EFL Teacher Professional Development: Exploring Perspectives and Dominant Efforts in Teaching Integrated English Skills*
Rozanah Katrina Herda  , Pratomo Widodo   & Angga Damayanto  
 Universitas Negeri Yogyakarta, Yogyakarta, Indonesia
Contact:  katrinaherda@uny.ac.id, pratomo@uny.ac.id, anggadamayanto@uny.ac.id
* This is a refereed article.
Received: 8 September, 2022.
Accepted: 10 March, 2023.
Published: 10 October, 2024.
Correspondent: Rozanah Katrina Herda

This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of a CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 license
Abstract: Teacher professional development (TPD) is interesting to examine since its outcomes relate to the teachers' improvement in professional learning. In this small-scale exploratory study, TPD has been linked to teaching integrated English skills (listening, speaking, reading, and writing) and has become a trend in English Language Teaching (ELT). This mixed-method study aimed to reveal the English teachers' perspectives and their dominant efforts on TPD, referring to the eleven procedures (Richards & Farrell, 2005) in teaching integrated skills. The participants of this study were ten professional English teachers who were teaching at ten different public and private junior high schools (middle schools) in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews and questionnaires supported by teachers' academic documentation. Findings indicated that teachers have a good perception of TPD and did some procedures as efforts of TPD. The total mean was 4.43, indicating that teachers' perspective was categorized as positive and very good since the range of scale of this category was 4.01-5.00 for excellent interpretation. The teachers' dominant efforts in teaching integrated skills included workshops, self-monitoring, teacher-group discussion, and action research.

Keywords: teacher professional development, integrated English skills, teachers


Resumen: Es interesante examinar el desarrollo profesional docente (TPD), ya que sus resultados se relacionan con la mejora de los docentes en el aprendizaje profesional. En este estudio exploratorio a pequeña escala, el TPD se ha vinculado a la enseñanza de habilidades integradas en inglés (escuchar, hablar, leer y escribir) y se ha convertido en una tendencia en la enseñanza del idioma inglés (ELT). Este estudio de métodos mixtos tuvo como objetivo revelar las perspectivas de los profesores de inglés y sus esfuerzos dominantes en el TPD, refiriéndose a los once procedimientos (Richards & Farrell, 2005) en la enseñanza de habilidades integradas. Los participantes de este estudio fueron diez profesores de inglés profesionales que enseñaban en diez escuelas secundarias (escuelas intermedias) públicas y privadas diferentes en Yogyakarta, Indonesia. Los datos se recolectaron mediante entrevistas semiestructuradas y cuestionarios respaldados por documentación académica de los docentes. Los hallazgos indicaron que los profesores tienen una buena percepción del TPD y realizaron algunos procedimientos como esfuerzos de TPD. La media total fue 4,43, lo que indica que la perspectiva de los docentes se categorizó como positiva y muy buena ya que el rango de escala de esta categoría fue 4,01-5,00 para una interpretación excelente. Los esfuerzos dominantes de los docentes en la enseñanza de habilidades integradas incluyeron talleres, autocontrol, discusión en grupo de docentes e investigación-acción.

Palabras Clave: **desarrollo profesional docente, habilidades integradas de inglés, docentes


Introduction

Teachers and teaching are two interrelated issues. A teaching process cannot be held as it is without a teacher. On the contrary, without teaching activities, teachers cannot express themselves and gain a chance to deliver the lesson to students. But this does not stop with the two terms above. Teaching English as a second or foreign language (ESL/EFL) needs responsibility on the teachers' side. Indeed, a language teacher should consider the subject matter and the nature of teaching language to students in the classroom (Larsen-Freeman, 2008). By having good skills in teaching language, teachers will successfully deliver the lesson to their EFL classrooms. However, teachers' challenge is the demand to integrate the four skills, namely listening, speaking, reading, and writing into the teaching-learning process.

In dealing with teaching integrated English skills, the second language (L2) is always in contact with the first language (L1) and they influence each other in both meanings and grammar (Kim & Koo, 2022). All language components should be considered and involved in each teaching scenario, where the teacher should be creative and innovative in arranging material and activities. However, the success of teaching and learning English does not stop there since the most crucial thing is that language teachers should also continue their professional development to develop teaching quality. The word 'development' serves a longer-term goal and seeks to facilitate teachers' understanding of teaching and themselves as teachers (Richards & Farrell, 2005). This becomes relevant when teachers reflect on their efforts or practices in teaching professional development related to integrated skills. Thus, this paper explores English language teachers' efforts to develop professionally in EFL classes.

