Designing a Training Program for Iraqi EFL In-service Teachers

Abstract

Iraqi EFL pre-service teachers (students in colleges of education) study one general course in methods of teaching EFL at departments of English at Colleges of Education because there is an excessiveconcentrationon linguistics and literature than methods and approaches of teaching EFL in the English language curricula.The research shows that most of the in-service teachers face difficulty when it comes toEnglish language teaching because of the lack of the appropriate training and the programs[1],[2],[3]. The United States Government Accountability Office report (2009)[4] showed that there is a big demand on teacher preparationtraining programs due to the lack of the proficient training of English language courses.

The current suggested teachers’ preparation programis targeting the Iraqi in-service EFL teachers for three reasons. First, many in-service teachers consider that attending teacher preparation programs is unnecessary because of the accumulated years of experience in teaching EFL. The second reason is that through the four years at Colleges of Education, undergraduate students (pre-service teachers) do not really have overwhelming coursesin methods of teaching EFL. The third reason is that since English in Iraq is a foreign language, students and teachers cannot develop theiroral-audio skills unless they retain their participation in teachers’ preparation programs. The goal of this training course is to assist the in-service teachers toimplement new and effective methods for teaching EFL students in Iraq.Therefore, this research has suggested a sixteen-week instructive training program that meets the in-service teachers’ needsand expectations.