Professional Engagement

Your answer: I rarely use digital communication channels to stay in contact with learners, language-teaching professionals and other stakeholders.

It might be a challenge to use digital communication channels, but these allow you to interact from a distance and stay in touch with your learners, colleagues or other stakeholders.

	Online communication channels are essential for building effective communication nowadays. These make communication and connectivity easier and allow you to keep in contact with learners and guide them wherever they are. You can streamline your contact with colleagues to exchange best practices and help language teaching practices evolve.
	Start with writing emails to your learners to guide them and send them learning content.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include e-mail clients such as Gmail or Outlook to help write and send emails to learners.
	Try to begin communicating through e-mail.

Your answer: I use basic digital communication channels, e.g. email, for interaction with learners, language-teaching professionals and other stakeholders.

It is good to agree on a main communication channel that works for both you and your communication partners, e.g. e-mail.

	E-mail is a great tool for supporting learners’ language learning progress and allowing easy and quick access to information and professional contacts. Additionally, email includes different features like automatic replies to messages, redirection of messages etc. which can help you to better organise your communication.
	To progress your experience in this area, try to test some of the more advanced features of your email account and make use of them. You may also find that sometimes a different format or channel might be more appropriate for language teaching purposes, so adapt your choice of communication channel to your audience and communication purpose.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include course blogging tools such as WordPress, to help offer an alternative to email to your learners.
	Try the more advanced features on your e-mail account and/or a blog to share information with learners.

Your answer: I combine different digital communication channels, e.g. e-mail, course blogs or instant message services, for professional purposes.

Although you make use of a range of different digital communication channels for professional use, the question remains of how to make the most of these channels, recognise their limitations and ensure they are used appropriately.

	Selecting only the appropriate digital tools for communication will be appreciated by your audience, improve engagement for your educational institution and strengthen your professional practices.
	The next step for you is to systematically address communication and pre-empt communication problems by strategically choosing and combining communication channels. Try to identify the most typical communication needs you have and select and combine digital communication channels based on these needs. Such a digital communication strategy can help save you time and make communication more effective and transparent with your learners, language-teaching professionals and other stakeholders.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include communication platforms that offer multiple tools such as Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Facebook.
	Think about how you can reach your audience for a specific purpose and explore new tools to make communication more efficient and transparent.

Your answer: I systematically select, adjust and combine different digital solutions to communicate effectively with learners, language-teaching professionals and other stakeholders.

You clearly know how to handle and adapt digital communication channels for professional purposes. The development of a communication strategy and creation of networking groups would be a good next step for you to continue improving interaction and professional practices in your environment.

	A transparent but flexible strategy that addresses learners' and language teachers’ communication needs can foster organisational innovation.
	To progress this process, consider colleagues' and learners' communication needs and problems. Also consider what tools or approaches would allow learners to communicate with each other. You may also want to work with colleagues on developing a common digital communication strategy for your educational organisation.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include social media platforms such as: Social networking spaces such as Facebook or Twitter. Communication platforms that offer multiple tools such as Google Classroom, Microsoft Teams, Acadly Platforms or communication services contracted by your educational organisation may also be useful for supporting this process (for Germany: vhs.cloud, for France: IFprofs.org).
	Keep adjusting your strategy and don't be afraid to discard an idea or tool if it does not work for your communication partners.

Your answer: I reflect on, discuss and proactively develop my communication strategies for professional purposes, combining multiple digital applications and platforms.

Your communication strategy is clearly already established as something you enrich and improve as you discover new tools useful for your teaching methodologies, development of your learners' skills (language acquisition and digital) or your professional community.

	Employing an effective and useful strategy for your communications can help to reinforce your language teaching methods, your interactions with learners and your involvement in your professional community.
	To seize the full potential of your digital competence in this area you should focus on continuously adapting your strategies and exploring new options. As new technological solutions keep emerging, you will always find ways to even better address and accommodate your own and, most importantly, your learners’ communication needs.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: Blogging or website platforms such as WordPress to share your ideas and resources. Social networking spaces such as Facebook, Instagram or Twitter. Online forums for language teachers (for Germany: vhs.cloud, for France: IFprofs.org).
	Continue exploring new solutions.

Your answer: I rarely have the opportunity to collaborate with other language teaching professionals or trainers through digital technologies.

If there is not yet a culture in your educational organisation of using technologies for professional collaboration, it may be worth trying to introduce one because this can be very useful in many circumstances.

