This study explores English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ experiences of Professional Development (PD) programmes in Egypt. The current study investigates the sample’s experience as learners, instructors, and as individuals in relation to different contexts that include the classroom, school, and PD. In addition, it identifies the views of other PD stakeholders, including parents, school principals, PD designers, and training providers. The study has four main aims:(1) to identify teachers’ needs, concerns, problems, challenges, and frustrations with their PD; (2) to provide insight into the English Language Teaching (ELT) class context and any hindering factors that contribute to unsatisfactory PD; (3) to identify contextual factors in the school environment that hinder EFL teachers’ PD; and (4) to investigate the views of PD stakeholders towards EFL teachers’ experiences of PD. The participants of this study are in-service EFL teachers who have attended, or are currently attending, at least one of four PD programmes in the Cairo and Giza governorates. The sample, representing Greater Cairo, was selected to include a mix of gender, academic backgrounds, varied years of experience, and a variety of governmental school districts. PD stakeholders were selected according to the nature of their work which is closely connected to PD and school as well as parents. The methodology adopted by the researcher broadly follows mixed methods methodology that uses a sequential mixed-methods approach. The data generation process combines Questionnaire, Journal Writing, Focus Groups and Individual Semi-Structured Interviews. Data is analyzed quantitatively using Statistical Package of Social Sciences (SPSS) software and qualitatively using exploratory content analysis. The study’s most significant finding was the impact the following have on PD: teachers’ classroom practice and pedagogy, their workloads and time pressures, the role of private tuition, separation between PD and class pedagogy, curriculum innovations, PD and quality standards, the size of classes and teachers’ relationships with students. The school context is a vital finding of the study; context includes the influences of school principals, supervisory practices, collegiality within the school, the influence of parents, and school libraries on the effectiveness of PD. A significant finding that emerged from the data analysis illustrates a major concern with EFL PD, particularly, the management of teachers’ PD. This emerging theme sheds light on PD and the Ministry of Education’s decisions, its centralization, bureaucracy, issues of favouritism, co-ordination between the different parties of schools, universities, training schools, and personnel, employment, or job-related issues. The findings of the current study have been discussed into five different categories with regard to EFL teachers’ PD: cultural, social, academic, affective and institutional domains. The study concludes with a number of potential fruitful implications and suggestions for further research.

The impact of technology in society nowadays has led to significant curricular reforms around the world that aim to achieve a higher quality in education. Mexico has not been the exception and in 2008, the Reforma Integral de la Educación Media Superior, RIEMS (the Comprehensive Reform of Upper Secondary Education) was launched with the aim to overcome three challenges in upper secondary education in Mexico: access to education, quality and equity. The proper development of this educational level would represent a fundamental assumption that the country could respond to the challenges of the global economy in a context of equity and diversity. In this context, the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in schools has become a required tool considered as the necessary action for the qualitative improvement of the teaching and learning process. This provides many possibilities, but also new demands. One of the most important challenges concerns the teaching task and the fact that teachers are required to play a different role from the traditional approach that they are used to using in class and which is common in classrooms in Mexico, becoming instead facilitators of the learning process. This thesis was carried out to explore how EFL teachers engage with ICT in their practice in the context of Mexican reform initiatives. Specifically, the study focused on teacher cognition to understand what teachers think, know, believe and do related to ICT adoption. A case study approach was used to collect data from three EFL teachers in a high school in Mexico through interviews, observations and stimulated recall sessions. The results show that the participant teachers face a challenging, complex, multifactorial situation that hinders their adoption of ICT. The organisational structures of schooling and the social dimension of the particular school setting impact negatively on the conceptions that teachers bring to their practice making it difficult for ICT tools to be explored and appropriated pedagogically.

The aim of this study is to: (1) examine whether non-native EFL teachers experience feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety; (2) investigate whether non-native EFL student teachers experience feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety; (3) examine how the participants’ feelings of foreign language teaching anxiety compared with other cultural groups in previous studies; and (4) examine how foreign language teaching anxiety affects foreign language classroom instruction. In total, 79 non-native EFL teachers and 131 non-native EFL student teachers participated in this study by completing a battery of questionnaires. The results indicated that both non-native EFL teachers and student teachers experience varying levels of foreign language teaching anxiety. However, foreign language teaching anxiety does not appear to have any effect on the foreign language teaching/learning activities the teachers or student teachers use in their classrooms. / text

