Helping EFL teachers build capacity for effective curriculum implementation: A case study

Abstract

The study presents the outcomes of capacity-building training that aims to facilitate and enhance Turkish EFL teachers’ curriculum fidelity in the state school context and provides in-depth insights into the issue in this context. After the training, all the participants developed positive perceptions about the curriculum. Five participants’ stages of concern evolved to concerned about and not resistant to the curriculum. One participant’s concerns altered to not resistant but unconcerned, whereas five participants’ concerns remained resistant. Only one participant showed ideal development, both in her stages of concern and instructional practices. As well as the insufficiency of curriculum-specific formal training, school-level institutional support, and individual and collective sense-making out of the curriculum were found to lack in the context. Whereas explicit grammar teaching and assessment were revealed to form a comfort zone, teaching and assessing language skills, especially speaking and writing, to present a challenge for the teachers. The ineffectiveness of train-the -trainers, and the need for curriculum maps and mentors were also asserted in the study