Perceptions of English Language Teachers on Their Own Professional Development

Abstract

As the nature of teaching requires teachers to engage in career-long professional development, teachers will only be able to fulfill their educational purposes if they are both well prepared for the profession and able to improve their contributions to it through career long learning. Life-long professional development is necessary for all teachers in order to keep up with change and to review and renew their own knowledge, skills and visions for good teaching. Teachers cannot be developed passively. For this reason it is crucial that they are centrally involved in decisions concerning the direction and process of their own learning. This study aims to investigate perceptions of professional development of English language teachers at an extensive English Program of Anadolu University. Teachers' attitudes towards their professional development, their perception of professional development activities and the factors that affect the growth in teachers were investigated. In order to collect data a questionnaire was administered to 68 English Language teachers and the findings will be explained on a paper presentation.