From Business to Education: Action Learning in EFL Teacher Preparation Programs

Abstract

Action learning is an approach enabling individuals to work as teams on complex issues that encounter them in their academic field or in their workplace. Through dialogue, reflective listening, deep questioning, experimentation, and feedback, learning is gained, and individuals develop their capacities to professionally solve any upcoming problems. In this paper, action learning is a cyclical process that values EFL pre-service teachers as being a source of knowledge and users of knowledge to bring out innovative ideas and actions collaboratively and through action learning sets work on issues related to EFL education. The purpose of this paper is to review literature and previous studies and research presenting the nature of action learning, its components, stage systems, process, and benefits. Besides, the paper sought to propose a framework to involve action learning in the EFL preparation programs by presenting a set of recommendations for promoting EFL pre-service teacher program at the faculties of education, as well as in the field of EFL education.