Professional Development for

ELT Educators
Raúl Alberto Mora, Ph.D.
Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana/Universidad Distrital
Invited Talk – March 28, 2016
What is “Professional
Development” anyway?
Let’s start with a very simple question…
 Professional Development: A lifelong
commitment
• PD should start as soon as you enter the BA
program.
• PD goes beyond taking classes and attending
seminars.
• PD cannot end if you don’t wish to become
stale.
• PD is a personal commitment to your craft
Professional Development as “Kung-Fu”
• Kung-Fu (功夫)
• The mastery of any discipline through
hard work and practice
• “Never forget that, at the most, the
teacher can give you fifteen percent of
the art. The rest you have to get for
yourself through practise and hard
work. I can show you the path but I
can not walk it for you.”
Master Tan Soh Tin
• “I am not afraid of a person who
knows 10000 kicks. But I am afraid of
a person who knows one kick but
practices it for 10000 times.”
Bruce Lee
 Professional Development as a call for
Transformative Intellectuals
• Three teaching profiles (Kumaravadivelu, 2003)
• Passive Technician
• Reflective Practitioner (Dewey, Stenhouse, Schön)
• Transformative Intellectual (Gramsci, Critical
Pedagogy, Critical Theory)

• Which of these profiles do most PD workshops

aim for? (something for you all to ponder)
 Professional Development as a
epistemological, not an instrumental affair
• “In this environment, with an excessive interest in technology, we lose
track of why it matters to incorporate these frameworks in the first place
(epistemological) to only worry about how to do so (instrumental). The
use of multiliteracies and multimodality (Jacobs, 2013) becomes then just
making videos on YouTube and the use of digital literacies becomes the
use of tablets, Photoshop, and other applications.”
• “I propose that a more sensible approach to the translation of these ideas
into school and local literacy policies should start from the discussion of
the epistemological and ontological (Lankshear & Knobel, 2011)
dimensions of literacy as the cornerstone of any instrumental
implementations. We need to educate teachers and policy-makers about
establishing rationales for the validity of these frameworks in local
contexts.”
[Source: Mora, R. A. (in press). Translating literacy as global policy and advocacy. Journal of Adolescent
& Adult Literacy, 59(6)]
1. You cannot spell “Professional
Development” without ME
2. Teacher-research as PD
3. Calling for research-based models of
PD
A renewed vision of Professional Development
1. You (literally) cannot spell
“Professional Development”
without ME
 First, some “post-modern philosophy”

•“I'm Starting With The Man In The Mirror /

I'm Asking Him To Change His Ways / And
No Message Could Have Been Any Clearer /
If You Wanna Make The World / A Better
Place / Take A Look At Yourself, And / Then
Make A Change.” (Jackson, 1987)
 PD: A journey of self-actualization

• You are the first responsible party for your own

PD.
• What are you doing to improve your
communicative competence?
• What are you doing to improve your teaching?
• What are you doing to improve your “Digital
Academic Media Trail” (DAMT)
 Improving your communicative
competence
• You are a language teacher…
• How would you characterize your command of English grammar?
• How would you characterize your pronunciation (NOT accent!)?
• How would you characterize your fluency and accuracy (NOT
accent!)?
• How would you characterize your writing in English?
• Academic writing? Informal writing?
• How often do you write?
• Do you have any writing outlets (e.g. blogs, Twitter, etc.)?
• How would you characterize your reading in English?
 Improving your communicative
competence
• Developing an action plan
• Something realistic
• Something personal
• Something achievable
• The “bearable ten”

• Exercise:
• Draft ONE point for your action plan
• Choose one area of communicative competence you feel needs improving.
• Propose one idea that you can start developing today!
• Share if with us if you’d like… but you don’t have to. What is important is that you make
that commitment with yourself.
 Improving your teaching

• Have you ever self-assessed your teaching?

• What are you good at?
• What are you not so good at?
• What needs massive improvement?
• This will need another action plan… but we’ll get to that…
 Improving your DAMT

• Digital Academic Media Trail? (you came up with that

acronym last night, right?
• I did, but that’s beside the point…
• Teachers ARE academics and they need to showcase their
work with the world
• “Google ergo Sum” (I am on Google, therefore I am)
• DAMT: The difference between becoming a Fulbright
Scholar and thinking of becoming one.
 Some tips for DAMT

• “Academic nom-de-plume” – How do/will you write your papers as?

