EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices of communities of practice for continuing professional development: A narrative overview

Abstract

This study examined EFL teachers’ perceptions and practices regarding communities of practice for their continuing professional development. The narrative overview approach was employed to delve into related studies on the concerned topic within the fields of education and English language teaching. The results suggested teachers positively perceived communities of practice as a means to foster collaboration, knowledge sharing, and reflective practice among members. Furthermore, the results highlighted the alignment between the teachers’ practices of their communities of practice and Wenger’s (1998) dimensions of communities of practice. Besides its contribution to the literature, this overview study revealed a research gap in EFL teachers’ perceptions and their practices of communities of practice in the Mekong Delta of Vietnam, thereby marking it significant to investigate the research problems in this context.