“Now as a teacher”: Novice Teachers Reflect on English Language Teacher Education in Iran

Abstract

This study relied on the reflections of 12 novice English language teachers and 3 supervisors to explore the status quo of teacher training in 3 private language institutes with headquarters in Tehran and about 420 language schools throughout the country. Extensive data collection was done through semi-structured interviews, focus group discussions, and teacher diaries as well as informal peer interviews and observation of occasional meetings of supervisors and teachers. To analyze data, an inductive analysis procedure was used. Findings revealed that current language teacher training courses in the context of concern may require different types of improvements with regard to theory-practice gap, supervised in-service workshops, reflective teaching skills, use of technology, and teachers' experiential learning.