Professional development among English language teachers: challenges and recommendations for practice

Abstract

Professional development of language teachers is one major measure to ensure that teachers remain updated and avoid the risk or leaving the profession. Not all teachers, however, attend professional development (PD) workshops or engage in such activities for the sake of developing professionally. Some teachers attend PD courses on a routine basis with little knowledge of what competencies they are expected to gain as a result, and simply because taking part in such programmes is an institutional requirement. To explore the type of PD activities English teachers in Iran participate in and also to understand the motivations behind their participation, the researchers interviewed 24 English teachers (with the age range of 24–50) working at private language institutes and public high schools. The study found that public school teachers were engaged in very few PD activities, and the type of PD activities private teachers followed ranged from consulting online courses to watching educational videos to reading ELT textbooks. The motivations for taking part in PD activities ranged from ‘having no motivation’ to ‘promoting my English’ to ‘being able to teach at university’. Further results and implications for teacher education in Iran and beyond are discussed in the paper.

Padlet Mobile Training Model for Novice Omani EFL In-service Teachers

“…This finding concurs with Peeples, Hirsch, Gardner, Keeley, Sherrow, McKenzie, and Kennedy (2019), who highlighted the effectiveness of multimedia training in facilitating learning and acquisition. Hands-on online lesson planning, practical delivery sessions, and peer feedback further contributed to the training participants' learning, acquisition, and transfer of PD content, as triangulated with Sadeghi and Richards (2021). They stated that when teachers are engaged in the planning and implementing PD training content in their classrooms, they gain ownership of the learning, which facilitates the acquisition of content knowledge.…”

Principal’s Strategy in Developing Teacher’s Pedagogic Competencies in the Distance Learning

“…Furthermore, this study also found that the principal encouraged the teachers to actively participate in the Teacher Work Group (MGMP) as a forum for teachers to exchange ideas with their professional colleagues. This is supported by a study by Sadeghi & Richards (2021) on developing the professional abilities of English teachers in Iran which includes ministry of education (public) teachers, language center (private) teachers, and all teachers working in the public and private sector. The study suggested that teachers are allowed to be able to join the discussion group of their professional colleagues.…”

TPACK-SAMR digital literacy competence, technostress, and teaching performance: Correlational study among EFL lecturers

“…Therefore, she felt pressured when she knew her colleagues could teach with technology because she needed more confidence with her DLC (Table 6). Hence, P2's responses unveil the suggestion that peer discussion (between colleagues) after teaching practices in an EFL classroom can be a medium to increase the lecturers' professionalism (Sadeghi & Richards, 2021).…”