EXPLORING EFL TEACHERS' TECHNIQUES IN TEACHING ORAL SKILLS IN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOLS OF SHAHROOD, IRAN: A QUALITATIVE STUDY

Instead of following grand theories and methods prescribed during pre-service and in-service teacher education programs, experienced teachers follows their own theories of practice. However, due to the dominance of hypothetico-deductive mode of inquiry in language teaching, theories of practice have rarely been explored. To uncover personal theories implicit in teachers’ practice and how these theories are realized in down-to-earth techniques, this data-driven study aims at exploring fifteen experienced teachers’ techniques of teaching oral skills in junior high schools of Shahrood, a major city in Semnan province. To this end, teachers’ perspectives were qualitatively explored and analysed through the principles and procedures of grounded theory. Final analysis revealed that the participants used “Learners’ Mother Tongue”, "Warm-up", and "Role-play", "Summarizing”, “Storytelling", " Describing Pictures" and "Practicing Linguistic Patterns" to teach oral skills. The findings have clear implications for curriculum developers and pre-service language teacher educators.