One-month teacher training courses: time for a change?

The one‐month pre‐service training courses validated by UCLES (Cambridge) and Trinity College, London are a popular avenue of entry into the EFL teaching profession, and attract thousands of enrolments annually. Yet, despite the scale of this training activity, there seems to be a curious dearth of published research into the phenomenon. Against this background, this paper examines some of the assumptions underlying the one‐month training courses and their professional ramifications, and argues that because the circumstances of EFL teaching are now so different from those of the 1960s, when these courses first emerged, this is an opportune moment to question whether they remain an optimal form of initial TEFL training. The changes which have had most impact are (i) changing views regarding the position of the native speaker, (ii) developments in ELT methodology, and (iii) changes in the theory and practice of initial teacher training. The paper concludes with some suggestions for reform and proposals for further research.