In recent years it has been increasingly argued that, in order to promote effective teaching, professional development should be linked to and embedded within the contexts where teachers work. In this presentation, I explore the idea of context-embedded teacher development that taps into teacher agency and also draw on teachers’ tales about how their own classrooms have provided the impetus for profound professional insights. In particular, I focus on teacher action research undertaken by English language teachers in different parts of the world to investigate their own practices, and also on research that has tracked the impact of this form of professional development on the teachers involved. The presentation concludes with what lessons can be drawn from these initiatives for sustaining teacher professionalism.
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