Planning for Professional Development

Ms. Plenner realizes that her students’ success is closely linked to her knowledge and practice as a teacher (Diaz-Maggioli, 2003)  and that she needs to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to use the technology on the laptop cart effectively; in other words, Ms. Plenner needs to engage in  professional development (PD) on the use of technology in language teaching and learning. As a relatively new teacher, however, Ms. Plenner is not sure where to start; the area of CALL seems overwhelmingly large and new to her, and she feels that she must learn as much as she can as quickly as possible.

Diaz-Maggioli (2003) notes that the purpose of professional development is “to promote effective teaching that results in learning gains for all students” (p. 2). Many print and electronic resources are dedicated to this goal. For example, Rogers (2018) defines CALL and provides teachers with a set of guidelines for choosing CALL tasks; the British Council (britishcouncil.org) has continuing professional development in CALL that includes videos, downloadable resources, and ideas for further reading; YouTube has a variety of videos for teachers; Larry Ferlazzo’s website (http://larryferlazzo.edublogs.org/) compiles and sorts all kinds of CALL teacher resources.

One place to start might be the rubric included in the TESOL Technology Standards (Healey, 2011). This survey helps teachers to review their understandings of the characteristics of engaged language learning and technology use and to reflect on how they are prepared to engage students in language learning with technology. After completing the rubric, teachers can choose a standard, goal, or set of indicators as goals for their (and their peers’) learning. Once teachers have decided what they want or need to know, they can explore the many resources available to help teachers find out about CALL.