Teacher’s Self-development

In this ever-changing world, a good learner is a life-long learner. How can we expect our students to be efficient learners when we don’t cater for our own self-development as teachers?

To begin with, it is crucial to realize that expanding our EFL knowledge and teaching skills is something that we do throughout our lives. It is not something that we do once. This is the reason we need a tool that can inform us without going through a hassle. In my opinion the social media can function as an information tool.

As digital immigrants, we should to try to align ourselves with this era, even though our upbringing is rather different. Since we are living in this digital age, where the social media have conquered every aspect of our life, it is a natural outcome that our professional development may derive from such means. Hence, this blog’s entry will focus on how teachers can expand their ELT knowledge through the social media and especially through Twitter.

Bear in mind that when you sign up for a Twitter account you cannot change your name. So the is no messing around with it…

By default Twitter doesn’t lend itself to socialize. In particular, the chat won’t pop up at at the bottom or on the side of your Twitter page. To enter the chat you click on the icon and the whole pages switches to your chat room. So, there is no chatting and browsing simultaneously as in facebook. 

Don’t panic, if you think that you have to visit all the 20-30 pages of people or organizations that you have chosen to follow. Thanks to the RSS news feed you can choose which sites you want to receive updates automatically without visiting them. That way you can keep track of any upcoming book, conference, seminar and workshop that is related to our field.

Here are some Twitter ELT eminent figures that I suggest you follow:  

Pros

• You expand your Personal Learning Network through online chats with other ELT professionals. This gives you the advantage to learn from other teachers so as to enhance you teaching skills or deal with challenges that arise in the EFL classroom as well as share resources (e.g. grammatical worksheets etc). Twitter facilitates this compared to other social media tools because it is predominantly used for professional purposes. This provides the opportunity to exchange experiences and support each other.

• You become acquainted new teaching approaches that enable you to refine you teaching skills.

• You receive updates regarding examinations, new course books, conferences, seminars etc.

Cons

• You get informed provided that you go online regularly. For those ELT teachers who are under the category of the “digital immigrants” they should radically change their stance and remain connected.

• Some claim that other sites like facebook are more efficient because more people log in on a daily basis for entertainment. Indeed, by including professional information in such sites at times gets the message across much easier compared to sites that function mainly for professional purposes.

Though many EFL teachers don’t realize it, the social media can act as an invaluable tool for a teacher’s self-development. It all depends on how open-minded you are to embrace such unconventional means of self-development. 

I believe that EFL teachers are quite cynical when it comes to the social media and they lose from it. 

Let’s all open-minded EFL teachers pull together and sensitise them to change.

EFL Blogs – A Tool of Self-development or a Tool of Self-promotion?

This article takes the role of the devil’s advocate and deals the ongoing debate on how teachers are utilizing the blogs. Every coin has two facades. It is very likely that one side may be more appealing whereas the other rather disturbing.

Firstly, no one can deny that blogs have ameliorated the EFL profession due to the following reasons:

• It is a portal of sharing information and expertise. E.g. Seminars are published, free tips are offered so as to make EFL lessons more creative etc

• Remaining up-to-date. E.g. Become informed of the latest changes that the government has made the affect EFL teaching – Cameron has just announced funding for the ESOL classes which means more job opportunities for EFL teachers.

However, detractors have accused EFL teachers for using blogs as a channel of self-promotion. In particular, many advertise their language school, their books and generally project their own work on the field. For instance, they may upload a video of a play that they staged so as to impress the public and attract potential clients. 

Indeed, have you ever considered why don’t EFL bloggers publish other good books on ELT along with the ones they have written? Why do they only include their books?

After all, it all depends on what perspective one perceives blogging and how each individual utilizes it. To what extent do EFL teachers use it as a means of self-projection? To what extent do blogs contribute to global EFL knowledge?

Reason has proven that the truth always lies somewhere in the middle.

What do you think?