Twenty English language teaching practitioners from around the world were invited to reflect on the role of experience in teacher training and life-long development for the British Council's recent publication 'Developing expertise through experience', edited by Alan Maley.
Their responses offer fascinating insights into the way places, publications, ideas and key people have influenced the professional and personal development of the contributors. The book concludes that it would be timely to incorporate trainees’ narratives and personal experiences as part of pre- and in-service training programmes and in Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in general. There are suggestions for practical activities to achieve this in the accompanying e-file 'Developing expertise through experience: Ideas for continuing professional development'.
As well as reading each original and engaging chapter, you can watch short clips by contributors talking about their thoughts and ideas on developing expertise through experience and their reaction to taking part in the book.
So far you can watch ten thought-provoking videos by the following contributors:
- Alan Maley: Developing expertise through experience
- Thomas Farrell: Reflections
- Andrew Wright: Meanings that matter to the user
- Freda Mishan: Learning from teaching
- Adrian Underhill: A sense of plausibility
- Harry Kuchah: From little steps to giant strides
- Chrysa Papalazarou: The art of growing
- Peter Medgyes: Growing up
- Robert Bellarmine: The development of my sense of plausibility and its implications
- Malu Sciamarelli: Finding my own way
More videos will be posted on the Creativity Group's YouTube channel.
You can also download the book and find out more about 'Developing expertise through experience' on our TeachingEnglish publications pages.