9 - Building Professional English Language Teaching Development Communities

Summary

This chapter concludes the volume as a whole; however, it amounts to much more than the mere sum of its parts. Its purpose is to draw together the salient points of the preceding chapters and present the professional learning of English language teachers as a sociocultural process. The chapter then situates professional teachers in communities of practice. However, because traditional communities of practice do not fully meet their needs, professional development communities for English language teaching (ELT) practitioners are proposed. A principled approach to building such communities is put forward, and exemplars of professional development communities in action in diverse ELT contexts are presented. At the very end, the chapter highlights avenues for the future exploration of teacher professionalism, both conceptual and empirical, and offers recommendations for teacher education and professional development, as well as educational research. Regarding ways forward, professional ELT should be viewed in terms of three meta-dimensions: lifelong learning, classroom ethnography, and educational leadership.