Last week, in the BT SIG Symposium, one of the teachers participating in my talk approached me and kindly asked what suggestion I had to help act in the context he worked. He claimed he wanted and needed to be observed, but his superiors considered that unimportant; he…
For quite a long time, I have watched recordings, seen photos and read accounts by the biggest names in the area of ELT getting together at conferences and all kinds of professional development events around the country and abroad. Although I have never doubted the…
Professional development demands making choices, sometimes very hard, sometimes very easy ones. The first choice is deciding to follow the path of growth in the career we decided to pursue in education. As Wallace (1991) mentioned, development has to be done by the teacher…
In this post, I would like to discuss the teaching profession from a broader perspective, looking at the group of professionals collectively and using the metaphor of a constellation to analyse team work and cooperation.
A while ago, when discussing teacher development with…
I have recently been involved in discussions about excellence in teaching and have wondered what it means to be excellent as a teacher. From what I have observed in discussions as well as in my context, the definitions and criteria that state what an effective teacher does…
Attending a TESOL conference Last week I had the opportunity to experience the TESOL international conference held in Seattle. From my perspective participating in conferences is an enriching way to seek for professional development. You are faced with so…
Some teachers choose peer observations to enhance their development during the academic year. Working on observations helps teachers improve their awareness of their teaching, as well as broaden their repertoire of teaching techniques. The various possible perspectives that…
Diversity is one of the most frequent topics in current discussions around education. Its various interpretations can also be a form of diversity, accepting that we may all have opposing views on the same subject. In this post I will be discussing diversity and hope to…
The feeling that all our efforts to motivate, help students learn and get organised were in vain is common among teachers, especially towards the end of the year/ term. There is usually that one student in class who brings all the joy, does all the homework, and has all the…
