ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the complexity of teacher learning in the context of top-down mandatory INSET. Data were collected through focus group interviews and classroom observation and analyzed qualitatively. Findings show that teachers’ uptake was varied, unpredictable, and conditioned by the relational interdependency of teachers’ classroom experiences, cognition, emotion, and action. It is also revealed in the study that only a surface manifestation of resulting change was observed in teachers’ instructional practices. The chapter concludes with the argument that mandatory top-down INSET should continue to serve as one of the leading models of professional development for EFL teachers for many compelling reasons but needs to be reoriented to capture the complexity of teacher learning. This reorientation ties together the construction of teacher education as learning and teacher education as policy in sophisticated and intriguing ways so as to create more conducive conditions for teacher learning and teacher change to emerge from bottom-up challenge.
