MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGUYEN THI ANH THU AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH TEACHERS’ PRACTICES OF USING INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN AS A TOOL FOR THEIR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AT TIEN GIANG UNIVERSITY MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: HUE, 2013 MINISTRY OF EDUCATION AND TRAINING HUE UNIVERSITY COLLEGE OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES ------------ NGUYEN THI ANH THU AN INVESTIGATION INTO ENGLISH TEACHERS’ PRACTICES OF USING INDIVIDUAL DEVELOPMENT PLAN AS A TOOL FOR THEIR PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AT TIEN GIANG UNIVERSITY FIELD OF STUDY: THEORY AND METHODOLOGY OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING CODE: 60.10 MA THESIS IN EDUCATION SUPERVISOR: ASSOC. DR TRUONG VIEN HUE, 2013 i BỘ GIÁO DỤC VÀ ĐÀO TẠO ĐẠI HỌC HUẾ TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC NGOẠI NGỮ -------- NGUYEN THI ANH THU NGHIÊN CỨU THỰC TẾ SỬ DỤNG KẾ HOẠCH PHÁT TRIỂN CÁ NHÂN NHƯ LÀ MỘT CÔNG CỤ PHÁT TRIỂN NGHIỆP VỤ CỦA GIÁO VIÊN TIẾNG ANH TẠI TRƯỜNG ĐẠI HỌC TIỀN GIANG CHUYÊN NGÀNH: LÝ LUẬN VÀ PHƯƠNG PHÁP DẠY - HỌC MÔN TIẾNG ANH MÃ SỐ: 60.10 LUẬN VĂN THẠC SĨ GIÁO DỤC HỌC NGƯỜI HƯỚNG DẪN KHOA HỌC: PGS. TRUONG VIEN HUẾ, 2013 ii STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP I hereby acknowledge that this study is mine. The data and the findings discussed in the thesis are true, and have not been published elsewhere.
Author Nguyen Thi Anh Thu iii ABSTRACT In the Vietnam EFL context, there are various activities English teachers may consider for their professional development. Each teacher has his/her own tools to improve their professional competence and to pursue their lifelong professional development. The Individual development plan (IDP) may be considered as one of the most effective, practical tools for teachers‟ professional development among the others such as action research, reflective teaching, teaching portfolios, workshops, collaborative work and classroom observation, etc. This thesis aims to explore the perceptions and reality of employing the IDP as a professional development tool of teachers of English at Tien Giang University.
The participants are twenty-five teachers of English at Tien Giang University. To conduct this investigation, Questionnaire and Interviews were used. The received data was converted into percentage and analyzed by SPSS program (Version 17. The results indicated that most English teachers feel the IDP in fact a useful tool.
They held positive perceptions and highly appreciated the significance of using the IDP as a professional development tool. However, there still existed some difficulties hindering their growth such as time constraint due to excessive workload and demanding teacher life. Based on the findings, suggestions are drawn out not only for teachers to carry out the IDP effectively but also for administrators as a concrete support for the progress of fulfilling the teachers‟ plans. iv ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This thesis would not have been completed without the supports and encouragements of a number of people.
I would like to express my first debt of deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Assoc. Dr Truong Vien, from Hue University College of Foreign Languages whose devotion, stimulating suggestions and encouragement helped me in all the time of research for and writing of this thesis. Additionally, the useful references he provided a long with his enthusiastic instruction and valuable feedback throughout the entire work helped raise my thesis to its present standard. Second, I am particularly grateful for the assistance given by Dr.
Annie Priest for spending her valuable time giving comments and editing my writing. Third, I would like to offer my special thanks to Assoc. Tran Van Phuoc, Assoc. Le Pham Hoai Huong, Dr.
Pham Hoa Hiep, Dr. Pham Thi Hong Nhung, Dr. Truong Bach Le, and Dr. Ton Nu Nhu Huong for their devotion during the post-graduate course in the academic year 2011-2013.
My colleagues from Tien Giang University participated in my research. I want to thank them for all their help, support, interest and valuable hints. I wish to send my last expression of greatest gratitude to my husband who shared me all the difficulties and housework to create me the most favorable conditions to take the MA course as well as to fulfill this thesis. v TABLE OF CONTENTS Pages Contents SUB COVER PAGE.
i STATEMENT OF AUTHORSHIP. v TABLE OF CONTENTS. vi LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES. x LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS.
xi CHAPTER 1 - INTRODUCTION. 4 CHAPTER 2 - LITERATURE REVIEW .1 Teacher Professional Development (PD) .1 Definition of Professional Development.2 The importance of Teacher Professional Development .2 Individual Development Plan (IDP) as an effective tool for PD .1 Definition of Individual Development Plan .2 Purpose of Individual Development Plan .3 Common PD tools/activities for teachers to employ in their IDP .1 IDP as a general personal professional development tools .8 Individual Development Plan .2 Group Professional Development tools .1 Collaborative Study Groups .4 Collaborative or Team Teaching .4 Conducting IDP at Tien Giang University. Participants and research site. Method of data analysis.
