Abstract:
Teachers are believed to play direct roles on the achievement of education goal. This implies that teachers’ professionalism matters, as professional teachers make better achievement. As teachers’ professionalism becomes an important issue, it is crucial to trace factors underlying professionalism. This paper tries to elaborate a number of factors that affect teachers’ professionalism acquisition. The discussion covers current theoretical issues on the affecting factors of teachers’ professionalism and the finding of a study on EFL teachers’ perceptions towards the affecting factors of professionalism. This study was conducted to 119 EFL teachers of senior and junior high schools. Data were taken through questionnaire designed in Presence-Absence Questions and Rank-Ordering Questions, to reveal respondents’ opinion towards the contribution of the variables used in the study on teachers’ professionalism acquisition and to disclose respondents’ opinion as to the order of importance of each of the variables towards its contribution to teachers’ professionalism. Six variables used in this study were General Knowledge Ability, Focus Training, Knowledge of Subject Matter, Teaching Experience, Certification, and Academic Degree. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The findings of this study suggest that respondents believed that all of the variables have positive contribution to the acquisition of EFL teachers’ professionalism. Thus, the writers believed that the six variables have to be considered in developing teachers’ professionalism.