In this article the dominant procedures are analyzed by revealing the teachers' efforts. Then, to be more focused on the scope, the researchers follow the eleven approaches proposed by Richards and Farrell (2005). According to these authors, "workshops, self-monitoring, teacher support groups, journal keeping, peer observation, teaching portfolios, critical incident analysis, case analysis, peer coaching, team teaching, and action research." (p. 14) are eleven examples of activities that can facilitate professional development in language teaching. This small-scale study focuses on two research questions: (1) How do Indonesian teachers perceive teacher professional development? and (2) What are the teachers' dominant efforts in TPD in teaching integrated skills using the eleven procedures? This study analyzed the data from interviews and a questionnaire with ten English teachers in Indonesia, especially at the junior high school (middle school) level, highlighting their efforts regarding Richards and Farrell's (2005) eleven procedures. The focus was on the junior high school level as it is the transition period of students from the elementary to the high school level. Thus, teachers at the Junior High School level need special knowledge and effort to guide students in developing their academic skills.

The importance of teacher professional development

In the 21st century, language teaching should include the pedagogical aspects to support students' achievement. In the EFL context, what teachers implement is not merely teaching vocabulary, pronunciation, or even types of texts. Students' competencies, such as the profound mastery of challenging content, critical thinking, complex problem solving, effective communication and collaboration, and self-direction (Darling-Hammond, 2017), should be the most dominant aspects covered. That is why teachers need to make efforts to improve their professionalism. Teacher professional development (TPD) is a career-long process related to tackling teachers' teaching styles, as structured professional learning results in changes in teacher practices and improvements in student learning outcomes in the education field (Darling-Hammond, 2017; Díaz-Maggioli, 2004).

Indeed, TPD affects modern and conventional teaching styles. Díaz-Maggioli (2004) describes professional development as traditional and visionary, so it can change teaching practice (Holland, 2005) when professional development is directly linked to the program, and the standards teachers must teach. Sancar et al. (2021) carried out a study that resulted in a concept that the quality of the student's competence depends on the teacher's quality, so the policymaker should understand the qualification of good teachers. Tatto (2021) examined the role of teacher education in sustaining the teaching profession. The study showed that teaching capacity should be developed to ensure teachers' professional learning.

In 21st-century education, teachers should have complex abilities, from designing, implementing, and evaluating lessons to ongoing competencies aligned with science, technology, and art development (Chapelle & Hegelheimer, 2013; Chun et al., 2016; Son, 2018; Susanty et al., 2021). Furthermore, TPD has grown. The government of Indonesia implemented the The Pemantapan Kerja Guru or PKG (Strengthening the Work of Teachers) program. This activity assesses teachers related to their work and career development administration. However, TPD is not only about the scores obtained by the teachers, but also to how much they strive to develop themself for the sake of teaching.

Teaching integrated skills in EFL context

Two questions arise: "Why should teachers integrate the four skills?" and "How can teachers integrate the four?" Integrating four skills is a current trend in the EFL classroom. Learning an L2 requiresa combination of language skills that will support the development of learners in acquiring their L2 with different experiences. Integrating skills is of great importance (Brown, 2000) that leads the curriculum developers and designers to apply the whole language approach. There are five popular models in the EFL classroom: content-based instruction, theme-based instruction, experiential learning, the episode hypothesis, and task-based teaching. In general, teaching EFL classes with integrated skills can enhance students' motivation (Tajzad & Ostovar-Namaghi, 2014) and give learners confidence in interacting in the L2.

Additionally, the appropriate teaching implementation helps students approach the target language by using the four skills in the EFL context (Addisu, 2020). On the teachers' side, integrated English skills relates to teachers' efforts to improve teaching quality that is appropriate to the demands of recent developments in L2 (Hinkel, 2006). This means that teachers are willing to conduct extra activities since integrated English skills need increased dedication to design lessons and help develop students' competence. Indeed, the critical point comes from the teachers. If the teachers handle everything well, students will naturally enjoy the ride and demonstrate their competence in learning L2. Besides, by developing a strategy to use integrated English skills in an organized fashion in teaching and learning, time allocation in delivering material and assessing students could be more effective and efficient. Activities that would be carried out three different times in a traditional fashion could be done in one or two with integrated skills teaching.

