Exploring Saudi EFL Teachers' Perceptions of Using Reflective Practice as a Tool for Professional Development

The aim of this study is to investigate the attitudes of English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers in Jordan towards using webinars as professional development tools in comparing with international EFL teachers. A quantitative study was conducted with (60) EFL teachers, (44) EFL teachers were from Jordan and (16) EFL teachers were from different countries around the world. An online questionnaire which is adapted from Emre’s thesis (2019) was distributed via WhatsApp and Telegram applications. The data has analyzed using descriptive statistics via SPSS statistics. This study was conducted in Amman- Jordan in (2020-2021). The results showed that female and males EFL teachers who have additional courses and who have attended webinars were positive towards using webinars as professional development tools and Jordanian EFL teachers revealed moderate attitudes in comparing with international EFL teachers. This study suggested to encourage Jordanian EFL teachers to attend webinars for professional development by supporting and facilitating conditions, reward teachers who attend webinars and conduct persistent research in order to have different experiences to support the results of the upcoming researches.

From problem-crumbling to innovation: The design of a comprehensive professional development training programme to enhance creative competence among TEFL educators

In recent years, Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) has been emphasised, specifically in English language teaching. Therefore, investigating English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions of ESD is a fundamental first step in developing effective EFL curricula and teaching policies. Consequently, this study delved into the English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ perceptions of Education for Sustainable Development (ESD), examining its role in EFL teaching methodologies and identifying the challenges faced in integrating ESD within the Turkish educational context. In-depth interview data (IDI) was collected from 28 in-service Turkish EFL teachers. Utilising qualitative content analysis (QCA) with open, axial, and selective coding, we found out that Turkish EFL teachers’ perceptions of ESD are multifaceted and shaped by the interdisciplinary nature of EFL teaching, which is fed by Content and Language Integrated Learning (CLIL). The findings showed that EFL teachers: (1) conceptualised ESD as being related to learning for sustainable practices addressing social, economic and environmental dimensions, and linked ESD to a lifelong learning process that should be implemented at all education levels and supported by critical thinking and problem-solving skills; (2) thought English classes provide ideal venues to teach multiple topics including sustainability, thus reported it as a key responsibility for them to instil in their students, and (3) felt that ESD has yet to be sufficiently reflected in EFL curriculum due to some obstacles such as narrow focus on ESD, limited contact hours of English and lack of parental awareness of ESD. The findings mainly emphasised the significance of an extensive and holistic coverage of ESD at all education levels through engaging and hands-on in-class activities. Further practical suggestions are also provided regarding how EFL teaching policies may be developed to better integrate ESD.

Throughout the past decade, evaluating teachers’ success has become a crucial issue due to the increased motivation on teacher accountability. In view of that the purpose of the present study is to determine EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers’ success in the Iranian institutional context based on students’ perspectives. More specifically, the present study surveyed any significant correlation between teachers’ practices of continuing professional development (CPD) strategies and teachers’ success. For this purpose, a CPD model was suggested and verified using partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM), to examine CPD factors contributing to EFL teachers’ success. A total of 316 English-major institutional teachers in Iran completed the CPD questionnaire. Besides, about 30% of their students, 828 students, are asked to fill in teachers’ success questionnaire, which intended to check students’ opinions on how successful they measured their teachers in teaching. Findings specified that practice of CPD strategies had a strong direct predicting power on EFL teachers’ success. It was illustrated that “updating” construct strongly affects both “collaborating” and “reflecting.” Moreover, “reflecting” moderately influence “collaborating” and “collaborating” intensely affects “decision making.” The results, specifically, highlight the fact that one to be a successful teacher in the field of EFL should be a good decision maker in the field too.

Reflective practice (RP) by EFL teachers has been found to have the potential to improve teachers’ pedagogical and professional competencies. This study reports the implementation of a contextualized RP model that integrates the Lesson Study (LS) principles by Indonesian English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers. The implementation was conducted at six junior high schools over a course of three months. Data collection methods included three-session classroom observations for each teacher conducted during the RP model implementation, and two sessions of focus group discussion (FGD) after the implementation. The research participants included the six EFL teachers who became the model teachers, as well as several other EFL teachers and six school principals who participated as observers. The results demonstrate teachers’ ability to conduct RP before, during, and after lessons. While they missed some opportunities to conduct reflection-during-lessons, almost all model teachers and teacher observers showed competence in reflecting after the lesson. The teachers realized the importance of conducting reflections to improve their teaching practices and students’ learning. In addition, both model teachers and teacher observers obtained the benefits of getting involved in the RP model implementation, became less nervous, and agreed with the sustainability of the implementation. The findings suggest that, in the future, RP should be well programmed by each school or by broader authorities.

