The Use of Poster Sessions to Develop Professionalism, Domain Five of the Ecuadorian National English Teachers’ Standards

Abstract

This study describes the presence of professional skills found in poster session proposals in order to consider the use of poster sessions for developing the skills required by the 2012 Ecuadorian Standards for English teachers, specifically related to the fifth domain professionalism. Thirteen poster session proposals for a national English teacher conference were analyzed to identify professional skills using the International Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages (TESOL) Conference rubric to describe their academic quality, and Halleck and Connor’s Coding Scheme Checklist to describe the TESOL proposal genre characteristics. The results provided evidence of the skills related to the Ecuadorian national standards for English teachers as well as their academic strengths and weaknesses. The poster session can be an effective strategy to help teachers become more proactive and autonomous in growing professionally. This study can be useful for English teachers working to meet the national standards and institutions wanting to explore new strategies to develop and implement the English Teachers’ Standards.