Support Needed for Language Teachers' Professional Development in Malaysia: A Narrative Review

Abstract

This paper aims at reviewing the existing practices and the support required for language teachers' professional development in Malaysia. Despite the fact that one of the main goals of the National Education Policy is to produce professional and holistic teachers who are knowledgeable and capable of contributing to society and the nation at large, there is little research examining and documenting the type of support required in the implementation of teacher professional development courses and teacher education in Malaysia. This research uses a narrative review approach, systematic searching strategies, and manual citation tracking techniques to gather and synthesise material from online databases. Fifteen articles were identified and thematically analysed using Atlas.ti 9.0. The findings revealed that any initiatives to implement professional training programmes in Malaysia must consider mentorship, administrative, technical, financial, resource, and welfare support. Finally, to establish a win-win situation for teachers and stakeholders, this article suggests that future training programmes should incorporate teachers' voices in implementing relevant training.