Communities of Practice

Abstract

For TESOL professionals worldwide, communities of practice offer opportunities for learning and for professional development—both online and face‐to‐face. This entry provides a description of what communities of practice are in English language teaching and how they work to promote excellence in instruction and professional development. The definition of “communities of practice” provided here serves two functions: (1) to identify specific characteristics of TESOL communities of practice; and (2) to connect TESOL with other professional communities of practice. The definition, drawn from many sources, is “TESOL communities of practice are sets of relations among persons and activities over time in relation with other tangential and overlapping communities of practice.”