EFL TEACHERS’ PERCEPTIONS AND INSTITUTIONAL MANAGEMENT PRACTICE OF PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT IN SELECTED ETHIOPIAN UNIVERSITIES

This paper intended to assess EFL Teachers’ Perceptions and Institutional Management Practice of Professional Development in Ethiopian Universities. This research utilized a qualitative research design. Furthermore, the researcher used purposeful sampling, therefore, applied a semi-interview to the participants and was purposively selected to see how the participants were verbalized their perceptions and experiences of professional development. As a method of data analysis thematic analysis process included transcribing, translating, reading, coding, themes construction, and analysis. The findings indicated first; participants have a diverse understanding of professional development. Second, EFL teachers have a good perception of professional development. Third, teachers didn’t have direct participation in program designing processes individually and institutional level. Fourth, participants have a common understanding of the characteristics of an effective professional development program. Additionally, participants have a common understanding of the focus area of the ELT professional development program. This study recommended that the government and stakeholders consider the problem on the ground and the program should be content-specific. The management practices of professional development have to be assessed, followed, and supervised by the responsible organs which are assigned to facilitate and control the implementation. Finally, the program needs to be on the needs assessment, and important gaps should be identified.


Background of the Study
Educators, educational officers, and other professionals in education are faced increasingly with the need to keep pace with rapidly developing fields of knowledge and technologies. Therefore, giving continual pedagogical training for educators is vital to produce skilled professionals. To develop educators' professional knowledge and skills, it is very important to provide them continual training from time to time. This opportunity will help the institution to have advanced and capable educators in the instructional process.
Furthermore, around the world, the importance given to educational activities has been increasing rapidly, so countries have been trying to change their education systems for the better. These changes have brought new requirements into classroom instructions. As a result, the teaching methods and the role of the teachers in the classroom have been changing. Consequently, English language education should bring about significant practical changes in student learning and its teaching should result in the proper development of language competencies, and this demands that its teaching should be of worldclass standard.
Countries around the world placed more emphasis on English language teaching (ELT) as an important requirement of education (Collins, 2010). Additionally, in countries in which English is not an official language, the prominence of English as an international language has been widely recognized. Thus, ELT has become a part of both secondary and tertiary education systems in countries where English is acknowledged as a foreign language, and this also true in the Ethiopian context. In English as a foreign language (EFL) contexts, teachers face challenges because of school environments and other related factors. Therefore, they tend to teach their students independently from their colleagues. Sometimes teachers, especially novices become overwhelmed by school bureaucracy demands, and if teachers do not receive insightful feedback or regular supervision, they might become frustrated and less effective (Murray, 2010). To this end, professional development activities can solve some of these problematic issues (Bailey, Curtis, & Nunan, 2001). Professional development is an attempt to increase teachers' professional knowledge both during and after the initial preparatory stages (Crfat, 1996;Johnson & Golombek, 2011). Furthermore, these professional development activities can be formal or informal. However, it is believed that professional development consists of career-building activities that are undertaken by practitioners after they complete their teacher training (Shawer, 2010). Therefore, due to the importance of professional development and its impacts on teachers' teaching effectiveness, it is expected that an exploratory study can provide insight into the professional development experiences of teachers employed, institutional management practice, and the types of professional development options they might have in Ethiopian universities.
The results are expected to be significant in better understanding the professional development situation in Ethiopian universities from the perspectives of EFL teachers by gaining insight into their perceptions and experiences. Through these insights, the researcher tries to highlight the professional development of university teachers' perceptions, experiences, and institutional management practice. It is argued that continuous professional development or professional development is a consistent cycle of teacher learning beginning with initial training and lasting for as long as a teacher remains in the profession. Teaching as a public profession encourages teachers and increases their societal expectations to find ways to improve students' achievement (Mushayikwa & Lubben, 2009). To be effective, teachers need a combination of professional knowledge and specialized skills as well as their personal qualities and experiences. Moreover, acquiring new skills and adding to their knowledge are among the major reasons teachers endeavor to attend activities designed for professional development (Bailey et al., 2001). According to Murray (2010), learning about new techniques and ways to empower teachers in English language teaching seems to be both motivating and encouraging for both experienced and novice teachers. As is the case with teachers of the other fields, English language teaching experts believe that ongoing professional development is of great significance, particularly in today's rapidly, constantly, and technologically changing world. EFL teachers are more likely to try innovations in language teaching theories and education technology to teach their students which enable them to continue, to evolve in the adaptation and application of their art and craft, which is important for their professional development (Allwright, 2005). As Day and Sachs (2004) argue, the term professional development suggests all of the activities teachers engage in during their careers to enhance their work. Such activities, as Kelly (2006) believes, are intended to result in a process, ongoing teacher learning, through which teachers become experts. Some studies have argued in support of professional development for teachers. For instance, Karabenick and Noda (as cited in Jafri, 2009) argue that teacher development allows teachers to improve their practice and to keep abreast of recent findings in the field. In the same vein, Mizell (2010) believes that ongoing professional development activities help teachers define the best pedagogical approaches for the betterment of students' learning processes. Richards and Farrell (2005) also emphasize the significance of ongoing teacher development for in-service practitioners to become acquainted with the most recent resources and methodologies.
Teachers' professional development has been studied and presented by different researchers (to e.g., Kelly, 2006;Mann, 2005;Roberts, 1998), although understanding of professional development is highly related to teachers' learning and transforming their knowledge into practice has been at the center of such attempts (Bolam, 2000). Teachers' professional learning is a complex process that requires their cognitive and emotional engagement and their willingness to investigate where each stands (Burbank & Kauchak, 2003;Reis-Jorge, 2007;Romano, 2006;Sandholtz, 2002). Therefore, understanding teachers' professional development needs to investigate from different angles.
The instruments used to trigger teachers' development also depend on their objectives and needs as well as those of their students. Therefore, formal structures including courses and workshops might serve some purposes, and involvement in producing curricula and discussing assessment data might serve other purposes (Avalos, 2011). It is also believed that not every form of professional development, even that with a positive impact, is in itself relevant to all teachers (Craig, 2003). Therefore, professional development programs need to be designed based on the needs of teachers and taking teachers as adult learners.

