The Language Teacher

Professional Development Sites

Sure, it's important to keep the learner in mind, but there is always room for personal development. All language teachers seeking to understand themselves and their personal learning and teaching styles would benefit greatly from visits to the following two sites.

"Demonstrating Educational Effectiveness" <http://www.tafe.sa.edu.au/vet div/irsi/best_prac/> is a South Australian site maintained by the Open Learning Unit of the Douglas Mawson Institute and funded by the Australian National Training Authority. Although this site is heavily influenced by an educational approach known as "4-MAT" (see the site for more details) and is geared to educators in vocational and technical colleges, any language teacher who uses an eclectic approach will find it of interest. You can navigate through the site, either by color-coded threads or linearly. The threaded topics are "Connecting with a Changing World," which discusses the whys of change; "Understanding a Changing World," which shows what needs to be changed; "Best Practice in a Changing World," which looks at the how of change; and "Changing our World," a series of pages discussing how to integrate change throughout the curriculum. Underlying these four topics is a fifth topic, entitled "The Heart of the Matter," which serves to demonstrate the site's four-pronged view of "stimulating conversation, improving understanding, exploring benchmarking, and inviting collaboration (among and between educators)."

"Wild-e, Professional Development for Personal Development's Sake" <http://www.wild-e.org>, a Japan-conceived site named after the whimsical Oscar Wilde, aims at encouraging personal and professional development in the language teaching field. Wild-e throws open the door of teacher development in moving away from traditional views of language teaching (no more sages on the stages), leading one commentor at the site to compare it with another famous Internet Web Site, calling it the "Dave's ESL Cafe for grownups" (maybe because of its heavy use of automated page-creation scripts). Perhaps the site is best summed up by some of the "Quiz questions" <http://www.wild-e.org/WILD-e/pages/quiz.html> for new visitors wondering if it has any interest for them.

You'll like the site if . . .

• you're a teacher (who isn't?)
• you like learning (who doesn't?)
• you like to creatively explore ideas rather than just argue about who's right and who's wrong (you think arguments are boring, anyway, and they make people feel bad)
• you have a taste for metaphorical exploration (and you understand something of the inspiring and healing possibilities in this style of discussion)
• you're into autonomy and learning how to enjoy being an adult human being, and you believe we all have a free choice
• you think cooperativeness is a pretty cool approach that doesn't have to be "touchy-feely" at all. (So you still have a belief in "true love," and haven't hardened into a total cynic yet. Maybe there's still hope for us out there after all?)

The site is new and fresh and loaded with possibilities. Build it and they will come.