How Can Teacher Educators Benefit from Participating in a Transient Transnational Community?

The guiding research question of this essay is: What are the perceived benefits of participating in a transient professional community? The author used an ethnographic approach to collect data. The data analysis shows that one benefit of participating in a transient professional community is the feeling of belonging that partners described and that they reported had a positive impact on their own well-being in contrast to their regular work situations in which they often feel isolated. Six participants also referred to the low hierarchies that they witnessed in contrast to rather steep hierarchies at their home institutions. The study identifies four factors that explain how teacher educators can benefit from their participation in a transient professional community. [For the complete volume, "Promoting Professionalism, Innovation and Transnational Collaboration: A New Approach to Foreign Language Teacher Education," see ED624249.]