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The clichés it's a small world and the world is our classroom are becoming practical realities for many educators. Increasingly accessible transnational contexts for English language teaching and learning offer new opportunities for local–global learning. This article reflects on a content‐based online English course focused on community youth leadership that was offered for Brazilian teens by U.S. instructors and graduate students. The researchers used the backdrop of English learning focused on key concepts to engage students in critical self‐reflection, collaborative discussion with peers, and civic engagement with their home communities. This course focused on communication skills, content knowledge, and technology practices needed for young adults to engage each other as emerging global citizens. Students wrote reflections on identity, planned and reflected on community interviews, and designed community‐based service projects. The authors describe how students and instructors used a variety of formal and informal communication platforms to experiment with the language and communication strategies students needed to get beyond simple vocabulary practice and into meaningful discourse about contested concepts such as identity, community, social responsibility, social hope, leadership, and beliefs. The authors discuss how students creatively used English across multiple online platforms and geographic borders to reimagine and project themselves as agents of positive social change and emerging community leaders.

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The current pandemic closed schools worldwide, tasking teachers to engage learners remotely without time to prepare. This study focuses on a professional development webinar series for English language teachers worldwide. Access to geographically dispersed English language teachers created an opportunity to gain international perspectives on teachers’ challenges, perceptions, and needs related to transitioning to remote, online teaching. We found webinars were an effective way to provide just-in-time professional development for teachers globally, particularly about engaging students, providing feedback, developing online presence, and creating activities specific for online learning environments. The main challenges teachers reported facing were keeping their students engaged and progressing in the learning activities; unequal student access to technology and the internet; and learning and troubleshooting technology. At the same time, learning new technology and online resources was also what teachers most frequently reported enjoying about remote teaching.

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