In-service English Teachers Research Articles

La evolución de las creencias de los profesores de Inglés en servicio sobre la enseñanza de la gramática

El propósito de este estudio fue medir cómo cambian las creencias sobre la enseñanza de la gramática de los maestros de inglés en servicio en Nicaragua después de completar un programa de pregrado de enseñanza de inglés de 5 años y con cierta experiencia de enseñanza acumulativa. Se recopilaron datos de cuestionarios, diarios y observaciones de la práctica en el aula. Los participantes fueron 20 profesores de inglés en la escuela secundaria en servicio que estaban tomando un programa de capacitación de un año y fueron seleccionados mediante muestreo de conveniencia. Los resultados mostraron que había inconsistencia entre las creencias de los maestros y la práctica en el aula y sus creencias están influenciadas de alguna manera por sus experiencias como estudiantes y maestros. En conclusión, las creencias de los maestros son a menudo un reflejo de cómo ellos mismos fueron enseñados y sus experiencias, ya sea como maestros o estudiantes, se reflejan en su práctica docente

ENGLISH TEACHERS’ EFFICACY IN USING PEDAGOGICAL TECHNIQUES TO PROMOTE HIGHER ORDER THINKING SKILLS

The 21st-century learning demanded students not only to be academically competent but also to master some crucial soft skills needed in today’s challenging world. Promoting and implementing HOTS becomes crucial things to do in the learning process. This study aimed to find out English teachers’ efficacy in using interactive, critical thinking and meta-cognitive pedagogical techniques to promote HOTS in the learning process. This study employed a survey research method. The research approach used is descriptive quantitative. Five Likert-scale questionnaires are used as the instruments for collecting the data. The questionnaires are distributed through the online form to 15 in-service English teachers at the secondary high school level. Furthermore, the data were analysed using a quantitative descriptive data analysis technique. The results of this study indicated that English teachers have high self-efficacy in using interactive, critical thinking, and meta-cognitive pedagogical strategies to promote HOTS in the learning process. The result of this study provides a preliminary understanding about the English teachers’ self-efficacy level in using some meaningful pedagogical techniques to promote HOTS in this 21st-century learning. This understanding will lead to the impact of their implementation in a real teaching context. Exploring their practice in the real classroom context in implementing HOTS becomes a crucial issue for further study.

Transformative professional development for in-service teachers through international service learning

ABSTRACTTeachers who participate in learning and teaching abroad enhance their intercultural competence, develop more globally informed and critical perspectives on education, and improve their foreign language and teaching skills. However, most of the research on teacher study abroad has been conducted with pre-service rather than in-service teachers. To address study abroad designed for working teachers, this study analyzes a month-long, instructor-led program in San José, Costa Rica in which 10 primary and secondary in-service teachers of English as a Second Language (TESOL) from New York City volunteered as English teaching assistants. Participants also engaged in Spanish language learning both formally through university coursework as well as informally through homestay. A conceptual framework for the design of such programs is suggested, drawing on the literature on teacher study abroad and transformative learning theory, with implications for the personal and professional learning of in-service teachers.

Academic bloggers, commenters, lurkers and non-bloggers: how and why in-service English teachers blog

ABSTRACTTwenty-first-century literacy skills require teachers to engage students with digital tools in meaningful ways – it is also imperative that teachers utilise these skills themselves to enhance their abilities to address these skills effectively in their classrooms. In this article, the researchers disseminate the results of a qualitatively driven study in which eight National Writing Project in-service English teachers were interviewed and lesson plan data were collected with a focus on blogging practices. Ultimately, the results of this study are structured to showcase how teachers used blogs for professional development and how this participation influenced their definition of twenty-first-century literacies and their instructional practice. The results indicated the need to emphasise the collaborative and communicative components of twenty-first-century literacy skills and the need for teachers to engage in these practices.

Dealing with in-class challenges: Pre-service teacher cognitions and influences

This study explores cognitions of pre-service English language teachers in relation to dealing with most commonly experienced in-class challenges in foreign language teaching and the influences that shape their cognitions. Adopting qualitative research design, a case study was conducted to provide an account of pre-service English language teachers’ cognitions. Data for this study were collected in two main stages. The first stage involved collection of the base-line data through an open-ended questionnaire with a view to identifying in-class challenges experienced by in-service English language teachers. The second stage included scenario-based interviews with pre-service teachers that took place before and after the practicum. Results of the study reveal that (1) pre-service teachers generated various strategies in their pre- and post-practicum cognitions; (2) there were traces of change in cognitions due to practicum; (3) courses in teacher education program, own learning experiences, and practicum experiences emerged as influences that shape their cognitions.

