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 OF
POST-GRADUATE STUDIES

́

TÔNG THI T
̣ HU

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

́

TÔNG THI T
̣ HU

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
Chapter 1
Table 1.1. Differences between training and development
Chapter 2
Table 2.1: Summary of participant selection as it occurred in my study.
Table 2.2: Summary of interview participant details.


TABLE OF CONTENTS
Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………………..

i

Abstract………………………………………………………………………………….

ii

Lists of Abbreviations……………………………………………………………………

iv

Lists of Tables and figures……………………………………………………………….

v

Table of contents…………………………………………………………………………

vi

PART A: INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………..

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
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 ………………………………………………………
3.3 Post-observation interview ………………………………………………….
4. Data analysis and findings………………………………………………………
4.1 Data analysis…………………………………………………………………
4.2 Findings………………………………………………………………………
4.2.1 Teachers‟ opinions of the impact of the summer in-service
workshops on their teaching ……………………………………………………
4.2.2 Teachers‟ opinions of the limitations of the summer in-service
workshops ………………………………………………………………………

4.2.3 The impact of the summer in-service workshops on teachers‟
classroom teaching ……………………………………………………………..
4.2.4 Discussions of the findings………………………………………….
5. Summary …………………………………………………………………………
PART C: CONCLUSIONS…………………………………………………………..
1. Conclusions of the study……………………………………………………….
2. Limitations of the study……………………………………………………………
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 with
initial teacher training and continues for as long as a teacher remains in the profession. The
fact that teaching is a public profession places teachers in the spotlight of societal
expectations of continually finding ways to improve student learning. The way to make this
possible is by enabling teachers to “continue to evolve in the use, adaptation and
application of their art and craft” (Lange, 1994, p. 250). Hence, the terms teacher
development, in-service teacher training (INSET), and continuing professional
development (CPD), are often used in a broad sense to refer to all forms of formal and less
formal learning undertaken by teachers during the course of their career (Craft, 2000).
Teachers undertake learning during their careers not only because they lack knowledge but

also because there is an obvious need for teaching professionals to cater to the needs of a
continually and rapidly changing world.
The government has been showing its commitment to educational reform for the
last few years. In 2008, the Vietnamese Prime Minister issued Decree N° 1400/QD-TTg on
approving the National Plan for “Teaching and Learning Foreign Languages in the
National 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 force
which is able to implement the new curriculum. In order to achieve the goal of the new
curriculum, teachers really need great support in different aspects to help them grow
professionally. Hence, The Ministry of Education and Training (MOET) focused on
developing teachers by encouraging INSET activities among teachers as a mandatory
requirement. 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 of
Education and Training of Vinh Phuc to EFL teachers in order to encourage them in their
classroom teaching improvement. The purpose of my thesis is then to investigate the
impact of summer in-service workshops on teacher change in their classrooms in Yen Lac
Secondary school (YLSS), in Vinh Phuc, with the focus on their opinions of the
effectiveness, 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 the
context and some of the factors that affect the INSET activities of these teachers. Such
factors include opportunities to engage in development events. I have worked for the
Education and Training Department of Vinh Phuc for seven years now and my role
involves organizing summer in-service workshops for English language teachers in Vinh
Phuc. Through the feedback gained on these workshops organized and through personal
interactions with teachers from local schools who were either participants or presenters, I
obtained useful feedback about these summer in-service workshops. To the best of my
knowledge there has been little research carried out or literature produced on the summer

in-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 my
study is to investigate the impact of summer in-service training workshops on class
teaching of the teachers at Yen Lac Secondary School, in Vinh Phuc Province. Through an
exploration of their experiences, I expect to develop a better understanding of how EFL
teachers 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 following
objectives:


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
classroom
teaching.
4. Research questions
The following research questions guide my investigation:
1. What are teachers‟ opinions of the impact of summer in-service workshops on
their teaching?
2.

What are teachers‟ opinions of the limitations of the summer in-service

workshops?
3.
What impact do the summer in-service workshops have on teachers‟
classroom
teaching?
5. Scope of the study
It would be too ambitious for this small-scale thesis to specify all aspects of inservice teacher training activities. Therefore, the researcher would like to focus only on the
impact of summer in-service workshops on teachers‟ classroom teaching. The subjects of
the thesis are three EFL teachers of YLSS.
6. Methods of the study
With reference to the aims of the study, a semi-structured interview in the first stage
of the study was conducted. This was followed by classroom observations, which were for
the purpose to probe deeply into the impact of short in-service workshops on teacher‟s
classroom teaching. In the last place of the study, a post-observation interview was 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 the summer 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 administrators
useful information about the needed improvement on teacher in-service workshops. Such
improvement is to support teacher change better so that the quality of English language
teaching 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 related
literature on teacher training and development, continuing professional development and
in-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 and
suggestions to enhance INSET activities of EFL teachers in the context, as well as
suggestions for further research into the topic of in-service workshops as a teacher
development activity.
9. Summary
In this part I present the reasons why I conducted this study as well as how the
study was conducted. In the next par – Part B – I will present the literature review of the
study.


