A case study the impact of summer in service teacher training on teacher change

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OFPOST-GRADUATE STUDIES TỐ NG THI ̣THU A CASE STUDY: THE IMPACT OF SUMMER IN-SERVICE TEACHE

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TỐ

NG THI ̣THU

A CASE STUDY:

THE IMPACT OF SUMMER IN-SERVICE

TEACHER TRAINING ON TEACHER CHANGE

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ THAY ĐỔI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN DƯỚI TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA CHƯƠNG TRÌNH BỒI DƯỠNG

CHUYÊN MÔN NGHIỆP VỤ HÈ

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60-14-10

HANOI – 2011

VIETNAM NATIONAL UNIVERSITY, HANOI UNIVERSITY OF LANGUAGES AND INTERNATIONAL STUDIES FACULTY OF

POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

TỐ

NG THI ̣THU

A CASE STUDY:

THE IMPACT OF SUMMER IN-SERVICE

TEACHER TRAINING ON TEACHER CHANGE

NGHIÊN CỨU VỀ THAY ĐỔI CỦA GIÁO VIÊN DƯỚI TÁC ĐỘNG CỦA CHƯƠNG TRÌNH BỒI DƯỠNG

CHUYÊN MÔN NGHIỆP VỤ HÈ

M.A MINOR THESIS

Field: English Language Teaching Methodology Code: 60-14-10

Supervisor:Lê Văn Canh, Ph.D

HANOI – 2011

LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS

MOET: Ministry of Education and Training

YLSS: Yen Lac Secondary School

CPD: Continuing Professional Development

INSET: In-service Teacher Training

EFL: English as a Foreign Language

TEFL: Teaching English as a Foreign Language

LISTS OF TABLES AND FIGURES

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgements………

Abstract………

Lists of Abbreviations………

Lists of Tables and figures………

Table of contents………

PART A: INTRODUCTION………

i ii iv v vi 1 1 Introduction ……… 1

2 Rationale ……… 1

3 Aims and objectives of the study……… 2

4 Research questions……… 3

5 Scope of the study……… 3

6 Methods of the study……… 3

7 Significance of the study ……… 4

8 Design of the study……… 4

9 Summary ……… 4

PART B: DEVELOPMENT CHAPTER 1: THE LITERATURE REVIEW……… 5

1 Introduction……… 5

2 Teacher training and teacher development 5 3 Continuing professional development (CPD) and In-Service Teacher Training (INSET)………7

4 INSET activities and their impact on teacher development……….8

5 Factors affecting the actualization of INSET activities……… 9

5.1 Societal factors………

5.2 School/local education authorities‟ expectations………

5.3 Contextual and cultural factors………

6 Studies on the impact of short training workshops on teacher change ………… 11

7 Summary ……… 12

CHAPTER 2: THE STUDY……… 13

1 Introduction ……… 13

2 The case and participants……… 13

3 Research methods……… 14

3.1 Development of the interview schedule……… 15

3.2 Classroom observation ……… 17

3.3 Post-observation interview ……… 17

4 Data analysis and findings……… 17

4.1 Data analysis……… 17

4.2 Findings……… 18

4.2.1 Teachers‟ opinions of the impact of the summer in-service workshops on their teaching ……… 18

4.2.2 Teachers‟ opinions of the limitations of the summer in-service workshops ……… 21

4.2.3 The impact of the summer in-service workshops on teachers‟ classroom teaching ……… 24

4.2.4 Discussions of the findings……… 27

5 Summary ……… 29

PART C: CONCLUSIONS……… 30

1 Conclusions of the study……… 30

2 Limitations of the study……… 30

3 Suggestions to enhance INSET activities ……… 31

4 Suggestions for further research……… 31

REFERENCES……… 32

APPENDICES ……….

