SUMMARY
This study investigated the professional development practices and obstacles that teachers of Turkish as a foreign language perceive as the reasons for preventing their participation in development activities. The study also aimed to find out how a professional development activity prepared in line with the teachers’ needs affected their perceptions of professional development. Participants of the study were 160 Turkish as a foreign language teachers. Data were first investigated through a questionnaire. Then, 15 teachers were interviewed in focus groups randomly selected from Turkish teaching centers (TÖMER) in Ankara. After these interviews, a seminar was prepared in line with the professional development needs of the volunteer participants to understand how a professional development activity, prepared according to the needs of the teachers affected their perceptions of professional development activities. The results indicated that teachers have a positive perception of professional development in general. The reasons they perceived as barriers to their participation in these activities were intense pace in their lives, their hectic work schedule and the inefficiency of professional development trainers, while the kinds of activities that they participated in were evaluating their own performance, reading articles, journals and books related to the field, sharing information with colleagues, conducting in-class research and receiving help from colleagues. The research has implications for professional development providers to improve the effectiveness of professional development activities for teachers of teaching Turkish as a foreign language.