Major Challenges Encountered by Novice EFL Teachers: A Meta-synthesis

Abstract

Abstract The first years of teaching are well documented to pose several challenges for novice teachers as their knowledge and skills of pre-service years are tested within real-life classroom settings. Accordingly, the current meta-synthesis paper aims to outline the challenges novice EFL teachers face to draw a general picture of the challenges recorded in the current literature and to establish guidelines for future studies. To this end, qualitative studies investigating novice ELF teachers’ challenges were scanned and filtered according to inclusion and exclusion criteria, revealing a total of 12 studies published in peer-reviewed journals within the last decade (i.e., 2010-2020). Subsequently, the results of the studies at hand were subjected to thematic analysis revealing four overarching themes: 1) Student-related challenges, 2) Lack of professional knowledge and expertise, 3) Workplace-related challenges, and 4) Educational system-related challenges.