Facilitating university teachers’ continuing professional development through peer-assisted research and implementation team work in China

Abstract

ABSTRACTChinese university EFL teachers face challenges in teaching English writing effectively. On one hand, a lack of teaching strategies, heavy workload, and inability to meet students’ increasing expectations are driving them to seek continuing professional development (CPD) and adopt new pedagogies, e.g., peer assessment. On the other hand, their urgent need for CPD is overlooked by university administrators, who provide few opportunities for English teachers’ CPD in China. To help Chinese university EFL teachers to step out of the dilemma, the research proposes a CPD model, i.e., peer-assisted research and implementation team work. The model is characterised by its simultaneity with self-initiated research, instant communication of problems, implementation of strategies, and collaborative reflection of ideas with three major stages, i.e., problem identification, collective research and exploration, and pedagogy implementation and reflection. The findings show the model successfully contributes to Chinese teachers’ changing attitudes towards using peer assessment in the writing class. The model is of great practical value in improving teachers’ CPD collectively with minimal external help. The model can be widely promoted with modifications to cater teachers’ different CPD needs.