If you are a language teacher, one of the best ways to grow and improve your practice is through world language professional development. Most of what is offered is conferences that range from as little as a half day to as much as a week, but there are also opportunities to get a mentor or to travel and study in another country.
Although it’s hard to talk about a silver lining of the COVID-19 pandemic, one positive aspect may be expanded virtual professional development opportunities. In 2023 most of the conferences are scheduled to be back in person, but lots are still online, so they are available no matter where you are located. While online PD is not quite the same as in-person PD, it IS a lot cheaper!
Here is a list of World Language professional development opportunities that are happening in 2023.
Note: This post contains affiliate links. If you sign up for an opportunity through an affiliate link I will receive a commission that allows me to continue this blog. Thank you!
World Language Professional Development (for all languages)
The World Language Teacher Summit is one of the best annual summits for a broad range of world language teaching tips. It covers many different languages and levels and the best part is you can sign up to get access to past summits once it’s over. The 2023 summit for all languages will be around back-to-school time.
ACTFL webinars The American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages offers some webinars for free. Many of them specifically relate to teaching online, and recordings of past webinars are also available.
Fluency Matters International Forum on Language Teaching (IFLT) – In 2023 IFLT will be in St. Petersburg, FL from July 18-20. Teachers focus on Acquisition Driven Instruction (ADI) and observe master teachers in learning labs within leveled cohorts based on their previous experience with ADI.
VOCES CI-Savvy This online textbook series hosts numerous free webinars for World Language teachers and the past ones are all available to watch at any time!
National TPRS Conference – The 2023 conference will be in Chicago July 17-20. Participants choose a beginner or non-beginner track workshop for the first three days, and the remaining conference days host general presentations. This site also has regular online PD sessions about teaching through TPRS.
World Language Summer Seminar – The 2023 conference is July 21-26 and is called “Equity, Justice, Sustainability”. There are a number of seminars for world language teachers, some language-specific, some related to DLI or Project Based Language Learning.
Comprehensible Iowa Conference – A very reasonably priced conference for CI enthusiasts in Iowa. The date for 2023 is June 10.
The Center for Urban Language Teaching and Research (CULTR) – Through Georgia State University in Atlanta, CULTR offers eight different workshops in June and July. Topics have included technology and scaffolding interpersonal communication.
CARLA If you’ve never been able to travel to Minnesota for these summer institutes, now is your chance because some are also offered online. There are many interesting topics for any language and all levels in June and July.
COERLL This site has open educational resources for many languages, including many less commonly taught languages and great audio clips. They often host PD events.
STARTALK If you teach Arabic, Chinese, Korean, Persian or Russian, STARTALK is for you. Because these languages are deemed critical languages by the U.S. government, STARTALK programs have lots of money to give away and most of their workshops, including a full-week conference, are free. Check out the listing of their events, which are both online and in-person all over the U.S.
International Center for Language Studies Opportunities include advanced conversation classes for language teachers, a language teacher book club and ed tech workshops.
The Agen Workshop Want to combine your PD with a trip to France? July 24-29, 2023 you can learn CI methods in Agen, France and participate in language labs in French, Spanish, English, Mandarin or Breton.
Professional Development for Spanish Teachers
2023 World Language Teacher Summit En Español This edition of WLTS was 100% en español May 15-19, 2023. You can purchase the recording or sign up for the next conference for all World Language Teachers in July.
Didactas Conferencia ELE There are shorter virtual trainings in Spanish and English for language teachers. You can attend individual events or purchase a membership, plus in the past, there has been a conference.
Conference on Spanish in the United States and Spanish in Contact with Other Languages Aimed at those at the university level or researchers. At Southern Methodist University (SMU) in Dallas, TX from April 6-8, 2023.
Hola Spanish Immersion If you want to learn and travel, check out two-week programs for teachers in the historic Spanish city of Toledo.
PD for Heritage Language, Dual Language, and Immersion
Empowered Educators This is an asynchronous online course that I’ve created for secondary Spanish teachers who teach heritage speakers or dual language immersion classes. It’s aimed at giving new(er) teachers the knowledge base and lesson ideas to get a confident start. It’s available at any time to work through at your own pace.
CARLA This summer there is both a heritage language institute and a secondary immersion institute that I’ve attended and can vouch for as being great!
