While several researchers have considered the dynamics of the professional development (PD) of Nonnative English Speakers (NNES) instructors (Tang & Choi, 2005; Baurain, 2010), few have focused specifically on the delivery of PD programs for experienced NNES instructors in international EAP contexts. At first glance, the prospect of conducting PD for second language speakers of English who teach English in a TEFL context (generally in their home countries) can seem fairly straightforward. There will be things—skills, techniques, or approaches—that we, as language teacher educators, can offer them; things that we have learned that can really make a difference in the language classroom. They can provide knowledge about their own teaching situation that both parties can then use to adapt the new material together, as part of the PD process. It is even better if we can deliver the PD in participants’ own countries—in situ.

However, it is not as transparent a project as it may seem. My first objective here is to shine a modest, ethnographic light on English language teacher PD. The situation, it seems to me, is distinguished by a series of paradoxes, the exploration of which can usefully lead to perspectives gained and to production of best practices for such work—my second objective for this piece.

Perspectives and Paradoxes

The first consideration is the PD facilitator, animator, or resource. What knowledge do we bring to the project? Well, we bring a mutually reinforcing theoretical framework and set of practices along with our experience in our own language teaching and in any PD that we have conducted—all of which is, to a greater or lesser degree, grounded in and bounded by the particular contexts in which we have lived, learned, and worked.

Considering the PD participants, it is fair to say that they also bring some interactive mélange of theoretical principles (often remarkably similar to those we have absorbed) and practical experience. In addition, they bring any PD they may have been involved in as participants or even as conductors. All of this has unfolded within and been delimited by the particular contexts in which the PD participants have lived, learned, and worked.

It is evident that there is a potential for overlap in knowledge and experience for these two groups. However, it is the participants’ context—the one they have all the experience in—that the PD is supposed to address. We are the outsiders, yet we have “knowledge,” within whatever context-specific limits apply. It seems as though a collaborative approach to PD might be best. However, here is where a paradox arises. Structured into the PD situation, and into our self-concept as PD conductors, is the idea that we know something that we can give to participants. Correspondingly, they have an expectation that they will get better at what they do in class by being on the receiving end of our offerings. Where is the balance point that takes into account their (and our) expectation of our expertise (with all its inherent context-specificity) and their actual expertise in the realities of the local context the PD is expected to address?

Next, let us examine insecurities. As PD facilitators, the confidence we have in what we do, based on our knowledge and experience, can be undermined in a foreign context with which we lack familiarity. Furthermore, the collaborative approach that is called for means that we have less control over the PD process, which is now less predictable with multiple players.

How does the insecurity issue play itself out from the participants’ standpoint? Often, part of the program is for us to sit in on participants’ classes. It is easy to see how this can produce insecurity for a participant who is being observed by an outsider: “How will this expert judge my abilities and competencies? And how about my own English proficiency? This expert does not know my context here, the challenges I face, my students, the administrative strictures I have to deal with. Do I have to prove myself as a proficient English speaker as well as a competent English language instructor?”

Thus, collaboration, which could be an excellent approach to PD, contains within it the seeds of insecurity. For the PD facilitator, insecurity is created by the need to be an expert in an untried context. For the PD participant, the prospect of being subjected to judgment by an outside expert who has English as a native language can be daunting. These dynamics can generate paradoxical polarization, a sense of “us” and “them” in the midst of a collaborative project. As a result, trust can be compromised.

The third and final paradox emerges from other contextual elements in the international PD situation. First, the personal chemistry, the emotional climate, and the working relationship, which are all very important in PD interactions, can be compromised, not only by the first two paradoxes described above but also by the intercultural aspect. How do cultural differences condition assumptions about appropriate feedback, about formality and informality in PD roles, about direct and indirect communication, about the saving of and loss of face? Furthermore, there are the program and institutional contexts. The participants’ curriculum itself may impose external constraints on what is and what is not possible in a classroom. It may be that administrators with the power to determine the conditions of instruction lack an understanding of the differences between the teaching of a language and that of a discipline such as sociology or business. It may also be that language instruction is regarded as a lower-profile activity in a broader academic context of a university. Thus, the multiple contexts at play in PD, over which there is little or no control, may be more significant than anything attempted, collaboratively or not, in PD projects.