PART A INTRODUCTION

1 Introduction

In this part I present the rationale for carrying out this study This is followed by

a brief presentation of the aims and objectives, the research questions, the methods, the scope and the significance of the study Finally, the design of the thesis is presented

2 Rationale

Teacher development is a never ending cycle of teacher learning that begins withinitial teacher training and continues for as long as a teacher remains in the profession Thefact that teaching is a public profession places teachers in the spotlight of societalexpectations of continually finding ways to improve student learning The way to make thispossible is by enabling teachers to “continue to evolve in the use, adaptation andapplication of their art and craft” (Lange, 1994, p 250) Hence, the terms teacherdevelopment, in-service teacher training (INSET), and continuing professionaldevelopment (CPD), are often used in a broad sense to refer to all forms of formal and lessformal learning undertaken by teachers during the course of their career (Craft, 2000).Teachers undertake learning during their careers not only because they lack knowledge butalso because there is an obvious need for teaching professionals to cater to the needs of acontinually and rapidly changing world

The government has been showing its commitment to educational reform for thelast few years In 2008, the Vietnamese Prime Minister issued Decree N° 1400/QD-TTg onapproving the National Plan for “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in theNational Formal Education System in the period of 2008 - 2020”, according to which one

of the major tasks is to enhance teacher professionalism and develop a professional forcewhich is able to implement the new curriculum In order to achieve the goal of the newcurriculum, teachers really need great support in different aspects to help them growprofessionally Hence, The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) focused ondeveloping teachers by encouraging INSET activities among teachers as a mandatoryrequirement As a result, INSET activities, which usually appeared in the form of short

workshops, have been organized annually during the summer time by the Department ofEducation and Training of Vinh Phuc to EFL teachers in order to encourage them in theirclassroom teaching improvement The purpose of my thesis is then to investigate theimpact of summer in-service workshops on teacher change in their classrooms in Yen LacSecondary school (YLSS), in Vinh Phuc, with the focus on their opinions of theeffectiveness, the limitations and the practice of these short courses in their classrooms.

My interest is to explore the change of teachers of English as a Foreign Language(EFL) which plays a significant role in the lives of teachers I am also familiar with thecontext and some of the factors that affect the INSET activities of these teachers Suchfactors include opportunities to engage in development events I have worked for theEducation and Training Department of Vinh Phuc for seven years now and my roleinvolves organizing summer in-service workshops for English language teachers in VinhPhuc Through the feedback gained on these workshops organized and through personalinteractions with teachers from local schools who were either participants or presenters, Iobtained useful feedback about these summer in-service workshops To the best of myknowledge there has been little research carried out or literature produced on the summerin-service workshops of EFL teachers in secondary schools in Vinh Phuc As a result, there

is minimal or no insight into the teaching practice in local schools Hence, the aim of mystudy is to investigate the impact of summer in-service training workshops on classteaching of the teachers at Yen Lac Secondary School, in Vinh Phuc Province Through anexploration of their experiences, I expect to develop a better understanding of how EFLteachers can be supported in their INSET efforts both within their schools and outside

3 Aims and objectives of the study

The study aims to find out the impact of summer in-service workshops on teachers‟teaching practices as reported by the teachers participating in these workshops

In order to achieve the above aim, the study seeks to achieve the followingobjectives:

1 To understand teachers‟ opinions of the impact of summer in-service workshops

on their teaching

2 To explore how summer in-service workshops affect their actual classroomteaching

4 Research questions

The following research questions guide my investigation:

1 What are teachers‟ opinions of the impact of summer in-service workshops on

5 Scope of the study

It would be too ambitious for this small-scale thesis to specify all aspects of service teacher training activities Therefore, the researcher would like to focus only on theimpact of summer in-service workshops on teachers‟ classroom teaching The subjects ofthe thesis are three EFL teachers of YLSS

in-6 Methods of the study

With reference to the aims of the study, a semi-structured interview in the firststage of the study was conducted This was followed by classroom observations, whichwere for the purpose to probe deeply into the impact of short in-service workshops onteacher‟s classroom teaching In the last place of the study, a post-observation interviewwas made to find out the major barriers of the implementation of the training content.These procedures were aimed at collecting rich data about views on the impact of thesummer in-service workshops on teachers‟ classroom practice through the teachers‟opinions and their classroom teaching

