Acknowledgement
We would like to express our
sincerest appreciation to all those people who have assisted us to edit this
assignment from the beginning to the end of the research.
First and foremost, we would like to
profoundly thank our family; especially our parents who have given us birth and
care, and brought us up in a good environment.
Most importantly, we would like to thank
to our experienced, knowledgeable, and helpful lecturer, He Mary, who have provided us with a great deal of advice,
guidance, and the opportunity to write this assignment which we have never ever
tried before. Moreover, we would like to further thank to Mr. Som Mony and Mr.
Mao Saroeun who are kind and provide us a chance and time for interviewing and
some other related documents to produce this research paper.
Finally, in the research, we do not
forget to forgive some mistakes that we need further criticisms and suggestions
at any time in order to make this research paper more useful and meaningful for
other students and Cambodians using as a whole. However, we are looking
forwarding to getting feedbacks and constructive advices from you all.
Phnom Penh, November 13, 2012
MEY Sopheakdei
I.
Introduction
Throughout
history education is extremely important for human beings both mental and
physical development. However, the two main actors play key roles in education
system; they are receivers who are students and providers who are educators. The
beginning of the new millennium within the new era of globalization, many
societies are engaging with the education reform in which there are many
elements in the education reform needed to improve, but the essential element
is teacher’s ability improvement and the professional development of the
teachers.
Education is the most important level for the people in the world. We
believe that education plays a crucial role to fulfill our future goal in life.
However, this success is depending on how hard we put great effort on our
study, and we can have higher education if we have chance to go to
university and do our best to achieve the goal in study.
In Cambodia there are a lot of educational institutes and Paññāsāstra
University of Cambodia (PUC) is one of the most popular and qualified
university in Cambodia which has used English-based in all subjects. Since PUC was
started in 1997, its goal has wanted to be the first educational sector to
develop Cambodian education. When PUC was established there was not enough instructors
and students; however, nowadays, there are a lot of qualified and experienced
instructors and professors coming from local and overseas. Even though it was
started with one campus, now there are nine campuses in Cambodia included
two in the provinces- Siem Reap and Battambang. Moreover, Paññāsāstra University of Cambodia-Institute
of Foreign Language (PUC-IFL) has improved its quality, facility and curriculum
year by year. There are about 400 instructors who are both native and
international and there are 13886 enrolled students for English program.
According to this information, our group chose two instructors from PUC
to interview about their experience and strategies to find out how the teachers
of English develop their teaching development which is related to our topic
“what are the strategies of teaching professional development in PUC?” we are TESOL
students, and we will be teachers in the future, so we have to be qualified
enough in all kinds of skills in teaching, it is very essential factor to learn how
to be professional teachers. In other words, the curriculum is a statement of
the goals of learning that teachers have to follow the curriculum and provide
the best quality of learning, so the teachers should know better way how to develop
student’s education in class or what methods they should apply. Even though we
are graduated from very good university if we do not know the strategies to use
in the class, we cannot be professional teachers well. As the result, this
topic that we are going to find out how vital teacher professional development
in education and why the teachers should update themselves forever.
II.
Literature Review
There
are many scholars and authors defined the term “Teacher Development”. However,
teacher development is a kind of professional development in teaching career in
which it refers to the development of a person in his or her own professional
role in teaching. According to Glatthorn, teaching development is the
professional growth a teacher achieves as a result of gaining increased
experiences in his or her teaching. Actually, teaching development can be both
formal and informal experiences which a teacher retrain or participate in many
forms of seminar, workshop, or conference. However, watching any kinds of
documentaries related to academic educations can help a teacher develop his or
her professional skill as a professional teacher.
Furthermore,
the concept of teaching development is broader than career development in which
teaching development can be categorized into many characteristics such as
teachers are treated as the active learners who engaged with evaluation and
reflection of the teaching and teaching development is the long term process in
which teacher needed to retrain or participate in the form of seminar or
conference about teaching development.
However, teachers who are engaged in cycles of effective professional
learning take greater responsibility for the learning of all students; they do
not dismiss learning difficulties as an inevitable consequence of the home or
community environment. As they take more responsibility, and as they discover
that their new professional knowledge and practice are having a positive impact
on their students, they begin to feel more effective as teachers. Like greater
expectations, heightened responsibility is developed most effectively when
teachers observe that their new teaching practices are having positive impacts
on their students.
