The Professional Development of English Language Teachers in Colombia: A Review of the Literature

Abstract

This article offers a review of 25 empirical studies to identify the areas and findings of professional development initiatives for in-service English teachers in Colombia. The reviewed studies suggest that language teacher professional development has focused on six major areas: language proficiency, research skills and reflective practice, teachers’ beliefs and identities, an integrated approach to teacher professional development, pedagogical skills and teaching approaches, and emerging technologies. Results suggest that there is a need to move from traditional master-apprentice, content-oriented, teacher-centered models of professional development towards initiatives that allow teachers to critically analyze their particular context and needs, and devise their own local alternatives so that they can become more active agents of their own process of change. Issues that constitute possible alternatives for future research in the professional development of English language teachers are discussed.

ESP teacher professional development during the COVID-19 era at Igor Sikorsky Kyiv polytechnic institute

“…A special trend dur-ing the COVID-19 era was the focus on ICT teacher skills development (Table 2). Emerging technologies were mentioned in the list of language teachers" professional development interests before the pandemic, for example in Buendía & Macías research [12], but during the COVID-19 era ICT teacher skills became crucial. Speaking about ESP teachers of the Department of English for Engineering No.…”

“…A wide range of publications provided educators with professional help, for example, Aga Khan Foundation"s Tips, resources and recommendations during COVID-19 [10], a global initiative of supporting the continuation of teaching and learning during the COVID-19 pandemic [11] and others. The studies related to language teacher professional development before COVID-19 such as completed by Buendia and Macías [12] and the effects the coronavirus crisis might have on foreign language teachers [13] are now of great importance as well as academic integrity issues [14].…”

Exploratory Study of Recent Trends in ELT Master’s Programs: Insights from the stakeholders

“…In this section, we made three assumptions: a) MA programs represent one of the most important sources of professional development (Villegas-Reimers, 2003;Truscott de Mejía, 2016;Viáfara & Largo, 2018;Buendía & Macías, 2019), b) reflection is a sine qua non condition in continued teacher education (Hernández, 2015;Viáfara & Largo, 2018;Nuñez & Tellez, 2015), and c) curriculum design and implementation is the materialization of teaching initiatives and skills that translate in enhanced teaching practices (Graves, 2000;Nunan,1999).…”

“…PD in Colombia is also discussed by Buendía and Macías (2019) who conducted a literature review on 25 empirical studies with in-service teachers. PD was characterized keeping in mind that their definition of the term comprised "all types of professional learning undertaken by in-service English language teachers beyond the point of initial formal teacher preparation" (p. 90).…”

Re-Signifying Teacher Epistemologies Through Lesson Planning: A Study on Language Student Teachers

“…Teacher education programs are expected to foster teaching knowledge and abilities important for prospective language teachers to develop as professionals in educational contexts. To illustrate this, teacher education and development programs attend to areas such as language proficiency, pedagogical skills, and teaching approaches (Buendia & Macías, 2019) that can lead English language teaching (elt) student teachers to absorb lots of theoretical knowledge which they tend to utilize to make sense of their teaching. Nevertheless, when student teachers begin their teaching practicum, they are influenced by overly technical and rational paradigms which seem to be largely acquired or "borrowed" from their teacher education programs (McDonough, 2012).…”