Innovation in Language Learning

The nature of teacher expertise has not been explored enough in classroom teaching and even less in the field of second and foreign language teaching. Most of the studies investigated expertise as a state which looked for novice and expert teacher differences. In this research, three domains of teacher expertise which seemed to be related to teacher’s practice in classroom (expertise as a process) were chosen and the impact of enhancing teacher expertise through focusing on these domains, i.e., social activities, reflective activities, and problem solving, on EFL teacher performance was investigated. Thirty English teachers were assigned to three groups and their performances before and after receiving the treatment were observed. The results of the study indicated that EFL teachers’ performance significantly improved after receiving the treatment; problem solving and social activities appeared to have greater impact on teacher performance than reflective activities. Based on classroom observations, the reason that reflective activities appear less successful than social activities and problem solving can be due to the organizational and contextual constraints imposed by the language institute. Teacher education is not just limited to knowledge of presenting grammar, vocabulary, etc. There are other factors which are equally important and might significantly influence the quality of teaching and learning.