Empirical background

each learning opportunity is also a step in the development to become a better learner, or as Claxton puts it, “learning to learn is the lifelong shadow of learning itself” (1999, p. 9).

All the theories outlined above, however, have contributed to what the world knows about learning today. In terms of teacher learning, all the theories may be of some relevance, but the most pertinent theories for the present investigations appear to be those of experiential learning, reflective learning and constructivism.

published in 2004 (Sántha) with special focus on reflection. From an overview of the international literature on beginner teachers it was concluded that beginner teachers have idealistic expectations (Imre, 2004).

In terms of the knowledge base of ELT teachers, the distinction between procedural and declarative knowledge was detected in the work of in-service and pre-service teachers by DelliCarpini (2009). The researcher realised that while young in-service teachers were capable of planning collaborative learning tasks they did not actually accomplish any during their teaching.

Szesztay collected empirical evidence in seven non-language teachers’ work in Vermont for the intertwined nature of knowledge components that teachers draw on when they have to make “split-second” decisions in the “immediacy of teaching” in the classroom (2004, p. 129 and p. 131). “The building blocks of professional competence blend together seamlessly,” she states and calls this in Schön’s words “the uninterrupted flow of knowing in action” (Szesztay, ibid., p. 130).

The different routes teachers take as they are becoming professionals and trainee teachers’ early difficulties have been studied by Hobson et al. in England (2005). In a questionnaire study including almost 5,000 trainees combined with 85 case studies it was found that four issues appear to be central to “the becoming a teacher experience” (ibid. p. 2):

identity, relationships, relevance and emotion. Becoming a teacher implies that the trainee establishes a new identity or a new self. Trainees were also found to attach great importance to the past, potential or actual relationships with learners, their teachers and teacher colleagues. Hobson et al. also found that the appreciation of theoretical education was higher if it was perceived to “have direct links with and implications for classroom teaching” (p. 4).

One can assume that if the process of becoming a teacher is a “highly emotional” (p. 2) experience for trainees, the process of growing as a teacher is likely to be just as emotional,

especially if we accept Hargreaves’ statement that “teaching cannot be reduced to technical competence […] it involves significant emotional understanding and emotional labour as well” (1998, p. 850).

The voices of seven New Zealand beginning teachers have been investigated in a qualitative study by Lang (1999). The researcher attempted to identify the time when the survival phase of teacher development ended and the consolidation phase started for the teachers involved and drew attention to the fact that it was careful planning and tutor support that helped the beginning teachers to survive the first year of teaching. Schuck (2003), Schuck

& Segal (2002, in Schuck) and Brady & Schuck (2005) were also concerned with the development of beginning teachers. These studies report on the desirability and implementation of support schemes designed to assist beginning teachers in and outside their school contexts. Schuck & Segal (2002) found that Australian teachers in the first year of their careers could greatly benefit from an external support network. Schuck later reported the lessons learnt from operating such a network of beginning teachers (n = 18), teacher educators and experienced teachers (n = 20) which was independent of the beginning teacher’s school context and included various forms of interaction: workshops, online discussion boards, emails, faxes and telephone conversations. Participation in the network was voluntary, it was offered both to teachers in the first year of their teaching who had adequate support at their schools and to those who did not. At the end of the qualitative study, the researcher concluded that the network could help retain teachers and would foster reflection among more experienced teachers too. Brady & Schuck (2005) specifically advocate an online mentoring scheme to supplement school-based mentoring that supports the induction of beginning teachers.

An impact study that shed light on the different meanings teachers attach to the term reflective practice was conducted by Szesztay & Curtis (2005). The study, which combines

quantitative and qualitative tools, is a report on how experienced participants, teachers of various subjects in the United States perceived the impact of their in-service training one or more years later. The in-depth interviews not only provided the textual data for the study but they also produced the statements used in the quantitative survey. The survey data to get a wider spread of views came from 35 participants while the interviews were conducted with seven participants of the training, which consisted of sessions of an inquiry group in which teachers themselves generated the content of the course. The researchers identified six emerging categories in the narratives of teachers: renewed enthusiasm for teaching, looking at teaching with “fresh eyes”, shifts in understanding teaching, becoming more reflective and aware as teachers, enhancing the quality of student learning and building professional communities (p. 5). Although the authors admit that the participants were a special group in the sense that they were already considered to be reflective practitioners at the outset since they “were highly committed to growth, development and change when they arrived” (p. 12), the study provides rich descriptions of the way teachers think about their own development with telling quotations from the teachers themselves.

In a recent study based on nearly 400 questionnaires, 28 teacher interviews and 15 group exercises conducted in Scotland, England and Wales, Williams & Coles (2007) looked into teachers’ use of research evidence and found that the use of research information is limited because of lack of time, access and limited information literacy. One respondent in a group discussion remarked that when teachers left teacher training that marked the end of their professional development. However, the study also found that sources that may be accessed in the familiar surroundings of the school, e.g. informal discussions with colleagues, professional magazines, were more likely to be used as sources used by respondents. Data from the investigations seem to suggest that there is an interrelationship between interest in

research, confidence in finding and using information, and, what is relevant for the purposes of this study, reflective practice and professional development.

Although the focus of the Huberman studies (1989, 1993) was not primarily teacher development, research into teachers’ career cycles gave the opportunity to study teachers’

perceptions of their own professional trajectories in the Swiss context. The study described in great depth the way teachers of different subjects or in different positions, for instance teachers of Latin, French, history, art or gymnastics or home-room teachers, perceived the progressions of their career. It is a strength of this rich description that the perceptions are illustrated with teachers’ own way of seeing the different steps of achieving pedagogical mastery. For example, confidence in teaching is described as feeling equal to more experienced colleagues, or as a teacher with ten years of experience says, “I wanted to be at the same level as the ones you knew were really good, when I could say: ‘now, that’s teaching’” (Huberman, 1993, p. 225).

A study that investigated the development of Hungarian teachers of English into business English teachers (BETs) also touched upon their learning habits. Whereas Bereczky’s qualitative investigations did not shed light on such habits, her quantitative questionnaire findings revealed that the most frequently used sources for self study in the lives of BETs were printed sources (2012). Even though 25 % of the 53 respondents claimed the most enjoyable part of their being a BET was having to learn new things, almost 70 % also said they preferred learning from higher education coursebooks related to the field they were teaching, about 65 % said they learnt from business and economic magazines and 62 % said they learnt from printed professional dictionaries. Learning from colleagues, language teachers or subject teachers were cited fewer times (p. 252).

It can be stated with confidence that the majority of the relevant empirical studies are qualitative in terms of their methodology, albeit including some quantitative measures, too.

While the growth of trainee teachers in general has been widely researched, and the growth of practising teachers of different subjects in the UK, US and Switzerland has also been given some attention, the development of English language teachers in particular has remained a basically unexplored area of study. In Hungary, the only study that dealt with it focussed on their specialization in teaching English for Specific Purposes, namely business English.