Statement of the Problem
Teachers are lifelong learners, and they are one of the key factors in education. There is a growing need for professional development for English teachers to address challenges in education in the 21st century, and it requires teachers to possess a set of competencies which includes pedagogical competence, professional competence, personality competence, and social competence. Therefore, teachers have to be both professional and empowered. In line with this, Hansen-Thomas, Casey, and Grosso (2013) maintained that "teachers learn most when they are actively engaged in the examination of their regular practice (i.e., teaching and learning) and how the professional development activities contribute to their daily work" (p. 133). Both experienced and novice teachers need to be academically recharged with fresh knowledge and new insights through professional development. Unfortunately, professional development activities may only last for a short period and have little impact on teachers' professional growth. For example, professional development programs can be ineffective for teachers because "the knowledge transmitted is generally conceptually and practically far removed from the contexts of the teachers and the situational factors affecting teachers' classroom practices are not considered" (Kirkgöz, 2013, p. 32). Another issue with teacher development is that some teachers who were trained during their pre-service program can perceive that they master skills and knowledge and tend to stop developing themselves professionally. Some teachers may feel "satisfied with their status quo and [are] not committed to further professional growth" (Canh & Minh, 2012, p.4). Besides, only a few teachers are willing to participate in teacher professional development programs due to several reasons such as lack of resources, funding, and motivation even though the importance is obvious. However, few perceived English language teacher professional development programs are important and participate. Guan and Huang (2013) argued that a lot of teacher development research has been done in many developed countries. From the researcher's experience, there is less awareness of seeing the need for teacher development where teachers are expected to become professional teachers even though the opportunities for professional development are available. Furthermore, Guan and Huang's (2013) study finding indicated the need for more research on teacher development in more specific contexts such as EFL, language teachers in general, and perceptions and experiences from the teachers. Similarly, Greenwell and Zygouris-Coe (2012) argued that "there is a need for further research into the impact of such statewide professional development and mandates on teachers' knowledge, instructional practice and student achievement" (p. 25). Therefore, teachers should be aware that professional development is useful for teachers' professional growth. Besides, the broader benefits and perceptions of professional development need to be investigated to better understand how Ethiopian EFL teachers conceptualize professional development and institutions are managed the program.
Having experience of being a lecturer at one of Ethiopian university, the researcher noticed that teachers do have the opportunity to engage in professional development activities but they have less interest to involve themselves to participate in the program. If teachers are not intrinsically motivated to improve their teaching, they will not have any way for developing their teaching skills. Furthermore, Wong (2011) states "professional development that is initiated by teachers and not just the institution has a better chance to succeed" (p. 146). This implies that teachers need a strong motivation to engage in professional development. Ideally, teachers should be aware of their needs to develop professionally. Another rationale that the researcher was initiated to conduct this study was because of his misconception of professional development itself. As the researcher was a novice teacher, he thought that attending conferences or seminars was the only academic activity that could be done to develop professionally since attending conferences or seminars is the most common kind of professional development activities that teachers do. It is interesting to note that most English teachers believed that professional development is the knowledge of language skills; however, professional development extends beyond mastering language skills. Indeed, professional development can take many forms, and it can be a small practical activity that allows teachers to learn, improve, and reflect on their teaching practice. Based on researcher teaching experiences, many English teachers do not participate in professional development because they may not yet better informed about the benefits of professional development or they may spend too many hours teaching in the classroom and are busy with other things. Even though, engaging in professional development can improve teachers' professional lives. Consequently, teachers can pause and reflect on their classroom practices, and start doing an activity that enhances their knowledge, teaching skills, and practices. Furthermore, teachers have to improve their competencies, teaching skills, and strategies to respond to the changing needs of education and more specifically classroom practices. In addition, low participation in professional development may be due to a lack of information related to professional development. Therefore, it was significant to investigate how teachers conceptualize, experience, engage in professional development and how institutions manage the program. Therefore, the above-mentioned gaps led the researcher to address the issue through investigating EFL teachers' perceptions and institutional management practice of professional development in Ethiopian universities.