7 Significance of the study

Findings from this case study can provide teacher educators and administratorsuseful information about the needed improvement on teacher in-service workshops Suchimprovement is to support teacher change better so that the quality of English languageteaching at the high school can be raised

8 Design of the study

The research study is organized into three parts:

Part A - Introduction - provides basic information including the rationale, aims,research questions, scope, methods, significance and the design of the study

Part B – Development - is composed of two chapters Chapter 1 reviews the relatedliterature on teacher training and development, continuing professional development andin-service teacher training activities

Chapter 2 presents the information about the case school, detailed methodology,data collection and analyses followed by the findings

In part C – Conclusion - I present a summary of major findings of the research andsuggestions to enhance INSET activities of EFL teachers in the context, as well assuggestions for further research into the topic of in-service workshops as a teacherdevelopment activity

9 Summary

In this part I present the reasons why I conducted this study as well as how thestudy was conducted In the next par – Part B – I will present the literature review of thestudy

PART B: DEVELOPMENT

CHAPTER 1 THE LITERATURE REVIEW

1 Introduction

In this chapter, it seeks to understand the notion of teacher training and teacherdevelopment; continuing professional development (CPD) and in-service teacher training(INSET) in the literature The chapter also discusses the INSET activities and their impact

on teacher development Towards the end of the chapter, it discusses the factors affectingthe actualization of INSET activities of EFL teachers The chapter concludes with insightinto some recent researches on the impact of short training workshops on teacher change

2 Teacher Training and Teacher Development

In the literature, terms such as teacher training, teacher development, teacher

education, and teacher preparation have been and often continue to be used

interchangeably According to Freeman (1989), the term teacher education is preserved as the superordinate or an umbrella term, whereas teacher training and teacher development

are used to describe the strategies by which teachers are educated Thus, Freeman (1989)defines training as

…a strategy for direct intervention by the collaborator, to work on specific aspects

of the teacher‟s teaching The intervention is focused on specific outcomes that can

be achieved through a clear sequence of steps, commonly within a specified period

of time The aspects of teaching that are seen as “trainable” are discrete chunks,usually based on knowledge or skills, which can be isolated, practiced, andultimately mastered.” (p 39)

Development, in contrast, is a strategy of influence and indirect intervention thatworks on complex, integrated aspects of teaching The purpose of development is “for theteacher to generate change through increasing or shifting awareness” (Freeman, 1989, p.40) As such,

development is a far less predictable or directed strategy than training It is highly

dependent on the individual teacher, the collaborator, and their interaction (p 41)

According to these definitions, teacher training and teacher development are twobasic educating strategies that share the same purpose: achieving change in what theteacher does and why They differ in the means they adopt to achieve that purpose.Freeman (1989) highlights the differences between these strategies in Table 2.1 below

Table 1.1 Differences between training and development (Freeman, 1989, p 42)

Teacher training Teacher developmentProcess of direct Process of influenceintervention

Characteristics of Generally accessible; can be Idiosyncratic and individual;aspects of teaching mastered through specific mature through constant

involvement of the teacher inhis or her teaching

Constituent base Knowledge and skills Attitude and awareness

work carried out by teacher work initiated by teacher

Criteria for assessing External; accessible to the Internal; personal to teacher

Closure Can be within a fixed time Is open-ended; work continues

period, once criteria are until teacher decides to stopsatisfied

For the purpose of this study, which looks at the impact of short summer workshops

on teachers‟ classroom teaching, the term „training‟ is used This is because the aims andobjectives of these workshops are to provide teachers with new discrete teaching skills andclassroom techniques

3 Continuing Professional Development and In-service Teacher Training

The term continuing professional development refers to all the activities in whichteachers engage during the course of a career which are designed to enhance their work‟(Day & Sachs, 2004, p.3) CPD is often described in the literature using terms such as staffdevelopment, career development, human resource development, continuing education andlifelong learning The term is also widely used interchangeably with the term in-serviceteacher training

