The Professional Development of Certified English Teachers at SMPN 1 Tulungagung

ABSTRACT Kusumawardhani, Aurora Paramahita. 2013. The Professional Development of Certified English Teachers at SMPN 1 Tulungagung. Thesis, English Department, Faculty of Letters, State University of Malang. Advisor: Dra. Sri Widayati, M.Ed. Key words: certified English teachers, professional development, competence, SMPN 1 Tulungagung Teachers’ quality has become the recent concern for education in Indonesia. Since the role of teachers is very crucial in order to make students perform well in their study, the government has determined that professional teachers should possess pedagogical, subject matter, personal and social competence. Nevertheless, in order to maintain their quality as professional teachers, they need to have development activity along with the growth of the knowledge in this era. Therefore, it was assumed that a study considering the teachers’ professional development is needed. This study was aimed to know how certified English teachers at SMPN 1 Tulungagung develop their pedagogical, subject matter, personal and social competences in order to maintain their quality as professional teachers. This study used descriptive qualitative method. The data was collected through interview and fieldnotes. The instruments used were the research herself, audio recorder, interview guide and fieldnotes. The data analysis was held by doing data transcription from audio data, data reducing, and then data analysis itself. Based on the data analysis, it showed that, besides joining seminars, workshops, and trainings, the certified English teacher had regular sharing and discussion activities concerning their teaching and learning to improve their pedagogical competence. This also becomes the main activity they did for their subject matter competence development. Meanwhile, some of them used the internet to gain latest information relating to English language along with its culture and interact with their friends in foreign countries. For personal competence development, the teachers depended on learning to their experience and occurrences happened surrounded them during doing their daily activity. Then, in terms of social competence development, they made an effort to have harmonious communication with their colleagues in school as well as students’ parents and active participation in various community and activities in their neighborhoods which shows that the teachers could interact and mingle with various societies well. Among the professional development activities aforementioned, the most effective one is their participation in workshops and trainings for they always come back from those activities in new enthusiasm to teach and apply what they have learnt during the development activities in their class. Therefore, it could be concluded that the certified English teachers at SMPN 1 Tulungagung have tried to develop their pedagogical, subject matter, personal and social competence well enough. Thus, the researcher suggests to the English teachers and prospective English teachers to actively improve their competences by trying out various professional development activities and then figure out the most effective one to do continuously. For the principal of the school where the study was conducted, she proposes to manage more professional development activities which could involve all teachers and school personnel and work collaboratively with other institutions dealing with English teaching and learning matter to organize professional development programs. Afterward, further researchers are expected to conduct further and deeper study relating to English teachers’ professional development in bigger cities with better exposures for teachers’ development in order to gain more fruitful result