PART B: DEVELOPMENT
CHAPTER 1
THE LITERATURE REVIEW
1. Introduction
In this chapter, it seeks to understand the notion of teacher training and teacher
development; 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 affecting
the actualization of INSET activities of EFL teachers. The chapter concludes with insight
into 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, and
ultimately mastered.” (p. 39)
Development, in contrast, is a strategy of influence and indirect intervention that
works on complex, integrated aspects of teaching. The purpose of development is “for the
teacher 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 two
basic educating strategies that share the same purpose: achieving change in what the
teacher 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)

Characteristics
aspects

of

focused on

Constituent base

Focus

Criteria
change
Closure

for


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 and
objectives of these workshops are to provide teachers with new discrete teaching skills and
classroom techniques.
3. Continuing Professional Development and In-service Teacher Training
The term continuing professional development refers to all the activities in which
teachers 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 staff
development, career development, human resource development, continuing education and
lifelong learning. The term is also widely used interchangeably with the term in-service
teacher training.
According to Canh, continuing professional development is a way of learning from
what you do so that you can do it better (Canh, 2004, p.127). For a language teacher, it
seems 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). Hence
every experience he undergoes in his career may be described as in-service teacher
training, also known as teacher development or continuing professional development
(CPD). Therefore, in-service teacher training may, in the most general sense, be taken to
include everything that happens to a teacher from the first day of his teaching career to the
day he retires which contributes, directly or indirectly, to the way in which he executes his
professional duties. Thus, in the United Kingdom, the Department of Education and

Science (1970) has defined in-service teacher training as: “Any activity which a teacher
undertakes, 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 to
the policies and procedures designed to equip teachers with the knowledge, attitudes,
behaviours and skills they require to perform their tasks effectively in the school and
classroom and which includes initial teacher training(a pre-service course before entering
the classroom as a fully responsible teacher) and induction (the process of providing
training 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 subjective and
the most active factor in educational activities, to whom CPD is fundamentally important.
Teachers, in general, in Vinh Phuc province are relatively of lower level in
knowledge and teaching skills, which has well affected and is still affecting the
achievement of the goal of the provincial education, especially the one of elementary and
secondary schooling. In-service teacher training is regarded as best way to improve the
teachers‟ abilities and skills. But the existing problems, such as teachers‟ personal need,
inefficient training, and financial problems, prevent in-service teacher training from
functioning 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 sometimes
interchangeably used. INSET can be defined as all in-service teacher training activities that
professionally qualified teachers engage in to improve their professional knowledge, skills
and attitudes and to educate learners more effectively (Roberts, 1998). It assumes that
teachers engaging in INSET have acquired basic knowledge of teaching and learned basic
teaching skills in their initial teacher education (Eraut, 1994), and that INSET activities can
make teachers aware of the various options available that can help improve their current
practice (Richards & Nunan, 1990). INSET tends to be interpreted as a range of timebound (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 level
required by their role in the system (Roberts, 1998). Often perceived as the quickest and

most economic way of developing teachers on the job (Gaunt, 1995), it thus incorporates
elements of both training as well as development. INSET activities may be accredited or
non-accredited and can be distinguished from less formal in-service training and
development work that teachers also engage in (Day, 1999). INSET, however, is perceived
to include both formal structured opportunities, such as INSET activities that may be
required by external agencies (such as schools where teachers are employed) and are
facilitated by others (such as INSET providers) (Evans, 2002), and less formal
opportunities which may be initiated by individuals or


groups of teachers employed within the same schools or groups of schools. Such less
formal activities can be ongoing and self-initiated and effected. Irrespective of whether the
process 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 teachers
towards expertise (Kelly, 2006). The idea of short or long term INSET for serving teachers
implies the presence of training inside the development process, which is intended to
prepare them for present responsibilities (O‟Neill, 1994), or to develop externally specified
skills, behaviours and strategies (James, 2001) that may equip teachers to immediately
implement the learnt strategies in the classroom (Guskey, 2000). Nevertheless, teacher
development is a continuum of learning in the context of the teacher‟s whole career, with
teachers within a school located at various places along the continuum. Learning during the
early years is generally aimed at developing understanding of practice, followed by later
periods of reflection on work and discussion due to which teachers may continue to gain
new insights and improve their skills. This is where a programme of INSET is so important
and may take the various approaches or forms described in this section according to the
teacher‟s individual or contextual needs.