	Digital tools are good at helping to solve problems relating to time and distance, especially when your schedule doesn’t allow you to talk to your colleagues in person or if you work with a dispersed team. Hence, they allow you to be involved in a professional community.
	To progress your experience in this area, you could offer to share your language teaching materials and ideas with colleagues and ask them to share their materials with you via a digital tool or tools. Furthermore, joining an online professional community will allow you to get inspired by the materials other foreign language teachers in your country, across Europe and around the world have created. If you share your teaching materials with them, you can also get their feedback and ideas on how to adapt them to different situations or how to make them even better.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: Google Drive for storing and sharing teaching materials. VoIP tools such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams for synchronous video communications.
	Share your language teaching materials digitally with colleagues and/or join an online professional community.

Your answer: Sometimes I exchange language teaching materials and my experience with colleagues, or other language teaching professionals or trainers via basic digital tools, e.g. e-mail.

You know how to use basic digital communication tools to exchange language teaching materials. However, once you share files with your colleagues more often, you may find that a common file system or a social network may be a better environment to support collaboration.

	Digital tools give you the possibility to store large amounts of data necessary for language teaching, e.g. video, pictures, text documents, etc., and to facilitate the process of exchanging online materials and practices on a regular basis. Furthermore, if you share your teaching materials with others, you can share feedback and ideas on how to adapt materials to different situations or how to make them even better.
	To progress your experience in this area, try out different options for storing and/or sharing data to find the one that works best for you and your colleagues. Further to this, joining an online language-teaching professional community may allow you to get inspired by the materials other language teachers in your country or across Europe have created.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: Google Drive, Trello, ClickMeeting for sharing and collaborating on different documents via online storage. Professional networking groups on social media channels, e.g. LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, etc..
	Create a common space for exchange with other foreign language teachers’ colleagues in your organisation and/ or join an online professional community.

Your answer: I am aware of different online collaboration software/ services (e.g. forums, cloud storage and online file sharing tools, etc.) that I use to collaborate with other language teaching professionals or trainers.

Using real-time and non-real time digital tools for collaboration with colleagues and others is very useful.

	If you share your language teaching materials with other language teaching professionals or trainers or allow others to collaborate on or edit your material, you can get feedback and ideas on how to adapt this material to different situations or how to make it even better.
	Opening up to other language teacher communities outside your educational organisation as a next step will allow you to get inspired and explore the pedagogic practices of other language teachers in your country, across Europe and around the world. It may also be worth considering how these can align to the new descriptors of the CEFR Companion Volume (2018).
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: Google Drive, Microsoft Teams for collaborating directly on different documents via online storage. Online Forums (for Germany: vhs.cloud; for France: IFprofs) language teaching professionals or trainers. Participation at webinars or online conferences through tools such as Zoom, ClickMeeting, WebEx, Google Meet.
	Join an online professional community which brings together language teachers from different educational institutions.

Your answer: I exchange teaching ideas, professional experiences and digital materials with language teaching professionals outside my organisation, e.g. in an online professional network.

Reflect on how you can best benefit from this exchange. Are you learning from your peers and are you offering your expertise so that they can learn from you?.

	If you share both your language teaching materials, but also your expertise and feedback with other language teaching professionals or trainers, you both greatly benefit from the exchange of information and approaches. This, in turn, can greatly benefit your teaching long-term.
	One way of gaining added benefit in this area may be to engage with some of your online peers in the joint production of language teaching resources that each of you can refine for their purposes and differentiated instruction. Another benefit arising from online collaboration could also be to implement a joint project, linking and bringing together your learners with learners from other educational or employment contexts.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: IFprofs: a francophone social network for teachers all over the world. For Germany: vhs.cloud. Italki, HiNative are useful tools for allowing teachers and learners from across the world to connect and collaborate. Miro, Yo Pad, ZUMpad for agile workflows with graphic presentation.
	Look for opportunities to jointly develop, and share, language teaching resources with other language teachers.

Your answer: I jointly create materials and resources with other language teachers, and specialists in online networks or collaborative environments e.g. Google Drive or Trello, to innovate our pedagogical practices.

You are an advantage to your community of language teachers and specialists. You are open to boosting innovation in language teaching practice.

	Your place in your collaborative environment allows you to improve your daily professional practice and to participate in the improvement of the professional practices of other language teachers.
	One option for realising additional benefits from online collaboration could be to implement a joint project, linking your language learners with language learners from other educational or employment contexts, in other learning environments.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: Project management and collaboration tools such as Trello, Google Drive. Online Forums (for Germany: vhs.cloud; for France: IFprofs). Collaboration tools such as Miro, Yo Pad, ZUMpad.
	Expand the collaboration process to include your learners and look for the support of decision makers in your organisation.

