Το ζήτημα της επιμόρφωσης των εκπαιδευτικών αγγλικής γλώσσας της πρωτοβάθμιας εκπαίδευσης: εμπειρική διερεύνηση των παραμέτρων και των θεσμικών δομών της επιμόρφωσης

Abstract

Teachers are being seen as the ultimate key to educational change and school management. Proposals made at the macro-level of educational policy depend for the effectiveness on the interpretation by teachers at the micro-level of pedagogic practice and on their abilities to understand and carry out these proposals. Furthermore, there are indications of a strong demand for qualified professionals to staff classrooms well in the future. Thus, it is reasonable to argue that the need for an effective provision to initiate, develop and sustain teachers through an appropriate process of education consequently should be among the highest priorities of educational policy. The motivation for the study stems from: a) the fact that the establishment of English language teaching in Primary Education has raised new teaching needs and teachers are required to respond to a wide range of demands. However, they have not received the adequate pre-service education and in-service training to meet the pedagogical and teaching demands in the Primary Education context, b) the absence of empirical researches dealing with the specific issue in Greece. The present study, which is limited to Greek primary EFL teachers, represents a descriptive research study in its method and is policy-oriented in its purpose. We tried to identify teachers’ INSET needs, to investigate the nature of the discrepancy between the provision of in-service training and the needs and wants of the targets, to pursue the investigation until we came up with an alternative INSET model framework. The objectives were the following: a) to reveal and shed light on the current INSET provision for EFL teachers in Greece, b) to identify the EFL teachers’ and advisors’ viewpoints concerning INSET organizing and planning, c) to identify the future EFL teachers’ INSET needs as perceived by the teachers themselves and the EFL advisors, d) to suggest a framework of a model for INSET based on the target needs of the EFL teachers, the current status of INSET provision for the EFL teachers and the related literature. More precisely, chapters one, two, three, four, five and six aim to provide a theoretical basis for this study, which, together with the field of study results, will help in the formulation of some new plans. The first chapter concentrates on definition of INSET, the purpose and importance of INSET, the effectiveness of INSET. The second and third chapters review the literature related to the theories and practices of INSET in order to highlight characteristics of effective INSET at the level of teacher behaviour change and improvement of teaching skills. The fourth chapter gives background information concerning the teaching of English language in Greek Primary schools. The fifth chapter describes the state teachers INSET in Greece with specific reference to the education and training of teachers of English as a foreign language and their academic profile. It provides a brief analysis of the policy of teacher preparation in order to highlight the strengths and weaknesses of the present system. The sixth chapter sets out models and forms of INSET. It concerns the content of the INSET programmes and it explores - explains the activities and procedures through which the content of INSET can be transmitted. The seventh chapter identifies and states the problem and presents the significance and objectives of the study. It outlines the type of research and the area of investigation, explains and justifies the methods and the instruments (questionnaires and interviews) of data collection and describes and defines the population and sample. It rationalizes the procedures used in collecting the data and explains the techniques used to analyze and interpret the findings of the study. In the eighth chapter, we present the results of the study, which clarify the nature of the discrepancy between the provision of INSET and the needs and wants of the targets. The findings of the study, which point to an absence of any significant difference in the perceptions of the two groups-teachers and advisors-, indicate the need for a new policy and plans to be established, commencing with the recommended ways of assessing teachers’ INSET needs, and extending to evaluation and feedback into the INSET system. In the ninth chapter INSET recommendations for an improved model for EFL teachers are set out in terms of a discussion of findings. The findings of the present study revealed that there was a gap between the current INSET provided by the ministry of Education and the perceived needs. An interim framework of INSET model, called the Participatory-Collaborative INSET model was designed to fill in the gap.