Iranian EFL Teachers' Attitudes towards the Effectiveness of ELT Conferences
الموضوعات :
Ebrahim Mohammadkarimi
1
(
Department of English Language Teaching, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
)
Javad Gholami
2
(
Department of English Language Teaching, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
)
Mehdi Sarkhosh
3
(
Department of English Language Teaching, Urmia University, Urmia, Iran
)
الکلمات المفتاحية: Professional Development, ELT conferences, teachers' attitude, teaching practices,
ملخص المقالة :
This study was an attempt to evaluate the attitude of Iranian conference participants regarding the effect of ELT conferences on their professional development and teaching practices. To this end, an appropriate questionnaire was administered to 192 conference participants selected through convenience sampling. The collected data was statistically analyzed, and the obtained results revealed that the participants believed that ELT conferences in Iran have positive effects on the participants' professional development and teaching practices in terms of familiarity with the existing trends in the ELT, motivation for conducting further studies and application of conference materials in their teaching. The results also showed that the participants noted a number of drawbacks in such events, including the low quality of papers and presentations, attendance just for the sake of getting a certificate, and theoretical rather than practical orientation, which might be the cause of demotivation for teachers to attend upcoming conferences. To remove these drawbacks, the participants offered some suggestions such as providing guidelines for presentations and double-blind review papers, holding more workshops, internationalizing the conferences, and attracting more keynote speakers and foreign presenters.
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