Best Practices

In light of the above, it may be tempting to question the value of international PD for English language instructors, but take heart. Here is my list of best practices for promoting collaborative international PD. The list is not comprehensive, and I invite readers’ contributions and revisions.

1. Do ALL of your homework

• Learn as much as you can about the context in which you will be working. Obtain multiple perspectives and viewpoints—from participants, from organizers, from administrators. Find out what previous PD experiences participants have had and how those experiences worked out.

• Learn how the PD experience has evolved, to what extent participants have been involved, and how it is now being presented to them.

• Encourage participant buy-in and encourage trust. Solicit participants’ input on needs, expectations, and issues to be addressed.
  
  

2. Collaboration

• State your view that the PD be a collaboration with participants and explicitly validate their expertise, experience, and professional skills at the outset and then throughout the PD project.

• At the same time, make a case for your own value to the process by citing your previous PD experiences, successes, and your credentials as a language instructor, a language teacher educator, and a PD facilitator in an intercultural context.
  
  

3. Avoid the “expert” trap

• Know what you know and what you do not know; be ready and willing to revise what you know in this new context. Look for ways that you can learn from participants.

• Guard against the danger that the newness of the situation stimulates your own insecurities, forcing you to overplay your “expert” hand.
  
  

4. Be a realist—see the project’s scope and limitations clearly

• Consider realistically how you can deploy your time with participants to achieve maximum effect.

• Ask yourself how much you can do well and do not try to do everything.
  
  

5. Seek extension

• Figure out how you can use online tools to extend the benefits of face-to-face work and to provide support that extends beyond the time allotted for those sessions.

• Explore the use of grounding tools such as action research to link PD work with participants’ ongoing classroom instruction, especially post-PD.
  
  

6. Design PD content carefully

• Ask yourself and participants which PD program activities will produce optimal benefits in a particular situation.

• Examine possibilities: group workshops; lectures and presentations; teaching demonstrations; observations (possibly videos) of participants’ teaching, with opportunities to generate related feedback; coteaching; collaboration with administrators and others in power to advocate and support positive institutional and program development.
  
  

7. Face the intercultural

In all of the above, recognize that the intercultural nature of these PD projects holds the potential for surprises, errant assumptions, and invisible barriers that can lead to puzzlement and tensions on all sides. Make awareness and exploration of intercultural dynamics an explicit part of the PD agenda for everyone.

8. Be a learner as a PD practitioner

This is the sine qua non of successful collaborative PD. Effective facilitation and attentive learning by the facilitator are inseparable. Do not overcompensate for your own anxieties and insecurities in this foreign situation by closing down. Listen, watch, and learn along with the participants.

To wrap up, by taking care to identify and work with the complexities of language teacher PD in the international context, we stand to maximize the benefits of such PD projects. We owe no less to ourselves and to our international colleagues.

REFERENCES

Baurain, B. (2010). Course design and teacher development in Vietnam: A diary project. TESOL Journal, 1, 159–175. doi: 10.5054/tj.2010.215245

Tang, S. Y. F., & Choi, P. L. (2005). Connecting theory and practice in mentor preparation: Mentoring for the improvement of teaching and learning. Mentoring and Tutoring, 13(3), 383–401.

Ray Bennett is an ELL/EAP instructor. In addition, he is an accredited language teacher educator at York University’s English Language Institute. He has conducted language teacher professional development workshops in Mexico, Sri Lanka, China, and Mongolia; he spent March 2012 working with EAP professors and instructors at Al-Quds University in the Palestinian territories (West Bank).