ABSTRACT
During the COVID-19 pandemic, education shifted rapidly to a socially distanced format, and this transition imposed a demand on educators, many of whom were unfamiliar with educational technology, to adapt their teaching to online, giving rise to an urgent need for online teacher professional development. This chapter describes an action research project with a virtual community for teacher development for a selected group of novice English teachers in a state university in Sri Lanka, who were delivering an intensive English course for undergraduate students. The virtual community was a practical solution given the limited professional development opportunities, particularly for tertiary level novice English teachers, and the urgency of professional development in Sri Lanka, given the complex role of English in Sri Lankan higher education, and society along with diverse linguistic beliefs. The chapter reports on teachers’ reactions to the virtual community and emphasises the challenges of implementing this kind of professional development in the Global South due to technological limitations and cultural differences. The chapter concludes with recommendations for teacher educators.
