Reproduced with the kind permission of Modern English Teacher, Pavilion Publishing 2019. Christopher Graham and Katherine Bilsborough describe a new ELT community.

The global ELT community is becoming more and more socially and – using the team broadly – politically aware. The appearance of global issues such as gender equality, LGBTQ identity, migration and human rights are slowly, rather too slowly perhaps, shifting towards the mainstream in teaching materials, conferences and the general discourse of our community. This is a positive development in itself. But also, perhaps as importantly, a demonstration of our collective realisation that because of our formidable global reach, commonality of purpose (we all somehow teach English) and unique contact with teenagers and young adults, we have the potential to bring about significant changes.