Research Questions
This study involved three participants who were EFL university teachers in three different Ethiopian universities. Research questions that guided the study were: 1.
How do the EFL teachers define professional development? 2.
What are the perceptions of EFL teachers about professional development? 3.
How do EFL teachers evaluate the management practice of professional development in their universities? 4.
What do EFL teachers believe as the characteristics of effective professional development? 5.
What do they suggest to be the focus area of EFL teachers' professional development?

Research Design
For this particular study, the researcher utilized a qualitative research design. Based on the research questions of the study, participants' perceptions, opinions, ideas, and experiences were sought. Therefore, a qualitative research design is appropriate for this study and enabled the researcher to discover as much about how research subjects feel about the information they provide as about the information itself. Furthermore, the researcher aimed to explore a detailed and comprehensive description of the participants' perceptions toward the topic. Therefore, the researcher considered qualitative inquiry an appropriate design for the research.

Participants and Sampling Techniques
The main focus of this study is EFL teachers in different Ethiopian universities. Three EFL teachers were chosen purposively to be part of the study. Besides, participants were selected based on three criteria: these were (1) currently teach English at university (2) have at least two years English teaching experience at university, and (3) have participated in professional development activities. These participants have a Master's degree in English education, and their ages were ranged from 32 to 45 years. Moreover, participants have diverse teaching experiences starting from high school to university level.

Data Gathering Instrument
Since the purpose of this qualitative study is to gain an understanding of how the participants perceived and experienced professional development; the researcher used the interview as a data collection tool to see how the participants verbalized their perceptions and experiences of professional development. The data were collected through a semi-structured interview as a main source of data. The interview was used to collect data because it enabled the researcher to "uncover meaning, develop understanding and discover insights relevant to the research problem" (Merriam, 2009, p.86). Furthermore, the researcher invited the participants for an in-depth individual interview which was a semi-structured interview. The interview was conducted face-to-face, and the purpose was to gain information and elicit the responses of the participants on how they understood and perceived professional development as well as their experiences in participating in it. Face to face individual interview was chosen because it is a more natural ways of interacting and talking with a participant, and it allows the researcher to capture participants' thoughts, ideas, and perspectives. The data collection was conducted in the English language based on the participants' preference to put the participants at ease and not to make them feel pressured. In conducting the interviews, the researcher devised an interview guideline; the questions have been carefully constructed to answer the research questions. The participants were asked about their understanding, beliefs/perceptions, and experience, institutional management practice like management techniques and their effectiveness, designing processes used by their institution, their understanding about characteristics of effective the ELT/professional development program and the should be the focus area of the ELT professional development program. The interview questions have been made to elicit certain categories, and these questions were expected to yield useful information from the participants. In addition to this, the researcher asked additional relevant follow-up questions that the researcher thought significant and needed to be explored.

