Exploring Early-Career EFL Teachers’ Engagement in Professional Learning: Teaching Beliefs and Professional Values

Abstract

While a number of studies focused on identity construction, teacher attrition, and lived experiences among early-career teachers, studies on early-career English as a Foreign Language (EFL) teachers’ professional practices for teacher learning remain underexplored. Using the United Kingdom Professional Standards Framework dimensions of professional practice as a framework and a narrative inquiry as a method, this study explores how early-career EFL teachers engaged in teacher learning through a reflective practice of their teaching beliefs, classroom practices, and professional values. Findings from the open-ended written interview questions and semi-structured individual interviews suggest that early-career EFL teachers’ experience and academic orientation influence their preconceived beliefs and professional values towards teaching. However, such beliefs and attitudes are negotiated and changed when teachers engage in teacher learning through a professional development program that provides them the space to reflect on who and what they are as teachers. This study has implications for early-career EFL teachers’ professional practices and language education curriculum programs.