English as a Foreign Language (EFL) has constituted a major part of the curriculum in private and public institutions in Saudi Arabia for over eight decades. More recently, the emergence of English as a global language has made it a socially desirable language in Saudi society, as elsewhere in the world. However, despite the long history of English teaching in Saudi Arabia and the growth of the profession over the years, the overall English proficiency level of the majority of students is low and unsatisfactory. Saudi researchers have reported many reasons for the ineffectiveness of English Language Teaching (ELT) including, but not limited to, low levels of student motivation, negative attitudes toward English, a substandard English as a Foreign Language (EFL) curriculum, and inefficient teacher pedagogical practices. These problems fall into two major categories: problems related to the lwhyr of teaching and learning of EFL, and problems related to the lhowr of teaching and learning EFL. In investigating these issues, much of this research has been carried out within individual/psychological/structuralist/positivist frameworks, which has failed not only to problematize the complexity of such constructs but also to appreciate the fact that all realities are produced/(re)produced via ldiscourser. Hence, the present study investigated EFL teaching and learning practices by employing Foucauldian and poststructuralist frameworks. This study used poststructuralism not only as a theoretical lens per se, but also established it through the implemented analytical tools and textual representations of the collected data. Employing a poststructuralist discursive perspective made it possible to view EFL teaching and learning as complex social practices, interacting with the discourses of English and ELT practices available in the global as well as the local context(s). These discourses create the nexus between power and knowledge and impact on what an EFL teacher/ learner does within a classroom setting by constructing perspectives of reality through which he or she comes to understand the EFL teaching and learning process in certain ways which constitute epistemological spaces and generate particular practices. Drawing on policy documents, EFL textbooks, classroom observations, interviews with two Saudi EFL teachers, and focus group discussions with Saudi EFL students in two rural areas, the study identified seven discourses circulating within and competing across the examined discursive spaces. The first three discourses are related to English and its values, including: English as a universal language; English as the language for better employment opportunities; and English as the language for spreading religion. The remaining four discourses centred around ELT with exams as an important aspect of EFL learning and ELT; CLT as the key to success in ELT; L1 as a barrier to successful EFL learning; and EFL textbooks as an essential aspect of the processes of EFL learning and ELT. In exploring the production and (re)production of these discourses through the examination of how visibilization, normalisation, exclusionary/inclusionary acts, classification, and subject positioning as discursive strategies are employed, it was found that whether a particular discourse was made visible or invisible depended on other discourses operating across the examined discursive spaces: the social context, the policy, the textbook, the classroom, and the teachers and students. The analysis of the connection(s) and misconnection(s) between these discursive spaces demonstrated that the interplay between the different discourses constructed discursive battlegrounds, which impacted the processes of EFL teaching and learning. Through the investigation of this interplay, it was found that there was a disconnect and an ambivalent relationship between the study participantsr espoused discourses of English and their EFL teaching and learning practices, suggesting that EFL teachers and learners should not be considered lstabler figures, but rather as social agents with discursively constructed ever changing subjectivities. Furthermore, the analyses of the constructions of the discourses operating within the examined policy texts demonstrate an intra disparity and fragmentation. This was manifested in the difference between the ideals of the EFL curriculum and the institutionally imposed regulating techniques, that is, examinations and teachersr assessment practices which had negative effects on EFL teaching and learning dynamics. Additionally, as a consequence of the competition between the different sources of discursive constructions, I found that there was a gulf between the EFL policies and the enactment of these policies in EFL teaching and learning dynamics in the observed EFL classrooms. The findings of this study also indicate that if a discourse promoted through the policy is mediated by discourses operating in the larger societal context, it became more visible in teaching and learning practices as compared to other discourses that did not have social moorings. This suggests that taking the prevailing social expectations into account at the stage of developing any policy is of paramount importance.nThe study concludes with a discussion of the implications of the interplay of connections and misconnections between competing discourses across different spaces in Saudi educational settings for improving the EFL teaching/learning environments in Saudi Arabia and other similar contexts.n

While there has been much research into teachers’ professional quality in general education, scant attention has been paid to the professional quality of EFL (English as a foreign language) teachers, especially those working in adverse areas, for their sustainable career trajectories. Drawing on Wu’s framework of EFL teachers’ professional quality, this study adopted a mixed-method study design to investigate the professional quality of experienced EFL teachers in China’s rural areas. A questionnaire was administered online to 367 Chinese EFL teachers from 15 high schools in the northeast part of China. Follow-up interviews were then conducted with four volunteers. The results of the exploratory factor analysis produced a two-module structure of teachers’ professional quality, addressing teacher beliefs and English language pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) for their sustainable career development. The teacher belief module addresses beliefs about language teacher learning and development as well as beliefs about foreign language teaching and learning. The English language PCK module includes two subscales: English teaching capacity and English knowledge and skills. Descriptive analysis showed that these participants had high levels of professional quality. Possible explanations for the interpretations of EFL teachers’ professional quality are provided from the qualitative data. Based on the above findings, the paper offers some implications for sustaining EFL teacher development in the future.

