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Why not become a GILT-er?

GILT stands for Global Innovative Language Teachers and is a Facebook closed group set up by Gianfranco Conti. If you use Facebook, just search for it. Unlike the other very good UK Facebook groups for modern language teachers, such as Secondary MFL Matters and MFL Teachers' Lounge, this one aims to bring together teachers of all languages, including EFL teachers, from around the world.

Within a few days the groups has seen well over 1000 teachers sign up from places including the UK, Australia, Canada, the USA, France and Malaysia. Early threads have been very busy with teachers from various backgrounds and diverse methodologies sharing ideas and asking questions. Gianfranco and others have opened up some some good topics such as: what are the qualities of a good Head of Department? What was your best ever lesson? How full should a scheme of work be? How does TPRS work? What is AIM all about? What was the funniest thing a student ever said or wrote?

The guidelines of the group invite people to openly share ideas, be critical where needed, but stay wthin the bounds of professional courtesy. I'm sure Gianfranco's aim is for the group to be as lightly moderated as possible by its administrators (who include myself and a range of people of different experience). I like the fact that the group is an opportunity to open up minds to unfamiliar ways of thinking about language teaching. We'll see how successful the group is: some may find it too general for their taste, others too parochial. It will only be as successful as contributors make it.

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