Abstract
In an educational milieu student learning outcomes are directly related to teacher professional identity (TPI) i.e. improvement in the TPI will bear a direct positive effect on the learners’ academic achievements. Current study focuses on the development of TPI of English as a Foreign Language Teacher at English Language Institute (ELI) of a Saudi Arabian university through an in-service Cambridge English Teachers (CET) Professional Development (PD) program (CET-PD). Five determinants of TPI - Knowledge of Teaching Context (KCT), Collegial Collaboration (CC), Teaching Practices (TPs), Teacher Self-Efficacy (TSE), and Teacher Agency (TA) were studied before and after the PD program. Retrospective pretest-posttest research design was employed for addressing the research question: whereas responses on the five determinants were elicited from 120 participants through a self-administered questionnaire before and after the CET-PD program. Due to non-normality of data, a non-parametric statistic test-Wilcoxon signed Rank test was employed to analyze the collected data using SPSS. Results of the study revealed that three determinants of TPI - KCT, TSE, and TPs exhibited larger differences; whereas, for CC the differences were moderate and for TA the differences were minimal. By and large, due to in-service CET- PD program TPI exhibited improvement. The results of the study will be beneficial for teacher trainers to focus more on the teachers’ awareness of the learners’ and institutional contextual knowledge in a culture embedded in conservative norms. This study is a part of the quantitative phase of an ongoing Ph.D. project which employs mixed method convergent design.
Highlights
In the backdrop of the current rapid socio-cultural and socio-economic changes in Saudi Arabia, English Language Institute (ELI) of a Saudi Arabian university has introduced a reform agenda to enhance English language learners’ learning outcomes and improve institutional performance
This study proved a compliment as well as a revealing contrast to what exists in the predominant literature by answering the following research question: 1) Does the Cambridge English Teacher (CET) Professional Development (PD) course have an impact on the teacher professional identity (TPI) of in-service English as a Foreign Language (EFL) instructors at a Saudi Arabian university?
The findings of this study suggest that the Cambridge English Teachers (CET), an in-service professional development program at an English language institute of a Saudi Arabian public university has significantly influenced the EFL TPI
Summary
In the backdrop of the current rapid socio-cultural and socio-economic changes in Saudi Arabia, English Language Institute (ELI) of a Saudi Arabian university has introduced a reform agenda to enhance English language learners’ learning outcomes and improve institutional performance. The first step taken in this direction was the initiation of Cambridge English Teacher (CET) professional development (PD) program to diversify English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ evidence-based instructional practices and to support them with meeting their learners’ ever-emerging learning needs. To keep abreast with the advances in the field of ELT and remain current on the increasing amount of research, EFL teachers need effective professional development. The CET PD took place at an opportune time when ELI is introducing an “ELI method” keeping in view the contextual requirements. It has been observed that CET PD plays an instrumental role in shaping teaching practices and anchoring teachers’ beliefs, as in the process of education reformism teachers’ identity is always at ijel.ccsenet.org
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