Language learners’ achievement relies to a great extent on what goes on inside the classroom. The teacher personality types (PTs) and their classroom management orientations (CMOs) play a critical role. The present study intended to explore Iranian English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers’ major PTs and CMOs. Sixty EFL teachers were chosen through the convenience sampling method from foreign language institutes in Isfahan, Iran. They were asked to complete two questionnaires including the Myers–Briggs type indicator and the Behaviour and Instructional Management Scale. Descriptive analysis and Fisher’s exact test were conducted to answer the research questions. The results showed that the extroverted–sensing–thinking–judging (ESTJ) type was the most frequent PT and the interactionalist approach was the major CMO among Iranian EFL teachers teaching at language institutes. The results enhance the understanding of EFL teachers and directors of language institutes on the PT as one crucial factor related to EFL teachers’ behaviour management approaches.
 
 Keywords: Classroom orientations, EFL, Iranian teachers, personality types, management orientations.

PurposeA significant research base has increasingly shown that one of the most important factors affecting student achievement in second language classrooms is the teacher. Consequently, over the recent decades, much attention has been paid to teacher-related variables in research. Nevertheless, few studies have dealt with the relationship between teachers' self-efficacy, metacognitive awareness and their professional development in the context of English as a foreign language (EFL). As such, the objective of this study is to test a path analysis model of the variables and specifically to examine the hypothesis that metacognitive awareness mediates the relationship between self-efficacy and professional development.Design/methodology/approachA quantitative correlational design was utilized to validate the research hypothesis. Then, data from 200 EFL teachers who were selected through available sampling was obtained using three questionnaires, namely metacognitive inventory by Cem Balcikanli, self-efficacy scale by Tschannen-Moran and Hoy and teachers' professional development inventory by Soodmand Afshar et al. The Pearson correlation coefficient of self-efficacy (r = 757, p < 0.000) revealed a significant positive relationship with metacognitive awareness, and the Pearson correlation coefficient of metacognitive awareness (r = 0.848, p < 0.000) showed a significant positive relationship with professional development.FindingsThe results showed the hypothetical model of the relationship among the research variables as well as verifying the mediator role of metacognitive awareness by multiple regression and path analysis. Then, the implications of metacognitive awareness, self-efficacy and professional development were put forward.Originality/valueThe majority of research on teacher professional development has focused appropriately on its relationship with components such as management training, teacher practice, reflective practice and academic achievement. In this line of research, the investigation of the potential links among self-efficacy, professional development and metacognitive awareness as interacting variables is scarce. More substantially, no prior exploration has been conducted concerning the mediating effect of metacognitive awareness in association with English teachers' self-efficacy and professional development.

IntroductionThis research aimed to investigate the influence of value congruence on EFL (English as a Foreign Language) teachers’ work engagement, with a focus on the mediating role of teacher enthusiasm.MethodsA sample of EFL teachers (N = 453) in China participated in the study. Data were collected using self-report measures, including the Value Congruence Scale, Teacher Enthusiasm Scale, and Work Engagement Scale. Structural equation modeling was employed to analyze the data and test the proposed model.ResultsThe results revealed that value congruence had a significant positive direct effect on work engagement. Furthermore, teacher enthusiasm was found to mediate the relationship between value congruence and work engagement.DiscussionThese findings suggest that when EFL teachers perceive a congruence between their personal values and the values upheld by their educational institutions, they are more likely to experience higher levels of work engagement, and this relationship is partially explained by their level of enthusiasm. The study contributes to the understanding of the factors that influence EFL teachers’ work engagement and highlights the importance of value congruence and teacher enthusiasm in fostering a positive work environment. These findings have implications for the development of interventions and practices aimed at enhancing EFL teachers’ well-being and job satisfaction.

