A professional development course for in-service English instructors at a language center in Yerevan

Abstract

This course has been designed for a language center in Yerevan, Armenia. The goal of the project was to foster the in-service English instructors’ professional knowledge through on going professional development trainings. The participant instructors and the language center’s founder were interviewed in order to understand the needs of the instructors and the language center, prior to developing the course. In addition, the participant instructors’ lessons were also observed by the course developer. Based on the needs analysis, the course is developed around the following topics: lesson planning, classroom management, oral error correction, assessment and material development. The course consisted of nine units and lasted for 26 hours including practical sessions and in class observations. As a result of the course the participants’ teaching practices with regard to the covered topics improved, which was observed through classroom observations and the participants’ reflective feedback.