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Teacher DevelopmentMaley (quoted in Spratt, 1994) differentiates Teacher Training, referred to as InitialTeacher Training or ITT and Teacher Development, or TD. ITT is usually related tothe needs of a particular course, has terminal outcomes which are pre-empted,involves information and skills transmission, has a fixed agenda and is directedin a top-down manner. TD on the other hand is a continuing process, is related tothe needs of the individual teacher, has open-ended outcomes, involves problemsolving, has a flexible agenda, is peer-orientated and takes place in a bottom-upfashion (Spratt, 1994:54). ITT is usually aimed at student-teachers with little or noteaching experience, whereas TD aims to further develop those with several years’experience in the field.In some countries it is compulsory for teachers to undertake regular in-servicetraining after they have qualified, in other countries this is provided but is notcompulsory. In yet other countries, ongoing training is simply not available forteachers. Moh (2009) reports that in Nigeria, after initial training ‘the teacher is leftalone to recycle whatever knowledge he/she had acquired at the training college,completely oblivious to whatever research or practice might subsequently havebeen carried out in the field of study’ (page 197). Further training may be moreeasily available if a teacher works in a major city, whereas rural teachers may go awhole lifetime without attending a single training course.As teachers’ careers develop, they may not receive any further training but thisis when it becomes important for them to develop themselves and their teaching,to prevent becoming stale (Harmer, 2007). This development usually takes on areflective nature; teachers are encouraged to identify a problem or an area of theirteaching which could benefit from a different approach, and to seek out ways ofdoing this. Harmer (2007) lists several ways in which teachers can seek to developtheir skills:■■■■■■■■■■■■■■being a reflective teacherkeeping a teaching log or journalobserving peers teachingrecording themselves to watch (or listen to) and reflect on laterengaging with professional literaturethrough professional organisationscarrying out action research in the classroom.Membership of a Teachers AssociationMembership of a local teachers association can be beneficial to a teacher’spersonal development (Edge & Garton, 2009; Harmer, 2007; Scrivener, 2009)as they often provide workshops, conferences and publications at low cost tomembers. Teachers Associations can be divided into those that operate globallysuch as TESOL, based in the US (current membership figure 12,137 in 152countries), TESOL Arabia (current membership 1,188 in 30 countries) and IATEFL,Primary English Teachers | 73