Professional Development and ESL Teachers’ Career Enhancement

A broader understanding of English as Second Language (ESL) teachers’ need to undertake PD is the key to provide them better outcomes from the available professional development (PD) activities. A qualitative investigation was undertaken with ten ESL teachers of a government university in Sri Lanka to identify the significance of PD for their career trajectories. The study used semi-structured interviews to gather data and Thematic Analysis for data analysis. The research findings situated PD as the key for teachers’ career growth enabling the institutions to achieve their goals, maintain ongoing operations and obtain optimum application of teachers’ potential. The findings also demonstrated PD as a way for improving teachers’ professional capital providing them the opportunity to enrich their professional growth and enhance their effectiveness and validity in the employment market. Although sponsored PD driven by managerialism was mostly supportive for teachers’ career enhancement independent PD can also facilitate this outcome.