This sociocultural theory-based study investigates how professional development activities mediated novice EFL teachers in their teaching careers. Four volunteer novice teachers in their two-year probation time participated in the study. Each novice teacher wrote a narrative every month in a semester and was interviewed at the beginning and end of that semester. Data from all the narratives and interviews disclose that the institutional context with much teaching workload, mandatory research, and involvement in administration-related work provide the affordances for the novice teachers to internalize their understanding of the duties of English lecturers and drive to practice those duties. Besides, the professional development activities in teaching, researching and others are reported to lead to growth in the understanding, experience as well as confidence level of novice teachers. From the findings, implications are put forward to how to provide support to mediate the professional growth of early-career teachers.
