Context As A Shaper Of EFL Teacher Identity: Mediating Role Of Professional Development

Generally, professional development initiatives focus mainly on enhancing teachers’ classroom practices. However, teaching practices without being cognizant of students’ culture and contexts rarely have an impact learning outcomes. With regard to language teaching, knowledge context is a pivotal factor in learners’ development. This paper reports study that explored how the Cambridge English Teacher (CET) program influenced as Foreign Language (EFL) teachers Saudi Arabian public university. Utilizing convergent parallel mixed-methods design, survey questionnaire semi-structured interviews provide data explore CET experiences 130 EFL teachers. The combined quantitative qualitative results show because CET, participants’ was enhanced following areas: status society, culture, adaptation institutional policies, building rapport with learner, from multicultural colleagues. Specifically, findings indicated different linguistics backgrounds gained understanding taught through using culturally sensitive methodologies. Finally, article recommends steps seek help institutes context-specific PD well offers directions for current future research.