INTRODUCTION

In general usage, a “professional” is a trained and qualified specialist who displays a high standard of competent conduct in their practice, for example, “We’re very proud of the professional manner in which our teachers have implemented the curriculum reforms.” The term professionalism is regularly used in a constitutive sense to refer to practitioners’ knowledge, skills, and conduct. In discussions on teacher education, professionalism issues are often addressed through questions such as What should teachers know? and How should teachers go about their business? Other chapters in this volume are good examples of such discussions. Over time and in different educational environments though, the what and the how questions can, and often do, lead to different answers in different contexts.

SCOPE AND DEFINITIONS

This protean nature of the conceptualization of teacher professionalism is the main concern of this chapter. I will first look at some examples of how teacher professionalism in general, and second language teacher professionalism in particular, can be characterized and defined differently at different times and in different places by professional and / or political authorities; sometimes different and incompatible definitions can coexist without mutual reference in the same place. I will refer to all such instances of institutionally endorsed and publicly heralded definitions as sponsored professionalism. Sponsored professionalism is usually proclaimed on behalf of teachers as a collectivity; therefore, it does not necessarily coincide with individual teachers’ views on professionalism, as often as not because it is promoted by regulatory bodies to introduce reform and / or by professional associations to advocate change.

After that I will examine the need for individual teachers to develop socially and politically sensitive views of professionalism; this is a particularly important issue for second language teachers working in the diverse field of English language teaching (ELT) in different world contexts (see also Hawkins and Norton, Chapter 3). I will refer to this more individually oriented notion of professionalism as independent professionalism. In the final section I will discuss two examples of the kind of issues that independent professionalism can address.