• Start building your Curriculum Vitae today
• Academic Media networks
• Academia (http://academia.edu)
• Research Gate
• Google Scholar (Webometrics uses this one!)
• ORCID
• CvLac
• Social Media
• Twitter
• Blogging
• Personal Websites
 Academia Profile

A professional pic might work too ☺

Make sure you have a very
visible institutional affiliation.
I use LSLP to highlight our
work ☺

Don’t forget to add your CV ☺

You can create separate categories for papers, presentations, syllabi, or any academic
stuff you’d like to highlight
Google Scholar

Literacies in Second Languages Project (LSLP), Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana, Medellin

Suggestion: Use an institutional e-mail or a very professional-looking one

Literacies research

http://literaciesinl2project.org
GS Profile Setup
 ORCID Registration

URL:
http://orcid.org/
register
ORCID Profile
CvLac (Colciencias)

URL:
http://scienti.colciencias.gov.
co:8081/cvlac/EnRecursoHu
mano/create.do
2. Teacher-research as PD
 “Once again, there is no such thing as teaching without
research and research without teaching. One inhabits the
body of the other. As I teach, I continue to search and re-
search. I teach because I search, because I question, and
because I submit myself to questioning. I research because I
notice things, take cognizance of them. And in so doing, I
intervene. And intervening, I educate and educate myself. I
do research so as to know what I do not yet know and to
communicate and proclaim what I discover”
(Source: Freire, P. (2000). Pedagogy of freedom: Ethics, democracy, and civic courage.)
 Teacher-research: It’s about asking
questions!
• We need to constantly interrogate our classrooms
• To improve practice
• To improve learning
• To improve education
• We need to tell stories
• From teachers’ voices
• About classrooms, students, teachers, etc.
• We need to build communities
• Of practice
• Of affinity
 What can I inquire about?

•My suggestion: Choose a topic you really

like and commit to it for a while (even if
nobody gets it at first)
•Always choose “research” over “#research”
•Choose a topic that you can care about
•You are what you study, don’t forget that!
 Write, write, write!

• Begin to write about your topic.

• Share with other academics
• Write papers and publish
• Write blogs, tweets, get the word out!
• Don’t be afraid to write
• Your first draft will be terrible, sh*tty (Lamott) even… and that’s
just fine!
• Take risks with your writing.
• Seek critical readers.
 And where can I publish?
• PROFILE Journal (Universidad Nacional) http://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/profile/index
• HOW Journal (ASOCOPI) http://www.howjournalcolombia.org/index.php/how/index
• Revista Q (UPB) http://revistaq.upb.edu.co/
• Latin American Journal of Content and Language Integrated Learning – LACLIL (Universidad de la Sabana)
http://laclil.unisabana.edu.co/index.php/LACLIL
• ENLETAWA Journal (UPTC) http://revistas.uptc.edu.co/revistas/index.php/enletawa_journal
• Opening Writing Doors Journal (Universidad de Pamplona) http://owdj.unipamplona.edu.co/
• Revista Íkala (Universidad de Antioquia) http://aprendeenlinea.udea.edu.co/revistas/index.php/ikala
• Colombian Applied Linguistics Journal (Universidad Distrital)
http://revistas.udistrital.edu.co/ojs/index.php/calj
• Revista Matices en Lenguas Extranjeras (Universidad Nacional) http://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/male
• Revista Lenguaje (Universidad del Valle) http://revistalenguaje.univalle.edu.co/
• GiST Journal (Universidad UNICA) http://www.publicacionesunica.com/gist/index.php/gist/index
• Revista Palabra (UPB-Montería) http://srvzenu.monteria.upb.edu.co/revistapalabra/
 Develop grassroots-level research teams

•Student Research Groups (Semilleros)

•Study Groups
•Interest Groups
3. Calling for research-based
models of PD
 Stay away from “silver-bullet workshops”

• A long tradition in ELT…

• “Recipes for Tired Teachers”
• The search for silver bullets and magic potions
• What we really need
• Workshops based on sound research, Colombian and otherwise
• Quality in PD facilitators
• Who are they?
• What is their educational/academic/research background?
• This applies to both occasional workshops and academic conferences!
 Develop organic PD workshops

•Ask your faculty members and classmates

to lead and create workshops
•Do you know what your faculty members do
in terms of research?
•How about your peers?
 THANK YOU!

• Raúl Alberto Mora, Ph.D.

• raul.mora@upb.edu.co

• To learn more about the Literacies in Second Languages Project:

• http://literaciesinl2project.org
• https://www.facebook.com/literaciesinl2project/
• Twitter: @lslp_colombia
• Instagram: @lslpcolombia
• E-mail: literaciesinl2project@gmail.com