The Level of Pedagogical Content Knowledge of In-Service English Language Teachers in a Foreign Language Context

The aim of this study is to find out the level of pedagogical content knowledge of inservice English language teachers in a foreign language context. The data were collected from 9 in-service English language teachers’ responses on five open-ended grammar, pronunciation and writing problems. The results show that Jordanian English language teachers don’t know enough about what they teach. Furthermore, they show that the integration between what teachers know about what they teach and about the process of teaching and how to teach (PCK) isn’t adequate enough (with a medium level). Keywords: Content knowledge; Pedagogical Knowledge; Pedagogical Content Knowledge; Foreign Language.

In-Service Primary School Teachers’ Account of Phonetically Difficult Words in English as a Foreign Language

This article presents and discusses a mixed-method study that seeks to establish a set of words in the English language that in-service primary school teachers consider difficult to pronounce by young learners of English whose first language (L1) is Norwegian. In the study, 26 in-service primary school teachers of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) are asked to write a reflective essay with a list of phonetically difficult words (henceforth PDWs) in English that they think are difficult to pronounce by young EFL learners. Additionally, the in-service primary school teachers (further – participants) are requested to reflect and comment on PDWs, and explain the reasons why they think they are phonetically difficult. The participants’ individual lists of PDWs are compiled into a corpus which is processed in the Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) in order to calculate the frequency of PDWs. The participants’ comments and reflections are subsequently analysed qualitatively in order to establish the sources of PDWs. The results of the investigation reveal that the corpus of PDWs is comprised of 257 lexical items. The most frequent PDWs are associated with those sounds of the English language that are absent in the young EFL learners’ L1, Norwegian, e.g., /θ/ in birthday, /ð/ in this, /z/ in zoo, etc. Other frequent PDWs are related to English spelling conventions (e.g., fruit), the word-initial position of affricates (e.g., chocolate), and word stress (e.g., window). These findings and their linguo-didactic implications are further discussed in the article.

The Implementation of Communicative Language Teaching by Iraqi English language Teachers

The implementation of Communicative Language Teaching (CLT) has been debated by many researchers in the field of language teaching methodology. Much is done in this regard and literature confirms that the implementation of CLT in teaching English as a foreign language is challenging. Even though there are studies investigating the issue in Iraqi schools, little has been done in exploring the classroom practices of Communicative Language Teaching by the teachers. Thus, this study hopes to investigate how Iraqi English language teachers implement CLT in their classrooms. A qualitative method is used to collect data through classroom observation of 3 in-service English language teachers. The research question that is addressed is (to what extent the classroom practices of Iraqi English language teachers comply with the principles of Communicative Language Teaching?). The data collected from the observations are analyzed based on a checklist to compare them to the basic principles of communicative approach. The results of the study show that Iraqi English language teachers do not fully implement communicative approach in their classroom practices and their teachings mostly focus on grammar and vocabulary rather than meaningful communication. The results from this study will contribute to the field of knowledge about Communicative Language Teaching, particularly in Iraqi public schools. The outcome of this study will support teachers to overcome the current challenges in language teaching and provide better recommendation for them to improve their teaching and implementation of CLT approach.

Introducing in-service English language teachers to data-driven learning for academic writing

Corpora are widely used in the creation of language learning and teaching materials, such as dictionaries, grammar books, textbooks, and vocabulary lists. Little work, however, has focused on how the DDL approach might be introduced successfully into a teacher training program. In this paper, we describe the background, implementation, and results of a DDL-focused teacher training workshop that is designed to introduce a corpus-assisted academic writing pedagogy to in-service English language educators in Hong Kong. To evaluate the success of the workshop and gain further insights on factors that might lead to instructors accepting or rejecting the approach, we administered a questionnaire to participants after the workshop and carried out a statistical analysis of the responses. Results revealed that participants generally had a positive experience of the training. Based on correlation tests, the results also showed that factors such as prior knowledge of corpora, prior experience in using corpora, motivation for professional development, and teaching experience, correlated significantly with teachers’ perceptions of the difficulties in using corpus tools and an inclination to integrate data-driven learning in their future teaching. The findings may be related to broader research on teacher attitudes to the adoption of technology in the classroom.

