Exploring the Relationships Among Teacher Confidence, Learning, and Test Performance Within the English‐for‐Teaching Course

Abstract

In responding to the increasingly expanded emphasis on English language teaching ( ELT ) around the globe, Educational Testing Service ( ETS ) collaborated with National Geographic Learning to develop the ELTeach ™ program ( http://www.elteach.com ), an online professional development program consisting of two courses, English‐for‐Teaching and Professional Knowledge for ELT, with the goal of improving ELT teachers' classroom English language proficiency. Within the English‐for‐Teaching course, there are three interrelated components: a precourse planner that asks teachers to rate their confidence in using English to teach English, a learning course that teaches the type of English needed to carry out essential classroom activities in English, and the TEFT ™ assessment, which is developed based on the same framework as the learning course. Using data collected during the pilot administration of the ELTeach program in 2012, this study examines the relationship between self‐reported confidence level and engagement with the learning course, and the relationship between self‐reported confidence level and performance on the TEFT assessment. The findings suggested how users with different confidence levels might make use of the learning materials and how they might score on the TEFT assessment. Report Number: ETS RR‐16–24