Teaching
development is kinds of building both on foundation of skills, knowledge, and
expertise and professional skills of teaching. However, professional
development must build upon the current foundation of basic skills, knowledge,
and areas of expertise of the educational personnel involved. Professional
development will link new knowledge and activities with what the practitioners
already know and are able to do, and will extend their thinking and all
teachers bring strengths to the profession and want their students to achieve
and feel successful; teachers will attempt new ways of teaching when they are
convinced that their students will benefit.
However,
the professional development is about teachers learning, learning how to learn,
and transforming their knowledge into practice for the benefit of their
students’ growth. Teacher professional learning is a complex process, which
requires cognitive and emotional involvement of teachers individually and
collectively, the capacity and willingness to examine where each one stands in
terms of convictions and beliefs and the perusal and enactment of appropriate
alternatives for improvement or change.[1]
Pettis
in Richards and Renandya, (2002) highlights three main areas such as first, to
be true professionals, teachers must constantly upgrade their knowledge and
apply this new knowledge to their teaching, second, a teacher’s professional
interests should change over time, progressing from a new teacher’s concerns of
what to teach? to being more concerned with the principles underlying
various teaching techniques, i.e. the how to..? or why..? and thirdly, that
professional development requires a constant, personal and ongoing commitment.
Moreover,
according to Jack C. Richards and Thomas S. C. Farrell on Professional
Development for Language Teachers stated (2005) that there many kinds of
resources or areas that teachers can build up their professional development
such as workshop, Self-monitoring, Teacher support groups, Keeping a teaching
journal, Peer observation, Teaching portfolios, Analyzing critical incidents,
Case analysis, Peer coaching, Team teaching, and Action research.
Furthermore,
successful teachers keep on learning and so they continues to develop their
professional skills and there are three factors that the teachers need to
improve such as: improving English proficiency and accuracy through reading
newspaper in English, listening to English on the radio, keeping a diary in
English, talking in English to other English teachers, translating in ones’
head, and talking to the students in English, improving teaching skills through
self-reflection, keeping a teaching diary, observing other teachers, and team
teaching, and improving the leadership through self-improvement and class
leadership (KAO Sophal, Introduction to TESOL, p. 92 &92). Whereas Sparks and Loucks-Horsley (1990)
proposed five models of what they called staff development: the individually
guided staff development model; the observation/assessment model; the
development/improvement process model; the training model; and the inquiry
model.
III.
Research Methodology
In the new era of globalization, education is
extremely crucial for human beings and effective learning and teaching of the students
and teachers is regarded in professional skills. Teaching and teacher
development is also important for educational career which will help the
students learn properly through professional skills and various techniques in
teaching. So, we would like to conduct the research on Teacher Development
because effective teaching and learning will be regarded in the teaching
professional skills and professional skills in teaching can provide effective
learning and effective teaching throughout all circumstances.
In order to complete this task in the research on
Teacher Development, we need to spend some times as follow, for the first week
we find out and surf the internet for
relevant documents through varies websites and including books, newspapers, and
second week, we collect all data and start to set up the specific source and create
the questionnaires for interviewing on the topic, the third week, after the
teacher correct the questionnaires, we prepared for interviewing the target
people who were guided by the professor. Later, we started writing the research
paper.
Teacher Development is important to human beings in
term of education, nowadays, become the critical thought among the other issues
in educational system in the modern education in which to research this kind of
Teacher Development has many important following objectives:
a.
To seek out the success and challenges of Teacher
Development through various factors.
b.
To explain the importance of Teacher Development for purpose
of effective learning and teaching.
c.
To find out the techniques how teacher can develop and
improve his or her professional skills in teaching.
To conduct the research on the topic “Teacher
Development” perfectly, we need to choose the major elements including the strategies
of a teacher uses to improve his or her professional skills in teaching.
IV.
Data Presentation
Throughout
the conduct of the research let us know that there are many approaches which
the teachers will be able to develop and improve their professional skills in
teaching. Those strategies include joining teaching development training
course, participating in seminars, conferences, and workshop. Moreover,
teachers can also improve and build up their professional development in
teaching skills through self-learning and self-development. In other words,
100% of them agree to use these strategies to develop themselves as teacher
development as follow:
Ø Workshop
participation: Workshop is an intensive, short-term learning activity
that is designed to provide an opportunity to acquire specific knowledge and
skills. Workshops can provide input from experts, offer teachers practical
classroom applications, raise teachers’ motivation, develop collegiality, can
support innovations and so on.