University of Whitewater Courses offered in the summer of 2023 include Teaching Heritage Languages Through the Language Arts, Building Thematic Units, Growing Translingual Readers and Writers, and Critical Approaches to HLE. They have also offered courses in Hmong heritage education.
Heritage Teacher Workshop Experienced teachers and workshop leaders Adrienne Brandenburg and Mary Beth Johnson have led both in-person and virtual workshops for teachers of Spanish for heritage speakers. In 2023 this workshop will be June 12-13 in Fort Collins, Colorado.
University of Texas at Austin Event recordings from the past few years are available for free on topics like heritage learners. This is especially helpful for college and university instructors.
COERLL at UTexas – In San Diego in June this year, the two-day workshop is “Strengthening Bilingual and Professional Pathways for Heritage Speakers“.
National Symposium on Spanish as a Heritage Language – The symposium, which is aimed at those in academia, is April 13-15, 2023 at Harvard University in Massachusetts.
Project GLAD and Dual Language– Dual Language Education of New Mexico (the hosts of La Cosecha) has summer workshops in June. Project GLAD teaches academic language and literacy and is a great technique for native and second language learning.
Center for Teaching for Biliteracy – Various multi-day online institutes on teaching for biliteracy and bridging between languages. There is a mix of online and in-person workshops and one that focuses on middle and high school.
UCLA Heritage Teacher Workshop – This two-day, in person workshop is FREE but you need to apply well in advance. It will be at UCLA (Los Angeles) June 28-29, 2023.
Professional Development for Teaching Writing
Teacher’s College Reading and Writing Project – The folks that brought you Lucy Calkins’ Units of Study have week-long virtual institutes this summer for teaching reading and writing. While not aimed at dual language teachers, there is even a session on teaching writing in high school that would be great for those in secondary DLI or heritage language teaching.
National Writing Project – The National Writing project has chapters based in universities all over the U.S. It helps teachers of ALL subjects, even math, incorporate writing into their curriculum and help their students become accomplished writers. Check your local site to see what PD is being offered this summer.
Social Studies and Global Citizenship PD
National Geographic Online Courses -Nat Geo has free courses that would be relevant to all teachers, like Storytelling for Impact in your Classroom: Photography. In the past they had an educator certification program–read about my experience becoming a Nat Geo certified educator.
Center for Latin American and Caribbean Studies Summer Teacher Institute -At the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee July 18-20, 2023, this summer’s institute is Sustainable By Design: Reshaping the Human Landscape of Latin American Cities. The 2022 topic was Afro-descended communities of Spanish America.
World Savvy World Savvy is doing online professional development. Their sessions include Introduction to Global Competence, Leading for Global Competence, and Introduction to the UN Sustainable Development goals. They also have a series of Global Competence Micro-credentials to allow teachers to show mastery of a range of skills that promote global competence like simulations and global collaboration projects.
Solving Global Problems and Global Education 101 – The US State Department has developed this 4.5 hour course that you can take any time. It gives educators an understanding of problem-based learning and how to apply it to their classrooms and connect it with global competence.
Technology and Online Teaching PD
Design your Digital Classroom Summit – This free summit is aimed at secondary teachers who want to use more Google tools in their online or in-person classroom. I presented in 2022 about how to use podcasts in the classroom, and there are presentations about Google Earth, Google Sheets, inclusion, and organizing your files.
Learning Revolution – Multiple sessions by teachers from around the world have been held in the past and the recordings are still available. Digital tools and global citizenship are common topics but there is a range of everything under the sun from e-portfolios to sustainability.
ISTELive23 – The International Society for Technology in Education (ISTE) will host their annual conference June 25-28 in Philadelphia. If you want to incorporate more technology into your classes, this is the conference to attend!
International Association for Language Learning Technology – This conference is only every other year, but there are free online webinars that happen periodically that you can access.
Professional Development Through Travel
CIEE – Working as a Program Leader in one of over 20 countries is a great opportunity to brush up on your language and culture skills. See my post about working in France and Denmark with CIEE.
Global Exploration for Educators Organization (GEEO) – GEEO has travel programs for educators from 5-23 days all over the world! They are small group tours and included recommended reading and lesson plans and you can even get PD credit.
If you have other online opportunities you want to share, please email me or add them in the comments below!
