In-service Professional Development: Experiences from the Field

The importance of professional development is significant, and the role that in-service professional development plays can be as important as, if not more important than, more formalised forms that take place either before or away from work. This is because more may well be riding on the success or failure of such programmes both operationally and financially. This may be both from an organisational perspective as well as an individual one. Put simply, good, knowledgeable and constantly improving practitioners are more likely to be effective and satisfied than those who are either struggling to keep their heads above water or, alternatively, have hit a point where they are simply treading water, and this has obvious benefits to both the teacher as well as the education provider. The challenge however is in ensuring that professional development is as effective and valued as it has the potential to be as Mizell (2010) alludes to. Drawing on the experiences of thirty professionals from a variety of contexts, and covering a range of career stages, this presentation will consider the value each individual places on their own in-service tertiary professional development experiences through the answers they provide during semi-structured interviews. Participants are international university language teachers that work, or have worked, in China at Sino-Foreign institutions as well as, in many cases, for domestic providers. These specific experiences will be explored and considered against literature and the impact that these have also had on each individual will be presented in terms of perceived relative value and impact on practice. This presentation should thus be of interest to both practitioners, teacher trainers and broader policy makers.