Members and Nonmembers Welcome
Grab your favorite beverage and join fellow English language teachers. We will spend this hour conversing about our lives, sharing classroom practices, learning, and making new friends. Let’s value virtual connections - join us to network, share, and learn! TESOL Live! is offered at no cost to TESOL members and nonmembers. Advance registration is required.
TESOL Live! is hosted by the TESOL Membership Professional Council (MPC) on the third Saturday of every month at 8am Eastern time.
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January's TESOL Live
Join us 17 January 2026
Chat with your global colleagues, share classroom practices, and build your network at this month's TESOL Live!
We will be joined by our featured guest, Diane Larsen-Freeman, Professor Emerita of Education and Linguistics, Research Scientist Emerita, and former Director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan.
No such Thing as a “Best Practice”
Teaching is a complex process. As such, any innovative practice is affected not only by what is taking place within a particular classroom, but also by what is happening beyond it. Due to this internal/external dynamic, a teacher will always be uncertain about the effect of introducing a “best practice.” This uncertainty does not mean teachers should avoid experimentation or innovation. Rather, it highlights the importance of thoughtful adaptation and ongoing reflection. In this session, we will explore what it means to implement practices flexibly, examine why no single method works in all contexts, and revisit Earl Stevick’s riddle alongside N. S. Prabhu’s claim that there is no best method. Participants will leave with a renewed perspective on innovation as an adaptive, context-driven process rather than a fixed set of answers.
About our Featured Guests
Diane Larsen-Freeman is Professor Emerita of Education and Linguistics, Research Scientist Emerita, and former Director of the English Language Institute at the University of Michigan. She is also Professor Emerita at the SIT Graduate Institute in Vermont and was a Visiting Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. She has spoken at conferences in over 60 countries around the world. Some of her books are Teaching Language: From Grammar to Grammaring (2003), Complex Systems and Applied Linguistics (2008, with L. Cameron), winner of the MLA’s Kenneth Mildenberger Book Prize, the third edition of Techniques and Principles (2011, with M. Anderson), and the third edition of The Grammar Book, Form, Meaning, and Use for English Language Teachers (2015, with M. Celce- Murcia). She is also Series Director for Grammar Dimensions: Form, Meaning, and Use. She received the AAAL Distinguished Scholarship and Service award and was recently elected a Fellow into the International Cognitive Science Society. Dr. Larsen-Freeman edited the journal Language Learning for five years and later served as Chair of its Board of Directors.