Motoes

ព្យាយាម អប់រំ ជោគជ័យ
EFFORT EDUCATION SUCCESS

Friday, August 23, 2013

Professional Development in Lanuage Teaching


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

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