Continuing professional development always has the aim of further development, which may be directed at several different goals. It may be concerned with new teaching methods or with new materials, or it may signify further personal development.
Continuing professional development delivers skills and knowledge that are practice- and experience-oriented, but it must have a valid scientific basis. Continuing professional development and extended education have succeeded only if newly acquired knowledge and skills are fed into everyday working practice. It follows that CPD content must be practice-relevant and action-oriented.
Useful contributions to CPD and extended education can be provided by sequentially arranged, well designed units, based on real practice and affording scope for discussion and exchange.
Where preparation for service as a specialist teacher in early foreign language programmes involves retraining and the undertaking of further qualifications, existing professional experience and interests should be turned to advantage, and language proficiency should be further developed. Methodology training tailored to the new specific target group should have realistic practical application and should lead to an experience of success in practice.
Recommendations
- Continuing professional development and extended education should be kept up as continuously as possible throughout the professional careers of practitioners and teachers, at their own initiative where necessary.
- Continuing professional development activities should encourage practitioners and teachers to extend their existing competences; they should help them to identify areas of inadequacy and provide guidance on how to continue with self-directed, successive further professional qualification.
