Joining or having contact with a TEFL professional association can provide you with excellent opportunities for professional development. Through them you can share information, develop specialist knowledge and communicate with colleagues with similar interests in the UK and round the world.

UK associations which offer these opportunities include:

British Council's ELTeCS - English Language Teaching Contacts Scheme e-news www.teachingenglish.org.uk/eltecs
ELTeCs helps teachers, trainers, academics and other ELT professionals to share information about opportunities for teacher development. Through its six regional email newslists, ELTeCS helps more than 18,000 ELT professionals share announcements about online materials, teaching ideas, events, courses, scholarships, competitions, projects and journals. The current ELTeCS lists are:

• Africa and the Middle East
• East Asia (inc. China)
• Europe, Caucasus and Russia
• India and Sri Lanka
• Latin America (inc. Caribbean)
• Central and South Asia

All ELTeCS postings on the regional lists are saved in a searchable archive, and the website includes an archive of ELTeCS projects, links with Teachers' Associations and information about the Hornby Educational Trust. 

IATEFL - International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language
www.iatefl.org
Teachers of English round the world can join IATEFL for a membership fee.

IATEFL has its headquarters in Canterbury, UK, and currently (2008) has a total membership of around 3,500. Its services to members include:

• Bi-monthly IATEFL Voices newsletter
• 13 SIGs (Special Interest Groups)
• Annual Conference in the UK or Ireland
• Website

The Special Interest Groups each provide their members with specialised newsletters, events, websites and in many cases discussion lists.

The association's Wider Membership Scheme aims:

• to bring membership of IATEFL's international ELT community to teachers in parts of the world where it would otherwise be too expensive, and
• engage IATEFL's associate organisations in the task of promoting and supporting the scheme and further widening co-operation between teachers around the world.

IATEFL reaches beyond its own full individual and institutional membership through its links with around 80 national, regional or local professional associations for English teachers that have formal agreements with IATEFL. The mutually beneficial relations enjoyed by associates include the exchange of Newsletters, free attendance for representatives at associational conferences and attendance at the Associates' Day on the eve of the IATEFL Annual Conference.

Starting in 2007 IATEFL and the British Council have collaborated on the development of an online conference, that runs at the same time as the annual conference, and includes interactive coverage with video presentations, reports and interviews. The online conference that ran during the 2008 conference in Exeter attracted over 4000 participants.

English UK
www.englishuk.com
English UK works primarily in the UK market, but is also interested in attracting non-UK teachers to their events. It was formed in 2004 from two previous associations (ARELS and BASELT), and has over 350 member centres in private schools, educational trusts and charities, further education colleges and universities. All members are accredited by the British Council under the Accreditation UK Scheme and the association's key roles are to promote quality and to represent members´ interests. English UK promotes the development of ELT professionals through:

• Seminars and workshops
• ELT Management and Welfare Courses
• ELT Management and Teachers' Conferences

BALEAP - British Association of Lecturers in English for Academic Purposes
www.baleap.org.uk
BALEAP is for lecturers in English for academic purposes. Its aims are to:

• enhance the quality of English language provision for international students in institutions of higher education
• support lecturers' professional development
• provide an accreditation scheme for EAP courses
• promote and disseminate EAP associated research through biennial conferences and one-day Professional Issues Meetings (PIMs) 

BALEAP has over 70 institutional members plus individual members, runs its own accreditation scheme and is seeking to develop a framework for EAP courses.

QuiTE - The Association for the Promotion of Quality in TESOL
www.quality-tesol-ed.org.uk
QuiTE is of interest to those in the ELT profession such as teacher educators and course providers and others who are interested in the promotion of quality in TESOL teacher education. The association puts on seminars and conferences. With the support of the British Council QuiTE is developing a document giving advice on 'Choosing your First English Language Teacher Training Course'.

MATSDA - Materials Development Association
www.matsda.org.uk
MATSDA brings together researchers, publishers, writers and teachers to work together towards the development of high quality materials for the learning of languages. It is a non-profit making international association, founded in 1993. As well as having many members from the UK, it has members from the rest of Europe, Africa, the Middle East, Asia, South America and Australia.

MATSDA holds workshops and conferences in different countries which focus on issues related to the development of language learning materials. It publishes a twice yearly journal, FOLIO, and has published a number of books.

EAQUALS - European Association of Quality Language Services
www.eaquals.org
EAQUALS is an association of language training providers, founded in 1991, that operates mainly in Europe. It has over 100 members from over 20 different countries. All members have to have passed an inspection made by EAQUALS inspectors and meet the quality standards set out in the EAQUALS Code of Practice and Charters.

EAQUALS contributes to European projects related to language teaching, including the recent development in cooperation with ALTE (Association of Language Testers in Europe) of an electronic version of an EAQUALS/ALTE European Language Portfolio for adults (www.eelp.org). It also publishes training materials on different aspects of language teaching management.