Factors affecting the professional development of elementary English teachers

The poor classroom practices of English teachers at elementary level in Indonesia have been attributed to the inadequacy of pre-service education. Yet, whether in-service professional development (PD) also plays a role is unknown. This study investigated the perspectives of 23 teachers, 14 teacher educators and 3 school principals regarding the efficacy of in-service PD in preparing elementary English teachers. The results demonstrate that the shortage of quality teacher educators contributed to the inadequacy of in-service PD. While this study calls for more systematic efforts to tackle the shortage of quality teacher educators, it also highlights the needs for PD of teacher educators. Furthermore, the intrusion of educational administrators adversely affected the design and administration of teacher preparation programs, resulting in the poor training management and the ambiguous selection of training participants. The study further asserts the necessity for empowerment of teacher educators in order to enable them to contribute to the much-needed transformation of in-service PD.