A decisive step toward establishing an umbrella organisation to represent various professional associations of foreign language teachers was taken at the conference “Languages Open Many Doors” held on 29 October 2008. The purpose of the conference was to initiate cooperation between foreign language teachers and to involve various professional associations in the process of creating such an umbrella organisation.

The Estonian Association of Foreign Language Teachers was established on 5 December 2009.Its founding members included the Association of Teachers of Estonian as a Second Language, the Association of Teachers of German and the Association of Teachers of Finnish.

 

Goals of the association:

–    support linguistic diversity, popularise language learning, develop higher esteem for and improve language skills;

–    develop higher esteem for the profession of foreign language teacher;

–    support, systematically and continuously, the professional development of language teachers.

 

The association promotes cooperation between its members and works jointly with Estonian and international networks of language teachers, creates opportunities for its members to participate in European cooperation programmes and projects and networks of language teachers.

We draw attention to the achievements and best practices of foreign language teachers in Estonia as well as abroad, and organise events to enhance teachers’ professional development, and training days and courses to support foreign language teachers’ professional skills and personal development.

 

Our desire is that in this multilingual and multicultural world teachers of small as well as of big languages will work together, because when we are united, we are stronger and have more opportunities for success.