Becoming a Teacher of Business English in China: A Critical Narrative

AbstractIn the Chinese higher education sector, Business English, a newly emerging discipline, has attracted great attention, and since it was approved officially in 2007, about 400 universities and colleges have offered this degree course to students. Among in-service Business English teachers, some of them have transferred from teaching English for General Purposes. Business English teachers face many changes and challenges to their professional identity, yet few scholars have looked into the identity construction of these teachers. Using critical narrative as a method, this paper closely examines the identity construction experiences of the first author and two other Business English teachers. It is found that the participants, including the first author himself, have endured identity negotiations and various challenges in turning from a teacher of English for General Purposes to a teacher of Business English. These teachers’ experiences and their perception of identity construction and professional development throw light on the changing pedagogy and practice of Business English in Chinese universities.

Investigating processes of change in beliefs and practice following professional development: multiple change models among in-service teachers in China

ABSTRACT In-service professional development aims to change what experienced teachers do and think, using innovations to improve teaching and learning. Teachers’ beliefs and classroom practice are linked, but how they interact is less certain, and how they are changed by professional development is presented in the research literature by various models: linear change from beliefs to classroom practice or vice versa, and cyclical or interactive models. The process of change in beliefs and classroom practice for a group of experienced in-service English teachers at universities in China was investigated during and after a professional development course. Qualitative case study methodology was used, with data collected from interviews and observations of teaching, and then analysed and interpreted inductively for emerging patterns. The findings suggest that the change process for experienced teachers is both more complex, more varied and less certain that presented in existing models. Multiple models of change in beliefs and classroom practice were present in the data, including linear change in different directions, and no change. In-service teacher educators are recommended to plan for this multiplicity of models of change in beliefs and classroom practice by taking into account each teacher’s experience and existing teaching context.

Revisiting the Issue of Knowledge in English Language Teaching, a Revision of Literature

In the following literature review, I set out to show an analysis of the main developments regarding the study of in-service English teachers’ (IELTs) knowledge. In the first part, I trace scholarly work regarding the topic at the national and international levels. I bring up both poststructuralist and decolonial perspectives to problematize the concept of teacher knowledge base (Shulman 1987, 2005). By means of research profiling and data base search, articles and trends related to the issue of teachers’ knowledge were found. The analysis suggests that there are two core trends in the study of English teachers’ knowledge in Colombian publications. The first shows that there are studies which revolve around backing up the concept of knowledge base. The second one shows that few studies take up a different perspective towards the study of English teachers’ knowledge.

Blended Learning Mobility Approach and English Language Learning

Although the benefits of blended learning have been well documented in educational research, relatively few studies have examined blended mobilities in education in Kurdistan region government and in Iraq. This study discusses a blended mobility approach for a teacher training program designed for in-service English language teachers (ELT) and investigates its effectiveness by comparing the latest participation of the University of Human Development for computer science and proposing the same program for training English for lecturers and students. The research involved proposes new mobility program for teaching and learning English language and using their language skills in an ongoing business project using several software for communication and management of their projects. Results will show the framework for new blended learning and blended mobilities of many different English language teaching (ELT) aspects.

Building 21-Century Indonesian Teachers’ Teaching Capacities through the Integration of Technology into Classrooms

This research aimed to present an empirical sketch on the implementation of the IMOOC (Indonesian Massive Open Online Course). This online program sought to raise teachers’ awareness of the importance of technology for teaching while at the same time promoting their teaching skills in using technology for learning. The samples of this study included thirty-seven pre and in-service English teachers. This study found the IMOOC served as a reliable online instruction promoting essential aspects of 21-century education such as critical thinking, collaborative, creative and innovative learning, self-reliance, and individualized learning. 

Challenges of a decolonial undertaking in teacher education

As Brazilian university teachers, we have taken part in some courses aimed at the professional development of in-service English teachers. However, inspired by decolonial thinking, we have seen them as reproducing logics of coloniality, an epistemological frame which hierarchizes human beings socially, ontologically and epistemically. Thus, in an attempt to fight the coloniality and power established between universities and schools, in 2016, we set up a study group – a space where we, English teachers in Goias, could talk about our profession. Our aim in this interpretive study is to discuss initial challenges of this decolonial undertaking. We do so by focusing on attendance and agency. The reflections made in this article indicate that our expectation to expand our praxis was achieved somehow, but we consider it was jeopardized due to poor attendance and lack of agency. We conclude with some following moves to challenge coloniality in educational projects. Key-words: decolonial thinking, study group, teacher education.

