Continuing Professional Development (CPD)

CPD is a form of life-long learning for professionals. It helps conscientious practitioners to maintain and develop their knowledge, skills and expertise.

CPD is not mandatory for CIOL members, but strongly encouraged. It is however a mandatory requirement of Chartered Linguist registration.

Through a proactive, systematic and wide-ranging CPD regime, you can continually develop your professional self and practice. Here are just some of the benefits that this can bring:

• Improved productivity and quality of work
• Sharper professional skills (including language skills) and sounder judgement
• Awareness of changes in your fields / industry
• Preservation of trust of existing clients and increased prospects of acquiring new ones
• Your CPD record will complement your existing qualifications and professional experience to show your clients that you go the extra mile

To carry out CPD effectively you should: 

• Reflect: take stock of your achievements, capabilities, shortcomings and priorities.
• Plan: what CPD activities will help you bring about the required actions you have identified? Consider prioritising these.
• Act: carry out the activities. Recording details of each activity and learning outcomes as they happen helps with the other steps.
• Evaluate: how well have the actions met your aims? What impact have the activities had on your business, and how would you evaluate this impact? This evaluation will inform the next cycle of reflection, planning and action.

Our approach is that any CPD activity is relevant as long as you can justify that it has a positive impact on your professional practice.

No, face-to-face training courses are just one of many different types of activity you can undertake in order to engage in CPD. 

See 'What CPD activities are there?' below for examples.

CPD that is relevant to professional linguists can take many forms – see below for a non-exhaustive list. Remember that most of these can also be carried out in your other language(s):

Courses

• Professional language workshops, courses, conferences, seminars and lectures
• E-learning e.g. webinars and MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses)

Reading

• Language newspapers and periodicals
• Literature
• Relevant professional publications e.g. The Linguist
• Publications related to your professional specialism and/or chosen specialist subject area (for translators and interpreters)

Writing

• Writing book reviews, blogging, articles for The Linguist or other relevant publications
• Producing academic research

Listening

• Listening to relevant radio and TV programmes
• Teaching
• Delivering teaching/training

Getting involved

• Visits e.g. to client facilities, libraries, cultural activities, social and networking events
• Volunteering for the CIOL (Council, committees, networks) or other language organisations

Other skills

• Learning administrative/office management skills (through self-study or training courses)
• Learning to use new software packages (through self-study or training courses)

Learn in greater depth about the practice of CPD with these two recommended books:

• Friedman, A. L. (2013) Continuing Professional Development: Lifelong Learning of Millions, London: Routledge
• Moon, J. (2006) Learning Journals: A Handbook for Reflective Practice and Professional Development, London: Routledge