IN WHAT WAYS DO IN-SERVICE SEMINARS HELP ENGLISH LANGUAGE TEACHING PRACTICE IN SERBIA?

Abstract

There is a belief that professional development constitutes an
important part of being a teacher (Cirkovic-Miladinovic,
2014: 171). It is also believed that teacher professional
development should provide an opportunity for in-service
English teachers to explore their teaching practice and to
critically evaluate themselves as professionals (Richards and
Lockhart 1994; Wallace 1991). One of the ways to enhance
teachers’ professional development is to conduct in-service
seminars where linguistic and pedagogical theory is connected
with their individual teaching experience. Ideally, these
seminars would need to incorporate an approach where
teachers are encouraged to combine theoretical knowledge
with practice and to be able to use that knowledge in their
classroom. One of the focuses of the paper, firstly, is to discuss
teacher autonomy, learner training and teacher training
focusing here particularly on EFL teachers as learners.
Secondly, the teaching context of the seminar will be explained
with the highlight on the reasons for conducting it and the
importance of the evaluation of its practicality. Thirdly,
rationale for the seminar session will be considered as well as
the activities, materials and interaction among trainees. As a
way forward, the analysis and discussion of research data will
be presented with the aim to answer the research question: In
what ways do in-service seminars help EFL teaching practice
in Serbia? On the other hand, we may discuss this issue as just
an opportunity to broaden theoretical knowledge. Finally,
some broader implications of the analyses will be pointed out.
The main purpose of this paper is to discuss the usefulness of
the seminars for the English language teaching practice in 

Serbia and its implications on the EFL learning/teaching
quality.