Teacher Development Over Time: Practical Activities for Language Teachers

Teacher Development Over Time: Practical Activities for Language Teachers addresses teacher learning over the span of the careers of both novice and experienced teachers in English Language Teaching (ELT). It is designed to a) help novice ELT teachers to see the ways in which their learning may open up careers and communities over a professional life span; and b) support experienced ELT teachers in understanding where they are in their careers and how they may respond creatively to the challenges in that particular career phase. Part 1 synthesises the views of major research on teaching as it is experienced over time by teachers and discusses the implications. Readers engage with these ideas via the activities in Part 2, which encourage them to reflect on their career paths and on possible themes for future work. Part 3 describes ways teachers can set the Part 2 activities within a busy professional life, and Part 4 helps teachers to engage in further explorations on their own or with others. By merging a strong line of research with very practical tools for understanding professional development, Teacher Development Over Time proves to be an indispensable resource for language teachers as well as teacher educators and mentors.

Tessa Woodward is Editor of The Teacher Trainer journal for Pilgrims, Canterbury, UK. She is a Past President and International Ambassador of the International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) and founded the IATEFL Special Interest Group for Teacher Trainers (now the SIG T Ed/TT). She is also the founder of The Fair List, UK (www.thefairlist.org).

Kathleen Graves is Associate Professor of Education Practice at the University of Michigan, USA, where she works in teacher education and curriculum development. She is the series editor of the TESOL Language Curriculum Development series.

Donald Freeman is Professor of Education at the University of Michigan, USA. He directs the Learning4Teaching Project, a series of national research studies of ELT public-sector teachers’ experiences in professional development conducted in Chile, Turkey, and Qatar.