Delta Publishing are delighted to announce that Duncan Foord’s book The Developing Teacher has been awarded the 2009 Duke of Edinburgh ESU Award for Best Entry for Teachers. Duncan Foord and managing editor Nick Boisseau visited the Palace on November 12th to collect this prestigious award. The ESU Judges gave the following praise:

The Developing Teacher is an inspiring book for all teachers and a powerful affirmation of the positive way in which teachers can be at the centre of their own professional development. It is also a timely reminder that for all the advances in ELT theory and practice and for all the profusion of training courses and qualifications, the teacher is the most central and crucial person in the entire field or industry. The book recognises that the ELT industry is populated with an extraordinary range of teachers, with diverse training backgrounds, teaching experience and professional motivations. At the same time, the industry itself is truly global and embraces a bewildering variety of teaching contexts from formal state education systems to small idiosyncratic private enterprises and huge international language school chains. The Developing Teacher addresses the teachers who work in these contexts.

It recognises the key role of the teacher at the centre of this industry and how professional development not only provides personal career satisfaction, but makes a greater and more positive impact upon learners and colleagues in an immediate way and also upon the profession and industry in a wider way.

The book is admirably practical and well-written. The structure of the book places the teacher at the symbolic centre, focusing first on how a teacher can assess and understand their own role and performance – and then expanding outwards, it focuses on the further circles of impact related to the teacher: students, colleagues, the school and finally the profession. With practical, easy-to-follow suggestions for engagement, performance improvement, skills development and all-round career enhancement, the book is a passionate but level-headed guide for any teacher wishing to be better in their work and more engaged in all the possibilities that their profession or career can offer.

The Developing Teacher should be a standard book for all ELT teachers, irrespective of what stage they are at in their careers or development. Its central thesis is ultimately about how teachers can be masters of their own developmental path and of how they can impact upon their professional and career potential, to the benefit of not only themselves but of all around them. As such, it is an empowering book and should be a fixture in every staffroom.