Ethics

ETHICAL GUIDELINES FOR ESL PROFESSIONALS

Our Doctrine

Ideals which our professional associates believe in as a community:

  • Expertise in linguistic communication teaching
  • Combining exploration and practice for learning improvement
  • Convenient, but good quality instruction
  • Regard for diversity, multiculturalism and multilingualism
  • Respect for personal language differences
  • Cooperation within an international community

The London Council has generated a set of ethical standards to uphold the integrity of professionals and students within the field. These guidelines were created to establish professional standards of conduct world-wide. They can also assist practitioners with reflection upon the values and responsibilities required for a successful career in this field.

Relative to Students

  • ESL professionals are committed to teaching, researching, and behaving in a way that is respectful of the rights of individuals, with no prejudice as to race, colour, religion, sexual orientation, ancestry or place of origin.
  • ESL professionals pledge to remain open to contrasting styles and approaches to education and treat pupils fairly and with respect, remembering their ongoing educational needs and current abilities
  • ESL professionals agree not to tutor or take payment for tutoring or coaching for students who they are teaching that subject in class
  • ESL professionals agree not to use their roles to gain services or payment from their students
  • ESL professionals agree not to have intimate relationships with their students
  • ESL professionals pledge to uphold the confidentiality of any information students provide, unless required by law, or considered in the teacher's opinion to be in the student's best interest
  • ESL professionals act as role models of respectable and ethical behaviour with students both inside and outside the classroom
  • ESL professionals are respectful of the student/teacher relationship in their their interactions with students. In Relation to Colleagues
  • ESL professionals are committed to crediting authorship to all those who have made a creative contribution, regardless of status
  • ESL professionals pledge to honour of those with values and beliefs different from their own
  • ESL professionals are committed to the contribution of ideas, resources and materials to each other
  • ESL professionals are role models for co-workers and those they supervise

In Relation to the Profession

ESL professionals understand that participation in the London Council is a professional responsibility and they commit to:

  • be contemplative and self-assess their practice
  • conduct themselves in an upstanding manner that maintains the reputation of the profession
  • conduct investigations within the field ethically, and give credit for authorship when it is due
  • be conscious of various power relationships and refuse to use professional standing for personal gain or fraudulent reasons
  • search for and present professional projects as possible with or without the explicit dictum of their leaders
  • Assist the vocation by being involved in and contributing to the local, provincial or national bodies by giving time and effort
  • give presentations on the council's behalf only with its written consent

References/Sources:

  • ATESL ethical guidelines
  • Ethical Guidelines for Educational Developers
  • Ontario College of Teachers Ethical Standards for the Teaching Profession
  • Ethical Standards of American Educational Research Association