Methods of Data Analysis
To arrive at a more informed analysis of the data, the researcher spent a great deal of time analyzing the data because "data analysis requires the ability to think inductively, moving from specific raw data to abstract categories and concepts" (Merriam, 2009, p. 17). The collected data were analyzed qualitatively.
The thematic analysis process included transcribing, translating, reading, coding, themes construction, and analysis. After the data collected from the interviews via audio-recorder using the English language, the researcher transcribed the data into transcripts. And the researcher used the following steps. First of all, the researcher listened to the audio-recorded interviews repeatedly while writing them verbatim into the computer. For the final touch, the researcher reviewed the verbatim transcriptions of recorded interviews to verify and match what was said by the participants. For the second step, once all the data have been transcribed, the next step was coding, and the researcher started the coding process by assisting the computer. From the transcript, important codes were coded, meaningful ideas, or concepts related to the research questions that emerged from the data. In the coding processes of the data, the researcher read the entire data transcripts thoroughly. While doing so, all information given by participants was transcribed, then looking at transcripts allowed the researcher to see other information that perhaps emerged ideas, concepts, or themes that the researcher was analyzing. To make the coding process easier, the researcher created a table consisting of questions and responses from each participant, and this step enabled ease of reading for the rudimentary analysis. This table was made to help the researcher to classify their answers based on the interview questions and to compare the responses from each participant.
With the research questions (which were changed at the end) in mind, the researcher attempted to analyze the data for themes, ideas and concepts by using comparative analysis. When the researcher analyzing the transcripts, the researcher focused on the frequency and the variety of messages then the researcher analyzed and compared the data from each of the participants. Although the researcher analyzed each participant's data, the goal was to see what was in common that the participants shared. Moreover, the researcher used to focus on the ideas rather than the individuals' response. Therefore, the researcher presented the data themes by themes. Having analyzed the transcripts multiple times, then, began to construct themes. Moreover, the researcher coded phrases and put them under each of the tentative themes, and the transcripts were scrutinized again, and broader themes were identified. With repeated readings of the data, particular themes became more apparent. In the themes construction process, since there were many possible related themes that the researcher saw in the data, and decided to have more general themes which had subthemes under that. Finally, with the amount of data the researcher had, came up with five major themes, some were containing one or more points of focus, and these themes have become the researcher's choices because they were significant and relevant to the research questions (which were changed at the end). The five themes included: Defining professional development, EFL teachers' perceptions about professional development, the institutional management practice of professional development, Characteristics of effective professional development, and the focus area of EFL teachers' professional development. The last step of my analysis was to make sense of and interpret the data to answer the research questions.

Findings and Discussions
This section is devoted to the results of data collected and analyzed through in-depth interviews with the research participants. The findings included the major recurrent themes, which were reflective of all teacher participants' views. The data were presented by themes as the researcher attempted to seek the commonalities among the participants. An analysis of the data revealed various themes which emerged from the data. Emergent themes are described as the following predominant themes: 1.
Defining professional development 2.
EFL teachers' perceptions about professional development 3.
The institutional management practice of professional development 4.
Characteristics of effective professional development 5.
The focus area of EFL teachers' professional development The researcher focused on the themes that the participants heavily stressed in the data via interview. Thus, the researcher chose to use the five themes above for analysis and discussion of the results. To shed light on these five themes, responses from the data collection derived from the participants used for discussion and analysis of the findings. This chapter presents narratives of the participants, which have been extracted from the data and presented in response to the research questions. The discussions on these five themes are presented as follows using participants' pseudonyms instead of using real names.

