The role of educational initiatives in EFL teacher professional development: a study of teacher mentors’ perspectives

Teacher professional development (PD) is a continuous process through which teachers try to improve their pedagogical skills. Educational initiatives (a form of expert mentoring) represent one type of teacher PD practices. This study investigated the role of educational initiatives in improving language teacher professional growth from supervisors’ perspectives. The study focused on engaging a group of high school English-as-a-foreign-language (EFL) teachers in Egypt in a set of educational initiative activities with their mentors, and then asking the mentors to evaluate the teachers' PD objectives, pedagogical practice gains, and attitudes. Ten supervisors who acted as mentors and 30 English language teachers took part in the study. Using a quantitative observation sheet, the study measured the mentors' perceptions of the trainee teachers' target objectives from educational initiatives, their rating of the teachers' pedagogical performance after engaging them with these initiatives, and their evaluation of the teachers' attitudes towards their professional development. The study found differences in the mentors' perceived ratings of the teachers' professional interests, growth, and attitudes. Discrepancies were also noted within the observed aspects in the same dimension. The author discusses these results and provides some practical recommendations and suggestions for future research.