İn line with the second question above about how EFL teachers could integrate the four skills into the teaching-learning process, it could be done by combining the productive and receptive skills in the same activity. Some authors (Akmal et al., 2020; Considine, 2018). Pardede, 2022) have reported that integrated skills are a teaching approach that combines speaking, reading, listening, and writing to develop EFL students' competence in the classroom and social contexts. Twenty-first century learning includes the 4Cs (communication, critical thinking, collaboration, and creativity), which teachers should also be aware of when integrating the four skills, while still including personal and professional qualities to prepare the students for the more complex environment in the 21st century.

Richards and Farrell's procedures in TPD


Richards and Farrell's (2005) elaboration of eleven procedures related to TPD will be used in this study to what a teacher needs to do to develop professionalism, especially when teaching integrated English skills. The following are the eleven procedures that can be done by the teachers during TPD: workshops, self-monitoring, teacher support groups, keeping a teaching journal, peer observation, teaching portfolios, analyzing critical incidents, case analysis, peer coaching, team teaching, and action research. The procedures mentioned earlier become a highlight in this small-scale study, as seen in Figure 1.

Figure 1: Richards and Farrell's (2005) Procedures in TPD

The aim of this study is to reveal the English teachers' perspectives and their dominant efforts on TPD, referring to the eleven procedures (Richards & Farrell, 2005) for teaching integrated skills. Incorporating English teachers' viewpoints into professional development research leads to more effective, relevant, and responsive training, which helps both teachers and students. Therefore, identifying the dominant efforts dealing with the TPD procedure enables continuing review and refinement of professional development projects, allowing teachers to assess their efficacy and make informed changes. Furthermore, the procedures can empower teachers to take an active role in their professional development, encouraging them to use the activity in ways that best meet their own and their students' needs.

Method

Research design

In this study, a mixed-method study was used to reveal the activities and situations in the research setting by including both quantitative and qualitative data (Fraenkel & Wallen, 2009; Gay et al., 2012; Yin, 2010) to build on the synergy that exists between quantitative and qualitative research methods to understand a phenomenon more fully. Quantitative and qualitative data gathering was combined, as were the techniques for analyzing them. The design of this mixed-method study is Explanatory, where the quantitative is followed by the qualitative (Gay et al., 2012). According to the explanatory steps the quantitative result was explained, supported by a questionnaire (see Appendix 1), and then followed by a qualitative result, a semi-structured interview (see Appendix 2). This study analyzed the activities of Indonesian EFL TPD in teaching integrated English skills, based on Richards and Farrel's (2005) TPD procedures. Meanwhile, the result of the study represented the participants' perspectives on TPD, where the researchers could make conclusions about the EFL teachers' professional development from the small sample size in Indonesia.

Participants

The participants in this study were ten English teachers with more than five years of teaching experience at the junior high school (middle school) level in Indonesia. Although the number of participants was categorized as minor, eight to ten participants were enough and gave accurate results (Alwi, 2012) in this study. Dealing with Morse's (2000) point of view about the inverse relationship between the amount of useable data collected and the number of participants, it is acceptable to involve six to ten participants. Thus, based on the two points of view above, the researchers determined to involve ten English teachers as the research participants. Additionally, it was determined that the participants in this study should have more than five years teaching experience because it was decided that five years was enough to show their effort in the TPD context (Eisenschmidt et al., 2010). This decision aligns with Kini and Podolsky's (2016) statement that five years is the appropriate time to determine the effectiveness in the teaching profession and experience, on average, positively associated with student achievement throughout a teacher's career.

In this paper, identifiers (T1, T2, T3, T4, T5, T6, T7, T8, T9, and T10) were used to protect the participants’ identities. Seven teachers (T1 through T7) were English public-school teachers in Yogyakarta, while three other teachers (T8 through T10) were English teachers in private schools outside Yogyakarta. Before conducting this study, the participants were sent a consent letter which invited them to cooperate. As a result, all participants (N=10) agreed to cooperate in the study without coercion.

