Online Communities of Practice: A Professional Development Tool for Language Educators

Abstract

‘A place for shared materials’, ‘accessing common and current resources’, ‘possibilities for dialogue with other educators’ and ‘a place of trust and honesty’ were the key elements that language teachers and trainers who were surveyed during two professional development workshops in the context of using ICT for teaching1 identified when asked about the three main elements that were essential in a community of practice. One participant at the workshop organized in the context of a European Centre for Modern Languages project wrote: Your question has made me think about what I really appreciate and why I find some communities more useful to my needs as a teacher than others. I believe that three main elements that are essential in a community of practice are: It represents a group of people coming from various backgrounds, with various levels of expertise in teaching, both mentors and mentees — the variety is important because it makes it possible to see every problem from different angles and get different perspectives, every discussion is more fruitful. There is the atmosphere of collaboration and sharing — the willingness to help and ask for help. The teachers are active, they care about the community and believe in the power of the community to improve the work of individual teachers — projects are started, surveys done, papers read and discussed, members comment on one another’s blogs, it is easy to get feedback, etc. (my own italics) The focus of this chapter is to define and explore three different communities of practice for language teachers, and to examine how these notions of ‘variety’, ‘collaboration and sharing’ and ‘power of the community’, as well as other important characteristics of these communities impact on the success of a community of practice.