Farkasné Oláh Erika, Hungary
Hello to you! I also use all those things you have mentioned above, the Internet, songs, magazines,etc. to improve my vocab. However, when I collect some new words which I think are really important and widely used among native speakers, I try to integrate them into my lessons ( of course, with the advanced learners). I make exercises with them for my students, and revising the new words together with them helps me to remember them for a long time.

Rehmat Ebrahim, Pakistan
I use everything I can - books, Internet, talk to people, attend workshops and seminars, take courses, and most of all move across the curriculum for example, from History I found a great way to organize debates and also to detect bias. Another trick I learned is using political cartoons and interpreting photographs, graphs and tables. From civics I learned to use intellectual tools and from special ed I learned the value of graphic organizers.

Majid Din, Malaysia
I have been a English teacher and ELT teacher educator for more than 30 years. One of the ways to further improve my competency of language teaching is to consistently attend courses, seminars, conferences and workshop on ELT. Always learn new methods and techniques shared by presenters and all these enrich my exposure and collection of activities and competencies. Apart from that, my keen interest in using the net and sharing the materials with my learners also kills boredom and burnout.

Gladys Baya, Argentina
I 'use' colleagues (f 2 f and online), books, magazines, the Internet... I attend congresses and seminars, read books I buy or borrow from the school library, am an active member of several online communities of practice... Whenever I'm teaching advanced courses, I try to afford some time to regularly put myself in the shoes of my learners and carry out the tasks I myself assign! (e.g. free writing tasks).

Liana, Brazil
I usually use the Internet. It gives us lots of materials and articles to read and use in classroom. Here in Brazil teachers are poor, so with the Internet we can be in contact with all the subjects students are interested in with a low cost. I love reading teachers' manuals in general. I think they give interesting ideas to use with my students.

Deniz Alptekin, Turkey
I benefit from the newly-published books in ELT field but Internet also presents limitless sources in each subfield of ELT, I think it is indispensable for an ELT teacher.

Antonietta Furlan, Belgium
Thanks to the Internet you can be exposed to and use real English in many different ways (professional, recreational, etc), you can attend conferences and seminars online (The Economist), you can keep abreast of language developments (MED).
I also try to attend seminars at the British Council as often as possible. When I work on my computer, I am always connected to BBC2 or BBC4 and feel like I am staying in Britain for good...I also read a lot in English, fiction, essays, etc...

Lushiying, China
I had been a teacher of English for seven years in a senior high school before I decided to enrich myself, that is, to conduct my Master's degree. To me, books, magazines and journals are part of the ways to get information on educational development. Generally, I go to conferences twice a year. Of course, surfing Internet makes me get information easily. Sometimes I turn to my colleagues for advice.

Graham Stanley, Spain
I find that belonging to various online communities of practice is an excellent way of keeping informed about good practice, especially the Webheads CoP: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/evonline2002_webheads/. Because of this, I have at my fingertips a global resource of skilled and motivated teachers, many of whom have become friends, willing to help with questions. I now don't know how I managed without this.

Maureen Enongene, Cameroon
My greatest challenge in ELT is teaching vocabulary. I find that I need to improve not only my own vocabulary but put across sometimes really complicated notions to French-speaking learners. So I use the Internet a lot to keep abreast of new methods and tools.

Sonia Rivera, Puerto Rico
I usually refer to the dictionary whenever I need it, but the Internet has helped me a lot more. I use it every time I need a new idea on games / class activities and even lesson plans, also, every time I need an opinion / suggestion from other teachers as well. I get an answer and that really helps!

Meo, VietNam
Books are a good source to rely on. I surf the web. Apart from that, I think, classroom observation can be a lively way to better the methodology. Join a teaching forum, attend seminars to collect updated information about teaching techniques and try utilizing them for the next class. Then you can learn from yourself too, I mean, gaining experience from each class meeting.

Stas Khudatov, Russia
To improve my language skills I study Russian-English and English-Russian dictionaries (100+200 new words a day), revise 5-10 advanced grammar rules every day, read some fiction of British and American authors, listen to the VOA and BBC, watch films in English and speak a lot with my students.To improve my teaching skills I analyse every lesson I give, study some literature on psychology, visit model lessons of other English courses and some relevant Internet sites.

Berni Zineb, Morocco
What I really suggest for teachers of English is to be in constant contact with the new techniques of teaching a foreign language. In my opinion nowadays even learners require new ways while learning a nonnative language. We should not as teachers stick to one method, we should develop our syllabuses for the sake of our learners.

Colin Barnett, China
Years of reading books, trying things out, reflecting. Latterly I've changed, moved into new areas like becoming a professional examiner and then on to doing teacher training.

Sabriye Sener, Turkey
Exposure is a basic principle in language teaching so

• I read a lot to have a chance to see how it is said and mostly underline the sentences of words or chunks in the texts

• I watch films in English with a pen in my hand and take notes about interesting utterances and keep them on my table and read them till I remember them

• When I listen to somebody or speak with them and notice a different pronunciation of a word, I refer to a dictionary and check its pronunciation to see whether I am right or wrong

• I often download information from different sites or I ask my students to bring information about the topics we study during the year. We share information and rewrite or retell it as a group in our words

• I try to attend any academic workshop or presentation to observe other people while teaching

• I examine different course books to see different activities in them

• I give private lessons to different groups voluntarily when I have time. I never hesitate to deal with more difficult texts because I have always learned while teaching

• I like to use different books every year to learn more from these books. It requires a lot of preparation, though

• I like to spend a lot of time with monolingual dictionaries because sample sentences are very useful and interesting. Of course I note down the interesting sentences and share it with different people so that I can revise it a number of times.

Emile Boyo Pare, Burkina Faso
The problem with us teachers (I'm actually a teacher trainer in my country), is that we sometimes overlook the most important sources of competencies which are yet not far from us: Our own colleagues. I don't know how long you've been in the teaching profession, but I'd suggest you try and exploit your colleagues' experiences (I mean those who had a longer experience than yours). I really think these experiences are more invaluable sources of knowledge that we can't find in books.

Derya Yildirim, Turkey
I'm a teacher of English at a college in Antalya in Turkey. I usually use Internet to develop myself and my skills and I'm trying to join conferences about my profession and also follow new approaches to teaching English.

Kapil Dev Regmi, Nepal
Though I am not fully satiated with my improvements there are a number of things which I must remember. First and foremost is the computer that I avail to improve my English. I buy different software of English designed to improve English grammar, vocab and listening. Especially, reading various ebooks has given me enormous amount of exposure of day-to-day English.