According to Canh, continuing professional development is a way of learning fromwhat you do so that you can do it better (Canh, 2004, p.127) For a language teacher, itseems to be always right For the good teacher, every facet of his knowledge, skills,personality, and interests are of potential professional value (Euan, 1978, p.11) Henceevery experience he undergoes in his career may be described as in-service teachertraining, also known as teacher development or continuing professional development(CPD) Therefore, in-service teacher training may, in the most general sense, be taken toinclude everything that happens to a teacher from the first day of his teaching career to theday he retires which contributes, directly or indirectly, to the way in which he executes hisprofessional duties Thus, in the United Kingdom, the Department of Education andScience (1970) has defined in-service teacher training as: “Any activity which a teacherundertakes, after he has begun to teach, which is concerned with his professional work.”

In-service teacher training(INSET) is one form of teacher education which refers tothe policies and procedures designed to equip teachers with the knowledge, attitudes,behaviours and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the school andclassroom and which includes initial teacher training(a pre-service course before enteringthe classroom as a fully responsible teacher) and induction (the process of providingtraining and support during the first few years of teaching or the first year in a particular

school) as well Teachers who are essential to the high-quality education, are subjectiveand the most active factor in educational activities, to whom CPD is fundamentallyimportant.

Teachers, in general, in Vinh Phuc province are relatively of lower level inknowledge and teaching skills, which has well affected and is still affecting theachievement of the goal of the provincial education, especially the one of elementary andsecondary schooling In-service teacher training is regarded as best way to improve theteachers‟ abilities and skills But the existing problems, such as teachers‟ personal need,inefficient training, and financial problems, prevent in-service teacher training fromfunctioning in improving the teachers‟ quality in the locality

4 INSET activities and their impact on teacher development

The terms CPD and in-service teacher training (INSET) are sometimesinterchangeably used INSET can be defined as all in-service teacher training activities thatprofessionally qualified teachers engage in to improve their professional knowledge, skillsand attitudes and to educate learners more effectively (Roberts, 1998) It assumes thatteachers engaging in INSET have acquired basic knowledge of teaching and learned basicteaching skills in their initial teacher education (Eraut, 1994), and that INSET activities canmake teachers aware of the various options available that can help improve their currentpractice (Richards & Nunan, 1990) INSET tends to be interpreted as a range of time-bound (Day, 1999), structured, formal and top-down in-service learning activities designed

to bridge the gap between teachers‟ current level of skills and knowledge and the levelrequired by their role in the system (Roberts, 1998) Often perceived as the quickest andmost economic way of developing teachers on the job (Gaunt, 1995), it thus incorporateselements of both training as well as development INSET activities may be accredited ornon-accredited and can be distinguished from less formal in-service training anddevelopment work that teachers also engage in (Day, 1999) INSET, however, is perceived

to include both formal structured opportunities, such as INSET activities that may berequired by external agencies (such as schools where teachers are employed) and arefacilitated by others (such as INSET providers) (Evans, 2002), and less formalopportunities which may be initiated by individuals or

groups of teachers employed within the same schools or groups of schools Such lessformal activities can be ongoing and self-initiated and effected Irrespective of whether theprocess is training dominated or not, INSET is likely to improve teachers‟ knowledge,skills and practice and as a result enhance their professional status by moving teacherstowards expertise (Kelly, 2006) The idea of short or long term INSET for serving teachersimplies the presence of training inside the development process, which is intended toprepare them for present responsibilities (O‟Neill, 1994), or to develop externally specifiedskills, behaviours and strategies (James, 2001) that may equip teachers to immediatelyimplement the learnt strategies in the classroom (Guskey, 2000) Nevertheless, teacherdevelopment is a continuum of learning in the context of the teacher‟s whole career, withteachers within a school located at various places along the continuum Learning during theearly years is generally aimed at developing understanding of practice, followed by laterperiods of reflection on work and discussion due to which teachers may continue to gainnew insights and improve their skills This is where a programme of INSET is so importantand may take the various approaches or forms described in this section according to theteacher‟s individual or contextual needs.

