An Investigation into Annual Faculty Evaluation Process of EFL Teachers in the Middle East: Challenges for Leadership & Management

Abstract

This study examined the effectiveness of the Annual Faculty Evaluations Process at an English language centre in the Middle Eastern context. It sought to determine to what extent this evaluation process helped the English language teachers improve their teaching practice. A mixed-method design was used to collect quantitative and qualitative data. The data were collected via teacher questionnaire & teacher interviews and triangulated via cross examination of the documents pertaining to the teacher evaluation policy and procedures used by the language centre. The findings of this case study revealed that the teachers believe that the process of annual faculty evaluation (AFE) has had a very positive impact on their professional development. However, the AFE process is quite rigid and does not take cultural diversity of the teachers into account. The report makes various recommendation in terms of teacher autonomy as well as participation in the evaluation process and using the three-track evaluation system (Danielson and McGreal, 2000) by the administration.