Development and validation of an English language teacher learning scale

Figures & data

Table 1. Tentative theoretical conceptualization of the factors influencing teacher learning in ELT contexts

Components and sub-components of teacher learning in ELT contexts
• Teacher cognition and beliefs
(i.e. pedagogical knowledge, subject matter knowledge, values, awareness and sensitivity, self-reflections, beliefs and knowledge about teaching, students, and content, awareness of classroom problem-solving strategies, schooling, prior language learning experience, classroom practice, prior teacher education programs
• Teacher emotions
(i.e. emotional suffering, emotional freedom, emotional knowledge, emotional exhaustion and teacher burnout, school climate, social working environment, workload, emotional intelligence, cognitive self-regulation, hardiness, teachers’ goal orientation, job satisfaction)
• Teacher motivation
(i.e. success expectancy, social prestige, working condition, intellectual fulfillment, salary, job security, autonomous motivation, teacher self-efficacy, goal internalization, uncertainty tolerance
• Contextual variables
(i.e. value consonance, supervisory support, relations with colleagues and parents, time pressure, discipline problems, time and resources, program flexibility, teacher education programs, teacher evaluation, materials and resources, classrooms observations, teacher learning strategies, job satisfaction

Table 2. Number of items capturing each component of the theoretical conceptualization in the English language teacher learning scale

Components of English language teacher learning in the theoretical framework	Number of items capturing each component
Teacher cognition and belief	10
Teacher emotions	10
Teacher motivation	11
Contextual variables	19
Total	50

Table 3. Rotated component matrix of factor analysis on the items of the ELTLS

Item no. gist of the item		Factors
		1	2	3	4
1	Subject matter knowledge	.78
2	Pedagogical knowledge	.74
3	Prior learning experience	.64
4	Teaching experience	.62
5	Personal theories	.83
6	Teacher commitment	.59
7	Teachers’ awareness and sensitivity	.56
19	Peer observation	.60
37	Self-reflection	.58
8	Emotional Freedom		.66
10	Job satisfaction		.62
11	Goal orientation		.61
15	Interpersonal relationship		.55
20	Self-regulating strategies		.56
22	Emotional suffering		.57
27	Emotional exhaustion		.69
28	Workload		.80
31	Hardiness		.54
9	Autonomous motivation			.54
12	Job security			.62
16	Working condition			.64
18	Social prestige			.56
21	Intellectual fulfillment			.50
24	Teacher self-efficacy			.77
25	Goal internalization			.58
32	Salary			.73
39	Success expectancy			.61
13	Discipline				.57
14	Time pressure				.58
17	Collaborative context				.53
23	Value consonance				.62
26	Relation with colleagues				.66
29	Supervisory support				.57
30	Program flexibility				.54
33	Teacher evaluation				.55
34	Teacher education programs				.65
35	Relation with parents				.75
36	Teaching material				.54
38	Work activities				.63
40	Learners’ questions				.61
41	Learners’ feedback				.72
42	Learners’ proficiency				.62
43	Teacher popularity				.59
44	Class level				.53
45	Classroom learning material				.64

Table 4. Components of ELTLS reflecting the obtaining factor loadings

Finalized components of teacher learning scale
Teacher cognition and beliefs (factor 1) (items 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 19, 37)
Teacher emotions (factor 2) (items 8, 10, 11, 15, 20, 22, 27, 28, 31)
Teacher motivations(factor 3) (items 9, 12, 16, 18, 21, 24, 25, 32, 39)
Contextual variables(factor 4) (items 13, 14, 17, 23, 26, 29, 30, 33, 34, 35, 36, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45)

Table 5. Descriptive statistics of the ELTLS (n = 184)

Components of the ELTLS	N	Mean	SD
Teacher cognition and beliefs	9	51.58	4.51
Teacher emotions	9	29.93	8.37
Teacher motivation	9	30.02	6.33
Contextual variables	18	14.32	2.64
Total	45	134.66	18.94

