There is a sentence that makes me slightly nervous when I hear it from a teacher:
“I already know that.”
Of course, sometimes we do. We have been teaching for years. We have attended courses, read books, experimented with methodologies, survived challenging classes, learned from our mistakes and accumulated an impressive collection of certificates along the way. But what if, at some point, knowing becomes the opposite of learning?
I sometimes think that the moment we genuinely believe there is nothing left for us to learn as educators should be the moment we start asking ourselves some uncomfortable questions. Not because experienced teachers should constantly reinvent themselves. And certainly not because every new teaching trend deserves our attention. But because teaching is a profession that asks us to remain curious.
CPD is more than attending courses
Continuing professional development can easily become another item on a teacher’s to-do list: attend a seminar, collect a certificate, tick the box. But professional learning is not the same as professional attendance.
Good CPD should make us think. Sometimes it should make us uncomfortable. It should introduce us to ideas we haven’t considered, give us opportunities to experiment, allow us to observe other practitioners and, ideally, send us back to our classrooms seeing something differently.
Research increasingly supports this idea. A 2025 meta-analysis of 128 high-quality studies found that teacher professional development had, on average, a positive effect on student achievement. But the researchers also found considerable variation between programmes. In other words, CPD can make a difference, but simply doing CPD does not guarantee one. The quality and design of the professional learning matter. That distinction matters.
I am a trainer. I am also a trainee.
One of the things I value most about my professional life is that I get to experience CPD from both sides. I train teachers through DramActivate, but I am also constantly putting myself back in the learner’s position.
This summer, for example, I spent several days at PAInt in Perugia, exploring performative approaches to language and intercultural learning. I moved, experimented, trusted other people, took creative risks and reflected on what was happening to me as a learner. One activity involving the physical experience of a snail’s shell gave me a surprisingly vivid reminder of what it feels like to be asked to step into the unknown.
A few weeks later, at Drama Boreale in Helsinki, I found myself once again sitting in workshops led by people whose work I admire. I experienced approaches I hadn’t tried before, revisited familiar ideas from completely different perspectives and even found myself learning from the questions and reactions of other participants.
And then I stood up and became the trainer myself. That switch is important. Being the person at the front of the room doesn’t mean you have graduated from being a learner. In fact, I think it makes continuing to learn even more important.
When teachers ask questions you haven’t anticipated, interpret an activity differently from how you imagined, or bring classroom experiences that challenge your assumptions, they teach you something too. Every time I facilitate a workshop, I learn. Every time I participate in one, I learn. More often than not, the most valuable learning happens when I am not the expert in the room.
Especially in ELT
English language teaching is particularly dynamic. Our learners change. Our classrooms change. Research develops. Technology changes the possibilities available to us. The ways people communicate outside the classroom change. And we change too.
What worked beautifully for us five years ago might need reconsidering today. An idea we once dismissed might suddenly make sense in a different context. A technique we thought we understood might reveal something new when we experience it as learners rather than teachers.
Recent research specifically involving EFL teachers has found positive associations between continuing professional development, teacher agency and reflective teaching. Another study found links between CPD, teacher agency and perceived pedagogical effectiveness. That makes sense to me.
CPD isn’t only about acquiring more techniques. It can help us become more thoughtful about the choices we make.
What happens when we stop being curious?
There is a danger in becoming very experienced. We can become comfortable. We know what our lesson will look like. We know what our students will probably say. We know which activities work. We know what doesn’t.
And then one day, without really noticing, “I know what I’m doing” can become “I don’t need to look any further.”
That is where I think we need to be careful. Our students are still learning. Shouldn’t we be, too? Not constantly. Not frantically. Not because somebody has told us that we need another certificate. But because remaining a learner keeps something alive in us: curiosity, humility, flexibility, the willingness to say, “I’ve never tried this before. Let’s see what happens.” And perhaps that is one of the greatest things we can model for our students.
We don’t learn only for ourselves
Ultimately, CPD is not about making our CVs longer. It is about making our teaching richer. When I return from a conference, a summer school or a workshop, I don’t want to have a folder full of activities that I can reproduce mechanically. I want something to have shifted. A question. A new perspective. A moment of discomfort. A technique. A story. A different way of looking at my learners. Something that eventually finds its way into a classroom. Professional learning has a bigger circle:
We learn. We reflect. We experiment. Our teaching changes. Our learners experience something different.
And this is why I don’t ever want to become the teacher who knows everything. I want to remain the teacher who is still wondering, still experimenting, still getting things wrong occasionally, still sitting in the learner’s chair. After all, lifelong learning isn’t an optional extra we add to our teaching career.
It is part of what it means to be a teacher.
And if one day I genuinely believe that I have nothing left to learn, perhaps that is exactly when I should start worrying. For my sake. And, much more importantly, for the sake of the learners sitting in front of me.
Further reading
- Visscher, A. J., Dmoshinskaia, N., Pellegrini, M., & Rey-Naizaque, A. (2025). When do teacher professional development interventions improve student achievement? A meta-analysis of 128 high-quality studies. Educational Research Review, 49, 100742.
- Qi, J., & Derakhshan, A. (2025). Teacher Professionalism and Cognitive-Affective Factors: The Predictive Power of EFL Teachers’ Continuing Professional Development in Their Agency and Reflective Teaching. European Journal of Education.
- Dai, et al. (2025). The Predicting Role of Continuing Professional Development (CPD) in Chinese EFL Teachers’ Agency and Pedagogical Effectiveness. European Journal of Education.