Theme 1: Defining Professional Development
One common theme that emerged from the data is teachers' understanding of professional development. It is important to note that participants' conceptualization of professional development is one step of knowing more about the profession as a teacher. The researcher asked the participants about their knowledge and views of professional development. All participants in this study who are teachers who teach at universities relatively understand the general idea of professional development. They discussed their views related to professional development for teachers and described what professional development means to them. With the interview questions, the researcher sought a general understanding of teacher professional development from each participant. All participants provided a concrete definition of professional development. It is important to note that they tried to explain their understandings about professional development. When they were asked to define professional development, Mr. N stated that "professional development is for teachers' way of developing their own profession using different ways and/or they can be used methods like reading journals, conducting some sort of research (action research) so that they may become good professional teacher". Mr. M also revealed how he defined professional development by saying, "professional development is being updated, developed, and again acquainted with the knowledge, techniques, the methods, the subject matter knowledge, and everything that you are expected to have in order to teach the course you are qualified to each". Furthermore, Mr. G defined professional development as "it is a process of helping teachers to update their professional carrier". In line with this point Schmidt (2002) defined teacher development as "the professional growth a teacher achieves as a result of gaining increased experience and knowledge and examining his or her teaching systematically" (p. 542). What can be seen in all participants' responses is that there is a mixed understanding of professional development. From the data, it is evident that they relate professional development to activities like sharing ideas, conducting research, preparing teaching materials, and developing teaching methods. These varying responses indicated that each teacher has their conceptualization of what professional development means to them. The participants have a clear understanding of professional development and it is not complete at once rather it can be acquired through processes. To sum up, ideas raised by the participants Alemu (2013) argued that professional development in a broad sense can be defined as "the engagement of individuals in any activity for the enhancement of their capacity at the workplace and to gain, improve and share a body of knowledge and skills that are relevant to perform particular duties in their workplace" (p. 306).

Theme 2: EFL teachers' perceptions about professional development
Under this main theme, two sub-themes emerged from the interview data. The first emerged sub-theme was the participants perceived PD as a very much important activity and enable teachers to share experiences and update their teaching methodology. The second emerged sub-theme was the participants perceived PD program should be based on the problem on the ground and it should be subject-specific. Furthermore, they have discussed their perceptions about professional development and explained what they perceived about the topic. Using the interview questions, the researcher sought participants' perceptions about professional development. In line with this point, all participants provided their perceptions about professional development, and it is important to note that they tried to reflect their perceptions about professional development.
During the interview session, they were asked to explain their perceptions about professional development, G stated that:

I believed that it is very much important so that while you are participating in a kind of PD in a given institution you will share experience with staff members and again it helps you to update your ways of teaching methodology may be classroom management or everything there so if the program is managed in a proper way it has good benefit for all teachers specifically to ELT professionals is very important.
This is in line with Huang's (2007) study which focused on the perceptions of Taiwanese teachers on the effects of professional development on their professional growth. It was found that the teachers benefited from professional development in five ways: learning English as a foreign language, gaining ideas for improving classroom instruction, sharing teaching experiences, stimulating positive dispositions to learn, and fostering intellectual development (Huang, 2007). Mr. N also said: I perceived that the program has smart aim and purpose that is for teachers including ELT teachers ……the skill needed to the level specially for higher institutions teachers there should be a need to be a professional teacher; only being graduated from university may not be enough to be effective teacher including ELT teachers need to have competence in this dynamic world they should be equipped with some sorts of knowledge and skills or competence. So HDP should be perceived as positively.
In contrast to the above idea, the same participant said that "…teachers may not perceive the program has a benefit and helping them in developing so that without programs like this teaching may not be effective." Furthermore, the third participant (who was Mr. M) stated that: "PD is believed to add some proficiency to a teacher and it is a good program and I am in favor of the program and the training is given." And also he explained that he was inconvenient with the program and he said "…it (the program) should be based on the gap that the teacher is incapable with after that things should be done to bridge that gap would be very nice." From the above data analysis, one can understand that all participants have a positive perception of professional development. Furthermore, it is evident that some of the teachers (trainees) do not perceive it as beneficial and helping them in developing their profession. On the other way round the participant recommended that the program should be based on the gap or need assessment. Therefore, shows that EFL teachers have a good perception of professional development.