Table

Components of teacher learning	Study
• Pedagogical content knowledge	Van Driel and Berry (2012)
• Beliefs and knowledge about teaching, students, and content • Awareness of classroom teaching problem-solving strategies	Kagan (1990)
• Schooling • Prior language learning experience • Teacher education programs	Borg (2003)
• Personal theories of language teaching and learning • Teacher commitment • Awareness/sensitivity	Rosenfeld and Rosenfeld (2008)
• Teacher learning strategies/patterns o Self-learning o Action research, Portfolios o Self-reflection o Peer observation	Hoekstra et al. (2009)
	Lombaerts, De Backer, Engels, van Braak, and Athanasou(2009)
	Presseisen (2008)
	Endedijk and Vermunt (2013)
	Bell and Mladenovic (2015)
• Teacher goals, ideological or value conflicts • Emotional suffering • Emotional freedom	Zembylas (2005)
• Emotional knowledge	Zembylas (2007)
• Emotional exhaustion/teacher burnout • Interpersonal relationships • Workload	van Droogenbroeck, Spruyt, and Vanroelen (2014)
• Cognitive self-regulation • Emotional intelligence • Hardiness • Teachers’ goal orientation • Hierarchy of strengths • Job satisfaction	Mattern and Bauer (2014)
	Chan (2006)
	Chan (2003)
	Parker, Martin, Colmar, and Liem (2012)
	Chan (2009)
	Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2011)
• Success expectancy	Neves de Jesus and Lens (2005)
• Social prestige • Working condition • Working condition • Intellectual fulfillment • Salary • Job security	Watt and Richardson (2008)
• Autonomous motivation	Katz and Shahar (2015)
• Teacher self-efficacy, • Goal internalization, • Uncertainty tolerance	Thoonen et al. (2011)
• Value consonance • Supervisory support • Relations with colleagues • Relations with parents • Time pressure • Discipline problems	Skaalvik and Skaalvik (2011)
• Teacher evaluation/education • Teaching materials • Program flexibility • Collaborative contexts	Tuytens and Devos (2011)
	Petrie (2012)
	Reeves (2010)
	Leonard (2015)
• The reform input • Professional coursework • Contextual factors • Schooling • IDs and personal histories • Language teacher cognition • Language teacher possible self	Kubanyiova (2012)
• Teacher challenges o Students challenge Coping with students’ challenging questions Avoiding students’ correction Being more linguistically proficient than the students o Colleagues challenge Being a more popular teacher in comparison with colleagues Teaching higher level classes in comparison with colleagues Knowing more and being more skillful than other colleagues o Teaching material Being able to explain even the most difficult instructional materials fully Being able to use the presented learning materials in classroom talk	The present study

Table

(1) What factors motivate or demotivate you to be a better language teacher? (2) What are the characteristics of a good teacher learner? (3) What contextual factors influence your desire to be a better teacher? (4) How do your emotions influence your own learning as a teacher? (5) What individual and unique features do you think you have which have made you a better teacher learner?

Table

N		1	2	3	4	5
1	I have good command of the language I teach
2	I have good knowledge of processes, practices, and methods of teaching and learning
3	I have learnt a lot about teaching through my extensive experience as a learner
4	I have extensive experience of teaching in classrooms
5	I have my own personal theories about teaching and learning
6	I am committed to be a better teacher
7	I attend to learners’ individual differences and needs
8	I feel emotionally free to talk about my ideas and feelings about my job as a teacher with others at work
9	I teach out of interest and enjoyment
10	I am satisfied with my institutional/societal position as a teacher
11	I feel I’m submitting to others’ goals which are set for me as a teacher*
12	There is a low probability that I lose my job in near future
13	My students are not disciplined and disrupt my teaching*
14	I don’t have much time for teaching preparation and recovery*
15	I have satisfactory interpersonal relationship with others at work
16	I have agreeable working conditions
17	The school/institution I work for provides opportunities for collaborative professional learning
18	Being a language teacher has a great social prestige in my society
19	I observe and reflect on my colleagues’ teaching practices
20	I have self-regulation strategies to cope with my job stress
21	As a language teacher, I feel intellectually fulfilled
22	I feel that there are some rules and roles imposed on me as a teacher
23	I teach in congruence with my own educational beliefs and values
24	I believe that I am a skillful and efficient teacher
25	I accept and follow the school/institution goals and values
26	My colleagues are professional and supportive
27	I feel emotionally exhausted of my working environment*
28	I feel I’m overworked*
29	The school/institution I work for is supportive and gives helpful advices
30	The school/institution I work for is open to change and flexible to teachers practical suggestions
31	I am resistant to my job stress and view job demands as opportunities for improvement
32	As a language teacher, I am well-paid
33	I receive professional and practical guidelines from teacher observers/educators at work
34	I regularly attend teacher education programs
35	I feel that parents trust and believe in my teaching
36	Teaching materials I work with are not informative and helpful*
37	I critically observe, assess and reflect on my own teaching practice
38	My work activities change my teaching behavior
39	I perceive my prior teaching failures as a result of my lack of personal competence*
40	I do best to be able to answer even the most challenging questions of my students
41	I do my best to avoid making linguistic mistakes while teaching
42	My linguistic proficiency as a teacher should be ostensibly better than my students’ linguistic proficiency
43	I try to be a better and more popular teacher in comparison with my colleagues
44	I’d like to teach higher level classes at work
45	I do my best to master even the most difficult classroom learning materials to teach

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