Instruments

İn this mixed-method study, the researchers applied an explanatory design, where they collected the data with the quantitative coming first (questionnaire) and then followed by the qualitative (semi-structured interviews). The first instrument was a questionnaire designed by the researchers. It consisted of ten question items (Appendix 1) which the participants needed 15 minutes to fill out. In this case, the participants did not need the L1 translation since they were EFL teachers majoring in English, so the researchers prepared the questionnaire items using English. To collect the information from the participants, the researchers sent the questionnaires through Google Forms. The researchers set the statements linked to the nature and urgency of TPD for English teachers as the basis of revealing the participants' perspectives, especially in teaching integrated skills. The researchers provided five options for participants' responses: (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) neutral, (4) disagree, and (5) strongly disagree. Then, the researchers used SPSS version 25 to check the validity of each item using the Pearson product-moment correlation coefficient and the reliability referring to Cronbach's Alpha. The researchers adopted Buphate & Esteban’s (2022) interpretation to interpret the distribution of frequency as follows:

Table 1: Distribution of frequency interpretation (Buphate & Esteban, 2022)

As the second instrument, the semi-structured interviews (see Appendix 2) were conducted. The researchers prepared the guidelines before the activities, and participants could openly answer the questions to show their ideas and opinions (Strauss & Corbin, 2014; Sugiyono, 2009). İn this case, the researchers used follow-up questions to get deeper information relevant to the questions since qualitative interviewing tries to gain access to the participants' knowledge, perspectives, and experience (Heinicke et al., 2022; Moustakas & Robrade, 2022; Sølvik & Roland, 2022).

Procedures

Although the interview in qualitative research should be conducted in the participants' mother tongue or language in everyday practice (Escobar Fandiño et al., 2019; Siswanto et al., 2022), in this context, the researchers and interviewees used English (L2) to conduct the question-and-answer session since the participants were EFL teachers who could speak English to communicate with daily life and academic needs. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and consideration of maintaining the participants' distance, the semi-structured interviews were conducted in two ways: online and offline. The offline interview was for the participants from the same city as the researchers. İt means the researchers could meet the participants in person or face-to-face. In contrast, the researchers used Zoom effectively in the online interviews to reach the participants whose homes were in a city different from that of the researchers. Both online and offline interviews used the same questions referring to the interview guideline. The researchers transcribed the interview results using the Verbatim technique, where every single word uttered by the interviewee or participant was written (Halcomb & Davidson, 2006).

These activities were conducted to gain information from teachers by using a set of relevant questions referring to Richards and Farrell's (2005) theory about procedures to facilitate professional development in language teaching (Figure 1). The researchers noted the participants' answers about the procedures they practiced in their teaching. Before the interview, the researchers sent the soft file of Microsoft Word as pre-information covering the list of the eleven TPD procedures to help the participants understand Richards and Farrell's procedures. In other words, the aim of giving participants pre-information was to familiarize them with the eleven TPD procedures so that they could easily answer the questionnaires. During the interview, the English teachers showed and sent the researchers copies of relevant certificates of their relevant educational activities to prove that what they said in the interview section could be trusted.

Findings

This section will present two major parts: (1) Teachers' perceptions of TPD and (2) Teachers' dominant efforts in TPD that were done in teaching integrated skills using the eleven procedures.

Teachers' perception of TPD

All teachers seemed to understand the term Teacher Professional Development (TPD) linked to their daily performance in teaching EFL classrooms.

TPD is a further effort to develop the professionalism of language teachers to encourage teaching abilities. I am an English teacher, so if my professionalism is good, my quality in teaching language can be approved. (T2)

I'm trying to answer this. For me, TPD is important for teachers. Why? It is about our development. I can develop my strategies in teaching integrated skills. It is about developing teachers' competence and ability in the EFL classroom, especially in teaching language. (T5)

There was good understanding and perspectives among the interviewed teachers. T2 and T5 were the two teachers whose answers were presented here. Most responses highlighted "develop" and "ability" in defining TPD. Most teachers answered similar things related to TPD. Their answers indicated that they described TPD as a way or method to develop their competence or ability in teaching language.

Of course, TPD is important for English language teaching. This is EFL context. I mean, I teach English every day. TPD will be my way to enrich my knowledge and experience in teaching. (T7)

T7’s answer represented the answers of the other teachers, too. This was because all teachers admitted TPD was influential in developing their knowledge and experiences in teaching English. Therefore, five teachers added information that TPD would help them choose strategies for the TL process. Thus, the two arguments can be seen as follows.

