Why Form an Association in the first place?
Why should teachers take the time and the trouble to associate with each other at all?
· To improve the practice of language teaching and learning
· To promote high standards of initial and in-service language teacher training
· To foster and promote scholarship relating to language teaching
· To foster high academic and professional standards
· To break down the isolation that teachers experience both in their classrooms and in their institutional settings
· To encourage cooperation and mutual support
· To foster the articulation and development of teacher-theory concerning classroom language learning
· To offer a regular forum for the introduction and exchange of materials and other resources
· To encourage the development of foreign language teacher identity and collegiality
· To provide opportunities for personal language development
(Taken from Developing an Association for Language Teachers , Edited by Ana Falcao and Margit Szesztay, published by IATEFL)
The future of teacher associations
Submitted by Ana DAlmeida on 18 October, 2010
Dear All
In 2006 an article in IATEFL Voices (188) pondered on the future of teacher associations. Five IATEFL members from around the world were asked to send in their views and predictions to the following questions: where will teachers’ associations be in ten or twenty years’ time? What future do they have?
In my contribution to that article, instead of providing the answers, I decided to ask a lot of other questions. Five years on, I think that there are still many questions, but I believe teacher associations – be they small or large, formal or informal, face to face or online – will always have a place in teacher professional and personal development. Our essentially gregarious nature will always seek ways of bonding. The ways we choose to bond may change though. We may well spend less time face to face, though this will always be important locally.
But what I am especially thinking about now is that with the ever increasing spread of internet via mobile phones across the world, more and more people are and will be using social media for personal and professional development. The concept of setting up and nurturing your own personal/professional learning network (PLN) is gaining momentum on the web. It is an attractive idea as it favours autonomous learning, learner choices, flexibility, openness, etc. As such, this new option of professional development will certainly play a role in the professional life of our TA members – mostly made up of educators.
And I have got a new question to the list I wrote in 2006:
In the year 2015, will TAs have evolved into more open and fluid organisations as a reflection of the growth of PLNs?
What about you? What does the future hold for your teacher association? How will technology make you change?
Over to you!But what I am especially thinking about now is that with the ever increasing spread of internet via mobile phones across the world, more and more people are and will be using social media for personal and professional development. The concept of setting up and nurturing your own personal/professional learning network (PLN) is gaining momentum on the web. It is an attractive idea as it favours autonomous learning, learner choices, flexibility, openness, etc. As such, this new option of professional development will certainly play a role in the professional life of our TA members – mostly made up of educators.
And I have got a new question to the list I wrote in 2006:
In the year 2015, will TAs have evolved into more open and fluid organisations as a reflection of the growth of PLNs?
What about you? What does the future hold for your teacher association? How will technology make you change?
Ana d’Almeida
(Taken from British Council- BBC- Teach English)
