MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING CAO THI NHU NGOC HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ CAO THI NHU NGOC MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS COMMON PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES AT SOME SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN HUE CITY MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING In partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Hue University of Foreign Languages HUE, 2018 HUE, 2018 4B/100TR MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ CAO THI NHU NGOC AN INVESTIGATION INTO EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS TOWARDS COMMON PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES AT SOME SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN HUE CITY MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60. LE PHAM HOAI HUONG HUE, 2018 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƢỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------- CAO THỊ NHƢ NGỌC NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH VỀ NHỮNG HOẠT ĐỘNG PHÁT TRIỂN NGHIỆP VỤ PHỔ BIẾN TẠI MỘT SỐ TRƢỜNG TRUNG HỌC CƠ SỞ Ở THÀNH PHỐ HUẾ LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƢƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.11 NGƢỜI HƢỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. LÊ PHẠM HOÀI HƢƠNG HUẾ, 2018 ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP This work has not previously been submitted for a degree or diploma in any university. To the best of my knowledge and belief, the thesis contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference is made in the thesis itself.
Date: 5 / 12 / 2018 Signature Cao Thi Nhu Ngoc iii ABSTRACT Professional development (PD) can be considered as one of the vital activities for the teaching advancement of EFL teachers. However, there has been little research conducted on EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards PD activities for EFL teachers‟ teaching development at some secondary schools in Hue city. Therefore, as an attempt to contribute to gaining more insights into common PD activities, this study was set out to further understanding of EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards common PD activities at some secondary schools in Hue city. This study dealt with (1) EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards the necessity of common PD activities, (2) the practice of common PD activities of EFL teachers and (3) the difficulties that they face in practicing common PD activities in their own teaching.
Questionnaire was employed as a data collection instrument of the study and was completed by fifty EFL teachers at ten secondary schools in Hue city. Interview aimed to qualify data gained from the questionnaires and was participated by twenty EFL teachers. Quantitative methods were used to analyze data chiefly collected through the questionnaire according to Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) software version 22. The results indicate that most EFL teachers had positive attitudes towards the necessity of common PD activities and they had different opinions about the reality of practicing common PD activities at their secondary schools.
Specially, in reality, team teaching activities and using peer observations were paid more attention to than the others. Frequent use of common PD activities such as recording their lessons, participating in formal activities or talking to colleagues and mentoring activity was also reported. Additionally, the study shows that EFL teachers faced challenges in the practice of common PD activities such as lack of knowledge in teaching strategies, lack of motivation, inadequate educational technology and lack of collaboration between EFL teachers and the main factor was lack of time. Based on the results, the study provides some implications and makes suggestions for helping EFL teachers in the PD.
Key words: common PD activities, EFL teachers‟ perceptions iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I would like to acknowledge the following people for their support, guidance and help throughout the entire process of this research paper. Above all, I wish to express my sincerest gratitude and appreciation to my supervisor Assoc. Le Pham Hoai Huong who assisted me in the early stages of my research proposal and offered valuable advice. She not only guided me how to write up the study, how to find materials relating to common PD activities but also would be ready to arrange her time to read, re-read, proofread and advise me on my writing and gave me her feedback as soon as possible.
I greatly acknowledged her whole-hearted supervision. Secondly, I am greatly indebted to my dear mentor, Assoc. Truong Vien for his precious guidance, his time and feedback in the journey to complete my research paper. I am indebted to him for his guiding me how to analyze the data by using SPSS software and for his experience and sharing.
His dedication and enthusiasm are unmatchable. With warm feelings I acknowledge the support of all the lecturers at Hue University of Foreign Languages who taught me invaluable lessons about research, statistical analysis, the power of the written word and encouraged me to conduct this research paper. My research paper is incomplete without full cooperation from the participants. My thanks also go to the EFL teachers at some secondary schools in Hue city for their helpful cooperation.
Last but not least, I owe a great deal to my family and my friends for their love and support. Without their help and encouragement, my research paper would not have been possible. v TABLE OF CONTENTS STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP .v LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. viii LIST OF FIGURES.
Scope of the thesis. Organization of the thesis .4 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW. Definition of professional development. Significance of professional development.
Common professional development activities. Conferences/Workshops/Seminars. Difficulties in practicing common professional activities .17 vi CHAPTER 3: METHODOLOGY. Participants and Settings.
Procedure of the study.24 CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. Findings from questionnaire data. Findings from interview data .45 CHAPTER 5; CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of key findings.
