Supporting teacher educators : insights from the British Council’s work

Abstract

While in recent years the attention given to the professional development of language teachers has been substantial, comparable work focusing on the development of teacher educators has been limited. In fact, the latter have been called “an under-researched, poorly understood and ill-defined occupational group” (Murray, 2016, p. 35). In many contexts, policy makers fail to acknowledge that teacher educators are a distinct group of professionals that have their own induction and professional development needs (Swennen & van der Klink, 2009). The problem is compounded by the broad definition of the term teacher educator, which encompasses a wide variety of roles and positions that involve supporting teachers. For instance, the European Commission (2013) states that “Teacher Educators are all those who actively facilitate the (formal) learning of student teachers and teachers” (p. 8). While this definition included university-based teacher educators, school-based mentors, freelance teacher trainers and a range of other professionals, very few countries have standards determining the competences that a person requires to work as a teacher educator (European Commission, 2012). Particularly in ELT, many teacher educators are experienced practitioners who work simultaneously as language teachers in schools. This helps engender the assumption that the needs of teacher educators are identical to those of the professionals they support, when in truth they might be quite different (Hadar &Brody, 2018).