He Effects Of School-based Professional Development Workshops On English Language Teachers Beliefs And Their Classroom Practices An Inductive Grammar Teaching Approach In Focus

The Effects of School-based Professional Development Workshops on English Language Teachers’ rnBeliefs and Their Classroom Practices: An Inductive Grammar Teaching Approach in Focus rnAugna Guade rnAddis Ababa University, 2020 rnirn rn rn rn This study mainly aimed at investigating the effects of school-based professional development workshops on rnsecondary and preparatory school EFL teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and their grammar teaching approaches.rnIt set out to investigate the extent to which the school-based professional development workshop that dealt withrnan inductive grammar teaching approach shaped or changed the teachers’ pedagogical beliefs and theirrngrammar teaching approaches. It further targeted at exploring the teachers’ pedagogical beliefs about therneffects of professional development workshops on their classroom practices. In order to achieve the intendedrnobjectives, this study employed a mixed methods design involving both the quantitative and qualitative methodsrnin two phases to study the issues under investigation in detail. The quantitative data in phase I were presentedrnprior to the qualitative part based on the data collection procedure. Two types of questionnaires (survey andrnworkshop evaluation questionnaires), classroom observations, interviews and research journal were used torncollect sufficient data for this study. To obtain reliable outcomes, the validity and reliability of the tools werernchecked through reviewers and data analyses during the pilot study. Based on the lessons obtained from thernpilot study, the tools were revised again and improved for the main study. In the first phase of this study, thernquantitative data were collected through a belief inventory survey questionnaire from eighty-six sample teachersrnin twelve randomly selected government schools in Addis Ababa. The data collected through this instrumentrnwere organized and analyzed quantitatively with the help of the Statistical Package for the Social Sciencesrn(SPSS) version 20.The statistical analyses carried out on the data focused on computing descriptive statistics,rnparticularly the mean and grand mean values of the questionnaire items. The survey questionnaire data in thernfirst phase of the study indicated that the EFL teachers participating in the study believed in the effectiveness ofrnprofessional development workshops to improve their classroom practices. In the second phase, which was arncase study part, the qualitative data were collected from four EFL teachers selected from Bole PreparatoryrnSchool based on convenience sampling - four out of eighty-six participant teachers. In this phase, the case studyrnteachers were observed two-three times (a total of eleven videotaped classroom observations) and interviewedrnonce before the workshop was provided. The classroom observation data obtained from this phase werernanalyzed descriptively case by case based on Pearson’s approach and the PPP (presentation-practiceproduction)rnprocedurernsuggestedrnbyrnHedgernandrnThornbury.rnAndrntherndatarngatheredrnthroughrntherninitialrninterviewrnrnwererntranscribedrnandrnthematicallyrnanalysed.rnThernbaselinerndata,rni.e.rntherndatarnmainlyrncollectedrnthroughrntherninitialrnrnclassroomrnrnobservations and interviews before the workshop indicated that the case study teachers tended tornemploy a deductive grammar teaching approach in their respective classes. After confirming that the teachersrnemployed this approach, the researcher introduced an inductive grammar teaching approach through a schoolbasedrnprofessionalrndevelopmentrnworkshop.rnThernmainrnpurposernofrnthisrnworkshoprnwasrntornshapernorrnchangerntherncasernrnstudyrnrnteachers’ pedagogical beliefs about the teaching of grammar, and enable them to implement an inductiverngrammar teaching approach in their respective classrooms as an alternative approach. After the workshop, therncase study teachers were observed two-five times (a total of fifteen videotaped final classroom observations) forrnthe second time, and they were also interviewed once each to gain an insight into the effects of the currentrnworkshop. The final classroom observation data were transcribed and analyzed descriptively case by case basedrnon an inductive grammar teaching approach suggested by Harmer. And the transcribed final interview datarnwere organized into six major categories and thematically analyzed. As the data in the second phase after thernworkshop pointed out, the workshop resulted in some positive changes on the teachers’ pedagogical beliefs andrntheir grammar teaching approaches. Out of the fifteen final grammar lessons observed, seven of them (47%)rnwere presented inductively. In addition, however insignificant the improvements were, the teachers made somernsort of changes with the rest observed lessons, especially the beginning part of a grammar lesson which dealsrnwith a rule discovery task. So as to weigh up the effects of the school-based professional development workshop,rnthe researcher also employed Guskey’s four-point workshop evaluation standard, and the result indicated thatrnthe workshop was fairly effective to bring about the intended change. It was also revealed that the participantrnteachers did not implement the workshop in the same efficiency. One of the reasons identified for thernaccomplishment variation among the teachers was the difference in the levels of professional motivation, and itrnwas indicated that a low level of professional motivation resulted in a low degree of implementation of thernworkshop. Following the major findings and the conclusions drawn from the study, a few feasiblernrecommendations were suggested

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