- Please consider and discuss what your needs for continuing education were/are in your work as HLT instructor (at the beginning of your career, after a while, now). Which contents and themes were of interest to you, and still interest you?
- Have you taken advantage of professional development opportunities? Which ones, and with what kinds of results? Are there offers that you could recommend to your colleagues?
- Please make a list (alone or with a partner) of continuing education topics that would be of special interest to you. Distinguish between those that should be offered by your country of origin, and those that should be organized by the country in which you currently live and work. Consider how you could fulfill these professional development needs.
- What possibilities do you foresee about participating in continuing education together with a colleague from regular classroom instruction (e. g. a continuing education event within your school)? What could be your contribution; what could you do, in order to be included on an equal footing in regular continuing education opportunities (if this does not happen already)?
- The investigation by Calderon, Fibbi and Truong (see bibliographic information) shows that many HLT instructors are not at all aware of the continuing education opportunities offered by the host countries. What is your situation? Do you know of existing offers and where and how to register for them? Do you know the catalogs or websites where the professional development opportunities are listed? – Discuss these ideas with your colleagues and regular public school teachers until you have acquired the necessary information!
- Chapter 14 A.3 describes the introductory course for the Zurich school system which all HLT instructors must attend. Is there something similar where you work; what are your experiences; where/how did you yourself acquire the knowledge about the local school system?
- Chapter 14 A.4 describes the comprehensive and impressive Austrian training course “Mother-tongue education: teaching first languages in the context of migration”. Does something like this exist where you live and work; how should one proceed in order to create a similar project?
- In chapter 14 B, HLT instructors from various countries describe their experiences with continuing education opportunities, as well as their needs for professional development. Read and describe all, or some examples, and relate them to your own experiences!