Email this article 
DEALING WITH CRITICAL INCIDENTS: EXPERIENCES OF TURKISH NOVICE EFL TEACHERS
(1) Anadolu University
(*) Corresponding Author
Abstract
Moments causing teachers to stop and think about their teaching are called critical incidents and reflecting on them can be a way of gaining insights into their practices and contexts. However, critical incidents are underexplored in the Turkish EFL context. Thus, this qualitative case study aimed to understand the types of critical incidents encountered by six Turkish novice EFL teachers who all graduated from the same English language teaching program, their ways of dealing with these, and how this affected them. Data obtained from reflective journals and a focus group interview were analysed thematically. The results revealed critical incidents related to multiple sources, mainly due to students’ behaviors. Moreover, teachers' strategies varied from addressing the student to acting as the authority. These critical incidents affect novice teachers in various ways, such as questioning their language teacher education and teaching competence, which were discussed in this study along with implications and directions for future studies.
Keywords
Full Text:
PDFReferences
Atai, M. R., & Nejadghanbar, H. (2016). Unpacking in-service EFL teachers’ critical incidents: The case of Iran. RELC Journal, 47(1), 97-110. https://doi.org/10.1177/0033688216631177
Atai, M. R., & Nejadghanbar, H. (2017). Exploring Iranian ESP teachers' subject-related critical incidents. Journal of English for Academic Purposes, 29, 43-54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jeap.2017.08.001
Babaii, E., Molana, K., & Nazari, M. (2021). Contributions of assessment-related critical incidents to language teacher identity development. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 15(5), 442-457. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2020.1824234
Braun, V., & Clarke, V. (2006). Using thematic analysis in psychology. Qualitative research in psychology, 3(2), 77-101. https://doi.org/10.1191/1478088706qp063oa
Brookfield, S. D. (1995) Becoming a critically reflective teacher. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Dixon, J., & Byrne, R. (2011). “If only” counterfactual thoughts about exceptional actions. Memory and Cognition, 39, 1317-1331. https://doi.org/10.3758/s13421-011-0101-4
Dörnyei, Z. (2007). Research methods in applied linguistics. New York: Oxford University Press.
Esmaeli, S., & Afzali, K. (2020). Analysis of Iranian EFL teachers’ narrated critical incidents and their productive coping strategies. Journal of Modern Research in English Language Studies, 7(2), 1-27. https://doi.org/10.30479/jmrels.2020.12013.1496
Farrell, T. S. (2008). Critical incidents in ELT initial teacher training. ELT journal, 62(1), 3-10. https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/ccm072
Farrell, T. S. C. (2009). Cambridge guide to second language teacher education. In A. Burns & J. C. Richards (Eds.), The novice teacher experience (pp. 182–189). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Francis, D. (1995). The reflective journal: A window to preservice teachers' practical knowledge. Teaching and teacher Education, 11(3), 229-241. https://doi.org/10.1016/0742-051X(94)00031-Z
Gil-Garcia, A., & Cintron, Z. (2002). The reflective journal as a learning and professional development tool for teachers and administrators. Paper presented at the World Association for Case Method Research and Application Conference. Germany. July 2- 5. Retrieved on July 26, 2022, from https://files.eric.ed.gov/fulltext/ED480130.pdf
Goodell, J. E. (2006). Using critical incident reflections: A self-study as a mathematics teacher educator. Journal of Mathematics Teacher Education, 9(3), 221-248. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10857-006-9001-0
Hallgren, K. A. (2012). Computing inter-rater reliability for observational data: An overview and tutorial. Tutorials in quantitative methods for psychology, 8(1), 23. https://doi.org/10.20982/tqmp.08.1.p023
Karimi, M. N., & Nazari, M. (2019). Examining L2 teachers’ critical incidents: A complexity theoretic perspective. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 15(1), 81-98. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2019.1676755
Krueger, R. A. (1994). Focus groups: A practical guide for applied research (2nd ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.
