Development of EFL Teachers’ Engagement and Professional Identity: The Effect of Discussing Teacher Competences via E- Collaborative Discussion Forum

Subject Areas : All areas of language and translation

Masoumeh  Ghamoushi ¹ (PhD candidate, English Translation and Teaching Department, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran)
Zohre  Mohamadi Zenouzagh ² (Associate Professor, English Translation and Teaching Department, Karaj Branch, Islamic Azad University, Karaj, Iran)

Received: 2021-01-13 Accepted : 2021-01-13 Published : 2020-10-01

Keywords: Teacher professional identity, E-collaborative discussion, Teacher competences, Teacher development, Teacher engagement,

Abstract :

This study is a mixed method research that investigated the effect of electronic collaborative discussion forum on Iranian EFL teachers' engagement and professional identity and their development in terms of teachers‘ competences as they were engaged in collaborative teacher inquiry. For this purpose, 5 EFL teachers participated in 11 online forum discussion sessions. Before participating in discussions, their lev- el of engagement and professional identity were examined through administering two questionnaires. In order to investigate the effect of e-collaborative discussions, multidimensional scale of teacher engage- ment and questionnaire for investigating teacher's professional identity were administered twice in pretest and posttest. The results of Wilcoxon signed rank tests revealed significant difference from pretest to- wards posttest in teachers' engagement and professional identity. The content of the participants' discus- sion on an online forum was analyzed using Nvivo software through which categories and subcategories that indicate teacher competences emerged deductively. The major categories are technical competence, critical competence, personal competence and clinical competence. These four major categories include subcategories that represent teacher professional development. In the light of the results, important impli- cations are suggested for teaching practitioners.

References:

Abednia, A. (2012). Teachers‘ professional identity: Contributions of a critical EFL teacher education course in Iran. Teaching and Teacher Education, 28(5), 706-717.

Avalos, B. (2011). Teacher professional development in teaching and teacher education over ten years.Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(1), 10-20.

Bakker, A. , Albrecht, S., & Leiter, M. (2011). Key questions regarding work engagement. European journal of work organizational psychology, 20(1), 4-28.

Beijaard, D., Meijer, P. , & Verloop, N. (2004). Reconsidering research on teachers‘ professional identity. Teaching teacher education, 20(2), 107-128.

Beijaard, D., Verloop, N., & Vermunt, J. (2000). Teachers‘ perceptions of professional identity: An exploratory study from a personal knowledge perspective. Teaching and Teacher Education, 16 (7), 749-764.

Blašková, M., Blaško, R., Kucharčíková, A., & Sciences, B. (2014). Competences and competence model of university teachers. Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, 159 (23), 457-467.

Borup, J., Graham, C., & Drysdale, J. (2014). The nature of teacher engagement at an online high school. British Journal of Educational Technology, 45(5), 793-806.

Brindley, S. (2015). A critical investigation of the role of teacher research and its relationship to teacher professionalism, knowledge and identity. UCL Institute of Education,

Chong, S., & Low, E. (2009). Why I want to teach and how I feel about teaching—formation of teacher identity from pre-service to the beginning teacher phase. Educational Research for Policy, Practice, 8(1), 59.

Creswell, J. (2014). Research design: qualitative, quantitative and mixed method approaches( 4th ed). London : Sage.

Drakulić, M. (2013). Foreign language teacher competences as perceived by English language and literature students.The Journal of Education, Culture, and Society, (1), 158-165.

Dunphy, B., Dunphy, S. (2003). Assisted performance and the zone of proximal development (ZPD); a potential framework for providing surgical education. Australian Journal of Educational & Developmental Psychology, 3, 48-58.

Duţă, N., Pânişoară, G., Pânişoară, I. (2014). The profile of the teaching profession– empirical reflections on the development of the competences of university teachers. Procedia- Social and Behavioral Sciences, 140, 390-395.

El-Hani, C., & Greca, I. (2013). ComPratica: A virtual community of practice for promoting biology teachers‘ professional development in Brazil. Research in Science Education, 43(4), 1327-1359.

Farrell,

T. (2013). Reflective practice in ESL teacher development groups: From practices to principles: Springer.

Gee, J. P. (2000). Chapter 3: Identity as an analytic lens for research in education. Review of Research in Education, 25(1), 99-125.

Geijsel, F., & Meijers, F. (2005). Identity learning: The core process of educational change. Educational Studies, 31(4), 419-430.

Gibb, S. (2011). Human resource development: foundations, process, context: Macmillan International Higher Education.

González, G., & Skultety, L. (2018). Teacher learning in a combined professional development intervention. Teaching and Teacher Education, 71, 341-354.

Kangas, M., Siklander, P., Randolph, J., & Ruokamo, H. (2017). Teachers' engagement and students' satisfaction with a playful learning environment. Teaching and Teacher Education, 63, 274-284.

Karimi, M. N., & Mofidi, M. J. S. (2019). L2 teacher identity development: An activity theoretic perspective. System,81, 122-134.

Klassen, R. M., Aldhafri, S., Mansfield, C., Purwanto, E., Siu, A., Wong, M., & Woods-McConney, A. (2012). Teachers‘ engagement at work: An international validation study. Journal of Experimental Education, 80(4), 317-337.

Klassen, R., Yerdelen, S., & Durksen, T. (2013). Measuring Teacher Engagement: Development of the Engaged Teachers Scale (ETS). Frontline Learning Research, 1(2), 33-52.

Lasky, S. (2005). A sociocultural approach to understanding teacher identity, agency and professional vulnerability in a context of secondary school reform. Teaching and teacher education,21(8), 899-916.

Lee, K., Brett, C. (2015). Dialogic understanding of teachers' online transformative learning: A qualitative case study of teacher discussions in a graduate-level online course. Teaching and Teacher Education, 46, 72-83.

Little, J. (1987). Teachers as colleagues. In V. Richardson-Koehler (Ed.), Educators handbook (pp. 491-517). New York: Longman.

Mohamadi, Z., & Malekshahi, N. (2018). Designing and validating a potential formative evaluation inventory for teacher competences. Language Testing in Asia, 8(1), 6.

Nguyen, C. (2016). Metaphors as a window into identity: A study of teachers of English to young learners in Vietnam. System,60, 66- 78.