TDSIG Web Carnival 2025: From Past to Present: Four Decades of Teacher Development

Web Carnival is a two-day online event celebrating all things teacher development. TDSIG is celebrating 40 years of encouraging teacher development, and this year, we’re looking back at the history of teacher development and where it’s going. Bring your curiosity and questions and join us online for two days of inspiring and reflective sessions.

Click here to see the programme

Speaker 1:

Duncan Foord: Title TBD

Speaker Bio: Duncan is the Director of OxfordTEFL, Barcelona. He has 35 years’ experience in language teaching, teacher training and school leadership and management. He is the author of “From English Teacher to Learner Coach” (with Dan Barber, The Round 2014) The Developing Teacher (Delta Publishing, 2009) and The Language Teachers Survival Handbook (with Lindsay Clandfield, Its Magazines, 2008). He is lead trainer on the OxfordTEFL Leadership in ELT course.
 

Speaker 2:

Cecilia Nobre: 'Teacher Development Through Smarter Reflective Practices'

How can teachers engage in meaningful reflection that leads to professional growth? Drawing on Schön’s Reflective Practitioner and Kolb’s Experiential Learning Cycle, this session explores the role of structured reflection in teacher development. Based on my PhD research on WhatsApp-based reflective discussions in Celta training, I will share preliminary findings on how digital reflection fosters deeper learning. We’ll also discuss self-recording techniques and peer feedback loops, offering practical strategies that trainers and teachers can apply immediately. Participants will discover how to make reflection more intentional and explore ways to integrate digital tools into reflective practice.

Speaker bio: Cecilia Nobre is a PhD candidate in Applied Linguistics at the University of Warwick, teacher educator, and DipTESOL tutor. With 20+ years of experience in Brazil, the UK, and Turkey, she specialises in online teaching and teacher development. She co-authored Using Video to Support Teacher Reflection and Development in ELT (2023).

Speaker 3:

Scott Thornbury: 'Writing methodology texts: bridging the research – practice gap.'

How do methodology writers mediate what has been described as a ‘dysfunctional discourse’, i.e. that between researchers and practitioners? I interviewed a number of such writers in order to find out how they perform this bridging function. In this talk I’ll present and discuss my findings, and attempt to draw some principles that might guide others – such as teacher educators – who also mediate research and classroom practice.

Speaker bio: Scott is a teacher, teacher trainer and writer: he works in the field of English language education and has a Masters degree in TEFL from the University of Reading, UK. Originally from New Zealand/Aotearoa, he have been living in Barcelona, Spain, for a number of years now.

Prior to this he worked in the UK and Egypt, and, until recently, he taught on the MA TESOL program at The New School in New York. Scott also travels extensively to give workshops and conference presentations.

His writing credits include several books for teachers on language and methodology, for which he has twice been awarded a British Council ELTon award for innovation in English Language Teaching. He also edit the Handbooks for Language Teachers series for Cambridge University Press and he am on the faculty of the International Teacher Development Institute (iTDi). Scott is also a trustee for the Hands Up Project, which promotes drama activities in English for children in under-resourced regions of the Arab world. At present works for Mosaik Education, training teachers of refugees in the Middle East in how to integrate communicative activities into their online classes.
 

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