Lengeling, M. M., & Mora Pablo, I. (2016). Reflections on critical incidents of EFL teachers during career entry in Central Mexico. How, 23(2), 75-88. https://doi.org/10.19183/how.23.2.158
Merriam, S. B. (2009). Qualitative research: A guide to design and implementation. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Miles, M. B., & Huberman, A. M. (1994). Qualitative data analysis (2nd Ed.). California: SAGE Publication, Inc.
Molani, H., Yousefi, M. H., & Rostami, F. (2021). How do EFL in-service teachers reflect on their critical incidents? The case of Iranian teachers. Reflective Practice, 22(4), 431-445. https://doi.org/10.1080/14623943.2021.1913578
Morgan, D. L. (1988). Focus groups as qualitative research. Newbury Park, CA: Sage
Nejadghanbar, H. (2021). Using critical incidents for professional development with Iranian novice English teachers. TESOL Journal, 12(1), e00521. https://doi.org/10.1002/tesj.521
Pourhassan, A., & Nazari, M. (2021). Teachers learn to use critical incidents as a professional development tool in teaching young English learners. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 1-15. https://doi.org/10.1080/17501229.2021.1907751
Putri, A. R. D., & Kuswandono, P. (2020). The roles of critical incidents to construct public senior high school English teachers’ identities development. English Review: Journal of English Education, 9(1), 47-60. https://doi.org/10.25134/erjee.v9i1.3778
Richards, J. C. (2010). Competence and performance in language teaching. RELC Journal, 41(2), 101–122. https://doi.org/10.1177/00336 88210 372953
Richards, J. C., & Farrell, T. S. C. (2005). Professional development for language teachers: Strategies for teacher learning. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. C., & Farrell, T. S. C. (2010). Professional development for language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Richards, J. C., & Lockhart, C. (1994). Reflective teaching in second language classrooms. Cambridge: Cambridge university press.
Romano, M. E. (2006). Bumpy moments in teaching: Reflections from practicing teachers. Teaching and Teacher Education 22(8), 973–85. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2006.04.019
Shapira-Lishchinsky, O. (2011). Teachers’ critical incidents: Ethical dilemmas in teaching practice. Teaching and Teacher Education, 27(3), 648-56. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tate.2010.11.003
Stewart, D. W., & Shamdasani, P. N. (1990). Focus groups: Theory and practice. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
Thiel, T. (1999). Reflections on critical incidents. Prospect, 14(1), 44-52.
Tripp, D. (1993). Critical incidents in teaching. London: Routledge.
Wijaya, A. R. T., & Kuswandono, P. (2018). Reflecting critical incident as a form of English teachers’ professional development: An Indonesian narrative inquiry research. IJEE (Indonesian Journal of English Education), 5(2), 101-118. https://doi.org/10.15408/ijee.v5i2.10923
Woods, P. (1993). Critical events in education. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 14(4), 355-371. Retrieved on July 26, 2022, from https://www.jstor.org/stable/pdf/1392882.pdf
DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt.v25i2.4946
Refbacks
- There are currently no refbacks.
Copyright (c) 2022 Hatice Saliha Çukur
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
Indexed and abstracted in:
LLT Journal Sinta 2 Certificate (S2 = Level 2)
We would like to inform you that LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching has been nationally accredited Sinta 2 by the Ministry of Education, Culture, Research and Technology of the Republic of Indonesia based on the decree No. Surat Keputusan 158/E/KPT/2021. Validity for 5 years: Vol 23 No 1, 2020 till Vol 27 No 2, 2024
This work is licensed under CC BY-SA.
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License
LLT Journal: A Journal on Language and Language Teaching, DOI: https://doi.org/10.24071/llt, e-ISSN 2579-9533 and p-ISSN 1410-7201, is published twice a year, namely in April and October by the English Language Education Study Programme of Teacher Training and Education Faculty of Sanata Dharma University, Yogyakarta, Indonesia.