Building an Online Framework to Develop Novice English Language Teacher Pedagogical Competency

The rise of English being spoken internationally has led to a rise in demand for English language teachers. Many of these teachers are volunteer teachers with no training or experience and novice teachers with training but little experience. In the field of TESOL, there are four knowledge bases that language teachers must be competent in to be effective (Day, 1992). Of these four knowledge bases, the pedagogical knowledge base has received the least amount of attention due to previous assumptions that language teachers primarily need training in linguistics to be successful in the classroom (Johnston & Goettsch, 2000). While that may be true to an extent, competency in the pedagogic knowledge base enables language teachers (especially those who do not share a common language with their students) to run a classroom smoothly and maximize class time—things that most novice and volunteer teachers struggle with. This gap in novice language teacher education prompted several stakeholders to request the development and evaluation of the Novice and Volunteer English Language Teacher Training modules, (hosted at www.noveltt.wordpress.com) to help their novice and volunteer teachers and teacher trainees become more effective language instructors.

Thesis Author: Elisabet S. Chew

Year Completed: 2018

Thesis Chair: Norman W. Evans

LING/TESOL MA: TESOL