A Word from the Guest Editor

Abstract

Since the time of JoAnn Crandall’s keynote address at the TESL Canada Conference in 1996 outlining the diff erent possible types of professional development activities, and of the appearance of Joanne Pe is’s fi rst refl ective piece in TESL Canada Journal in 1997, in which she called for exploring the development of teaching competence as part of the personal commitment and professional responsibility of teachers, the landscape of professional development has shifted notably. With the advent of new technologies, an abundance of online resources and opportunities and the increasing accessibility and prevalence of social networking sites have enabled teachers to more readily forge connections with other professionals. Yet, at the same time, practitioners continue to face diffi cult challenges in the age of the information revolution with regard to individual, resource, and contextual constraints, even as sustaining one’s intellectual and emotional involvement in development activities throughout one’s career can be challenging as well. Multifaceted studies across several fi elds have illuminated the benefi ts of teachers’ engaging in professional development activities; such studies have encompassed areas such as teacher job satisfaction and commitment, retention, professional connections, collegial support, self-effi cacy and identities, a itudes toward English-language learners, and improvements in pedagogical practices and student learning (e.g., Cabaroglu, 2014; DeAngelis, Wall, & Che, 2013; Farrell, 2011; Ortaçtepe & Akyel, 2015; Song, 2016; Valeo & Faez, 2013). An emerging body of research on practitioners’ professional self-development exists more broadly in teacher education as well (e.g., Avalos, 2011). Over the past decade, the ways in which English-language teaching (ELT) professionals can pursue such self-development have been transformed across space and time and now occur in multiple forms, whether formally structured or informally maintained; these include various traditional approaches (e.g., keeping abreast with research, a ending courses and workshops, joining professional associations, a ending conferences, conducting action research) as well as newer technological modalities (e.g., Facebook, LinkedIn, Twi er, and weblogs, to name a few; see, for instance, Borg, 2013; Davis, 2015; Edwards & Burns, 2016; Huang, 2012; Krutka, Carpenter, & Trust, 2016; Rodesiler & Pace, 2015; Ulvik & Riese, 2016). Such activities also make it possible to provide diff erent types of professional support (e.g., emotional, in the form of listening; appraisal, in the form of feedback; informational, in the form of suggestions and information; and instrumental, in the form of resources; Kelly & Antonio, 2016). In recent years, the insatiable appetite for professional self-development has been manifest in the fact that not a day goes by without mention on