Ø Self-Monitoring and
Self-Reflection: self-monitoring is also a starting point in teacher development is an
awareness of what the teacher’s current knowledge, skills, and attitudes are
and the use of such information as a basis for self-appraisal. Self-monitoring
or self-observation refers to a systematic approach to the observation,
evaluation, and management of one’s own behavior in order to achieve a better
understanding and control over the behavior. Like other approaches to
reflective teaching, self-monitoring is based on the view that in order to
better understand one’s teaching and one’s own strengths and weaknesses as a
teacher, it is necessary to collect information about teaching behavior and
practices objectively and systematically and to use this information as a basis
for making decisions about whether there is anything that should be changed.
There are three approaches to self-monitoring of language lessons: lesson
reports, audio-recording a lesson, and video-recording a lesson. The Purpose
and benefits of self-monitoring are it allows the teacher to make a record of
teaching that he or she can use for a variety of purposes, it can also provide
an objective account of one’s teaching, it can help teachers better understand
their own instructional practices and make decisions about practices they are
not aware of and might wish to change, it can help teachers develop a more
reflective view of teaching, that is, to move from a level where they are
guided largely by impulse, intuition, or routine to a level where actions are
guided by reflection and self-awareness, it is teacher-initiated, and it
enables the teacher to arrive at his or her own judgments as to what works well
and what does not work so well in the classroom.
Ø Teacher Support Group: teacher support group
can be defined as two or more teachers collaborating to achieve either their
individual or shared goals or both on the assumption that working with a group
is usually more effective than working on one’s own and a support group
involves a group of teachers meeting to discuss goals, concerns, problems, and
experiences. The group provides a safe place where teachers can take part in
such activities as collaborating on curriculum and materials development, and
review, plan, and carry out activities such as peer coaching, team teaching,
action research, and classroom observation. The purposes and benefits of
teacher support groups are reviewing and reflecting on teaching, materials development,
trying out new teaching strategies, peer observation, observe videotapes, write
articles, and invite outside speaker.
Ø Teaching Journal: a teaching journal is an
ongoing written account of observations, reflections, and other thoughts about
teaching, usually in the form of a notebook, book, or electronic mode, which
serves as a source of discussion, reflection, or evaluation. The journal may be
used as a record of incidents, problems, and insights that occurred during
lessons; it may be an account of a class that the teacher would like to review
or return to later; or it may be a source of information that can be shared
with others.
Ø Peer Observation: peer observation refers
to a teacher or other observer closely watching and monitoring a language
lesson or part of a lesson in order to gain an understanding of some aspect of
teaching, learning, or classroom interaction.
Ø Teaching Portfolio: a teaching portfolio is
a collection of documents and other items that provides information about
different aspects of a teacher’s work. It serves to describe and document the
teacher’s performance, to facilitate professional development, and to provide a
basis for reflection and review. It is another form of teacher development that
is built around self-appraisal and teacher-directed learning.
Ø Peer Coaching: peer coaching is a
procedure in which two teachers collaborate to help one or both teachers
improve some aspect of their teaching. In peer coaching, a teacher and a
colleague plan a series of opportunities to explore the teacher’s teaching
collaboratively.
Ø Team Teaching: team teaching (sometimes
called pair teaching) is a process in which two or more teachers share the
responsibility for teaching a class. The teachers share responsibility for
planning the class or course, for teaching it, and for any follow-up work
associated with the class such as evaluation and assessment. It involves a
cycle of team planning, team teaching, and team follow-up.
Ø Reading Book: reading book is a kind
of strategies that the teachers use to improve to develop their professional
teaching skills. Reading book can provide the techniques of teaching skills and
other skills to help the teachers to improve and build up their teacher
development.
Ø Surfing the internet: of course, internet is
the rich resource for enlarge knowledge in term of professional development and
teacher development. In the modern world of technology, internet can
help teachers and other to improve and fulfill their knowledge.
More than these, they let
us know that teacher development is the most important course and strategy that
every teacher needs to develop and improve because professional skill in
teaching will lead to effective learning of the students and effective teaching
of the teacher. Moreover, this can fulfill the students’ needs and reflect the
outcome of the students.
In addition, the teachers
have to improve three factors such as improving English proficiency and
accuracy through reading newspaper in English, listening to English radio
broadcasting, keeping a diary in English, talking in English to other English
teachers, translating in ones’ head, and talking to the students in English,
improving teaching skills through self-reflection, keeping a teaching diary,
observing other teachers, and team teaching, and improving the leadership.