TPD will help us mix and match strategies or methods in the classroom. Without strategies, what will I do? My lesson relates to foreign language, and it will be monotonous without suitable methods, right? (T9)

I teach here. The atmosphere here forces me to think carefully about what method will be suitable for my students. My students' achievements will be good if my methods are good. I realize TPD will be a good way for teachers to develop teaching skills and abilities. (T10)

It can be implied that the importance of TPD in English language teaching for these teachers was not merely about enriching their knowledge and competence. It would also help them choose and implement the best strategies to teach the foreign language. Ten teachers assumed that teaching languages gave students new experiences through knowledge and system. Besides, it would ease students' perception and help them acquire the L2 successfully.

The results of the semi-structured interview were analyzed using the Verbatim technique, where every word the interviewees or participants uttered was transcribed. The researchers noted everything they heard, including pauses, fillers, and laughter. It was time-consuming, but the transcription results were natural and appropriate. Meanwhile, the data from the questionnaire were analyzed using SPSS and then interpreted using the distribution of frequency interpretation table (Table 2) to reveal the teachers' perception of TPD. The statements or questionnaire items can be found in Appendix 1. Each question in the questionnaire aimed at revealing the participants' perception of proceduresand actions related to TPD for teachers as individuals, especially in teaching integrated English skills. They could choose (1) strongly agree, (2) agree, (3) neutral, (4) disagree, and (5) strongly disagree.

The purpose of each statement is explained as follows:

S1: How participants see themselves dealing with the judgment of being professional English teachers.

S2: The participant's beliefs about the relationship between having good skills and the success of teaching students.

S3: How the participants see the need for integrated English skills in 21st-century learning.

S4: The participants' perceptions of being creative and innovative in arranging material and activities.

S5: The participants' lens on continuing their professional development for improving teaching quality.

S6: The participants' points of view about the relationship between TPD and daily performance in the EFL classroom.

S7: The participants' belief about TPD as a way to develop abilities.

S8: The participants' belief in TPD as the strategy to teach EFL.

S9: The participants' belief in the importance of TPD in teaching integrated English skills.

S10: The benefits of TPD that can reflect participants' weaknesses in teaching and improving the teaching quality.

Based on the questionnaire, the ten statements represent the researchers' intention to gain further information in this small-scale study linked to TPD. Participants reflected on their perspectives and what they had practiced honestly based on their condition. The following is the distribution and frequency of teachers' perceptions of TPD.

Table 2: Distribution and frequency of teachers' perception of TPD

Table 2 presents the frequency distribution of teachers' perceptions of TPD. The mean score was then be interpreted using the interpretation scale (see Table 1). The entire mean was 4.43. It indicated that teachers' perspective was categorized as positive and very good since the range of scale of this category was 4.01-5.00 for excellent interpretation. Furthermore, the mean of 4.43 indicated that the participants agreed with the statements in the questionnaire.

The procedures of TPD as English teacher's effort

The procedures of TPD were based on Richards and Farrell's (2005) eleven procedures. The researchers gained information about participants' actions dealing with the procedures from the checklist integrated with the interview activities. All ten teachers admitted they had taught students by integrating four English skills: listening, speaking, reading, and writing. They said that the TPD procedures positively affected their teaching practice, especially in integrating four skills in the EFL classroom.

Well, integrating skills are very innovative for me. We know receptive and productive skills. My efforts relate to TPD here are more than three activities. First, I joined so many workshops related to English teaching. I did self-monitoring. This is because I need to reflect on what my limitations are. Finally, I conducted action research. All inputs have helped me to design relevant lessons to teach English. It is different from when I was a teacher without TPD. (T 1)

I realize that I should make my way in teaching fruitful for my students. As a teacher, yeah, an English teacher, my professionalism is crucial. I know it can affect my students' abilities. I try to smartly and wisely integrate the four skills here. I joined the workshop. I usually join it with my colleagues. I did self-monitoring and attended the teacher support group. İn the same group, we raise each other. I mean, we support and give positive feedback to each other. We shared new ideas about integrating receptive and productive skills. Finally, in my classrooms, I carried out action research, too. Yeah, everything must be evaluated. (T4)

All participants' answers were recorded so the researchers could present the data about the dominant TPD procedures in Table 3.

