چکیده:
Teacher education philosophy plays an important role in enhancing the teachers’ awareness of the practices particularly in the context of English as a Foreign Language (EFL). This study meant to observe the possible effect of the awareness of teacher education philosophy on EFL teachers’ professional skill in the light of Kumaravadivelu’s postmethod parameters, tapping teachers’ gender, academic qualification, teaching experience, and age. Through a mixed-method approach employing the posttest-only equivalent-groups design, 60 EFL teachers from four language institutes in Isfahan, Iran, were randomly appointed to experimental and control groups. The philosophy of adult education inventory for treatment of experimental group and a book for placebo of control group were used. A questionnaire, an interview, and classroom observation checklist were tools for data collection. T-test, ANOVA, and Mann-Whitney tests exposed a significant difference between EFL teachers’ awareness of teacher education philosophy and their professional skill. Female teachers, bachelor holders, the most experienced teachers, and teachers in the third age range showed better perception of the teacher education philosophy. The implications derive education policy-makers to demarcate quality resources, teacher educators to modify training approaches, and EFL teachers to develop their professional related presentations.
خلاصه ماشینی:
This study meant to observe the possible effect of the awareness of teacher education philosophy on EFL teachers’ professional skill in the light of Kumaravadivelu’s postmethod parameters, tapping teachers’ gender, academic qualification, teaching experience, and age.
Keywords: EFL Teachers’ Awareness, Postmethod, Professional Skill (PS), Teacher Awareness, Teacher Education Philosophy (TEP) Introduction EFL teacher acts as the foremost figure of teaching and consequently learning in such context due to English language which is merely taught as a subject in school.
Accordingly, it is vital for teachers that they be equipped with the philosophy in general and philosophy of education in particular to apply the knowledge and skill appropriately in the classroom, bridge accurately between theory and practice, present methodical and conceptual frameworks, reassess the objectives and goals of teaching and learning, elucidate the issues encountered, and lay the way for research (Winch, 2012).
Although postmodernism denies universal values resulted in relativism in real-life events and lessens moral and rational ideals in teaching context, it provides teachers with postmethod pedagogy reinforced by critical theory in language classroom in which both teacher and student should discuss equality and fairness as well as justice and address biased affairs in school and society (Gutek, 2004).
Granted that teacher education fails to coordinate with sound and felicitous philosophies, it suffers from actual knowledge transmission and lacks authentic knowledge construction in which teacher-learners build their understanding of language teaching through their experience by integrating theory, research, and opinion with empirical and reflective study of their own classroom practices (Evans, 2013).