Professional Development and ESL Teachers’ Career Enhancement

International Journal of Research and Innovation in Social Science (IJRISS) | Volume IV, Issue IX, September 2020 | ISSN 2454–6186

Professional Development and ESL Teachers’ Career Enhancement

Rohan Abeywickrama
Department of Languages, Sabaragamuwa University of Sri Lanka

Abstract – A broader understanding of English as Second Language (ESL) teachers’ need to undertake PD is the key to provide them better outcomes from the available professional development (PD) activities. A qualitative investigation was undertaken with ten ESL teachers of a government university in Sri Lanka to identify the significance of PD for their career trajectories. The study used semi-structured interviews to gather data and Thematic Analysis for data analysis. The research findings situated PD as the key for teachers’ career growth enabling the institutions to achieve their goals, maintain ongoing operations and obtain optimum application of teachers’ potential. The findings also demonstrated PD as a way for improving teachers’ professional capital providing them the opportunity to enrich their professional growth and enhance their effectiveness and validity in the employment market. Although sponsored PD driven by managerialism was mostly supportive for teachers’ career enhancement independent PD can also facilitate this outcome.

Keywords – professional development, career goals, perceptions, managerialist, democratic

I. INTRODUCTION

PD activities are important to ESL teachers in the university sector in Sri Lanka for their individual and professional growth, and heightening students’ English language proficiency (Abeywickrama, 2019; Abeywickrama & Ariyaratne, 2020; Abeywickrama, 2020). As graduates with better English language skills mostly have the opportunity to secure career opportunities in the Sri Lankan employment market upon their graduation (World Bank, 2005, 2009), ESL teachers in the universities are responsible for improving their students’ English language competence. The literature also strongly validates that the provision of productive PD opportunities for teachers is essential to enrich students’ learning outcomes (Coldwell, 2017; Diaz-Maggioli, 2004; Mohan, Lingam, & Chand, 2017; Mushayikwa & Lubben, 2009; Saberi & Sahragard, 2019; Sixel, 2013; Tan, Chang, & Teng, 2015; Villegas-Reimers, 2003). Therefore, policy makers and governing institutions are increasingly pressuring ESL teachers to attend diverse PD activities in order to make effective their teaching practices through the learning from such programs.

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