Month: June 2020

Teaching Overseas for the First Time: Advice From Teachers

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management, The Power of Praise: Empowering Students Through Positive Feedback, 100 Awesome Online Learning Apps and The Rogers Pedagogical Planner: A Teacher’s Planner for Serious Professionals)

Accompanying podcast episode:

COVID-19 has clearly had a devastating effect on the aviation industry. With international travel brought to a virtual standstill, some airlines have found themselves laying off staff, downsizing and even going bankrupt. 

This is, of course, an unprecedented and horrific situation for the airline industry as a whole. In addition to this, restrictions on international travel have caused ripples to permeate throughout a wide variety of other industries: not least international education. Some effects that have been experienced by teachers (some of whom are my colleagues) are as follows:

  • Teachers who were appointed to roles overseas cannot leave their current country of residence to actually start their jobs.
  • Dependents, such as spouses and children, are often not able to move abroad with the appointed teacher as it’s difficult for many countries to get the necessary clearance and paperwork approved.
  • Teachers who were ‘on the fence’ about teaching overseas are now regretting the fact that they didn’t ‘take the plunge’ and move abroad sooner, as now their ability to travel has been restricted.
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That last bullet-point is an interesting one. It’s an ‘imaginary’ scenario based only on the anecdotal evidence I could currently acquire – a number of my readers have written to me to say that they regret not having made the decision to teach overseas sooner. 

Whilst I cannot be sure that this is a systemic or widespread regret that applies to the teaching profession as a whole, it is an understandable and logical emotional response to COVID-19 that we can consider. I imagine that when COVID-19 is ‘over’ (will it ever be really over?), and flight paths reopen, we will see a surge in applications for overseas teaching posts. 

Class Q and A

In anticipation of this, I’ve conducted a rather unconventional experiment this week. As a teacher with 13 years of overseas teaching experience (12 years in Thailand, 1 year in China), I decided to post my top 5 suggestions/tips for teachers who are considering moving overseas to teach. I posted these tips in the popular Teachers in Thailand Facebook group, to see what kind of responses I would get. After a bit of distillation (tallying up the responses with the most likes), I’ve come up with a fairly comprehensive and balanced list of pre-teach-abroad tips for all budding globe-trotters (I hope!):

Rule #1: Try to learn the local language – even a few words will show others that you are trying and you’ll be respected all the more for it.

In some countries, of course, this won’t be necessary. If you’re a native English speaker moving to Singapore, Australia, America or the UK (or another English speaking country), then you may only have to learn some of the local colloquialisms and get used to some unusual dialect. However, if you move to a country like China, for example, it’s a whole different story. 

Sometimes, learning the local language is essential. When I worked in Chongqing, China; for example; very few people could understand English (Starbucks baristas tended to be the best speakers – so hats-off to them). I had to learn some Mandarin just to survive. Learning the local language does have other benefits, too, however:

  • Language and culture are often very closely intertwined. Learning the local language can help you to understand why the local people think the way they think. This can lead to better relationships, less frustration and more common-ground and mutual understanding.
  • When you at least try to use the local language, you are showing that you have some respect for the local people and the country in which you are a guest (more on that later). In my experience, this goes a long way to building trust with others (e.g. that hairdresser you have to see every week, or that bar tender you see on the occasional Friday night). People tend to admire you more if you show that you are willing to learn, and you don’t just expect everyone around you to speak your language and accommodate you.
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Teachers in Thailand Response

This rule was generally well-received. A noteworthy response that offers some extra-insight is given below (of course, remember that this is Thai-centric, but could be applied to any native language):

“I had the advantage of a thorough pre-field language training (it leads to some interesting conversations with Thai adults — like “how can my English get as good as your Thai” — but even if you have much less Thai than that it can still be a bridge-builder that can make your life easier — and fortunately, there are now FB groups designed specifically for foreigners trying to learn Thai. Take it easy, and you will gradually get better at it.”  – Edwin Zehner

Rule #2: Do not leave home because you are trying to run away from problems – finances, crime, family issues – get any of these issues resolved first before you move overseas (or your problems might travel with you).

