Photo by Markus Winkler on Unsplash
Every year at the IATEFL Conference, we are asked the same question: “What is the difference between the TD (Teacher Development) and TTEd (Teacher Training & Education) SIGs (Special Interest Groups). It is not a surprise that people need help to understand the difference.
Confession – even both of us were a little confused when we joined IATEFL around fifteen years ago! So, despite the similar names, we serve very different audiences, and if you mix us up, you might be listening to a talk or podcast, or reading a blog that wasn’t exactly what you were looking for.
This post is to help show the differences so you can find the right blog post or talk that is closer to your current role or teaching environment. Don’t worry we won’t test you afterwards!
Teacher Development SIG
TDSIG has the teacher as its main focus and essence. It aims to provide a forum and tools for members to develop their potential as teachers, to cultivate and develop our abilities to navigate the challenges and successes of being a teacher.
Our objective is to promote in every teacher the love for continuous professional development, keeping the inquisitive minds always fresh.
Our aims, as stated on our website, are:
- To enable and encourage all categories of teacher to take more responsibility for professional and personal evolution throughout their careers.
- To promote individual and institutional awareness of the importance of teacher development.
- To encourage the provision of facilities for teacher development that do not already exist.
In order to do that we work hard to provide opportunities for teacher development to happen, be it by creating teacher development events and content but also having our projects and events to act as a platform for teachers to present and talk about their own development experiences. For example, the TDAJ, our academic journal, can serve as a tool for development if a teacher reads its articles, or if you are a teacher writing an article to be published in it.
Our annual online conference, Web Carnival, offers hours of plenaries and different sessions, bringing what is new and being researched in the field of English teaching. Our podcast, Developod, brings easy conversations with teachers, trainers, and material writers from around the world, talking about their own development, which might inspire you.
We have teachers at the heart, but unsurprisingly, there are always teacher trainers, material writers and other roles from the industry in our events and as members of TDSIG. Because deep down, we are all teachers.
Teacher Training & Education SIG
Wherever you are in the world, if you are delivering training sessions to English language teachers, then TTEd is the SIG for you!
TTEd offers an international network for teachers and trainers who work in:
- Pre-service courses (CELTA, Trinity CertTESOL)
- Undergraduate/graduate ELT programmes
- In-service teacher education/development
- DELTA or Trinity DipTESOL
- Ministry of Education training courses
Our webinars, workshops, and conference presentations focus on trainer and educator development, reflection, and networking. There are very few places to talk to another trainer or educator, and even fewer locations to update your own CPD.
You may belong to a team of educators and or have space to reflect and discuss. Or perhaps you are a freelancer who loves to share ideas and best practices with others in alternative locations.
This is where the SIG can help you as a lot of our delivery is online such as our annual ‘Microlearning Mastery: Micro-Observation & Feedback Techniques’ session which aids new trainers and those of us who have done this for a while but want to practice in time for standardisation and share some approaches we take.
We have regular training and discussions to help you reach out to others who are educating the next generation of English teachers and wish to put your heads together, plus we have our blog posts or articles with ideas for you to explore regarding teacher education.
Similar to TDSIG we also have teachers, academics and managers amidst our audience as many of us (including myself) wear MANY different hats in our ELT careers.
One issue that the confusion between the two SIGs might cause is when people are submitting their proposals for the IATEFL Conference. During the submission, you have to ‘label’ your presentation according to the area of ELT it is about. While it is possible for a presentation to be relevant to more than one area, the similarity of names often causes people to label a proposal TD AND TTEd incorrectly.
So we propose a little game: we are going to give you some past presentation titles for you to guess if they should be labeled TD or TTEd. Here they are:
- Giving post-observation with the head and heart (by Anna Hasper)
- Inquiry with an I: Centring the teacher in teacher development (by Michelle Worgan)
- Let’s talk about social emotional competences for the classroom (by Anna Hasper)
- Why teacher trainers should be reading Paulo Freire today! (by Gabriel Diaz Maggioli)
- Debunked teaching myths, techniques, and practices; the before and after (by Kirsten Holt)
- Teaching from the inside out: metacognition in teacher education programmes (by Maria Eugenia Ianiro)
Were you able to guess?
Sessions 2, 3, and 5 are Teacher Development, while 1, 4, and 6 are Teacher Training & Education.
We hope that this blog post helps shed some light on the issue. But the really important thing is: whether TD or TTEd, both SIGs promote your professional development, whatever phase of your career you are in.
You can even be a member of both.
Join us!