Subject: Teacher Professional Development

Instructor: Dr Pham Hoa Hiep

Class: MA TESOL Fall 2010
COURSE OBJECTIVES
Aims
This course aims to raise students awareness of teacher professional
development, and develop professional development skills. At the end
of the course students should have a greater awareness of professional
development options for their own contexts, and a better
understanding of teacher professional development in ELT.
Course content
The following areas will be covered in the course:
Defining teacher professional development
Learning about ourselves as teachers
Resources for teacher development
Initiating/ managing change in the classroom and action
research
PRESCRIBED TEXT
Students are expected to read a number of articles given by the
lecturer. In addition, students are encouraged to read Head, K &
Taylor P.(1997).Readings in Teacher Development. Heimemann ELT.
Course requirements include completing reading assignments before
each class session
EVALUATION
Attendance 10%
One Class Presentation 30%
One Paper or Exam 60% (see guidelines on the next page)
This plan is subject to change

PRESENTATION
You are encouraged to give a presentation between now and 5
December 2010. If you think that you don't have enough time for
it please talk with me.
Please choose ONE option
1. Report a professional development activity you have/ your
institution has done. How does this opportunity contribute to
your professional growth?
2. Review an article about teacher professional development, or
about English language teaching methodology, or about action
research project , or any article about English language
teaching that you find interesting and relevant. (Remember
that a review is more than a just summary of the article, you
must discuss how the article is relevant to your context and you
benefits from reading it). Please visit the link below for advice
http://learning.concordia.ca/Help/handouts/WritingHO/articleRe
view.shtml
3. Observe a class your colleague is teaching, and give a report
on it. You must develop an observation schedule and discuss the
following questions: What have you seen in the class? What
have you learnt? What are the good points? What are the
problems that need to be improved? (You can consult the
observation form in the folder).
4. Conduct a small action research = investigating a class you
are teaching. Identify the primary problem(s) of your class
through the use of questionnaires/ interviews with your
students. What is the actual problem? How can you solve or
plan to solve this problem in collaboration with your students?
FINAL PAPER (2000 words approximately)
Just write up what you have presented and submit a paper