Who do you talk to about your teaching?
In recent research Pataraia et al. (2014) explores what the main themes of academics’ conversations are and who they talk to. Participants were free to name as many contacts as they wished. “Departmental colleagues” came first before “elsewhere” and “institution”. The fourth category was “family and friends”. Findings suggest that common interests, trust and good personal relations played an essential role in cultivating connections with other academics. Increasingly, contacts can be found anywhere within our particular disciplines, in other universities or outside academia. Teaching networks are usually small and informal, unlike our present platform IATEFL which is huge and international. How’s that at your working environment? Who do you talk to about your teaching?