Theme 3: The institutional management practice of professional development
During the interview, the teachers were asked to describe their institutional management practice of professional development. Under theme 3, the researcher found the most emergent themes across the participants' which included: the kind of techniques used in their institution to manage the program, the effectiveness of the techniques used, office or bodies assigned to control the program, and the designing processes of the program in their institution. Concerning this theme, participants were asked to explain their institutional management practice of professional development, and it is important to note that they tried to reflect their experience under the above-mentioned emergent themes. The first idea that emerged from the third theme was the kind of techniques used in their institution to manage the professional development program, and the participants explained in detail the techniques used from the experience. In line with this, the participants indicated that there is a technique used to precede the program in their institutions, and trainees are expected to complete activities like portfolio work, conducting action research, peer observation, and school placement (for observing the school environment). All these activities will be checked and evaluated by the respective coordinator of the program. To strengthen this, Mr. N stated that: The coordinators prepare portfolio for each tyrannies under that portfolio each and every activity of the program daily training activities will be inserted for every persons' portfolio and finally they will be checked based up on the feedback that you have inserted and going through these processes you will be graduated at the end of the course. However, the above-mentioned management techniques used by the respective institutions, the trainees had complaints about its completion, and the participants recommend that the time given for these activities need to be minimized. Concerning this M said that "there was complains from the trainees to reduce the teachers' load from their regular activities". Similarly, Mr. G also stated that "…minimizing of time from the assigned teachers' load might give enough time to participate in the program." This is in line with Yuwono and Harbon (2010)'s study which revealed that Indonesian teachers' professionalism is affected by teachers' limited time, money and energy to participate in professional development.
With regard to the effectiveness of the techniques used in their institution, participants were asked to evaluate the techniques used. Related to this point participants were weighed up the effectiveness of the techniques, and Mr. N said that "…practically the techniques used to manage to program were not practically effective or efficient." Moreover, he tried to state the root cause for the ineffectiveness of techniques and he said "…I frankly speaking I can't say it is successful. For being not successful of the program I believe that it may be because of teachers' beliefs and perceptions towards the program and they think that the training may not be important". Similar to this idea M said that "…I believe that it is not working well." And also he said "it (the program) is understood that it is only a means of getting a certificate of the program and most teachers are running for the paper but the important thing was forgotten". Along with this M said that "the program should be based on need assessment and research gap". In addition to this, Mr. G stated that "I can say that the program is ineffective". And believed that there are two reasons and said that: One of the reasons is the beliefs of the participants and teachers are participating in the program is it is must to participate so it was because of the principles that teachers are participating not from the bottom of their heart. The other point is the program is general so if it was a kind of subject specific program then teachers may have good willingness to participate in the program but now the program is general so that which may not similar for each and every disc coordinators are the reason for the ineffectiveness.
Indeed, professional development management technique goes beyond more than what they have mentioned. In the data, the teachers were complaining about the workload on professional development activities or techniques used like peer observation, portfolio work, school placement, and action research. Most of these activities could have been done just as easily as the activities that the participants already participated in. The third sub-theme is responsible organs assigned to control the program in the participants' institutions. Regarding this, all participants were asked to mention offices that are facilitating the program and they mentioned offices like the program coordination office, Institutional Quality Assurance Director office (IQAD) responsible to manage and control the program implementation and have their follow-up activities/quality assurance mechanism. The fourth and the last emerging theme under the theme of institutional management practice of professional development are the designing processes of the program. The participants were asked to explain the designing processes of the program and their role in the processes. The designing process of the program used in institutions is not clear to the participants and it is sent from the ministry of education and it is "top-down". Furthermore, Mr. N said that "There are no procedures or steps followed to design the program. First of all, the program is not ours but it is designed at the national level and like any other university we will be provided modules and trainees book as a guide." And also he tried to explain his role in the designing processes of the program because he was working as a trainer of the program and he said that "I don't have any role in the designing processes, and it is designed by the ministry of education and we the university is provided. So my role is in the processes of program implementation and facilitator." Similar to this point Mr. G strengthens by saying "this program is a nationwide program so that it is sent to all public universities from the ministry of education. So I feel that no university has come across the processes of designing the program but all the universities are implementing." Generally, from the above data analysis, one can understand that teachers didn't have direct participation in the program designing processes individually and at the institution level. Moreover, we can understand that the ministry of education is the organ that is responsible for designing the program, and it is top-down.

