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Description
This paper reports on a case study on cultivating communities of practice (CoP) among Cambodian EFL professionals, adopting Keuk’s (2015) CoP model, at one ELT tertiary institution in Phnom Penh, a capital of Cambodia. This study, conducted in two phases, aimed to find out the EFL professionals’ needs for enhancing their professional practices and their responses to the needs in the form of communities of practice. The study reveals that the teachers perceive the significance of professional development for teaching and strong need for it. The common professional development activities include reading books, journals and web resources; joining workshops, podcasts, webinars, and conferences, joining textbook selection and curriculum development; and engaging in teacher inquiry or action research. The EFL professionals who participated in CoP activities demonstrated improved teaching competence and enhanced learning quality. This case study has unlocked the considerable potential of CoP for developing EFL professional practices.
Biography
Prof. Chan Narith Keuk is head of the Department of English of the Institute of Foreign Languages (IFL), Royal University of Phnom Penh (RUPP), Cambodia. He obtained his PhD in Linguistics from Macquarie University, Australia, in 2015. His PhD thesis focused on “Investigating Communities of Practice and ELT Teacher Research in Cambodia.” His research interests include the variety of English used in contemporary Cambodia, the study of English language teachers and English language teaching education in an EFL context, ELT teacher research, teacher reflective practice, and blended learning.
