This week I joined two twitter chats: #ELTchat on Wednesday afternoon, and #langchat Saturday morning. This has been my favorite professional development platform so far! It is a treasure! I use twitter on a daily basis mostly to keep up with trending topics in my home country Turkey and in the world. I also use it as a news source quite often. But, little did I know that I would some day use twitter for professional development.
To my surprise the topic in both chats were the things we have been studing in my linguistics and literacy classes over the past few weeks. ELTchat had people join from many different countries. They discussed pronunciation teaching, why teachers skip it, what are some good sources etc. It spoke to my heart! I am personally not confident teaching pronunciation mainly because of my accent. It was great to see that I was not the only one feeling this way. Topic in #langchat was collaboration with colleagues in other disciplines. Moderator posed discussion questions and people were so generous sharing their experiences, concerns, resources, ideas etc. At the end of the chat, moderator asked what people took away from the chat, which was a great summary of the conversations. I mostly observed both chats, but I learnt a lot in a very short time! I loved it for many reasons, but here are some:
2) Conversation topics are very well chosen and discussion questions are to the point.
3) You get to meet genuinely enthusiastic professionals from many different places and build a network.
4) You learn a lot in an hour! You learn a lot of practical tips. This week someone from NC said she has her elementary school students use voicethread to describe the self portrait they did in art class. Amazing idea to how how you can collaborate with colleagues from other disciplines!
5) They are so welcoming! They don't mind if you are just there to observe.
I loved twitter chats so much that I will definitely be a regular.
Awesome! I am so glad that you had such a positive reaction to this experience. It proves that you can find helpful materials and resources in the most unlikely of places!
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