Table 3: List of procedures to facilitate professional development in language teaching

Based on Table 3, it was clear that there were four dominant TPD procedures done by the English teachers: (1) workshop, (2) self-monitoring, (3) teacher support groups, and (4) action research. All teachers joined the workshop. It was an interesting finding since all ten English teachers had made the same effort to improve. Of ten teachers, six of them practiced self-monitoring, five of them practiced teacher support groups, and six of them carried out action research.

Discussion

This section includes a discussion of the results of the two research questions: (1) How do Indonesian teachers perceive teacher professional development? and (2) What are the teachers' dominant efforts in TPD that have been done in teaching integrated skills using the eleven procedures?

First, based on the questionnaire analyzed, the findings indicated that teachers' perspectives toward TPD were positive based on the interpretion of the range of values. The overall mean (4.43). indicated that teachers' perspective was categorized as very good since the range of scale of this category was 4.01-5.00 for excellent interpretation.

The participants agreed with the TPD principle in developing their teaching, especially teaching integrated English skills in EFL classrooms. In this context, the qualification of EFL teachers in teaching integrated skills was related to their professionalism (Boeve-de Pauw et al., 2022; Sancar et al., 2021; Tatto, 2021), where their teaching capability affected their students' proficiency in learning language. All ten teachers agreed that TPD played an important role in teaching integrated English in the EFL context. Indeed, teaching EFL in this century is challenging, where teachers' professionalism is also linked to the quality of their teaching. As Tütüniş and Yalman (2020) argued if the quality of foreign language teachers' education is improved, the quality of foreign language teaching improves. It implies that the success of teaching in the EFL context depends on the quality of EFL teachers' education.

According to the interviews, it can be seen that English teachers' dominant TPD procedures were workshops, self-monitoring, teacher support groups, and action research. Teachers joined the workshops and admitted they learned something new to apply in their classrooms. In other words, teachers should attend workshops in which they can engage with new ideas (Borg, 2015), and then bring the knowledge back to their classrooms. In this modern era, workshops can be held everywhere and at any time by using technology platforms. As the participants mentioned, Zoom and Google Meet have become popular since the pandemic. Using digital platforms allowed teachers to attend workshops virtually when they faced multifaceted issues of remote learning (Fekete & Divéki, 2022).

Additionally, workshops greatly affected the teachers' perspectives on teaching and learning issues, as they introduced teachers to new ideas, information, and practical advice (Borg, 2015) related to teaching language. They also could be classified as an effort in professional learning communities (Liu, 2022). In this study Liu reported that teacher workshops became the effective change strategy for teacher capacity development in Chinese schools. Therefore, joining workshops is beneficial for teachers to continue their professional development since they gain up-to-date knowledge, ideas, and educational demands that can be applied in the classrooms to develop their teaching quality.

The second procedure used by most interviewed teachers was self-monitoring. The teachers assumed it could be beneficial to reflect on their work. Teachers monitored whether they had been given the proper methods of teaching integrated skills. In line with Richards and Farrell (2005), self-monitoring is like self-observation so teachers can judge their teaching performance. The ten teachers who did this procedure admitted that teaching integrated skills for English subjects was not easy. That was why they often monitored or even evaluated their progress. Teacher self-monitoring has been used to improve teachers' fidelity to implementing behavior interventions (Knochel et al., 2020; Rispoli et al., 2017; Simonsen et al., 2013), which can be done through feedback and/or reflection. Teachers can do self-monitoring by arranging an appropriate checklist to ensure that all of their actions linked to teaching are relevant and well-performed.

The participants were conscious that they should prepare the self-monitoring checklist to evaluate their strengths and weaknesses during teaching. Most of them admitted that they had prepared the checklist for each meeting to ensure that what they taught to students was on target. Moreover, teaching integrated skills means incorporating or combining more than two skills simultaneously using a medium or strategy relevant to the need for teaching and learning. The self-monitoring checklist represents classroom management practices (Oliver et al., 2015), where teachers establish accurate and effective teaching implementation. The more accurate the teaching process, the more comprehensive the result.

