Assessment of the Academic Conference as a Tool for Professional Development and Stregnthening of Language Teachers' Skills

Abstract

Conferences possess an informative nature about the academic work that recognizes them as a regular practice within the professional academic arena. This type of activity that favors teachers’ professional development has become compulsory at the university level through time. In this way, academic conferences are an essential communicative-cognitive source for higher education. This study encompasses the evaluation of an academic conference by following principles of program evaluation. That valuation followed three approaches: program-oriented evaluation, decision-oriented evaluation, and participant-oriented evaluation. Although it impacts a project of a specific context, its results inform successful practices that might benefit similar initiatives. The dissemination of these data constitutes input to make thought-out and assertive decisions for the execution of effective and enriching academic conferences that would promote teachers’ professional development. It was concluded that the emancipatory role that the university grants to the individual through the spreading of knowledge is vital for the accompaniment of teachers of English inasmuch as their collective lens is strengthened so that greater social interaction is achieved. Collaborative networks, as constituted through academic conferences, promote feedback and humanization of teachers’ social relations who learn in collaboration with others.