Date

2016-06-15

Author

Tanrıverdi Köksal, Fatma
Daloğlu, Ayşegül

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Teaching is an occupation which requires lifelong learning (Kemp, Eaton, & Poole, 2008) in order to be able to keep up with the recent changes and help learners receive education appropriate to the context and time. In order to achieve this, teachers need to follow recent trends in educational approaches and implementations, share their ideas and experiences with their colleagues, and thus evaluate their own performance both as the teacher and the learner. For this reason, offering ongoing professional development opportunities such as in-service training to language teachers is essential for the institutions to help them become more effective teachers (Guskay, 1994, 2002) and equip them with the knowledge, experience and enthusiasm for following recent trends in language education and help learners receive proper instruction. With this aim, teachers are required to or voluntarily participate in training programs. However, the trainings offered to teachers either cannot address to their needs in their specific teaching context or teachers do not have much influence on the content of the training. Thus, the training received is usually perceived as a time and energy waste. Based on Knowles’ adult learning model, this mixed-method study aimed to investigate the professional development needs of language instructors working at a small-scale state university and assess their evaluations of the effectiveness of a training program designed considering their needs assessed. The Adult Education Theory, Andragogy discusses how adults learn (Knowles, 1989). Knowles, Holton and Swanson (2011) present major adult learning principles as (a) learner’s need to know why they learn what they learn, (b) self-concept of the learner, (c) learner’s prior experience, (d) learner’s readiness to learn, (e) orientation to learning, and (f) leaner’s motivation to learn. In Turkey, most of the studies investigating the needs of teachers are conducted at higher education institutions (e.g., Alan, 2003; Ekşi, 2010; Karaarslan, 2003; Kasapoğlu, 2002; Sahin, 2006). However, while planning a training program, teachers' needs are mostly ignored for some reasons such as the external trainers' not being familiar with the setting. To conclude, if we consider the professional development of teachers as an act of adult learning, it is suggested that the use of the principles of andragogy as the basis of the training planning and implementation can lead to positive results such as teacher motivation, student motivation, professional development of teachers, collaboration among teachers. This study adopted mixed approaches to data collection and analysis since the data collection instrument consisted of items that provided both quantitative and qualitative data. It was conducted at the School of Foreign languages at a small-scale Turkish state university which offers intensive language education to students prior to their education at their departments. This university was chosen considering the fact that no needs assessment has been conducted at this university, and no training have been offered to the language instructors considering their needs. For the implementation of andragogy to professional development activities, a cyclical rather than a linear model has been proposed in this study. It starts with the assessment of the needs. The next step is engaging teachers to create a strategy and resources for their professional development. The third step also requires the teachers to actively participate in the implementation of the strategy they create. In the fourth step, the teachers reflect on their learning and learning process which shed lights onto the further professional development activities. An email was sent to all the instructors working at this institution asking for their participation. Then, they completed a pre-test need assessment questionnaire before the training, received a three-day-long training designed according to their reported needs, and they were given a post-test evaluation questionnaire after the training (pre-test n=48, post-test n=36). The pre- and post-test questionnaires were sent and collected via email. The results of the needs assessment revealed that recent trends and teaching and assessing skills are common professional development need topics. As a common professional development practice, most of the instructors reported that they share their experiences with their colleagues while joining an online ELT discussion group was the least preferred professional development (PD) activity. They mostly reported that term breaks and summer holidays are the most appropriate time they would like to receive training. Moreover, most of the participants suggested that they would like to receive training from a trainer or an expert from an outside institution. Since the training was designed to address to the common and contemporary need areas reported by the participants, their post-evaluations revealed that the training was effective in a positive attitudinal change towards professional development activities

Subject Keywords

Adult learning, Andragogy, Professional development, Needs assessment, Training

URI

http://ejercongress.org/pdf/bildiriozetleri2016ejer.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/94989

Collections

Department of Modern Languages, Conference / Seminar