5 Factors affecting the actualization of INSET activities

In any context, the INSET choices made or available depend on societalexpectations of teachers, school/local education authorities‟ requirements, the contextualculture in which teachers work and subsequently their own values and beliefs as well

5.1 Societal factors

Teaching as a public job is powerfully affected by societal norms and expectations(Roberts, 1998), which makes it pertinent that teachers continually try to find ways toimprove student learning; this constitutes development for teachers and will in the processconvince society that they are a proper profession Hence, by learning new strategies tocope with constant and complex change (Hopkins, 2002), teachers are expected tocontinually meet high standards of teaching and raise the levels of learner achievement intheir schools It can be understood then that while

INSET can be independent of the organisation, it often functions more successfully with itssupport and recognition (Mann, 2005).

5.2 School/local education authorities’ expectations

Teachers today, as Craft (2000) highlights, are under immense pressure toundertake specific development courses for improved quality teaching INSET thus bearssignificance not only for the teachers involved but also for the learners, the schools andsubsequently for the society at large The greatest impact on choice of INSET is perhapsthe school where teachers are employed They must necessarily adhere to the school‟srequirements and policies in terms of teacher development This is most evident in schoolswhere teachers are expected to engage in specific types of INSET in order to fulfill schoolgoals which ultimately result in realization of educational goals that are part of thegovernment‟s policies towards national development This appears essential in view of thefact that recently Vietnam has been engaged in a whole-scale review of the educationalsystem in the country To meet the challenges of rapid change, education authorities inVietnam has gradually recognized of the importance of INSET through teacher education,teacher support and development structures in universities, schools and vocational traininginstitutions

5.3 Contextual and cultural factors

As teaching is a situated and social activity, the impact of INSET activities onteachers‟ actual practices is understandably affected by socio-cultural factors Thesefactors include collegial support and cooperation, teachers‟ motivation and knowledge, thecurriculum requirements, the students‟ expectations, the school leadership, and the widersocial context Therefore, an investigation of the impact of the summer in-serviceworkshops on teachers‟ classroom teaching can not be separated from the social context inwhich teaching occurs

To summarize, the way INSET is actualised or pursued and the choices madeavailable or opted for are affected by expectations and requirements of public, schools andthe local education authorities‟ requirements It is also affected by the aspirations ofindividual teachers, their contextual requirements, the opportunities made available in thatcontext, and the economic factors that enable such opportunities Part of the complex

picture of actualising INSET are also the values and beliefs of teachers within those cultural and community cultures which together interact to influence what decisions aretaken and what opportunities are made available.

socio-6 Studies on the impact of short training workshops on teacher change

One of the greatest concerns in teacher development is how to bridge the gapbetween theory and practice In general, there is a shared opinion that both theory andpractice are of crucial importance for language teacher education (Stern & Strevens, 1983).Training, as observed by Duff (1988), should be practical and directly applicable to theteaching context At the same time, there is a broad agreement that practice needs to bebased on theory (Duff, 1988)

In spite of the fact that language teacher education clearly needs theory andpractice, most existing in-service teacher training programs are criticised for having theirmajor focus on either one or the other (Jarvis & Smith, 1980; Stern & Strevens, 1983) Thismeans that the effectiveness of training depends to a large extent on how far that training istransferred to the real classroom situation Although no teacher training program canguarantee such a transfer, Altman recalls an old aphorism: “Teachers teach the way theyare taught, not as they were told to teach” (Altman, 1983, p 233) In other words, thiswould imply that language teachers should be trained the way they are expected to teach.For „learner-centred‟ teaching to be carried out by classroom teachers they should havebeen exposed to a teacher-centred INSET Most scholars agree that effective INSETcourses should be teacher-centred, interactive and integrative (i.e it should allow fordifferent kinds of teaching modes and procedures (Candlin, 1983)

Recently, there has been interest in the effect of INSET courses on teachers‟ latterpractice There has been a clash between the new and the traditional, illustrated bycomparing INSET course content with later classroom practice In Vietnam, Lewis andMcCook (2002) examined the views of 14 Vietnamese high school teachers of English, asexpressed in their journal entries during on-going INSET workshops conducted by theresearchers themselves The results showed that teachers were applying what they had

been introduced to during the course However, these were reported by the teachersthemselves and no observational data were provided to justify what the stated.

