Faranak Shapouran; Roya Ranjbar Mohammadi Bonab; Mohammad Hossein Yousefi; Hassan Asadollahfam
Abstract
Teachers' professional learning plays an important role in their attempt to change their teaching practices; however, few studies have been conducted on how teachers prepare themselves for the vast initiatives in ameliorating students' outcomes. This study aimed to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions ...
Read More
Teachers' professional learning plays an important role in their attempt to change their teaching practices; however, few studies have been conducted on how teachers prepare themselves for the vast initiatives in ameliorating students' outcomes. This study aimed to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions toward their professional learning practices and their professional developmental orientations that contribute to the process of their professional learning. To this end, 30 Iranian EFL teachers selected through purposive sampling participated in this qualitative phenomenological study. The data was collected through semi-structured interviews, focus group interviews, and narrative inquiries to ensure the trustworthiness criteria of the data. The thematic analysis of the data revealed three themes of professional development programs, collaborative learning and experience-based learning. The result showed that only a few teachers were satisfied with the school-based professional learning programs, indicating that revision in the educational system was required to develop teachers’ professional learning. Meanwhile, effective learning occurred through collaboration among the teachers and the mutual learning between teachers and students, hence, leading to participative decision-making and teachers' reflective practice. Overall, participants mentioned students' outcomes as a key level of teachers' professional learning. This study has important implications for policymakers, school administrators, and teacher educators.
Mandana Zolghadri; Homa Jafarpour Mamaghani
Abstract
The variability of the professional knowledge and skills required for diverse pedagogical contexts makes second language teaching effectiveness a complicated issue and teaching ineffectiveness a common concern among EFL practitioners. Notwithstanding the scholarly consensus on this matter, the roots ...
Read More
The variability of the professional knowledge and skills required for diverse pedagogical contexts makes second language teaching effectiveness a complicated issue and teaching ineffectiveness a common concern among EFL practitioners. Notwithstanding the scholarly consensus on this matter, the roots of teaching ineffectiveness have remained contentious. Hence, we conducted a case study deploying collaborative critical reflection (CCR) to diagnose the possible roots of the participants’ teaching ineffectiveness using Saphier, Haley-Speca, and Gower’s (2018) skillful teacher framework. To this end, two EFL teachers were selected as the participants of the study and were guided to utilize their selves, and colleagues as professional development (PD) resources. Video-recorded classroom observations guided the subsequent reflections and a focus group collaborative discussion. Then using a retrospective lesson- objective interview and a retrospective lesson plan, we elicited the teachers’ thinking types while planning. The analysis of multiple sources of data through multiple methods and by multiple investigators revealed teachers’ erroneous and over self-evaluation, teachers’ non-reflective practice, faulty thinking for lesson planning, and the discrepancy between their intentions and actions as the possible roots of the observed teaching infectiveness. The findings of this pathology, shedding light on the professional development path, might benefit EFL theoreticians, teacher educators, and teaching practitioners.
Farzad Mashhadi; Reza Biria; Ahmadreza Lotfi
Abstract
The preparation of English teachers to teach is a complex and multitudinous undertaking. Traditionally, in line with positivist paradigm which has focused on notion of transfer, teacher education has been concerned with depositing bodies of pre-defined information to teachers and has considered teachers ...
Read More
The preparation of English teachers to teach is a complex and multitudinous undertaking. Traditionally, in line with positivist paradigm which has focused on notion of transfer, teacher education has been concerned with depositing bodies of pre-defined information to teachers and has considered teachers as that of knowledge consumers. As an alternative to traditional, transmission-based view of teacher education, action research has emerged as a practical tool to enhance meaningful second language (L2) teacher education. In line with the current epistemological shift, this study set out to examine the utility of collaborative action research, as a viable means, to boost teachers’ professional development in a networked community of shared practice. To this end, 7 male and female Iranian English teachers, aged 22—35, were selected through convenient sampling from different universities in Iran. Having been added to a teacher training group in WhatsApp, the selected participants were exposed to online classes within which they learned to problematize a context-specific topic and were provided with relevant practical experiences through dialogic mediation. Having been taught to go through circles of action research throughout the treatment, the participants were required to complete an action research project. The data triangulated from four main sources (i.e., action research projects, teachers’ professional journals, reflective journals, and semi-structured interviews), revealed that EFL teachers engaged in a collaborative dialogue in a networked community of shared knowledge appeared to sustain L2 professional development, transforming their pedagogical practice and feeling empowered to move toward a more emancipatory perspective. The findings have important implications for language teachers in general, and EFL teachers and syllabus designers, in particular.
Hassan Soodmand Afshar; Shabnam Ghasemi
Abstract
As part of a large-scale study, the current study explored the barriers perceived by Iranian EFL teachers to impede their professional development. To this end, 200 EFL teachers teaching at various private foreign language institutes participated in the study. The study enjoyed a mixed-method design. ...
Read More
As part of a large-scale study, the current study explored the barriers perceived by Iranian EFL teachers to impede their professional development. To this end, 200 EFL teachers teaching at various private foreign language institutes participated in the study. The study enjoyed a mixed-method design. That is, first, a semi-structured interview was conducted with 50 participants of the study on the basis of which the barriers to teachers’ PD questionnaire (BTPDQ) was developed and validated. The results of the interview content analysis and the findings of the descriptive statistics of BTPDQ revealed the barriers were attributed to three major factors including ‘teachers themselves’ (e.g., lack of motivation, lack of teamwork spirit, etc.), ‘managers of the language institutes’ (e.g., institutes’ not having organized plans for PD, low payments, etc.), and ‘educational policy-makers’ (e.g., curriculum developers’ top-to-down managerial behavior, etc.). The findings might prove fruitful and innovative for the managers of foreign language education centers, teachers, and policy makers. Foreign language education policy makers, curriculum developers and syllabus designers are thus suggested to plan such effective and durable PD activities as teacher study groups, peer observation, online teacher PD methods and social-media-based programs in order to interest and involve EFL teachers in up-to-date PD activities.