The research instrument for data collection. 28 CHAPTER 4 - FINDINGS AND DISCUSSION .1 English teachers‟ perceptions and reality of adopting individual development plan for their professional development.1 General perceptions of English teachers about professional development .2 English teachers‟ perceptions about individual development plan.3 The IDP activities that English teachers find beneficial to their career.4 The IDP activities that English teachers frequently use .2 The advantages and disadvantages of using IDP for PD .1 The advantages of using IDP for professional development .2 The disadvantages of using IDP for professional development .3 The suggestions of the English teachers for effective IDP practice .1 The suggestions for section of English .2 The suggestions for Tien Giang University .3 The suggestions for Tien Giang Department of Education and Training .4 Summary of the findings .5 Discussion on the findings .1 Teachers‟ perceptions of professional development and IDP tool .2 Teachers‟ perceptions and their actual use of some most common IDP activities .3 The advantages and disadvantages that the teachers face in IDP implementation. 52 CHAPTER 5 - CONCLUSSIONS AND IMPLICATIONS. Summary of the findings .1 Findings on the teachers‟ perceptions about doing IDP for PD .2 Findings on the reality of adopting individual development plan by EFL teachers for professional development .1 Implications for teachers .2 Implications for administrators.
Limitation of the study. Suggestion for further research. 68 APPENDIX 1: Individual Development Plan Form. 69 APPENDIX 3: Interview questions.
74 APPENDIX 4: Raw calculations of the questionnaire. 75 ix LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES LISTS OF TABLES Table 3.1 Profile of Participants .2 The six clusters of the questionnaire .1 Reliability Statistics of the questionnaire .2 The mean score of six clusters .3 The One Sample T-Test result of six clusters .4 The mean score and percentage of English teachers‟ perception toward the importance of professional development.5 The mean score and percentage of English teachers‟ perceptions toward the importance of IDP .6 Summary of English teachers‟ responses to each item in cluster 3 .7 The mean score and percentage of the advantages using IDP .8 The mean score and percentage of the disadvantages using IDP .47 LISTS OF FIGURES Figure 4.1 Using the Internet of English teachers .2 Using Reflective teaching of English teachers .3 English teachers‟ Class Observation .4 English teacher‟ conference /workshop attendance .5 Diary/journal using of English teachers .44 x LISTS OF ABBREVIATIONS 1. EFL: English as a Foreign Language 2. IDP: Individual Development Plan 3.
IDPs: Individual Development Plans 4. PD: Professional Development 5. PDP: Personal Development Plan 6. TPD: Teacher Professional Development xi CHAPTER 1 INTRODUCTION 1.1 Background Nowadays, no one can deny the fact that English is a means of international communication in most of the fields from daily life to politics, science, healthcare, etc.
The demand to study English is therefore more and more increasing. It urges English teachers to pursue non-stop learning to become qualified teachers. It is said that studies are like the drift boats that go upstream, if they do not move forward; surely they will be swept backward. This statement uses the simile to image the learning process of people with boats floating upstream, they do not stand at ease, but they come either forward or backward.
Being teachers, it does not mean we can stop our learning because knowledge is infinite, so vivid and changing, evolving. Every minute passes, so much new knowledge emerges into society; if we do not study, we will lag behind. Brown (1994, as cited in Pham, 2001, p.1) remarks: “[o]ne of the most interesting things about teaching is that you never stop learning”. Besides, there is a common saying that compares knowledge with the horizon, the more we go to it, the wider it becomes.
Accordingly, continuing professional development is considered as the task which any teacher, under any circumstance and condition, cannot ignore. The education and professional development of every teacher needs to be seen as a lifelong task. It is a key tool that keeps teachers abreast of current issues in education, helps them implement innovations, and refines their practice (Cook and Fine, 1996). According to Pham (2001, p.1), “teacher development is the process of lifelong learning in the teaching profession; it involves any activities aiming to achieve personal and professional growth for teachers”.
1 The importance of professional development was also discussed by many educators and linguists such as Guskey (2000), Head and Taylor (1997), Ur (1999). Studies of effective tools for teachers to use for their professional development are mentioned in Nunan (1989), Hopkins (1993), Freeman (1998), Diaz-Maggioli (2004), Bastida (1996). In Vietnam, Pham (2001) examines teacher training and teacher development and indicates that although “teacher development has been a familiar notion in the ELT profession for the last few decades; it is relatively new and receives insufficient attention in Vietnam.1) Among the tools that teachers can use for their professional development such as action research, reflective teaching, teaching portfolios, workshops, collaborative work and classroom observation, etc., individual development plan (IDP) or personal development plan (PDP) is considered as one of effective tools, a best practice for teachers‟ professional development (Noro and Charlotte, 2005). The IDP maps out the general path you want to take and helps match skills and strengths to your career choices.
Pohl (2010) asserts that the IDP “provides an opportunity for individuals to take responsibility for their own learning, professional development and growth” (p. However, documents of using individual plan as a professional tool, to my knowledge, have not still been found. It is also the motivation for me to do this investigation: An Investigation into English Teachers’ Practices of Using Individual Development Plan as a Tool for Their Professional Development at Tien Giang University.2 Rationale This study was carried out for the following reasons: First, professional development of teachers is a lifelong process which should begin with the individual development plan. Whenever a teacher has a positive awareness of the importance of professional development, he will think of a development plan for himself.
It is without doubt that every task will be done smoothly if it is carefully planned in advance. An individual development plan can outline what 2 career goals a teacher wants to accomplish and what steps he can take to meet those goals. An IDP can be a useful tool to guide development and assess progress toward career goals and objectives. Second, anecdotal evidence indicates that most teachers have done individual development plan at least once in their life through a variety of ways such as: thinking for some minutes about the goals they want to achieve at sometime beginning of a year or a new school year, doing the lesson plans that are suitable to new methods and to their proficiency, mapping out a teaching strategy for a specific group of students.
However, the IDP that the teachers have done is quite unprompted and informal. It has not got much attention from the school-based administrators.