Teacher Training or Teacher Draining: A Critical Analysis of Iranian Teacher ‎Training Courses (TTC)‎

This paper sought to look critically at Iran’s teacher training courses (TTCs) to discover the ‎main problems and missing links. To this aim, twenty English teachers (8 men and 12 ‎women) teaching general English courses at five private language institutes in Tehran and ‎Mashhad participated in this study. Through a qualitative approach employing semi-‎structured interviews the needed data were collected and analyzed. It was worth mentioning ‎that the researchers observed around 200 hours of teacher training courses in Iran for even ‎delving deeper into the problem. By using inductive content analysis, the data were ‎analyzed and the results and findings showed miscellaneous problems in Iran’s teacher ‎training courses. The main problems detected were Lack of THEORY, Lack of FREEDOM ‎of CHOICE, Lack of SUPERVISION in the courses, Lack of Teacher REFLECTION, Lack of ‎TECHNOLOGY in education, and Lack of consideration for teachers’ PREVIOUS ‎KNOWLEDGE. This study had important implications for teacher trainers to work more on ‎their theoretical knowledge and for teachers to choose the right courses for their ‎professional development. Also, this study helps managers and lesson planners to hold ‎better courses by eradicating these problems. ‎