Teacher Professional Development as English Language-in-Education Planning in Saudi Arabia

Book Review: Language as Power in the Language Teacher Education Ecosystem, by Jaber Kamali (Cambridge University Press, 2026)

Standard language teacher education (LTE) programs have mainly prioritized technical skills, focusing on practical aspects such as curriculum design, classroom management, and instructional techniques. Although these elements contribute to the teacher’s professional development, they often leave sociocultural and ideological factors underexplored. Foundational elements within training programs, including teachers’ professional identity, the role of mother tongue, and broader views of culture, are often overlooked as the programs prioritize step-by-step instruction. Furthermore, hierarchical institutional systems frequently restrict teachers’ pedagogical autonomy and embed them within broader frameworks of monitoring and evaluation (Uysal & Gao, 2026). To address these shortcomings, Jaber Kamali’s Language as Power in the Language Teacher Education Ecosystem (2026) responds to these gaps by highlighting language as a central domain where authority and professional expectations are negotiated within the LTE ecosystem.

English Teacher Professional Development Challenges in Indonesia: From Reviewing to Designing a Program Model

Teacher Professional Development (TPD) programs have an important role in strengthening teacher competence and enhancing education quality. However, in Indonesia, English language teachers continue to face challenges that can impede their professional development as teachers. This study aims to investigate EFL teachers’ challenges in pursuing their teacher professional development and to propose a model design that corresponds to the challenges. This study employed a systematic review of 30 journal articles published between 2018 and 2025 used to identify and analyze the challenges experienced by teachers. Guided by the theory of practice architectures, the findings reveal three major categories of challenges: cultural-discursive, material-economic, and social-political. These findings highlight the importance of designing TPD that is relevant to teachers’ socio-cultural and material-economic conditions, integrates the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework, and promotes teacher motivation. Based on the findings, the study proposes integrating the Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) framework and the L-VE (Localisation, Valuableness, and Engagingness) model to improve the quality and sustainability of TPD programs in Indonesia.

Bridging languages and cultures. Project-based learning in english teacher training

Developing critical thinking in english teacher training programs - a systematic review

This study systematically reviews 36 recent research articles (2020–2024) on the development of critical thinking in teacher education for English as a foreign language. Although critical thinking is widely recognized as a core competency, recent studies remain fragmented regarding how it is conceptualized, taught, and assessed in English teacher education. This fragmentation makes an updated synthesis urgent amid recent pedagogical, intercultural, and digital transformations in teacher education. The PRISMA protocol was followed, and databases such as Scopus, Web of Science, and Redalyc were consulted, enabling an analysis of the geographical, methodological, theoretical, didactic, and contextual characteristics of the studies. Qualitative approaches predominate (61%), with a significant concentration in Asia (18 cases), followed by the Americas (8) and Europe (6). Among the theoretical frameworks identified, the cognitive approach (25%) and the sociocultural/sociocognitive approach (22%) stand out, highlighting the importance of connecting thinking with context and social interaction. Regarding didactic strategies, experiential learning (39.6%) is prominent, followed by critical or argumentative reflection (33.9%). However, major challenges remain: limited specialized training, curricular rigidity, and a persistent gap between theory and practice. The review maps recent trends, identifies persistent gaps, and offers pedagogical implications for strengthening critical thinking in English teacher education.

Translating Teacher Continuous Professional Development (TCPD) into Practice: Primary School’s-Level Experiences

This study examines how school-level conditions shape the translation of professional development into everyday practice within Tanzania’s TCPD in response to the Education and Training Policy (ETP) 2014 revised version of 2023 reform. It begins from the evidence that policy frameworks and professional development activities do not actively influence teaching directly rather it depends on the organisational, relational, and motivational life of schools. Using a quantitative secondary analysis of an uploaded survey workbook containing 725 respondents from six regions namely: Iringa, Njombe, Geita, Singida, Rukwa, and Mtwara, the study analysed participation patterns, understanding of head teacher practices, and multiple motivation profiles to explore how professional learning is enacted at school level. The descriptive findings indicate that weekly engagement in professional development activities is widespread, Communities of Learning (CoL) are the dominant participation modality, and that teachers generally report positive strategic leadership conditions and strong accountability routines and autonomous motivation. Regression results further reveal that school-level implementation factors such as strategic leadership, developmental support, accountability management, and the absence of passive leadership are closely related to motivation outcomes. This paper argues that these relationships should be interpreted as evidence of implementation mediation, schools interpret policy and programme inputs into everyday professional experience. The study contributes to the literature on continuous professional development by showing that the effectiveness of school-based professional development depends not only on programme design but also on the capacity of schools to adapt, support, and routinize professional learning.

ENGLISH-MEDIUM INSTRUCTION IN ASIAN EFL HIGHER EDUCATION: A SYSTEMATIC REVIEW OF POLICY TRENDS, IMPLEMENTATION CHALLENGES, AND ADAPTIVE STRATEGIES

The expansion of English Medium Instruction (EMI) across Asian higher education has intensified post-pandemic, yet a comprehensive understanding of its implementation landscape remains limited. Following PRISMA 2020 guidelines, this systematic review synthesizes 15 empirical studies (2015–2025) from four academic databases to explore implementation trends, stakeholder challenges, and adaptation strategies in Asian EFL contexts. Frequency analysis revealed that linguistic difficulties were a primary barrier in 87% of the studies, pedagogical inconsistency in 60%, and language anxiety affected 53% of the combined participants. Thematic synthesis identified three core dimensions: top-down policies generating macro-micro gaps and institutional stratification; multidimensional linguistic and psychological barriers impacting engagement; and emergent adaptive strategies, including translanguaging, bilingual professional learning communities, and learner metacognition. These findings highlight that EMI is a complex educational ecosystem rather than a mere linguistic shift. This review offers a structured, geographically scoped framework for policymakers, institutions, and future researchers to improve EMI quality and equity in the region.