Non-Native EFL Teacher Educators’ Recruitment and Professional Development: Policies and Strategies of Language Institutes' Managers

Document Type : Research Paper

Authors

1 Department of English Language Teaching, Faculty of Humanities, Islamic Azad University, West Tehran Branch, Tehran, Iran

2 Department of English Language Teaching, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran

Abstract

Recruiting efficient EFL teacher educators (TEs) is crucial for language institutes as it can directly affect the quality of language instruction and, consequently the success of language institutes. Nevertheless, language institute policies for employing TEs and strategies for their professional development have not been well-documented. To this end, semi-structured interviews were conducted in this qualitative study to investigate 30 language institute managers’ recruitment policies and professional development strategies for employing non-native English TEs in the Iranian EFL context. The participants’ answers to interview questions were transcribed and analyzed based on the three levels of the open, axial, and selective coding process. The results revealed that job experience, academic/educational competencies, and digital literacy are the most important features implicating the recruitment of TEs. As for professional development strategies for TEs, the main ones included holding regular meetings for TEs, asking TEs to take part in professionally relevant seminars, workshops, and webinars, and encouraging them to make peer observations of teacher education courses. These findings have implications for language TEs' recruitment and their professional development.

Keywords

Main Subjects

References

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Teaching English as a Second Language Quarterly
Volume 42, Issue 3
September 2023
Pages 59-78

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History

  • Receive Date: 05 April 2023
  • Revise Date: 11 August 2023
  • Accept Date: 02 August 2023

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