MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ----- ----- NGUYEN THI LAN PHUONG AN INVESTIGATION INTO PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICE OF HANDLING CRITICAL INCIDENTS IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT BY LOWER SECONDARY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH IN KON TUM MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING HUE, 2013 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ----- ----- NGUYEN THI LAN PHUONG AN INVESTIGATION INTO PERCEPTIONS AND PRACTICE OF HANDLING CRITICAL INCIDENTS IN LANGUAGE CLASSROOMS FOR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT BY LOWER SECONDARY TEACHERS OF ENGLISH IN KON TUM MA THESIS IN THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60140111 SUPERVISOR: Assoc. TRUONG VIEN HUE, 2013 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ ----- ----- NGUYỄN THỊ LAN PHƯƠNG NGHIÊN CỨU NHẬN THỨC CỦA GIÁO VIÊN VÀ THỰC TẾ ÁP DỤNG VIỆC GIẢI QUYẾT CÁC SỰ CỐ TRONG LỚP HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ NHẰM PHÁT TRIỂN NGHIỆP VỤ TẠI CÁC TRƯỜNG THCS Ở TỈNH KON TUM LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY HỌC BỘ MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60140111 NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. TRƯƠNG VIÊN HUẾ, 2013 ii STATEMEMT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and findings discussed in the thesis are true, used with permission from associates and have not been published elsewhere.
Author Nguyen Thi Lan Phuong iii ABSTRACT Many researches about professional development tools have been carried out in Vietnam in recent years in order to improve teacher professional development and to deal with EFL classroom events. This study aims to investigate perceptions and practice of lower secondary teachers of English about the implementation of handling critical incidents in language classrooms for their professional development. The participants of the study were 40 lower secondary school teachers of English who were chosen from 6 lower secondary schools in Kon Tum Province. The data for this study were collected and analyzed based on both quantitative and qualitative approaches through questionnaires and in-depth interviews.
The findings indicated that nearly all lower secondary school English language teachers were well aware of the significance of handling critical incidents in their professional development and practice. They realized that they could benefit from handling critical incidents. The findings also revealed that teachers had positive attitudes towards the categories as well as the process of critical incidents. The results also showed that almost all teachers usually deal with critical incidents with different ways.
However, there still exist some difficulties impeding their way of critical incidents. Based on the results from the interview, some suggestions are drawn out for teachers to handle critical incidents more effectively. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Above all, I am deeply indebted to my supervisor, Assoc. Truong Vien for the invaluable knowledge and experience, the enthusiastic and helpful guidance, the responsible care as well as the sympathetic encouragement he has given to me at every stage of the development of this research paper.
Sincerely speaking, without him, the research paper cannot be completed. Also, my special thanks go to the teachers of English at lower secondary schools in Kon Tum province who generously and enthusiastically spent their time for my interviews and questionnaire to be conducted conveniently. Finally, from the bottom of my heart, I am deeply grateful to my beloved family, and my close friends who provided me with vital love, support and encouragement to help me overcome all the difficulties while I conducted this study. v v TABLE OF CONTENTS SUB COVER PAGE.
i STATEMEMT OF AUTHORSHIP. v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS. ix LIST OF TABLES.
x LIST OF CHARTS. Background of study. Rationale for the study. The aims and research questions of the study.
Significance of the study. Scope of the study. Structure of the study. Definitions of professional development.
What is professional development?. Why is teacher professional development necessary?. Activities for EFL teacher professional development. Teacher support groups.
What is a critical incident? .1 Benefits of handling critical incidents. Procedures used for handling critical incidents. Implementing critical incident handling. Overview of previous studies.
Participants and research sites. Data collection procedures. FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION. The reliability statistics of data collected from the questionnaire.
The pilot study. The main study. Findings and discussion. Teachers‟ perceptions on handling critical incidents.
Teachers‟ perceptions on professional development. Necessity and benefits of handling critical incidents for professional development. The content of handling critical incidents. Teachers‟ implementing handling critical incidents.
Frequency of handling critical incidents. The process of dealing with a critical incident. Difficulties for teachers to handle critical incidents. Results from the interviews.
Teachers‟ reflections on the three common critical incidents. Suggestions of interviewees for effective teachers‟ handling critical incidents. Teachers‟ perceptions on professional development. The content of handling critical incidents.
Teachers‟ implementing handling critical incidents. Some difficulties for teachers to handle critical incidents. Summary of the chapter. CONCLUSION AND IMPLICATIONS.
Summary of the key findings. What are teachers‟ perceptions of handling critical incidents for their professional development?. What is the reality of handling critical incidents by lower secondary teachers of English in Kon Tum?. What should be done to improve the quality of handling critical incidents for the teachers‟ professional development?.