5. Factors affecting the actualization of INSET activities
In any context, the INSET choices made or available depend on societal
expectations of teachers, school/local education authorities‟ requirements, the contextual

culture 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 to
improve student learning; this constitutes development for teachers and will in the process
convince society that they are a proper profession. Hence, by learning new strategies to
cope with constant and complex change (Hopkins, 2002), teachers are expected to
continually meet high standards of teaching and raise the levels of learner achievement in
their schools. It can be understood then that while


INSET can be independent of the organisation, it often functions more successfully with its
support and recognition (Mann, 2005).
5.2 School/local education authorities’ expectations
Teachers today, as Craft (2000) highlights, are under immense pressure to undertake
specific development courses for improved quality teaching. INSET thus bears significance
not only for the teachers involved but also for the learners, the schools and subsequently
for the society at large. The greatest impact on choice of INSET is perhaps the school
where teachers are employed. They must necessarily adhere to the school‟s requirements
and policies in terms of teacher development. This is most evident in schools where
teachers are expected to engage in specific types of INSET in order to fulfill school goals
which ultimately result in realization of educational goals that are part of the government‟s
policies towards national development. This appears essential in view of the fact that
recently Vietnam has been engaged in a whole-scale review of the educational system in
the country. To meet the challenges of rapid change, education authorities in Vietnam has
gradually recognized of the importance of INSET through teacher education, teacher
support and development structures in universities, schools and vocational training
institutions.
5.3 Contextual and cultural factors
As teaching is a situated and social activity, the impact of INSET activities on

teachers‟ actual practices is understandably affected by socio-cultural factors. These
factors include collegial support and cooperation, teachers‟ motivation and knowledge, the
curriculum requirements, the students‟ expectations, the school leadership, and the wider
social context. Therefore, an investigation of the impact of the summer in-service
workshops on teachers‟ classroom teaching can not be separated from the social context in
which teaching occurs.
To summarize, the way INSET is actualised or pursued and the choices made
available or opted for are affected by expectations and requirements of public, schools and
the local education authorities‟ requirements. It is also affected by the aspirations of
individual teachers, their contextual requirements, the opportunities made available in that
context, 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 sociocultural and community cultures which together interact to influence what decisions are
taken and what opportunities are made available.
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 gap
between theory and practice. In general, there is a shared opinion that both theory and
practice are of crucial importance for language teacher education (Stern & Strevens, 1983).
Training, as observed by Duff (1988), should be practical and directly applicable to the
teaching context. At the same time, there is a broad agreement that practice needs to be
based on theory (Duff, 1988).
In spite of the fact that language teacher education clearly needs theory and
practice, most existing in-service teacher training programs are criticised for having their
major focus on either one or the other (Jarvis & Smith, 1980; Stern & Strevens, 1983). This
means that the effectiveness of training depends to a large extent on how far that training is
transferred to the real classroom situation. Although no teacher training program can
guarantee such a transfer, Altman recalls an old aphorism: “Teachers teach the way they are
taught, not as they were told to teach” (Altman, 1983, p. 233). In other words, this would
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 have been
exposed to a teacher-centred INSET. Most scholars agree that effective INSET courses
should be teacher-centred, interactive and integrative (i.e. it should allow for different
kinds of teaching modes and procedures (Candlin, 1983).
Recently, there has been interest in the effect of INSET courses on teachers‟ latter
practice. There has been a clash between the new and the traditional, illustrated by
comparing INSET course content with later classroom practice. In Vietnam, Lewis and
McCook (2002) examined the views of 14 Vietnamese high school teachers of English, as
expressed in their journal entries during on-going INSET workshops conducted by the
researchers themselves. The results showed that teachers were applying what they had


been introduced to during the course. However, these were reported by the teachers
themselves and no observational data were provided to justify what the stated.
For many years in Vietnam and in many other developing countries, in-service
training workshops or short-term courses that would offer teachers new information on a
particular aspect of their work. Particularly in the context of Vietnamese secondary
schools, 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 the
case 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 large
school with about 1600 students in the three final grades (Grades 10 to 12); most of the
students come from farmer families. The average class size in this school is around 40 and
the classrooms are cramped with very basic school facilities. There are over seventy
teachers working at school, most of whom are full time teachers. There are eight EFL
teachers among them, with teaching experience ranging from three to sixteen years. Six of
them are female and they graduated from different colleges of foreign languages, then their
English proficiency and teaching methods are various in terms of the quality. Thus short inservice workshops organized by educational authorities every summer help them to meet
the requirement of the classroom teaching. All of EFL teachers at the case school have
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. They
are 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 and
International Studies - VNU Hanoi, while the other teacher graduated from the local
Teacher Training College, Phu Tho. One of the reasons for including such a selection of
teachers is to be able to generate a broad range of opinions, insights and experiences of
EFL teachers about summer in-service workshops. The choice will thus ensure that
participants in my study are teachers with sufficient experience in both TEFL and in
INSET.


