How Webinars Have Transformed my CPD

Until a few months ago, my CPD consisted of my own reading, attending an odd seminar when the opportunity arose, and my weekly participation in #eltchat on Twitter.  Not being fortunate enough to work for institutions which put much emphasis on the professional development of their teachers, or indeed with colleagues who were interested in their own, these methods were all that were available to me.  I didn't mind too much.  I felt that I was keeping up to date with what was happening in my field and that I was serving my students well by taking the best of what I learned, particularly through #eltchat, back into the classroom.

Then I discovered webinars.  I can't remember what the topic of my first one was, but I do remember that it was good to be a part of a global meet-up of teachers, all with a common interest and with similar problems and issues in their daily working lives.  The opportunity to 'chat' with these colleagues before, during and after the webinar meant that it was a social experience rather than a solitary one.  And I learned so much!

Since then, I've attended webinars presented by some of the biggest names in the ELT field on a range of topics from 'How do we generate language from a topic?' and 'Digital literacies' to 'Creativity in ELT' and 'The difference between written and spoken grammar'.

These webinars have been hosted by organisations such as:

• Macmillan Publishing
• Cambridge English Teacher
• Oxford University Press
• Pearson ELT

I tend to make copious notes during these webinars which I then summarise and keep as a record of my CPD.  Some of these summaries make their way on to this blog, as a reference for myself as well as a help for other colleagues in the blogosphere.  Others have been used as the basis for workshops in my current place of work.  Professional development has not been given much focus here, but, slowly, this situation is changing, and I have high hopes of helping with the implementation of a more formal series of training sessions in the new academic year.

There have been times when I've been unable to attend a webinar which was of particular interest to me, and I've tried to watch the recording later.  For me, however, this hasn't worked.  I like the immediacy of a webinar and the fact that it is a shared experience rather than an act of solitary learning.  There is a bit of a lull at the moment in the number of webinars on offer, mainly due to summer holidays, but I'm already registered for one or two in September and am looking forward to another fruitful period of CPD.