CHAPTER 1INTRODUCTION
1.1
Background
Development means positive change and growth. It is an indispensable phenomenon which isessential for all. As professionals, everyone hope for a continuous growth in their professionalism, be it a layman or a high profile professional. Development in a teaching professional reaches its impact as far as to the entire world. As such, teacher development hasto be considered in highest terms of priority for the development of a nation. It is onlythrough good teachers that better and useful citizens are produced who can contributetowards the nation’s development. This implies that a defective teaching results in thegeneration of ineffective knowledge and skill among the learners which consequently jeopardizes a country’s development as Underhill (in Head and Taylor, 1997) rightly says,“Development means ….. keeping myself on the same side of the learning fence as mystudents. This is the only way I can keep alive a sense of challenge…..and avoid getting in arut. If I am in a rut, then so is my teaching, and then so are my students.”Teacher development is the process of becoming ‘the best kind of teacher I personally can be’(Underhill, 1986 in Head and Taylor, 1997). Unlike teacher training, which is usually a sortof compulsion on the part of the teacher, teacher development draws on teacher’s own inner resource for change and growth. It is centered on ‘personal awareness of the possibilities for change’ (Head and Taylor, 1997, p.1). Teacher development is self driven continuous thirstfor professional growth to acquire self satisfaction out of teaching profession. It is an intrinsicdrive of a teacher to learn, grow and advance. As Ur (1991) says, “….. the professionalteachers need to develop theories, awareness of options and decision making abilities’; these
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