Page 180 - Innovative Professional Development Methods and Strategies for STEM Education

Identifying the Target Needs of Non-Native Subject Teachers

target situation task (n = 17, 47.2%). Yet, more than half of them still felt they needed some practice (n
= 19, 52.8%). Presenting a subject (a lesson) in class was identified as one of the top necessities by the
participants (n = 34, 94.4%) along with presenting a subject in English in department meetings (n = 33,
91.6%). However, when the ratings were inspected closely, it is seen that while 17 participants (47.2%)
reported a strong need for practicing on the latter task, only 8 of them (22.2%) stated they needed a lot
of practice on presenting a subject in class. This finding suggests that these subject teachers felt more
concerned about speaking English in front of their colleagues. There can be several reasons for this:
the possibility of presenting in front of more able teachers in terms of English language skills might be
the likely cause of this perceived lack. Similarly, the prospect of spontaneity in language use in these
interactive contexts may be another source of this feeling.
Similarly, the participants rated the task, i.e. communicating with students, as a strong necessity (32,
88.9%). However, surprisingly, 15 participants felt they needed a lot of practice on this. This finding
seems somewhat contradictory to the rating given to presenting a subject in class and, therefore, requires
interpretation. One interpretation could be that these teachers found teacher-to-student interaction pattern
easy to handle while face-to-face, spontaneous interaction much more challenging, which may suggest
that these subject teachers attending the language courses need to be given more oral production activities
where creativity in language is supported and more unpredictable language could be used and practiced.
Definitely, this finding may also indicate that the language proficiency level of these participants was
not up to this sort of interaction pattern yet, thus, they might still be in need of more general English
language instruction.
In the same line with this argument, the target situation tasks of welcoming guests and informing
them about the school, giving feedback to parents, conversing with supervisors, speaking on the phone
that require more spontaneous social interaction were equally rated as high-priority necessities, a finding
which also supports the interpretations made above regarding the use of English in interactive contexts.
When it comes to the communicative target tasks requiring writing, the participants regarded all the
tasks identified as skills they needed more or less practice on (see Table 7). They reported a lower need
about writing emails, writing CVs, writing roll book, and writing reports. Although fewer participants
indicated these target writing tasks to be their top rated necessities, however, it should be noted that more
than half of them still viewed them as tasks they needed to practice. Conversely, a great majority of the
subject teachers identified writing meeting minutes (n =34, 94.4%), writing a defense (n =34, 94.4%),
writing information notes to parents (n =33, 91.6%), writing reports (n =30, 83.3%) and writing questions
related to their subject matter (n = 29, 80.5%) as the top necessities they felt they needed either a lot of
practice or some practice on. These data indicate that, as might be expected, the subject teachers found
themselves to be more capable of fulfilling those every day and less demanding communicative writing
tasks such as email and CV writing while they considered those writing tasks that require more creative
language use, a more formal style and register where cohesion and coherence are more important as
challenging. These findings also support the findings already reported above regarding communicative
speaking tasks where the subject teachers were found to be more concerned about (Low, Chong, & Ellis,
2014; Masuum et al. 2012; Yahaya et al., 2009). Thus, it could be concluded that these subject teachers
were still worried about their general language proficiency while they were found to be more confident
about those tasks where more formulaic language can be used.

161