The purpose of this research was to explore the overall perceptions of EFL teachers toward the extensive reading approach as they experienced the approach first hand. More particularly, EFL teachers’ perspectives on the applicability issues of extensive reading for secondary level curriculum in Korea were captured. Also, their personal experience with the approach, including the effect of extensive reading on their foreign language anxiety, was investigated. A total of fourteen teachers in a professional development program participated in the study. They were situated in a print-affluent classroom replete with approximately 1000 books including graded readers, young adult books, some magazines, best sellers and steady seller books. In the reading program, the teachers experienced sustained silent reading, and participated in classroom discussion and activities related to extensive reading. Also, these teachers were strongly encouraged to do outside reading. Data were collected from multiple sources to enhance the credibility of the study, that is, classroom observation including field notes and audio recordings, learner diaries, and interviews. Three surveys were also administered -- the Foreign Language Reading Anxiety Scale, The Teacher Foreign Language Anxiety Scale, and the Affective Questionnaire to Extensive Reading. The findings from the study showed that although the teachers were somewhat resistant to the idea of reading English-language books extensively prior to their participation, they became proponents of the approach once they had the experience of pleasure reading. They also expressed a fondness for graded readers and literature for young adults because of the simplified language and appealing themes that characterize such reading materials, and were willing to introduce them to students in secondary schools. Teachers also recognized the linguistic benefits of extensive reading including vocabulary expansion, positive reading attitude, and a sense of accomplishment from reading extensively. In terms of the applicability issue, however, the participating teachers recommended introducing the approach gradually rather than implementing it immediately, mainly because of the test-emphasized classroom culture of the secondary level curriculum in Korea. In a similar vein, teachers also addressed problematic factors that would be considered an obstacle to bringing the approach to the secondary curriculum. Those obstacles were problems related to curriculum and evaluation, motivating reluctant and struggling students, and teachers’ conflicted role in the extensive reading class. Therefore, as mentioned earlier, they proposed a gradual approach and the use of extra-curricular activities was mentioned as a possible first step to take. Regarding the effect of extensive reading on foreign language anxiety, the data from the scale and from interviews indicated that participating teachers were not highly anxious even prior to the program. / text

The present study observed the use of educational code-switching to the L1 (Arabic) among six Arabic EFL teachers at Majmaah University, in Saudi Arabia. It used an a priori set of purposes based on Creswell (2003) and derived categories to examine the linguistic, social, and class management purposes behind code-switching. The instrument consisted of two parts: a demographic questionnaire and an audio recorder used in conjunction with a classroom observation sheet. Although some studies have suggested that educational code-switching to the L1 in EFL classrooms is an unconscious act (e.g., Moghadam, Abdul Samad, & Shahraki, 2012), the present study's results concluded the reverse: that the use of educational code-switching could be interpreted as an intentional practice among teachers in EFL classrooms. The results provided a more in-depth understanding of the use of educational code-switching to the L1 (Arabic). They agreed with previous studies that have found such code-switching to be very common among EFL teachers. Although participants displayed different linguistic, social, and class management purposes, analysis of the data revealed that certain purposes were more common than others, with linguistic purposes being far more common than social, class management, or other purposes. The most common linguistic purpose was to explain new words, and for class management was to clarify activities/exercises. Only two purposes, to engage in small talk with students and to connect between sentences, could not be categorized into one of the three main types.

This is an empirical study based on English as a foreign language (EFL) teachers' experiences. The study is on Chinese EFL teachers’ usage of different oral corrective feedback (OCF) types as well as their own beliefs as to what strategies they make use of most frequently and what they do to improve their own OCF. Semi-structured interviews and non-participant observations were employed as instruments for the data collecting process. Four Chinese EFL teachers were interviewed, one male and three female, with varied amounts of professional experience and of different ages. Four observations were made in the classrooms of the same teachers as a supplement to the interviews. The interviews were analyzed by means of content analysis. The results indicate that Recast is the most commonly used feedback method and that the teachers had different thoughts on which feedback method was the most effective or the one they most frequently used. Furthermore, the results indicate that there are differences between teachers’ beliefs about their feedback strategies and the observation results. / Detta är en empirisk studie som bygger på intervjuer med och observationer av kinesiska lärare i engelska som främmande språk (EFS). Målet med studien var att få en uppfattning om kinesiska EFS-lärares användning av olika muntliga korrigerande feedbackmetoder (MKF) samt deras egna föreställningar om vilka strategier som de använder oftast och vad de strävar efter att förbättra i sina egna sätt att ge MKF. Semistrukturerade intervjuer och ickedeltagande observation användes som instrument under datainsamlingsprocessen. Fyra kinesiska EFS-lärare intervjuades, en manlig och tre kvinnliga lärare med varierande längd av yrkeserfarenhet och i olika åldrar. Fyra observationer gjordes även på samma lärares lektioner som ett komplement till intervjuerna. Intervjuerna analyserades utifrån metoder för innehållsanalys. Resultaten indikerar att omformulering är den mest använda feedbackmetoden och att lärarna hade delade åsikter om vilken feedbackmetod som är mest effektiv eller den som de själva använde mest. Vidare tyder resultaten på att det finns skillnader mellan lärarnas föreställningar om sina feedbackstrategier och observationsresultaten.

