tailieunhanh - Common professional development activities: Perceptions of EFL teachers at some lower secondary schools in Hue city

The study aims to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions towards common professional development activities at some lower secondary schools in Hue city. A survey questionnaire was conducted to gain responses from fifty EFL teachers at different lower secondary schools in Hue city. | COMMON PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT ACTIVITIES: PERCEPTIONS OF EFL TEACHERS AT SOME LOWER SECONDARY SCHOOLS IN HUE CITY CAO THI NHU NGOC1 LE PHAM HOAI HUONG2, TRUONG VIEN3 University of Foreign Languages, Hue University 1 Email: caothinhungoc@ 2 Email: quangandhuong@ 3 Email: truongviensp@ Abstract: The study aims to explore EFL teachers’ perceptions towards common professional development activities at some lower secondary schools in Hue city. A survey questionnaire was conducted to gain responses from fifty EFL teachers at different lower secondary schools in Hue city. The second instrument of interview was employed to qualify data obtained from the questionnaire, and participated by twenty teachers. The findings indicate that most EFL teachers had positive attitudes towards the necessity of common professional development (PD) activities and they had different opinions about the reality of practicing common PD activities at their lower secondary schools. Specially, team teaching activities, using peer observations were paid more attention to than the others. Frequent use of common PD activities such as keeping diaries or recording the lessons, participating in academic activities or engaging in discussion groups and mentoring activity was also reported. Furthermore, the study also shows that there were some factors hindering the practice of common PD activities such as lack of knowledge, lack of motivation, inadequate educational technology and lack of collaboration between EFL teachers and the main factor was lack of time. Keywords: EFL teachers’ perceptions, common PD activities 1. INTRODUCTION The necessity for on-going teacher education has been a major issue in language teaching circles in recent years [19] The development of modern English language teaching approaches together with the integration of technology in language classroom has pressured EFL teachers into developing themselves in response to these changes. The importance of