EFL Teachers’ Cognition on Market Needs and Their Pedagogical Practices in EFL Classroom
Soma Nawzad
Department of English, College of Language, University of Sulaimani, Iraq
Email: [email protected]
Published: February 22, 2023
Abstract
Recently, a broad view is highlighted among the educators and those in charge in the pedagogical fields stating that the universities should be the place where the individual students are enriched with the knowledge and skills that the 21-century market requires. As teachers have a crucial role in providing the market with the skillful and knowledgeable students, so the teachers are required to have knowledge concerning various aspects including: what the market requires from their graduates in the 21st century and what effective pedagogical practices are necessary to follow in order to fulfill those requirements. In line with that, the aim of this paper is to delve into the EFL teacher’s cognition, knowledge and believes, concerning what the market requires from the graduates and what pedagogical practices they follow in their EFL classes. For that, this study targets 16 EFL teachers at the English departments in three different public universities collecting qualitative data using semi-structured interviews and class observations. Additionally, a contextual analysis has been done collecting data from 6 private schools and 4 non-governmental organizations in the three major provinces so as to find out which skills and competences do they look for in the English language department graduates and what do they need those skills and competences for. Based on the available data, some conclusions are drawn and the references are documented.
Keywords: pedagogy, market needs, EFL, EFL teachers, 21st century skills
DOI: 10.23918/vesal2023v41