Theme 4: Characteristics of effective professional development
Under this main theme, two sub-themes emerged from the interview data. The first theme is the program should be based on need assessment and teachers' needs should be addressed in designing processes of the program. In line with this idea, participants reflect their understanding, and Mr. N said that "only being graduated is not enough to teachers to become effective there should be some extra issues that help teachers to have additional quality…it should be based on need assessment and teachers' needs should be addressed in designing the program". Similarly, Mr. M stated that "the need of the participant should be identified first and they should participate in the designing processes." Therefore, from this one can conclude that one of the characteristics of an effective professional development program is when it is designed based on the need of teachers.
The second theme is the program should be planned, organized, and discipline-specific. Furthermore, the participants were discussed their understanding of effective professional development and they argued that it should be planned, organized, and discipline-specific. With regard to this Mr. G said that "the characteristics that make the professional development effective is it has to be planned and organized." And also he adds more about the characteristics of effective professional development and stated that "the program should be discipline-specific rather than being generalized if it is discipline wise specific so the problem that we have mentioned earlier like motivation and interest will be solved so that one quality indicator of the program is it should be subject specific." In short, participants have a common understanding of the characteristics of an effective professional development program.

Theme 5: The focus area of EFL teachers' professional development
The last theme that emerged from the data was participants' wishes to be the focus area of EFL teachers' professional development program. Furthermore, under this theme, two sub-themes emerged and were the main focus should be on equipping teachers in teaching methods in general and specific to ELT and the program should focus on material selection, language assessment, and testing, and research skills.
Regard to these idea participants reflects their understanding on this theme, and Mr. N said that "the focus area of ELT professional development program should be at the way of teaching that is the methodology specific to the ELT". Furthermore, he justifies this point and stated that "… teachers may not have awareness how to teach language skills to their students. Since most of them are graduated from a non-teaching profession program…. Therefore, the main focus should be on equipping teachers in some sorts of teaching methods in general and specific to ELT." Similarly, Lin's (2013) study indicated that teachers' view on a TEFL professional development program evidenced a desire for the best teaching method.
Likewise, Mr. M said that "since most of the teachers are graduated from non-teaching profession program...so the program should focus on teaching methodology, material selection, language assessment, and testing and the likes". Additionally, Mr. G stated his view and said that: It should focus on classroom management not only this one but also the content area of teaching should be clearly included hear because teaching methodology in general is different from teaching specific language skills in particular so that methodology like teaching speaking, listening, writing, grammar, and other skills should be included. This idea is strengthening by Huang's (2007) findings on study group which showed that professional development helped teachers to develop subject-matter knowledge, general pedagogical knowledge, pedagogical content knowledge, foster continuing learning, and cognitive, intellectual, and theoretical development. Furthermore, Mr. G adds his point about the focus area of the ELT professional development program and said that "it is better to include issues related to research specific to the discipline." Generally, from the data analysis presented above, we can conclude that these participants have a common understanding of what should be the focus area of the ELT professional development program. And also they mentioned that teaching method in general and specific to ELT, material preparation, selection of contents, and adopting materials. So that program designers need to consider the issues raised by the participants in ELT professional development program.

Conclusion
Based on the data analyzed the following conclusions have been made. First, the participants who participated in this study are adequately aware of teacher professional development. The findings show that there is a common in their perceived understanding of professional development. The participants have different conceptualizations of professional development and demonstrated a mixed understanding of professional development. Second, the research participants were perceived PD as a very much important activity and enable teachers to share experience and update their teaching methodology. And also the participants believed the PD program should be based on the problem on the ground and should be subject-specific. This indicates that the professional development program is not fully explored the needs of EFL teachers. Thirdly, regarding the institutional management practice of professional development, institutions were used different techniques to manage the program implementation. From the techniques trainees are expected to complete activities like portfolio work, conducting action research, peer observation, and school placement (for observing the school environment). Therefore, all these individual activities are used as a means of managing the program, and these will be checked and evaluated by the respective coordinator of the program. However, the abovementioned management techniques used by the respective institutions, the trainees had complaints about the effectiveness of its practicality. And this is might be because of teachers' beliefs and perceptions towards the program and they think that the training may not be important. Even though, there are responsible organs that are assigned to facilitate and control the implementation of the program having their follow-up activities and quality assurance mechanism. Fourthly, in the designing processes of the program teachers didn't have direct participation in the processes individually and at the institution level. And the ministry of education is the organ that is responsible for designing the program, and it is not based on need assessment. Fifthly, the effectiveness of a professional development program is characterized when the program is based on need assessment when the program addresses teachers' needs in designing processes, and when the program is planned, organized, and discipline-specific.
Finally, regarding the focus area of EFL teachers' professional development program, the participants agreed upon the program should focus on equipping teachers in teaching methods in general and specific to ELT, and also it should focus on material selection, language assessment, and testing and the research skills.