Since Shulman (1986b) argued that pedagogical content knowledge (PCK) should be a significant indicator of teacher knowledge for quality teaching, PCK has received enormous attention from researchers in the teacher education field. Nevertheless, little empirical and theoretical attention has been given to English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ PCK growth in teachers’ collaborative learning activities (Li et al., 2021). In practice, collaborative learning groups for EFL teachers are often adopted as an effective teacher learning activity as it always integrates observations and discussions of real EFL teaching practices such as English teaching pedagogies and subject matters, for example. However, how EFL teachers’ collaborative learning promotes their PCK growth is less explored by empirical or theoretical studies and some teacher professional growth models. Therefore, this review will mainly discuss via existing literature how EFL teachers could increase their PCK in collaborative learning based on one particular teacher professional growth model, called the Interconnected Model of Professional Growth (IMPG) summarized by Clarke and Hollingsworth (2002). Since IMPG only generally summarizes teachers’ professional growth, this article aims to specifically elaborate the various trajectories of EFL teachers’ PCK growth. The significant role of three essential factors, namely, EFL teachers’ initiatives to learn/share, reciprocal mindset, and reflective dialogues in EFL teachers’ PCK development are stated in the paper. Several recommendations are made to EFL teachers, EFL teacher trainers, and EFL education programs.

Therefore, improving teachers’ language assessment literacy (LAL) is one of the most important factors in assuring the quality of language testing and assessment (LTA). Thus, this study aimed to investigate the perceived level of LAL among Saudi in-service English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers. Additionally, it aimed to identify the aspects of LAL that in-service EFL teachers wish to improve through further professional assessment training. Two research questions were formulated to achieve the study aims; a) what is the perceived level of LAL among Saudi in-service EFL teachers? b) What aspects of LAL do in-service EFL teachers wish to improve through further professional training? A questionnaire was administered to collect the data. Fifty EFL female instructors at King Abdulaziz University responded to the online questionnaire. To analyze the data, SPSS software was used. Regarding teachers’ perceived level of LAL, the results indicated that Saudi EFL teachers lack a well-developed knowledge of assessment literacy. The findings showed that the majority of the teachers received either no training or basic training in LAL. In regard to teachers’ training needs, the findings highligted that there is a need for training in nearly all the aspects of LAL, with priority being given to different content areas of LTA. Finally, the study recommended providing Saudi EFL teachers with sufficient professional language assessment training.

An important shift in teachers’ professional development has emerged since the rising popularity of Instagram. A plethora of educators has adopted this space in pursuit of connection, reflection, new meanings, and entrepreneurial success. English as a Foreign language (EFL) domain is exceptionally fruitful, numerous, and advantageous when compared to other educational settings promoted on this interactive platform. Drawing on seven in-depth interviews, this study uses Pollard’s theoretical framework to interpret EFL teachers’ perceptions of Instagram as a catalyst for reflective practice. This form of a condensed audit allowed for identifying myriads of benefits such as collaboration, teacherpreneurship, support, inclusiveness, problem-solving, action-orientedness, immediate feedback, and creative mediation. Hopefully, this study may better model teachers’ experiences through Instagram-mediated roads of professional development. Clearly, using Instagram for reflective practice turned out to significantly weigh against its limitations in the forms of time consumption and pressure exposure.

Despite the accumulated body of research on teachers' professional development few have offered a relationship between professional development and knowledge sharing or reflective practice. We investigated whether Iranian Teaching English as a foreign language (TEFL) teachers' reflective teaching and their knowledge sharing can predict their professional success. To answer the research questions a quantitative approach was utilized. Then, 264 faculty members through available sampling were recruited using three questionnaires, namely reflective teaching measurement scale by Akbari et al. (System, 38(2): 211-227, 2010), teacher professional development scale by Soodmand Afshar and Ghasemi (J Teach Lang Skills 37: 169-210, 2018), and Teachers' knowledge sharing behavior by Ramayah et al. (Eval Rev 38(2): 1-28, 2014). Findings showed that knowledge sharing has a significant relationship with professional development (P < 0.001). In addition, teachers' reflective practice has a significant relationship with professional development (P < 0.001). Based on the findings we suggest that TEFL teachers should promote their knowledge sharing and reflection to improve their professional development.

The current study probes into English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ conceptions of their professional development during practicum course. The study merits a mixed methods approach and has utilized both quantitative and qualitative data gathering and analysis. To gather quantitative data, 100 EFL teachers were asked to complete a questionnaire that measured their retrospective perceptions of the role of practicum in their professional development. To gather qualitative data, 20 student-teachers (STs) of Teaching English as Foreign Language (TEFL) were asked to write narrations while they were taking part in their practicum courses for two years. The results of quantitative data analysis revealed that the participants had roughly positive retrospective perceptions of the practicum course and its role in their professional development. It was also found that novice teachers (with 1-5 years of experience), those participants whose practicum course lasted longer (two semesters or longer), and those who had taken part in the practicum after teacher education curriculum change had more positive perceptions of the practicum course. The result of qualitative analysis revealed that STs were generally satisfied with the content, methodology and assessment of the practicum. They reported certain challenges they faced during the practicum including relation with cooperating teachers and their supervisors’ strictness. They also believed that the practicum helped them expand their pedagogical insights on EFL theories and practices, although they needed help on certain issues including assessment of students’ learning.