The Resourceful English Teacher: Some Reflections on Iraqi Teachers of English

Abstract

Teaching is a dynamic process which entails a teacher to always strive for improving and developing his/her own personal and professional traits. His keeping in pace with the up-to-date pedagogical philosophies, methods and techniques will adhere to real success in his/her career. This is obviously shown in language teaching which requires continuous change and updating that is derived from consulting relevant books and other resources such as newspapers, magazines, plays, tales and use of technology like computer and internet. The teacher must keep abreast of the latest developments in the field of language teaching so as to implement them in his teaching practice.The time when language laboratories, computer and internet assisted language teaching and other audio-visual devices have added new dimensions to the English teaching situation in many parts of the world, Iraqi teachers whether at schools or colleges have been denied all these facilities. For years educators, teachers, students and parents have been complaining about the static English teaching situation in Iraq with respect to methods, syllabuses, materials, resources, testing and most important of all is the absence of the teacher's professional development. There is an urgent need for Iraqi teachers of English at the college level to be equipped with certain basic professional and personal traits which enable them to work effectively.The present paper, therefore, tries to shed light on one of these traits which is "resourcefulness" .It covers most of the recently used resources that benefit the college inexperienced teacher to become resourceful and the experienced one to become more resourceful. Therefore, the aims of the present study are to find out: 1-the extent to which teachers of English at the College of Education/Ibn Rushed and College of Education for women are resourceful; 2-whether there is any difference among the teachers according to their total years of experience; and 3-whether there is any difference among the teachers of language and literature.