An Investigation of Tertiary EFL Teachers’ Problems in Their In-service Professional Development

The developing trend and reform in the field of Teaching English as a Foreign Language (TEFL) have updated the requirements for tertiary EFL teachers. To meet these requirements, the teachers are encouraged to have their in-service professional development. However, the current situation of their in-service professional development is not as good as what has been expected. Hence, this study aimed at investigating the problems that tertiary EFL teachers may have in their in-service professional development and the suggestions that they made for helping to solve these problems. The data was collected from questionnaire and semi-structured group interview which were responded by the EFL teachers in Guiyang University of China. The findings after data analysis showed that the tertiary EFL teachers had such problems as the limitation of programs, the discontinuity of programs, the inappropriateness of programs, etc. and they suggested that the cooperation with colleagues should be employed in their in-service or on-the-job professional development. Index Terms--in-service professional development, tertiary EFL teachers, problems, suggestions