TEACHER PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND THE NEED TO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT TRAINEES’ TEACHING EXPERIENCE AND CONTEXT

Abstract

Teacher professional development (PD) has been proved to be an important tool in implementing educational reforms or in imposing educational changes; however, the PD courses need to be carefully designed and implemented, taking into account the trainees’ work experience and learning needs in order to achieve expected results. This study discusses the effectiveness of the PD courses under the National Foreign Language 2020 Project. It is a mixed method study involving a questionnaire answered by 2034 primary school English teachers and following-up interviews with selected participants. The results indicate that although the majority teachers appreciated the opportunity to sit in the PD courses to upgrade their English knowledge and be introduced new language teaching methods, the majority of them could not make use of the knowledge they learnt when they returned to their teaching places. The lack of practice during PD courses, the ignorance of the real teaching contexts and circumstances of different teachers and also the ignorance of teachers’ experience are considered the major obstacles preventing these teachers from applying what they learnt into their everyday practices of teaching. It is suggested that future PD courses for English teachers in Vietnam should carefully take these factors into
consideration. Only by doing so, the practicality of these courses will be improved.