The impact of in-service teacher education (INSET) programme on professional development of efl teachers through the critical friends group (CFG)

Language teachers, similar to teachers in all fields, are often encouraged to consider the importance of lifelong and ongoing professional learning. In-service training is believed to be a key factor in influencing the professional development of teachers and contributing to the improvement of their knowledge, skills and motivation. This study will investigate the impact of an in-service teacher education programme (INSET) on teachers who will be working in Critical Friends Group (CFG). In this study, the researcher aims at stimulating the professional development of teachers who have been working at the School of Foreign Languages, Mersin University. To this end, a development-based INSET course will be programmed for the instructors. In the first phase of the study, the attitudes and expectations of the teachers towards an INSET course will be inquired. The teachers will be asked to specify the areas they think they need to improve in their teaching. The data will be gathered by the means of questionnaires and interviews. Then the teachers will be encouraged to join in the Critical Friends Group (CFG), which is a method where 'critical friends', who are colleagues from the same educational institution (Andreu et. al. 2003, Vo and Nguyen, 2009) work to help each other. The teachers who are willing to participate in CFG will be determined after small group discussions. Three types of CFG protocols, which involve group discussion, peer observation, and problem solving will be used during 2009-2010 Spring Term. In three month period, critical friend groups will perform one protocol in a month. Each protocol cycles will be organised by the researcher and the groups will be informed about the procedure thoroughly. Group discussions and problem solving sessions will be videotaped; classroom observation forms will be filled during peer observation and will be discussed within the groups in post-observation sessions. The purpose of initiating the critical friends group before the INSET course is to create the atmosphere of collaborative professional learning, and to be able to observe the impact of the INSET course on participants' professional development by evaluating the process teachers go through before and after the INSET. The second phase of the study will be the organization and the implementation of the INSET course. The content of the programme will be determined by scholars who will be invited to lecture in the INSET programme. The needs assessment questionnaire and interviews held with the teachers about their professional development in the first phase of the study will be taken into consideration while determining the content. The INSET course will take place in June, 2010. The last phase of the study will be the follow-up and the evaluation. During this phase, the researcher aims to observe the CFGs again, and to evaluate the impact of the INSET programme on their professional development. Each protocol cycles will be rearranged and conducted within the same groups during the Fall Term of 2010-2011 academic year. Multiple data will come from observations of the protocols and interviews with the participants within their groups. The attitudes and expectations of the teachers after the INSET programme will also be evaluated.