The national concern to improve the level of education in Malaysia prompted the Ministry of Education to conduct a comprehensive review of the education system and introduce the Malaysia Education Blueprint (2013-2025) to transform the education system. One of the aims was to upgrade the quality of in-service teacher training for teachers. This has resulted in a reshaping of the type of courses and delivery mode for in-service education for teachers (INSET) into a top-down, national priority driven training model. The research reported here focuses on investigating the professional development needs of Malaysian primary school English language teachers. Teachers’ perceptions of their professional development and the factors affecting it has so far been under-researched, at least in a Malaysian context. The research is informed by a qualitative survey approach investigating teachers’ perceptions of their CPD through the use of focus groups and individual interviews. This research concerns teachers’ perceptions of the INSET they had attended, their future expectations of CPD, their perceptions of CPD in relation to their pupils’ needs and their views on whether it had changed their practice in the classroom. This paper focuses on the participants’ perceptions of what factors promoted and hindered their professional development and what motivated them to attend programmes for INSET to enhance their skills.

Published in: London International Conference on Education (LICE-2016)

• Date of Conference: 14-17 November 2016
• DOI: 10.2053/LICE.2016.0025
• ISBN: 978-1-908320-76-6
• Conference Location: Heathrow Windsor Marriott Hotel, UK