The need for ongoing professional development: Perspectives of Turkish university-level EFL instructors

Despite the emphasis given to English as a foreign language (EFL) instruction, a significant percentage of Turkish students fail to achieve a satisfactory level of English mastery. With respect to this issue, insufficient professional knowledge of EFL instructors has been noted as a major obstacle to learner success. Thus, conjecturing that ineffectual teacher development programs may contribute to lack of competence in EFL instruction, the researchers aimed to investigate the attitudes of 42 Turkish university EFL instructors toward professional development by means of a cross-sectional survey. It was found that, although teachers considered professional development to be important, the participants generally did not view the available career growth opportunities to be applicable to their teaching practice. (C) 2012 Published by Elsevier Ltd. Selection and/or peer-review under responsibility of ALSC 2012