Investigating an ELT community of practice in India.

The article focuses on the development and impact of a bottom-up, practitioner-led Community of Practice (CoP) called Professional Outreach for English Teachers (POET) in West Bengal, India, formed during the Covid pandemic to support English language teachers’ continuous professional development (CPD). Using Lave and Wenger’s situated learning theory, the study highlights how participation in POET enabled teachers to move from peripheral to more active roles, enhancing their pedagogical knowledge, reflective competence, language proficiency, and confidence through blended online and face-to-face activities. The initiative addressed limitations of traditional top-down in-service teacher education (INSET) by fostering teacher agency, collaboration, and context-specific learning, despite challenges such as irregular participation and lack of institutional support. The article suggests integrating such bottom-up CoPs into mainstream INSET to improve teacher development in India and similar challenging contexts, recommending formal recognition, workload adjustments, and further research on CoP leadership and sustainability.