Twitter Connections

Continuous Professional Development

Continuous Professional Development (CPD from now on), is one of our major goals on the CELTA syllabus. In many ways, a lot of what we do, such as reflecting on your own lessons and the lessons of other trainees, discussing possible lesson sequences and activities together, asking you to collaborate and coordinate with others in your allocated Teaching Practice groups, are all ways of giving you the tools you need to keep improving as a teacher after your CELTA course is over.

For some reason, although most of you are comfortable using Facebook, Twitter seems to be the one social networking tool which many of you find either irrelevant or threatening.

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And yet, Twitter is a great online meeting point for thousands of educators who send education related tweets on a daily basis.

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Sure, once you have ‘met’ people on Twitter, and you have had conversations with them, you may also see the occasional personal update, like where someone is going on holiday, photos and news, but mostly teachers tweet for other teachers.

Circles of Trust

One great way of connecting is to build or follow a circle of trust; follow some of the people someone you know and trust follows, for example, the writer of these lines (your tutor). Just click on the “Following” button on the user’s profile and choose who you would like to follow.

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Choose people who clearly say they are ELT teachers, or trainers, or ELT writers.

Hashtagged discussions on Twitter

Another great way is to follow a hashtag (hashtag=#) related to English Language Teaching.

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The first hashtag I would recommend very warmly is #ELTchat which is used by teachers all week long, and especially on Wednesdays when we have an organised discussion on a topic voted on by #ELTchat followers. Click here to learn more about it.

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There are other very good ELT hashtags which also organise weekly chats, such as #EAPchat and #AusELT

Some Tweets of Welcome – Start your own PLN!

Here are the responses of some colleagues who saw my tweet asking them to welcome you on Twitter. Click on their user ID’s (often referred to as Twitter handles) and follow them! Then follow some of the people who post using the #ELTchat hashtag.

And above all, join us every Wednesday to continue with your professional development

[View the rest of the tweets by clicking here on “Welcomes to CELTA trainees on Twitter” on Storify]

Create, maintain and learn with your own PLN (Personal Learning Network)

The end of your CELTA course is just the beginning…

… of your lifelong learning and I hope we meet and continue to connect online so I can continue to be part of it

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Related Blog Post

Autonomous Professional Development Begins at Home – from an IATEFL talk (Glasgow, 2013) with Shaun Wilden

Image Sources

#ELTchat image & Tweets capture my own (@Marisa_C)
Trust image courtesy of Morgue Files Royalty Free Images

About the Author of this post

Marisa Constantinides is the Director of Studies of CELT Athens and is responsible for the design and implementation of all the programmes offered by CELT. For more information, click here

How to contact Marisa Constantinides

Skype marisa.constantinides.celt – Yahoo Messenger marisa_rc – Google Talk marisa.constantinides@gmail.com –

On Twitter she is @Marisa_C and she is one of the moderators of the weekly #ELTchat which is mentioned in this post.
For a more detailed biographical note and points of contact, please click here