Technology advances at a fast rate and pupils encounter a larger amount of English outside school than they do in the EFL classroom. In addition, an update to the Swedish curriculum (LGR 11), that concerns digitalization takes effect in July this year (2018). That is why this thesis aims to explore Swedish EFL teachers’ use of pupils’ extramural (out-of-school) English experience of new media in the EFL classroom. New media is a means of mass communication, a product or service that provides entertainment or information through a computer or the Internet. New media is generally created by the users and for this thesis, relevant new media are social media, social networks sites, online streaming, fan sites and gaming. The results of this study show that about two-thirds of the 27 teachers surveyed in this study have used new media in their English teaching sometime in the last two years. Most of the teachers use it because they are interested in new media, to catch the attention of the pupils or because they find the content of new media useful for their teaching. One-third of the teachers did not use new media and reported that they did not have sufficient knowledge on how to use new media in their English teaching. The results also show that even though new media is used by many of these teachers, the use of it is basic and few reflections are made during the use of new media. Further research about why teachers lack knowledge and how the use of new media can be extended would arguably give a better understanding of teachers’ use of pupils’ extramural English experience of new media. / <p>Engelska</p>

In accordance with the governing documents of the Swedish upper secondary school, critical thinking must be promoted in all subjects. A great responsibility rests on the teachers to include this in their teaching. However, there is no clear definition of what is meant by critical thinking, which previous research has shown creates problems in the promotion of it. This study investigates how teachers in the Swedish upper secondary school (1) perceive and understand the concept of critical thinking, (2) implement it in their teaching and (3) answer to challenges they encounter in promoting it. Data were collected through a questionnaire and interviews. Thereafter, the data were analysed using both quantitative and qualitative methods. The results show that teachers highly value critical thinking and see it as an essential part of participation in society. It was also found that the teachers have different ways of implementing and encouraging critical thinking in the classroom but that dialogic methods are a common denominator. Moreover, the results show that students' lack of language skills as well as teachers' uncertainty about the concept of critical thinking impact the prerequisites of the promotion of critical thinking. On this basis, it is recommended that teachers work on their own definition and concept understanding of critical thinking for challenges that arise in their own teaching. Due to the size and design of this study, more research is needed to better understand English teachers' experiences with critical thinking in Swedish upper secondary education.

Reading English literature can help learners of English as a foreign language (EFL) to develop their reading ability as well as other language skills. Reading can also have other benefits for EFL students such as learning about the target language’s culture or learn about an English variety in written form. This present study investigates what types of literature are used in Swedish upper secondary school, the EFL teachers’ attitudes towards short stories compared to simplified novels/graded readers and their preferred assessment methods associated with literature teaching. The majority of the teachers that took part in this survey have a positive attitude towards short stories and use them in their EFL classes. The results also show that after the students have completed reading a short story, most of the teachers that participated in this survey preferred to combine examination methods such as a group discussion with a written test. The title of this paper comes from one of the informants’ comments when asked if she would rather use a short story or a graded reader in her English class. This informant had used graded readers in her English language classroom, but she and everyone that took part in this survey chose short stories over graded readers.

The aim of this study is to investigate the approaches to teaching fictional texts that are exercised by English teachers with the intention of gaining an insight to the purpose of fictional texts in the Swedish EFL classroom. The levels in focus are the lower and upper secondary schools. The study was conducted by using a qualitative approach, and the data was collected through interviews with eight currently active English teachers in the Swedish school system. The results of the study reveal that the participants find selecting fictional texts for classroom, as well as student use, arduous to some extent. Correspondingly, the findings also show that the purpose of using fictional texts in the EFL classroom is to develop students’ social and cultural awareness by reading literary works with the following themes: post-colonial areas, arranged marriages, war zones, divorce, friendship, bullying, love and gender, religion, racism and death.