A humanistic guide to self-actualization for TESOL teachers
seeking personal and professional development
New Release — September 2025. Now available on Amazon in Kindle format at an introductory price. The paperback edition will follow in the coming weeks.
What About the Teacher? is a non-linear, reflective book for TESOL educators that blends practical methodology with a deeper exploration of the teacher’s personal and professional growth. While it serves as a primer on key methodologies and approaches that represent best practices in the field, its greater purpose is to support the teacher’s journey toward self-actualization. The book argues that just as learners are at the center of TESOL, so too must the teacher be seen as a developing individual—someone whose inner life, career path, and existential questions deserve attention. It invites teachers to reflect not only to improve their practice, but to understand who they are becoming through the act of teaching itself. In doing so, it remains grounded not only in humanistic but also in constructivist values that affirm learning as a process of co-construction.
With a voice that is thoughtful, metaphor-rich, and occasionally ironic, the book balances practical guidance with philosophical inquiry. It speaks to both the craft and the calling of teaching, asking not only how we teach but also why. Its recurring “What about the Teacher?” sections consolidate key ideas while offering grounded reflection tasks that connect methodology to meaning. Across its non-linear structure, each chapter can stand alone while contributing to broader TESOL themes of learner autonomy, communication, and identity. Most of all, it serves as an impetus for personal inquiry and growth, facilitated through action research and reflective teaching.
The book champions clarity over jargon, connection over compliance, and humanity over prescription. Written and compiled by a teacher, trainer, materials developer, and consultant with decades-long international experience, it reflects a career spent teaching, mentoring, and leading seminars and workshops designed to inspire others. It is rooted in the author’s own journey through TESOL—the practices, questions, and moments of meaning that proved most enduring—and carries forward the spirit of ELT-Vista, the humanistic and arts-inspired periodical first published in the early 2000s. Many of the companion readings from ELT-Vista are woven into these pages, offering both personal and professional context to the book’s central themes.
Authored by Jay Leonard Schwartz, with contributions from Steve Vassilakopoulos. This book also serves as the foundation for the forthcoming ELT Vista teacher-development certificate program, launching in Fall 2025. Further details about this new online course offering, including preregistration, to follow in October 2025.
To purchase the Kindle version of What About The Teacher? please follow this link to take you to Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0FPBWNXTZ