EFL Teachers’ Participation in CPD Activities and their Reflective Practice: Hadiya Zone Gibe Woreda Secondary and Preparatory Schools in Focus

Abstract

The main purpose of this study is to investigate the school CPD activities trained by English language teachers in promoting reflective teaching in secondary and preparatory schools of Gibe woreda. The descriptive survey research design was employed; and the researcher designed research instruments were used to collect data. A sample of 25 English language teachers and 4 English language department heads from 4 secondary and preparatory schools were participated in the study. Comprehensive sampling technique was used to select the teachers and an availability sampling was used to select the schools. A questionnaire, interview, classroom observation and document analysis were applied as data gathering instruments. After data was gathered, the analysis was conducted qualitatively and quantitatively. The data collected from questionnaire was analyzed using descriptive statistics such as frequency, percentages, mean and standard deviation. The data collected from classroom observation were also analyzed using frequency and percentages. The interview and document analysis were analyzed qualitatively using narrative description. The result of the data indicated that the currently implementing school CPD activities did not encourage EFL teachers in applying reflective teaching and the study prepared that teachers had not adequate awareness about reflective teaching. Furthermore, they were not familiarizing themselves with reflective teaching learning practices. The finding of the study also revealed that the major challenges faced by EFL teachers when they were implementing the CPD activities and reflective teaching. These challenges were absence of collegial collaboration, lack of support from the school principals, lack of financial resources, lack of required knowledge and experts. Finally the researcher made some recommendations on the basis of the result of the analysis. It is recommended that there should be a shared and common understanding among teachers, education experts, supervisors and other responsible bodies of about a meant by reflective teachers.