exploring iranian efl teachers’ perceptions of professional development: a qualitative study with university teachers in focus

Professional development is considered a must for a teacher without which teachers’ knowledge is not up-to-date and he/she cannot provide students with useful and meaningful material. teachers’ professional development plays a vital role in students’ achievement. with a view to this, the present study sought to explore iranian teachers’ perceptions of professional development. this study benefited from a basic interpretive design within a qualitative paradigm by using a semi-structured interview. the participants of the study consisted of 50 male and female english as a foreign language (efl) teachers who were teaching english at the university level in the universities located in southern cities of iran including university of velayat in iranshahr, university of sistan & baluchestan, chabahar university of maritime sciences, university of zabol, islamic azad universities, bandarabbas branch, qeshm branch, and kish branch. they were selected through available sampling. the researcher benefited from a semi-structured interview for data collection. the collected audio-recorded data from the interviews was transcribed verbatim to be analyzed. finally, the transcribed data was qualitatively analyzed through thematic analysis to extract the recurrent themes. the results of the present study revealed the following efl teachers’ professional development needs as perceived by efl teachers: language knowledge, digital competence, content knowledge, evaluation skills, teaching methodology knowledge, verbal skills, critical thinking skills, reflective thinking skills, students’ needs analysis, classroom management ability, motivational strategies, and public relations skills. the findings have some implications for teacher educators, teachers, teacher education curriculum planners and researchers.