The third procedure was the teacher support group. At this point, teachers needed support from their peers to build confidence in arranging teaching scenarios, sharing valuable experiences, and helping with each other's academic problems. Having a support group indicates that teachers are concerned with teacher collaboration from the same or different schools, grades, or departments (van Veen et al., 2011). They may do some positive activities such as mentoring, coaching, and carrying out research by teachers. Based on the interview, five teachers did this procedure. They informed the researchers that they had a community outside the school. The members were the English teachers in Yogyakarta. They often shared their progress and problems related to ELT. In other words, they helped each other. Mitchell and Jonker (2013) involved South African teachers facing classroom problems. The study highlighted the development of a community of practice gained through teacher support and development. It indicated that the support group helped teachers face difficult situations. Most EFL teachers in this study also admitted that the support group was helpful in some aspects in which they felt they could keep learning from one another. Indeed, the continuous changes in global society also require teachers to keep learning, where teachers' professional development is shown in the teacher's cognition, orientation toward students, professional attitude and identity, and pedagogical knowledge and skills (Kyndt et al., 2016; Vangrieken et al., 2017). By practicing this procedure, teachers stated they were satisfied because problems could be solved together. Furthermore, they gave motivation and feedback to one another.

The last procedure was action research, a powerful strategy for professional development (Altrichter & Posch, 2009), where learning becomes more connected to knowledge and more rational (Savoie‐Zajc & Descamps‐Bednarz, 2007). Based on the interview in the current study, teachers admitted they were familiar with this procedure. They often carried out classroom action research to plan better strategies to teach integrated English skills, then acted as the facilitator, observed, and reflected on all activities. The result of action research could be the guideline for conducting and improving sequence activities in teaching English. In this context, teachers practiced the cyclical process or phases of the teaching scenario to improve a problematic situation, such as a classroom system for better condition, by responding to the continuous need for development or change (Bradbury, 2019). The participants realized that action research was linked to the cyclical process and improvement of classroom practice.

Conclusion and Suggestions

The small-scale study here relates to the researchers' intention to reveal English language teachers' professional development efforts in teaching integrated English skills, referring to the eleven procedures proposed by Richards and Farrell (2005). The results of the questionnaire analysis showed that the total mean was 4.43, which indicated that teachers' perspective of teacher professional development was positive. Furthermore, from the eleven procedures, four were practiced by the English teachers: workshops, self-monitoring, teacher support groups, and action research.

Therefore, the researchers highly recommend that English teachers use these eleven procedures to check their efforts in TPD. The seven procedures that were not practiced by the ten English teachers (teaching journal, peer observation, teaching portfolios, analyzing critical incidents, case analysis, peer coaching, and team teaching) could also affect the quality of teachers' professional development. The more completely teachers perform their professional development procedures, the more proficient they can become in teaching integrated English to students. Furthermore, teachers in 21st century learning should be able to expand their role and responsibility to support students and also develop their longer-term academic career goals. The EFL teachers should practice all TPD procedures, as complete synergy in teaching integrated English in 21st century learning.

Limitations

This small-scale study was limited to the number of English teachers as participants. For future studies, researchers interested in a similar topic can improve the number of participants to reveal richer data. Besides, the context and area of the survey could be broadened into some criteria linked to the TPD to gain more complete perspectives in English language teaching.

 

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MEXTESOL Journal, vol. XX, no. X, XXXX, es una publicación cuadrimestral editada por la Asociación Mexicana de Maestros de Inglés, MEXTESOL, A.C., Versalles 15, Int. 301, Col. Juárez, Alcadía Cuauhtémoc, C.P. 06600, Ciudad de México, México, Tel. (55) 55 66 87 49, mextesoljournal@gmail.com. Editor responsable: Jo Ann Miller Jabbusch. Reserva de Derechos al uso Exclusivo No. 04-2015-092112295900-203, ISSN: 2395-9908, ambos otorgados por el Instituto Nacional de Derecho del Autor. Responsible de la última actualización de este número: Jo Ann Miller, Asociación Mexicana de Maestros de Inglés, MEXTESOL, A.C., Versalles 15, Int. 301, Col. Juárez, Alcadía Cuauhtémoc, C.P. 06600, Ciudad de México, México. Fecha de la última modificación: 31/08/2015. Las opiniones expresadas por los autores no necesariamente reflejan la postura del editor de la publicación. Se autoriza la reproducción total o parcial de los textos aquī publicados siempre y cuando se cite la fuente completa y la dirección electrónica de la publicación.

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