Toward an understanding of high school in-service English teachers’ identities in their professional development

Teacher identity has increasingly become a major educational research area. Nevertheless, high school in-service English teachers’ identity changes, as facilitated by their further studies in the pursuit of professional development are less explored. This study begins to fill this gap by examining their identities as to how they strike a balance as a teacher and a student concurrently. Based on interviews with 11 teachers at a high school in Taiwan, both positive and negative changes were reported by the teachers, despite wide-ranging foci. Their productive and additive identity changes were primarily related to their sense of competence and fulfillment in terms of enhancing professional knowledge, increasing research capacities, and broadening horizons, whereas subtractive and split changes were mainly related to disciplinary differences. It can be concluded that teachers’ identities are constructed and reconstructed as they seek to negotiate between their own beliefs and the natures of different disciplines. Implications of this study are discussed.

The Professional Development of English Language Teachers in Colombia: A Review of the Literature

This article offers a review of 25 empirical studies to identify the areas and findings of professional development initiatives for in-service English teachers in Colombia. The reviewed studies suggest that language teacher professional development has focused on six major areas: language proficiency, research skills and reflective practice, teachers’ beliefs and identities, an integrated approach to teacher professional development, pedagogical skills and teaching approaches, and emerging technologies. Results suggest that there is a need to move from traditional master-apprentice, content-oriented, teacher-centered models of professional development towards initiatives that allow teachers to critically analyze their particular context and needs, and devise their own local alternatives so that they can become more active agents of their own process of change. Issues that constitute possible alternatives for future research in the professional development of English language teachers are discussed.

Developing classroom-based language assessment literacy for in-service EFL teachers: The gaps

Teachers are expected to keep up to date with challenges and expectations that arise in classroom-based language assessment. This study responds to the call for increased research in the area of language assessment literacy in the context of classroom-based assessment. In particular, our research provides insights into assessment literacy training for in-service teachers of English as a foreign language (EFL). By way of gap analysis based on a questionnaire of 344 EFL teachers in Chinese middle schools, this study found that EFL teachers investigated were nearly at the functional level of classroom-based language assessment literacy (CBLAL), and that they wished to be procedurally and conceptually literate through professional training so as to understand the central concepts of classroom-based language assessment and use their knowledge in practice. The study will shed light on views regarding the assessment literacy topics that are important to be included in in-service EFL teacher training programs.

‘Time to construct positive identities’: display questions in post observation teacher feedback

ABSTRACT This article focuses on the use of display questions to construct positive identities in post observation feedback talk between in-service English language teachers and a supervisor. Using a linguistic ethnographic framework, microanalysis of dyadic feedback interaction is supplemented with ethnographic data gathered from participant perspective interviews and researcher knowledge of the research site and participants. Results show that display questions give feedback participants the opportunity to voice their knowledge and expertise thereby enabling them to claim positive identities. Display questions are also used by the supervisor to claim a practising teacher identity in order to reassure teachers of his worth as an observer and leader. Display questions help the supervisor perform a manager identity as they allow him to control the topic and evaluate teachers. While some teachers verify this identity by complying and providing the required answer, one teacher resists, replying reluctantly and with irritation, thereby contesting the supervisor’s manager identity. This shows that identities are fluid, contestable, and discursively accomplished in situated feedback talk. Two practical implications are discussed: (1) the need for further research into feedback with in-service teachers (2) the suggestion that supervisors examine extracts from feedback to help them become more reflective and critical practitioners.

Tracing the theoretical path of my teaching experience at a private English institute

This paper reflects on the connections between theory and practice in a private English institute in which students follow seven different stages to complete one lesson. The objective of the researcher, an in-service English teacher, was to analyze the institute’s theoretical principles underlying each of the seven stages. These stages were studied in terms of the theories or approaches which guided the different stages in teaching and learning the English language. In order to provide an informed review of the theory and its application in practice, specialized authors, such as Richards and Rodgers (1993) or Harmer (2013), were revisited. Throughout the paper, the benefits and drawbacks students received when using the identified theories or approaches in their classes are reflected upon. Additionally, the researcher’s professional development during the steps she guided is critically analyzed.