For many years in Vietnam and in many other developing countries, in-servicetraining workshops or short-term courses that would offer teachers new information on aparticular aspect of their work Particularly in the context of Vietnamese secondaryschools, this has been the only type of training teachers would receive

7 Summary

This chapter reviews the literature on teacher development with an emphasis on summer in-service workshops Factors affecting the effectiveness of those workshops have also been reviewed The next chapter presents the study

CHAPTER 2 THE STUDY

1 Introduction

This chapter provides information about the study Firstly, information about thecase and the participants, then the research methods and research procedures is provided.This is followed by the presentation of the findings and the discussion of those findings

2 The case and participants

The study involved three EFL teachers working in Yen Lac Secondary School(YLSS), which is located in a countryside district of Vinh Phuc It is a relatively largeschool with about 1600 students in the three final grades (Grades 10 to 12); most of thestudents come from farmer families The average class size in this school is around 40 andthe classrooms are cramped with very basic school facilities There are over seventyteachers working at school, most of whom are full time teachers There are eight EFLteachers among them, with teaching experience ranging from three to sixteen years Six ofthem are female and they graduated from different colleges of foreign languages, then theirEnglish proficiency and teaching methods are various in terms of the quality Thus shortin-service workshops organized by educational authorities every summer help them tomeet the requirement of the classroom teaching All of EFL teachers at the case schoolhave participated in these in-service teacher training workshops run by university lecturers

or key teachers

Participants in my study consist of three English-language teachers at YLSS Theyare thus full time teachers, a male and two female teachers with a minimum of three years‟experience of teaching English Two of them graduated from University of Languages andInternational Studies - VNU Hanoi, while the other teacher graduated from the localTeacher Training College, Phu Tho One of the reasons for including such a selection ofteachers is to be able to generate a broad range of opinions, insights and experiences ofEFL teachers about summer in-service workshops The choice will thus ensure thatparticipants in my study are teachers with sufficient experience in both TEFL and inINSET

Summary of participant selection as it occurred in my study

tools

Semi- Three (a) EFL teachers with more than three years One male and

interview teachers (b) Teachers who could participate in the EFL teachers

of YLSS interview on the same day as othersClassroom Three (a) Teachers who participate in the semi- One male and

teachers (b) Teachers who are comfortable with EFL teachers

of YLSS their lessons being observedPost- Three (a) teachers whose classes are observed One male andobservation EFL (b) Teachers who can participate in the two femaleinterview teachers post-observation interview on the same day EFL teachers

of YLSS of the class observation

Table 2.1: Summary of participant selection as it occurred in my study.

Interview participant details

Table 2.2: Summary of interview participant details.

3 Research methods

As I have argued earlier, teaching is social, and the study of the impact of thesummer in-service workshops on teachers‟ teaching should be conducted in one particularcontext This is the rationale for my choice of a qualitative case study design for this study

In order to achieve the aims and objectives of the study, three instruments wereused to collect the data: semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and post-

observation interviews By using these different instruments, I was able to achieve thetriangulation of the data, thereby increasing the reliability and credibility of the findings(Denzin, 1978).

