Never doubt the power of a good metaphor! This is also from the Aberdeen Selections and it was the plenary given by Agnes Enyedi, from Eötvös University, Budapest, Hungary.

The speaker compares the stages in the formation of an ELT professional to the metamorphic stages of the caterpillar and the butterfly and it is done in a such a way that it is a pleasure to read the article. It goes on more or less like this,

- stage one: you cannot even see that you are not a caterpillar anymore but a butterfly -  you cannot see and identify yourself as a teacher.

- stage two: you see you have wings but you can't fly - you realise the gap between your training and the realities of everyday teaching and it paralyses you.

- stage three: you harden your wings - you don't really feel confident about your knowledge and authority so you tend to become authoritarian.

- stage four: you can now fly on the automatic pilot  so you start paying attention to the landscape and the flowers -  you start focusing on teaching processes and on your students.

- stage five: you get addicted to flying - you become an 'ELT machine'

- stage six: your wings get heavy - this is the teacher burnout

- stage seven: woops! there are other butterflies out there - you start building professional communities.

According to Enyedi, the transition between stages three and four is crucial. 'There seems to be two conditions for being able to move on from here: one is seeing this process as something natural and feeling less negative about themselves; the other is being able to see beyond the self-imposed new cocoon and starting to see the others around: building relationships and developing people skills.'

Chris