For EFL teachers. Limitations of the study .63 vii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL : English as a Foreign Language ESL : English as a Second Language NFL : National Foreign Languages PD : Professional Development SPSS : Statistical Package for Social Sciences TEFL : Teaching English as a Foreign Language TESL : Teaching English as a Second Language viii LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Background information of the participants Table 3.2: Research sites and the number of returned questionnaires Table 3.3: Summary of the questionnaire Table 3.4: Time of research activities Table 4.1: Reliability of the questionnaires Table 4.2: Mean score for EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards the necessity of PD Table 4.3: One-Sample T Test of EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards the necessity of PD Table 4.4: Descriptive statistics of EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards the necessity of PD Table 4.5: Mean score for EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards the necessity of common PD activities Table 4.6: One-Sample T Test of EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards the necessity of common PD activities Table 4.7: Descriptive statistics of EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards the necessity of common PD activities Table 4.8: One-Sample T Test of being excited and motivated in formal activities (Q10) Table 4.9: Mean score for reality of practicing common PD activities Table 4.10: One-Sample T Test of reality of practicing common PD activities Table 4.11: Descriptive statistics of reality in practicing common PD activities Table 4.12: One-Sample T Test of EFL teachers‟ listening to colleagues‟ ideas, feelings or problems (Q22) Table 4.13: Mean score for difficulties in practicing common PD activities by EFL teachers Table 4.14: One-Sample T Test of difficulties in practicing common PD activities by EFL teachers ix Table 4.15: Descriptive statistics of difficulties in practicing common PD activities by EFL teachers Table 4.16: One-Sample T test of the implementation common PD activities with limited financial support from administrators (Q29) Table 4.17: Descriptive statistics of four clusters LIST OF FIGURES Figure 4.1: Thinking and practicing Figure 4.2: Mean scores of four clusters x CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION This chapter first explains the purpose of the study, including the rationale and the aims of the study, from that, it provides research questions and significance of the study based on those aims. The chapter ends with organization of the study. Rationale Social context Nowadays, a growing number of people believe that English can be used as an international language dominating almost all relationships between countries in the world.
In Vietnam context, like Le (2002) pointed out that English has become the first foreign language in schools as well as universities and it is important that English has been taught as a compulsory subject. While the expectations for English language competence in Vietnam society have grown, EFL teachers‟ PD have lagged behind. Similarly, reality also shows that language teachers at some secondary schools were not given adequate training in TEFL in order to catch up with modern teaching methodology (Pham, 2001) due to several reasons they encounter such as lack of resources, funding or motivation. Hence, the importance of PD for EFL teachers is considered to be one of the most important factors in maintaining and improving teachers‟ qualities.
Professional requirements EFL teachers‟ perceptions towards PD have greatly changed in recent years. Accordingly, there are a wide range of reasons why PD in language teaching should 1 be appreciated and why EFL teachers need to engage in common PD activities in order to update their knowledge and skills. First of all, there is no denying that PD is playing a more and more crucial role for gaining subject-specific knowledge (Dadds, 2001), using appropriate pedagogical practices (Darling-Hammond & McLaughlin, 1995; Schifter et al., 1999), developing positive attitudes towards teaching (Cobb, 2000), and ultimately improving the learning of students (Villegas-Reimers, 2003). That is the reason why the findings related to students‟ performance found teachers‟ quality to be a strong predictor for students‟ achievement (Darling-Hammond, 2000, 2008, 2012; Lieberman & Darling-Hammond, 2011; Marzano, Pickering, & Pollock, 2010).
As a result, the teachers need to increase their ability in communicating with each other, thinking critically and solving problems in the process of language teaching because teachers‟ quality play a vital role in the progression of positive students‟ results (Rivkin, Hanushek, & Kain, 2005) Secondly, having positive attitudes towards common PD activities encourages EFL teachers to pursue life-long teaching and it is a vital key to motivate their students and keep them involved in the process of language learning. However, common PD activities implementation can be ineffective for EFL teachers because “the knowledge transmitted is generally conceptually and practically far removed from the contexts of the teachers, and the situational factors affecting teachers‟ classroom practices are not considered” (Kırkgöz, 2013, p. Consequently, improving skills, accumulating knowledge and experiences, fully and adequately understanding the importance of PD are very crucial. Institutional context in Hue city There are a lot of different forms of common PD activities such as international conferences on language education, seminars on practical activities for language classrooms that EFL teachers can pursue.
In addition, a great number of studies have been conducted on English language teachers‟ PD in order to help them accumulate knowledge about successful practices and implementation of 2 instructional strategies and technology in their classrooms (National Staff Development Council, 2001, p. An obvious example is that in some high schools in Hue city, classroom observation activities are regarded as an effective tool for PD if they are implemented in a satisfactory way. However, many teachers did not conduct this activity in an organized and effective way (Truong, 2012). From the reality, EFL teachers‟ perception of the necessity of PD as well as common PD activities, it is necessary, therefore, need to be investigated.
Hence, the purpose of my study is to investigate in-depth common PD activities from the perspective of EFL teachers at some secondary schools in Hue city. Through an exploration of their experiences, I expect to develop a better understanding of how common PD activities can support them not only inside but also outside classroom.