachers' and students' changes in behaviour, beliefs and learning outcomes (Desimone et al 2002, Gegenfurtner 2011, Dogan et al 2016 This study took up Huber's (2011) 'plea' for more original research in the field of professional development outside the United States by undertaking a research in South East Asia, particularly in Borneo, Malaysia. The study by Hiew and Murray (2018) and the proposed enhancement of Huber's framework both contribute to the research, planning and evaluation of teacher professional development programmes in developing countries. Some developing countries have benefited from fully-and partially funded teacher professional development programmes by generous international providers, for example, the large-scale English Language Teaching Improvement Project in Bangladesh, which trained 35,000 out of 60,000 secondary school English teachers between 1997 and 2010, the English for Teaching, Teaching for English project, with the participation of 2,000 primary school teachers from remote districts in Bangladesh (Hamid 2010), and the Sri Lanka Primary English Language Project, which aimed to improve the instructional quality of 6,000 primary school English language teachers in teaching basic English (Hayes 2000).…”

Secondary School English Teachers’ Knowledge and Practice on CEFR-Aligned English Curriculum

“…Teachers' competency could be optimised in terms of knowledge and skills. Therefore, a training program has to be designed carefully to achieve the desired objectives (Hiew & Murray, 2018). Moreover, the content of a program needs to be relevant to the needs of teachers.…”