An investigation on possible contributions of the professional development course to the training of the prospective English language teachers

In recent years, the professional development of English language teachers has gained importance at a high level to make the teaching process more effective and make teachers continue their interests, creativity and enthusiasm in their teaching careers. Some of the Continuous Professional Development (CPD) activities have been applied to contribute to the professional development of English language teachers. Although having such an essential place, CPD is not given much space in the curriculum of English Language Teaching (ELT) education programs. Besides, studies on perceptions of pre-service English language teachers on PD are quite limited while much research has been carried out to find out the PD perceptions, attitudes and activities of in-service English language teachers. Therefore, this research primarily aims to examine the possible contributions of a rare PD (Professional Development) course given in the ELT department of a Çukurova University in Turkey on the prospective teachers' education. Utilizing a mixed research approach, prospective ELT students who enrolled on the course were asked to fill out a questionnaire including both Likert-scale and open-ended items before and after the course while pre and post semi-structured interviews were conducted besides reflection papers which were filled out during the course as qualitative data. To examine the data obtained, SPSS 25.0 and thematic analysis were used. The findings unveiled that PD course raised awareness on a better understanding of ELT profession, professional development concept and PD activities, also encouraged future teachers on being lifelong learners through reflective teaching and affected prospective EFL teachers' feelings positively as prepared, confident, conscious, comfortable and committed for their future teaching careers. This study has important implications for future research into professional development in English language teaching and teacher education programs. Keywords: Professional Development, Teacher Education, English Language Teaching