The semi-structured interview was used to aim at gaining a general picture of theteachers‟ opinions and their justifications on issues concerning in-service teacher trainingworkshops On the whole, the data from the semi-structured interview presented theopinions and the limitations of the impact of summer in-service workshops on theirteaching as perceived by EFL teachers at Yen Lac Secondary School; the interviewprovided qualitative data that enhance the depth and consistency of the study Then theclassroom observation and post-observation interview provided data about the actualteaching of the subjects and help the researcher examine whether their teaching reflectswhat they responded to the semi-structured interviews

3.1 Development of the interview schedule

The interview schedule was informed by my original research questions (Seeappendix A for interview schedule) based on my interest in the subject and my awareness

of the phenomenon of short summer in-service workshops in the researched context Theinterview schedule was also informed by the literature In order to understand and interpretthe meaning of the phenomenon of summer in-service workshops to participants, Iexplored in depth seventeen open ended questions in face to face interviews Questions inthe semi- structured interview schedule thus broadly focused on the following categories ofenquiry:

- Participants‟ opinions of the impact of summer in-service workshops

- Possible limitations of summer in-service workshops that participants have recently involved in

- The impact of summer training workshop on teachers‟ classroom practice

A week ahead of their scheduled interviews, I e-mailed interviewees asking them toreflect on the above mentioned aspects so that they would be mentally prepared to focus onthe subject of enquiry It also put them at ease, saved time that would otherwise

be spent in explaining the questions asked and proved useful in retaining focus during theinterview The interview schedule was designed to last about an hour bearing in mind thatanything less than half an hour was unlikely to be valuable and more than an hour would

be making unreasonable demands and could result in fewer persons willing to participate(Robson, 2002)

 Time and venue of the interview

A quiet and large classroom was chosen and considered to be a convenient place forconducting the interview, where privacy and confidentiality were assured The duration ofthe interviews lasted for about 60 minutes It seemed suitable for the interviewer to raisethe major issues and the interviewee could feel free to elaborate and explain wherever theyconsidered necessary

 Procedures of the interview

In order to enhance the internal validity of the study, the process of the interviewwas followed by the sequence of interview questions Firstly, the purpose of the interviewwas clearly stated and some warm up questions were asked to let the interviewer andinterviewee to be ready It was followed by some thematic questions as the major part ofthe interview Lastly, certain cool-off questions were asked to lower the tension established

in the major part of the interview and the whole process was ended by expressing thegratitude to the interviewee In certain case that the interviewer was not clear about theinterviewees‟ interpretation during the process of data analysis, clarification was done after

a reasonable period of time

3.2 Classroom observation

McMillan and Schumacher (1997, p.268) contend that observation is very differentfrom interviews and questionnaires They argue that the observation method relies on aresearcher seeing, hearing and recording things which are happening in the classroomsituation It notes that observation involves gathering live data from live situations and this

is what I have done

In this study, I observed a total number of six lessons from three selected teachers(two lessons per teacher) in the case school I used classroom observation because I wanted

to see what teachers actually performed in their English classes The other reason why Iconducted classroom observation was to provide me with some knowledge of what andhow teachers put the contents of the short summer in-service training workshops intopractice While observing the teachers, I took detailed notes of activities they used in theclassroom (See Appendix C for the observational notes)

3.3 Post-Observation Interviews

Each teacher was interviewed after the last classroom observation in about 20minutes (See the Post-observation Interview Guideline in Appendix B) The interviewfocused on critical issues arising from the observed lessons, which related to theapplication of what they learned from short summer training courses All the interviewswere conducted in Vietnamese so that the participants could fully express their viewswithout being constrained by the use of a second language The interviews were thenanalysed by the researcher to identify main themes

4 Data analysis and findings 4.1 Data analysis

This study was based on different data sources which consisted of semi-structuredinterview, classroom observation and post-observation interview The process of dataanalysis may be quite different according to the nature of these data For the data collected

in the semi-structured interview, which is relatively qualitative in nature, was then coded

so that readers could easily observe the general picture of EFL teachers‟ opinions of theimpact of summer in-service workshops on their teaching in the case school Analysis andinterpretation were totally based on what the data told so that it revealed the nativeperspective of the informants All data collected in the study were examined and coded sothat I could identify themes and patterns that helped to answer my research questions.Based on the findings of this study, I discussed and tried to suggest some measures to beadopted by the Department of Education and Training of Vinh Phuc, schools andindividual teachers in the planning of the future teacher in-service workshops