As mentioned above, the
teachers will be able to improve and develop their teaching skills through
improving English proficiency and accuracy, improving teaching skills and
improving leadership and in order to improve these factors teachers need to
participate in various workshops, seminars, and conferences or professional teaching
development training courses. Therefore, as teachers bear a key role in the
education of learners it is imperative that they give top priority to
professional growth. They should constantly be trying to find ways to improve
their knowledge, not only of their subject matter, but also of pedagogical
methodology.
V.
Conclusion and Recommendation
In conclusion, teacher development
is a kind of method use to describe the process of pursuing professional
development or personality ability development. Teacher Development generally
refers to general growth not focused on a specific job. It serves a longer-term
goal and seeks to facilitate growth of teachers’ understanding of teaching and
of themselves as teachers.
Moreover, strategies for
teacher development often involve documenting different kinds of teaching
practices; reflective analysis of teaching practices, examining beliefs,
values, and principles; conversation with peers on core issues; and
collaborating with peers on classroom projects. However, although many things
can be learned about teaching through self-observation and critical reflection,
many cannot, such as subject-matter knowledge, pedagogical expertise, and
understanding of curriculum and materials.
The weak points will be
improved when the teachers themselves know their weakness and strength and
there are many strategies that the teachers can use to improve and develop
their professional skills in teaching such as improving English proficiency
and accuracy through reading newspaper in English, listening to English on the
radio, keeping a diary in English, talking in English to other English
teachers, translating in ones’ head, and talking to the students in English,
improving teaching skills through self-reflection, keeping a teaching diary, observing
other teachers, and team teaching, and improving the leadership.
Throughout our research,
there are many strategies that the teachers can use to build up and develop
teaching profession skills such as workshop participation, self-monitoring and self-reflection
teacher support group, teaching journal peer observation, teaching portfolio peer
coaching, team teaching reading book, and surfing the internet. In order to be
a professional teacher in term of language education, teachers have to know themselves
that it is crucial to learn those new techniques and strategies of teaching. In
this research is conducted in the small scale, so this research is regarded as
non-reliable resource and we would like to recommend to others who want to
conduct on this research topic ones will be able conduct more research to make
this one to be reliable and resourceful for everyone in the future.
VI.
Research Questionnaires:
Questionnaire
Objective:
The interview questions below are designed to find out how the teachers develop
their professional skills in term of education and teaching.
1.
How old are you?
………………………………………………………………………………………………
2.
Is your major in TESOL?
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
3.
Which course or level do you teach?
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
4.
What does a teacher need to know at the beginning of
teaching?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
5.
How is the new teacher able to develop his or her
professional teaching skills?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
6.
What is the importance of teacher’s ability development?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
7.
Does the teacher professional development have any
impacts on students’ learning? Why?
………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
8.
Are there any strategies that the teacher can develop or
improve his or her professional skills?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
Questionnaire
Objective:
The interview questions below are designed to find out how the teachers develop
their professional skills in term of education and teaching.
1.
How old are you?
………………………………………………………………………………………………
2.
Is your major in TESOL?
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
3.
Which course or level do you teach?
……………………………………………………………………………………………….
4.
What does a teacher need to know at the beginning of
teaching?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
5.
How is the new teacher able to develop his or her
professional teaching skills?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
6.
What is the importance of teacher’s ability development?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
7.
Does the teacher professional development have any
impacts on students’ learning? Why?
…………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
8.
Are there any strategies that the teacher can develop or
improve his or her professional skills?
……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………
VII.
References:
1. Kao Sophal, TEACHER PROFESSIONAL
DEVELOPMENT: Self-directed Methods of Teachers of Public and Private Higher
Education Institutions in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, 2012
2. KAO Sophal, Introduction to
TESOL, page 92 &93, 2010
3. Jack C. Richards &Thomas S.
C. Farrell, Professional Development for Language Teachers
“Strategies for Teacher Learning”, 2005
4. Christopher Day and Judyth
Sachs, International Handbook on the
Continuing Professional Development of Teachers, 2004
5. Barbara B. Levin, Energizing Teacher Education
and Professional Development with Problem-Based Learning, 2001
6. Andy Howes, S.M.B. Davies and
Sam Fox, Personalizing teacher
development through collaborative action research, 2009
7. Sara Bubb, The Insider’s Guide to Early
Professional Development: Succeed in your first five years as a teacher, 2004s
[1] Beatrice Avalos, Centre for Advanced
Research in Education, University of Chile, Alsacia 150, Depto. 33, Las Condes,
Santiago, Chile