Your answer: I rarely have the time to work on my digital education and teaching skills to improve my professional practice.

Many language teachers find that they lack sufficient time and support for professional development. However, there are ways in which you can work on improving your digital teaching skills without investing a lot of extra time.

	The use of digital tools will help make your language classes more attractive and engaging for your learners. Some digital tools can also help you to organise your work more efficiently.
	A first step could be to engage in reflective practice, and ask yourself after every lesson: Did I use digital technologies to add value? What did I achieve with them that I could not have achieved in traditional ways? What can I change to improve the match between the technology I selected, and the language learning objectives? Try to identify which factors have contributed to good and bad matches between digital tools and language learning outcomes and think about how to improve this match.
	The IDEAL learning platform provides a wide range of digital tools along with examples of use to help you identify appropriate digital tools for your purposes.
	Reflect about your digital teaching as a daily routine and try to identify one digital tool to begin using.

Your answer: I occasionally improve my digital professional skills through reflection and experimentation.

In many cases reflection is all you need to improve your digital teaching skills. However, in some instances you will find that it is beyond your abilities to improve your digital teaching strategies by yourself. This is when you should not be afraid to ask for help and look for other ways of improving your digital competencies.

	You can greatly benefit from your colleagues' advice, from good practices in language teaching, research insights, online resources or face to face training interventions. The appropriate mechanism will depend on the situation and on your concrete development needs.
	What is important is that you understand your needs and actively seek to address them.
	The IDEAL learning platform provides a wide range of digital tools along with examples of use to help you identify appropriate digital tools for your purposes. Professional language teaching groups on social media channels, e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, and/or language-specific forums, like UniLang may also be very useful.
	Seek training and advice to improve your digital skills for your language teaching.

Your answer: I frequently apply a range of resources to develop my digital teaching skills.

You use existing resources to strengthen your digital teaching skills for language teaching purposes. While this is very admirable, you may find that you are not actively engaging with digital technology to address the new descriptors of the CEFR companion volume and/ or to collaborate with other language teaching professionals.

	Reflecting on how to reconcile the usage of digital tools and the CEFR- new descriptors you will bring innovativeness to your language teaching and meet the new CEFR teaching and examination requirements.
	Remember that technology is changing all the time and that the new CEFR descriptors include new dimensions to be considered in language classes. Make sure to stay updated on new tools or improvements to fulfil the new CEFR-requirements. Also, be sure to share your expertise with colleagues and discuss with them on how to jointly improve learning across your educational organisation.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: Professional language teaching groups on social media channels, e.g. LinkedIn, Facebook, etc. Online Forums for language teaching professionals, e.g. (for Germany: vhs.cloud; for France: IFprofs). Language exchange communities: Speaky, Italki, UniLang.
	Together with colleagues, discuss how you can improve your foreign language teaching and learning by using digital technologies and at the same time meeting the CEFR-new requirements.

Your answer: I regularly collaborate with peers on how to use digital technologies to innovate and improve our language teaching practices in compliance with the CEFR-new descriptors.

It is important to join forces with colleagues to jointly drive innovation in language teaching across your organisation.

	Collaborating with your peers, allows you to use new digital tools in order to reinforce your language teaching practices in light of the new demands of CEFR and to share best practice and experience on what works and what doesn't.
	To ensure that your discourse leads to changes, one avenue could be to organise joint projects, special days or additional activities that can leverage the potential of digital technologies for learning in light of the CEFR new requirements. Another strategy could be to make proposals for a corporate innovation strategy for the whole educational organisation.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: VoIP tools such as WebEx or Zoom which can be used to help support synchronous video communication, which can be very useful for facilitating webinars or joint training sessions. Language exchange communities: Speaky, Italki, UniLang.
	Drive innovation and change in language teaching across your educational organisation.

Your answer: I frequently help other language teaching professionals and other colleagues in developing their digital teaching strategies taking into consideration the CEFR-new descriptors.

You are in a prime position to join forces with other digitally engaged teachers to foster innovation in language teaching at the organisational level.

	You help your colleagues to develop their digital teaching skills while reflecting on the concepts addressed in the CEFR descriptors, so that they can apply these in their language teaching practices and promote the development of their learners' language and digital skills.
	While it is important for you to continue working on individual strengths and weaknesses and to learn from other language teaching professionals, it is equally important to discuss how your organisation can benefit from your innovative foreign language teaching strategies and to make concrete proposals for innovation in this area.
	You can view a full section of digital tools related to the news CEFR descriptors on the IDEAL learning platform along with examples of use to help your organisation identify appropriate digital tools for teaching purposes.
	Drive innovation and change in language teaching across your educational organisation.

