Strengthening teacher collaboration across Circle U. with communities of practice

The Language Teachers' Nexus Project

Abstract

Based on social learning theories, communities of practice (CoPs) have arisen as a unique opportunity for teacher professional development. They promote collaboration on new pedagogies, strengthen professional networks, encourage reflection on teaching practices, support the adoption of pedagogical innovation, and ultimately enhance teachers’ self-confidence and well-being. Against this backdrop, this paper presents the Circle U. Language Teacher Nexus (CU.LTN) project, which offers a model for fostering long-term, cross-institutional collaboration among language educators within the Circle U. University Alliance. Building on existing good teaching practices and expertise across partner institutions, the project aims to create synergies among teachers at both local and international levels within the alliance. We also report on how the project has evolved into a mid- and long-term endeavour in order to better address challenges such as differing teaching approaches and perspectives on learning, syllabus demands, and varying degrees of engagement. Most importantly, we show how the project’s flexible design, which includes different types of communities of CoPs varying in depth and intensity of collaboration, has enabled adaptation to the different local ecologies of the partner institutions. The paper also reflects on how such an initiative can support the implementation of the principles of the European Profiling Grid (eGrid), particularly by promoting collaborative professional development and integrating into the alliance’s existing professional development frameworks.