Teacher Educators' Experiences of Designing and Conducting Training to Secondary Level English Language Teachers: A Narrative Inquiry

Abstract

Teacher Professional Development Training is widely provided to all teachers in Nepal's community schools. This study was conducted after I completed secondary level English language Teacher Professional Development training from Education Training Center (ETC), Dhulikhel. There are teacher trainers from different districts who conduct the training. This dissertation is purely an intensive study to find how training is designed and delivered and to explore the challenges and ways to overcome those challenges teacher educators face. The participants were five teacher educators from two provinces: Bagmati and Madhesh. I used narrative inquiry as a research method to achieve the objectives, and interviews were used to collect the information. I employed Vygotsky's sociocultural theory as a research theory as there is always interaction among teachers and teacher educators. Similarly, I used Whitehead's living education theory, too. Professional development is possible through reflexive practice and self-evaluation. The study has some important findings. Some of the trainers were involved in designing the module, too. However, they said there is no need for a collection system before the training begins. The training curriculum is prepared at Center for Education and Human Resource Development (CEHRD), and trainers prepare the modules. During the delivery of training, the trainers face many challenges. Some teachers at the retirement stage are not interested in taking the training. Training is facilitated using ICT. However, teachers lack knowledge of technology. To sum up, teacher educators can prepare packages that can address the teachers' needs as the trainers are also the teachers, and they know what the teachers want. The teacher educators' stories prove that they partially prepare and deliver packages. Though they face challenges during the training, they overcome them on the spot. This study suggests that policymakers, curriculum planners, and teacher educators should make the training curriculum after need analysis to minimize the challenges and make training effective. This study also provides some insights into involving teacher educators in preparing the training curriculum, making it easy to prepare the training modules.