Your answer: Online training opportunities represent a new area that I have not yet considered for my professional development.

While it can be challenging to use online training opportunities if you are not familiar with them, there are a lot of benefits.

	The many resources available on the internet can make it easier for you to update your skills, independent of your location and time. This can be particularly useful if you do not have enough time to engage in more formal continuous professional development.
	One option to get started could be to think of a buzz word in contemporary pedagogic theory (like "flipped classroom") or some approach that a colleague of yours is using or has recommended and which you know very little about. Gathering information about this will provide you with further threads and links to follow up. By following up these threads and links, you will learn a lot about this concept and will realise where to dig deeper.
	The IDEAL learning platform provides a wide range of digital tools along with examples of use to help you identify appropriate digital tools for your purposes.
	Search the internet for a teaching strategy you would like to learn more about and begin investigating.

Your answer: I haven’t yet participated in online training, but I am interested in it for my professional development as a language teacher.

You may be already using online training opportunities without realising it. Each time you search the internet for new methods and materials for your teaching, you are indirectly enhancing your teaching skills.

	The benefit in searching the internet for new teaching methods and materials can be particularly useful if you do not have enough time to engage in more formal continuous professional development.
	If you have an approach or tool which you wish to implement in your teaching, a good next step may be to actively shape this way of improving your teaching through searching the internet. Think of a pedagogic concept that you would like to learn more about and see if you can find a video or blog post or similar to explain it to you. You may also find tutorials on this subject or a MOOC (a type of open online course).
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: Video sharing sites such as YouTube can be excellent resources for finding useful tutorials and videos on teaching and digital tools. RefWorks for self-paced study.
	Try out an online tutorial or a MOOC for a specific or general teaching and learning approach or digital tool.

Your answer: I have participated in online training once or twice to improve my professional and digital skills.

Consider why you have not used this format of training more often. What did you like about it? What did not convince you? If there is a specific training provider or website that you liked, perhaps check out what else they offer and what other users recommend.

	Online training is advantageous because it gives you the opportunity to train regularly and keep up to date with new developments without travel time and costs, to acquire skills to reinforce your practice, to give quality lessons and to transmit updated language and digital skills to your learners.
	If the format of training did not convince you, or you haven't found a good website with links to training, start your search again. Focus on a topic that really interests you and widen the scope of your search to additional spaces, including communities devoted to the topic and/ or asking others for recommendations directly. The most important thing for you is to better understand what is available and what mode of training works best for you.
	Some tools which may be useful for supporting this process include: Video sharing sites such as YouTube can be excellent resources for finding useful tutorials and videos on teaching and digital tools. Professional language teaching groups on social media channels, e.g. Twitter, Facebook, etc. RefWorks for self-paced study.
	Understand your preferences and seek targeted solutions using the search filters on the IDEAL platform.

Your answer: I have tried out various different online training opportunities to improve my professional skills and my pedagogical practices in the context of language teaching.

Your experience in this area means that you have a good idea about what is available and which mode of training works best for you.

	This knowledge will help you to identify quickly and effectively a suitable online training opportunity, whenever you have a concrete training need.
	If you keep up this consistent focus on ongoing self-led professional development, you should try to continuously advance your teaching skills and enhance the quality of your language classes.
	The IDEAL learning platform provides a wide range of digital tools along with examples of use to help you identify appropriate digital tools for your purposes. Try to identify competence areas for improvement in this platform.
	Systematically use online training to continuously improve your language teaching skills.

Your answer: I frequently participate in all kinds of online training to develop my professional skills.

You are used to strengthening and developing your foreign language teaching, digital skills and other professional skills through online professional training courses.

	Participating regularly in online trainings is a very admirable achievement, and indicates that you keep up to date with new developments and acquire skills to reinforce your language teaching practice.
	Make sure that you use the insights you have gained to the benefit of your learners and their learning. If you realise that the training being offered is inadequate for your needs, you could consider providing online training yourself, thus helping your language teaching colleagues enhance their skills as well.
	The IDEAL learning platform provides a wide range of digital tools along with examples of use to help you identify appropriate digital tools for your purposes. Try to identify areas for improvement in this platform.
	Offer your own online training to fellow language teaching colleagues.