Summary of participant selection as it occurred in my study
Research
tools
Semistructured
interview

Classroom
observation

Postobservation
interview
Table 2.1: Summary of participant selection as it occurred in my study.
Interview participant details
Interviewee code
Teacher A
Teacher B
Teacher C
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 the
summer in-service workshops on teachers‟ teaching should be conducted in one particular
context. 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 were
used to collect the data: semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and post-


observation interviews. By using these different instruments, I was able to achieve the
triangulation 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 the
teachers‟ opinions and their justifications on issues concerning in-service teacher training
workshops. On the whole, the data from the semi-structured interview presented the
opinions and the limitations of the impact of summer in-service workshops on their
teaching as perceived by EFL teachers at Yen Lac Secondary School; the interview
provided qualitative data that enhance the depth and consistency of the study. Then the
classroom observation and post-observation interview provided data about the actual

teaching of the subjects and help the researcher examine whether their teaching reflects
what they responded to the semi-structured interviews.
3.1 Development of the interview schedule
The interview schedule was informed by my original research questions (See
appendix 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. The
interview schedule was also informed by the literature. In order to understand and interpret
the meaning of the phenomenon of summer in-service workshops to participants, I
explored in depth seventeen open ended questions in face to face interviews. Questions in
the semi- structured interview schedule thus broadly focused on the following categories of
enquiry:
-

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 to
reflect on the above mentioned aspects so that they would be mentally prepared to focus on
the 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 the
interview. The interview schedule was designed to last about an hour bearing in mind that
anything 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 for
conducting the interview, where privacy and confidentiality were assured. The duration of
the interviews lasted for about 60 minutes. It seemed suitable for the interviewer to raise
the major issues and the interviewee could feel free to elaborate and explain wherever they
considered necessary.
 Procedures of the interview
In order to enhance the internal validity of the study, the process of the interview
was followed by the sequence of interview questions. Firstly, the purpose of the interview
was clearly stated and some warm up questions were asked to let the interviewer and
interviewee to be ready. It was followed by some thematic questions as the major part of
the 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 the
gratitude to the interviewee. In certain case that the interviewer was not clear about the
interviewees‟ 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 different
from interviews and questionnaires. They argue that the observation method relies on a
researcher seeing, hearing and recording things which are happening in the classroom
situation. 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 I
conducted classroom observation was to provide me with some knowledge of what and
how teachers put the contents of the short summer in-service training workshops into

practice. While observing the teachers, I took detailed notes of activities they used in the
classroom (See Appendix C for the observational notes)
3.3. Post-Observation Interviews
Each teacher was interviewed after the last classroom observation in about 20
minutes (See the Post-observation Interview Guideline in Appendix B). The interview
focused on critical issues arising from the observed lessons, which related to the
application of what they learned from short summer training courses. All the interviews
were conducted in Vietnamese so that the participants could fully express their views
without being constrained by the use of a second language. The interviews were then
analysed 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-structured
interview, classroom observation and post-observation interview. The process of data
analysis 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 the
impact of summer in-service workshops on their teaching in the case school. Analysis and
interpretation were totally based on what the data told so that it revealed the native
perspective of the informants. All data collected in the study were examined and coded so
that 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 be
adopted by the Department of Education and Training of Vinh Phuc, schools and individual
teachers in the planning of the future teacher in-service workshops.


4.2 Findings:
As mentioned above, methods of data collection of this research include the semistructured interview, the classroom observation and post-observation interview. For the
qualitative data collected from the semi-structured interview, explanations and discussions
generated from the views and opinions of the informants will be illustrated and supported

with appropriate quotations. With deeper understandings about the teachers‟ application of
summer in-service training workshops in their classrooms, it helps to draw conclusions and
make further suggestions for the educators in planning and policy-making processes of
INSET activities.
4.2.1 Teachers’ opinions of the impact of the summer in-service workshops on
their teaching
The aims of organizing summer in-service workshops to encouraged teachers of
English to overcome what has traditionally been the method of teaching and learning
English. In this tradition teachers were the bearers and deliverers of knowledge and
students were the passive learners. It was a teacher-dominated approach to teaching and
learning. Given this, the new teaching methods demanded a more student-centred teaching
and learning, which in turn meant that teachers required in-service training workshops on
what were deemed effective teaching strategies and classroom techniques to be able to
deliver the class teaching in ways that were more meaningful. Accordingly, the research
question was designed to obtain the EFL teachers‟ opinions of the effectiveness of summer
in-service workshops in helping them to implement the new teaching skills into classroom
practice in YLSS.
Effectiveness of New Teaching Strategies and Classroom Techniques
Teachers in the study identified the usefulness of the various teaching techniques
and strategies learned in the in-service workshops to help them improve their classroom
practice. They noted that the trainers provided them with numerous ways in which teachers
had opportunities to practice different teaching models that they could use in the
classroom.