Professionalism And Professional Development Of Teachers In English Language Teaching: University Of Gondar In Focus

Professionalism is a complex term which remained to be illusive to come up with definitions. It is usually related to the formal and informal development of professional skill that occurs in the workplace. Research into professionalism in ELT deals with professional authority, research, collegiality, and working atmosphere, among others. In line with this, the current study attempts to asses Professionalism and professional development of teachers in English Language teaching at the University of Gondar. The researcher developed questionnaire based on the available literature in the area. The questionnaires were designed to have both open-ended and close ended type questions to measure the teaching personnel’s rate of professionalism and professional development items. The findings of the study show that the teaching personnel have far lower access to journals to up-date themselves. They rarely engage themselves in reading such publications and trainings and workshops in ELT as well. In contrast, their responses show that they have very good professional authority in decision making related to teaching-learning activities. Based on the findings of the study, the researcher would like to recommend that the positively rated items should be kept up. Moreover, the institution shall arrange professional development trainings and workshops which are specifically targeted to ELT teachers’ specialization. The institution shall also make some subscriptions to foreign as well as local journals so that the teaching personnel shall update themselves with current knowledge in teaching theories and methods to shore up quality and to develop professionally.