doctoral research · NOVA FCSH / Universidade Aberta
‘Pull the Switch’: A Connectivist Touch in the Professional Development of Online English Teachers
Online English teachers form one of the largest, fastest-growing groups in ELT — and one of the least supported. This study asks a simple question with an unsimple answer: how do online English teachers actually develop professionally, and how could connectivist principles make that development deliberate?
theoretical framework
Two foundations
The framework rests on connectivism and OTPD. Intercultural communicative competence is not a third, equal pillar bolted alongside them — it is the competency the framework is designed to cultivate, through the architecture of the network itself.
/connectivism
Learning as networks
Following Siemens and Downes, learning is treated as the capacity to form, navigate, and maintain connections — across people, platforms, and resources. For teachers without staffrooms, the network is the institution.
/otpd
Online teacher professional development
Most CPD models assume schools, departments, and timetabled training. OTPD asks what development looks like when the teacher’s working life — classes, colleagues, communities — happens entirely online.
/icc · the cultivated competency
Intercultural communicative competence
Drawing on Byram’s ICC, the study’s position is deliberately careful: an online classroom is not intercultural by default, but potentially intercultural, depending on who a teacher is actually networking with. A global professional learning network is, by design, a likely site for that encounter — which is the mechanism, not an assumption. Identity (Hall) runs through this as a thread rather than a separate strand: ICC development is treated as bound up with how online teachers come to see their own professional identity, not as a fourth, free-standing concept.
The study is distinct from telecollaboration and online intercultural exchange research: its population is practising online English teachers, and its focus is their own professional development rather than structured student exchanges.
from the research
The 5-3-1 Framework
A weekly connectivist routine that turns informal network activity into deliberate professional development. It asks for one hour a week, not a master’s degree:
- 5
Select five resources
Curate from your network: articles, posts, talks, threads.
- 3
Interact with three
Comment, question, discuss — move from lurking to connecting.
- 1
Contribute one original artefact
A post, a resource, a reflection — give something back to the network each week.
Grounded in Siemens’ connectivism, Lave and Wenger’s communities of practice, and the literature on teacher agency.
Research outputs
Teaching English in the Digital Age: Online Practices and Innovations
Book · 2024
The 5-3-1 Framework: a connectivist model for online teacher development
Conceptual paper · under development for journal submission
Conference presentations
IATEFL · APPI · ELTA Serbia · TESOL Spain · TESOL Italy · ETAS · online events
Full publication record
Are you an online English teacher?
The research depends on the experiences of teachers like you. If you’d like to hear about participation opportunities, or about the emerging association for online English teachers, leave your details.