Limitations of the study. Suggestions for further research. 65 viii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS EFL : English as a foreign language ELT : English Language Teaching ESL : English as a second Language ESP : English for Specific Purposes PD : Professional Development SPSS : Statistical Packages for Social Sciences ix LIST OF TABLES Table 3.1: Research sites and number of participants for questionnaire .2: Demographic characteristics of the participants to the questionnaire .3: Summary of the questionnaire .1: The reliability of pilot questionnaire .2: The reliability of questionnaire .3: Teachers‟ perceptions on handling critical incidents .4: Mean of teachers‟ perceptions for professional development .5: Teachers‟ perceptions on professional development .6: The mean score of the necessity and benefits of handling critical incidents .7: Mean scores of the necessity and benefits .8: The content of handling critical incidents.9: Mean scores of the content of handling critical incidents .10: Teachers‟ implementing handling critical incidents .11: Frequency of handling critical incidents .12: Percentages of the frequency of handling critical incidents .13: The process of dealing with a critical incident .14: Percentages of the process of handling critical incidents .15: Difficulties for teachers to handle critical incidents .16: Percentages of difficulties for teachers to handle critical incidents .40 x LIST OF CHARTS Chart 4. Teachers will know how to deal better with ethical dilemmas in the future .2: Percentages of the content of handling critical incidents (items 8, 9, 11, 12) .3: Mean scores of frequency of handling critical incidents .4: I implement all the steps above.5: Mean scores of difficulties for teachers to handle critical incidents .39 xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.
Background of study In the period of accelerated industrialization and modernization, integration and globalization, English plays an important role in the modern society. It has become an international language and a second language for many countries as well as millions of people all over the world. Therefore, studying English nowadays has become an essential demand for everyone and the whole society. Moreover, since Vietnam joined WTO, English has helped us to open a new way to join in the rhythm of the world‟s development and it has brought us the employment opportunities that we are looking for.
It is an indispensable integrated tool of Vietnamese people with the world. Realizing the importance of English, the Ministry of Education and Training decided to teach English in primary schools then gradually to take measures to improve the quality of teaching and learning English at High schools and at tertiary level. It becomes one of the main subjects in educational curricula of many public institutions. Therefore, to enhance teaching and learning English quality is necessary.
Clearly, teachers play a vital role in education to achieve that noble mission. The teachers decide directly the quality of training and are responsible for the success of their students. Therefore, teacher professional development is a necessary requirement in the educational development. The National Law of Education in Vietnam in 2005 defined that “the teaching of foreign languages in schools and other educational institutions should guarantee learners with continuing and effective learning process” (item 3, article 7).
As a teacher, no one can ignore the role of delivering knowledge to and educating students to become good scholars in the future to keep up with development of the society. Moreover, professional development is an activity relating to teacher‟s professional life and career. The teacher must constantly learn, improve experience, accumulate and use logical knowledge in his/her lectures to help students acquire the knowledge and insight most on the issue 1 mentioned in lectures. Consequently, teachers themselves are aware of the importance of professional development and consider professional development as a continuous process for their teaching life.
Moreover, one of the essential things that help improve the quality of teaching is ongoing teacher professional development, as Duong (2003) points out “Teacher development is one of the decisive factors for successful, effective and high quality education” (p. It enables teachers to change and grow, helping them put theories they have learned into practice and learned new theories and methods. Pham (2001) believed that “along with teachers training, teacher development must be a vital component in teacher education. Development fills the gap in training by giving teachers opportunities to reflect on classroom practice, gain insight into teaching experiences, view education as a long term process, and deal with change and divergence” (p.
Reflecting on classroom events helps teachers to improve their teaching. Teachers can learn more about their teaching, their learners, and themselves. Almost all teachers of English sometimes experience anxious or negative feelings about their students, their lessons or their colleagues. Sometimes, they do not know how to handle these issues.
Actually, one of the useful tools is handling critical incidents, which aims to identify the issue that has provoked strong feelings, reflect upon it in a structured way and consider possibilities for future action. With this background, this study aims at investigating perceptions and practice of handling critical incidents in language classrooms for professional development by Lower Secondary Teachers of English in Kon Tum. Raising awareness of professional development - a continuous career and all life of a teacher, and helping the lower secondary schools get more information and solutions to deal with classroom events are the focus of this study. Rationale for the study There are a number of reasons for this study.
Firstly, this study helps teachers of English to better understand the importance of professional development. Many English teachers have not been fully aware of the importance of professional development because they do not have condition to practice their profession. Some 2 teachers frequently consider “professional development as having little impact on their day-to-day responsibilities” and some “even consider it a waste of their time” (Guskey, 2000, p. Many activities for professional development were hold in EFL contexts like Vietnam, however, the quality of these professional development activities have still left much to be desired.
However, inadequate attention should be paid to professional knowledge in Vietnam. As Le (2000) points out, “during the training courses, Vietnamese teachers show great interest in new methodologies, but after they return from those courses, they continue teaching in their own way, using traditional methods” (p. Second, this study uncovers a deeper understanding of what is perceived as handling critical incidents and how such ideas are put into practice. Critical incidents are unplanned and unanticipated events that occur during a teacher‟s class.