I must admit that this was a tricky one for me to phrase correctly in one sentence, and it did receive a little bit of backlash in the Facebook group. Before I include a noteworthy response or two, I’d like to add an extract from my debut book, The Quick Guide to Classroom Management (final chapter), which goes into this a bit more:

Extract from THE QUICK GUIDE TO CLASSROOM MANAGEMENT

SECRET NUMBER 46: Your Problems May Follow You When You Fly Away

If your motivation to leave your home country revolves around personal
problems you have such as debt, a broken relationship or family
issues, then don’t assume that all of these problems are going to vanish
as soon as the landing gear hits the tarmac in your new city. Certain
problems, especially those concerning money, can actually be
exacerbated when you leave your home country. Here are my top tips
for making sure that a problem at home doesn’t become a nightmare
abroad:

  1. Money: Think long and carefully about any debt-related or financial issues you have, and aim to resolve them before you board the plane. Many expatriates find it difficult to transfer funds back to their home country once they’re abroad, and this can have consequences in terms of meeting credit card and bill payment dates. You must ensure that you’ve inquired beforehand about the ways in which you can deal with your finances abroad, and you must remember to follow through. When one is residing in a foreign country, it can be easy to forget about the financial commitments you have in your home country. In the early stages, this can manifest as an awkward message or letter from your creditor, progressing to international criminal action if the issue is not dealt with. It might be a good idea for you to leave some savings in your native bank account which you can use to pay your bills and loans in the first few months of your new adventure. You may wish to get a trusted friend or family member back home to help you with this.
  2. Relationships: Don’t burn any bridges before you fly away. You may be travelling to an exotic new country to start a wonderful new chapter in your life, but you never know when circumstances may force you to return home to your native country. Try not to upset people before you leave, for example, by venting your pent-up grudges that you’ve had for years. You may also want to keep in touch with people at your old school as you may need to call upon them for advice, resources and help.
  3. Health: Try to bring all of your medical records with you when you travel, and have them deposited at the hospital you plan to use when you start at your new school. Whilst medical care provided overseas can be of an extremely high quality (especially when your school pays for private medical insurance as part of your package), it can be very difficult for doctors to suggest a suitable course of treatment if your exact medical history is unknown. If you end up spending a great deal of time teaching overseas, then you may find yourself moving
    from hospital to hospital, or even country to country! It is essential that you do not underestimate the importance of keeping your medical records safe, accessible and updated. Unfortunately, however, this is the one aspect of international teaching that is most overlooked by teachers.
  4. Crime: If you’ve committed any kind of serious criminal offence in your home country, then you almost certainly will not get a job at a reputable international school overseas. Most will require you to complete a criminal records check before you leave your home country but even if your school does not require this, you must still be upfront and honest about any criminal history you have. The ramifications for you can be severe if your school finds out about it later.
  5. Online: Clean up your online profile. Look at all of the social media channels you have, all of your blog posts, forum replies, comments and any other material you’ve submitted online. Also, remove anything that puts you in a bad light: international school managers are using ‘internet screening’ more and more often these days. Additionally, be very careful about who you connect with through social media, and never connect with current students. Whilst it’s important to keep in touch with your former students (through school-authorized alumni channels), you still have to be careful about what they can read about you, or from you, online. Your former students may be connected with your current students, and they can pass on information easily. You’ll also find that the student world of international teaching is just as small as the teacher world, and students in different international schools do communicate and connect with each other.
Q & A

I received some interesting responses about this in the Teachers in Thailand Facebook group:

“I do not agree with your point 2. We left SA because of a few of your nr 2 reasons and we soooo happy in Thailand!”

“Sometimes it’s impossible to resolve problems at home. Nonetheless you can be an effective teacher.”

I guess a balanced viewpoint on the issue is needed. A fresh start in a new country can offer you the chance to leave the past behind, and build a new future. My point, however, is that you should try to solve as many personal problems as you can before you move over. Avoid ‘burning bridges’ too – you never know when you might need to cross them again. 

Rule #3: Remember that you are a GUEST in a foreign country. Be respectful, and remember that for every action you undertake you will be scrutinized more excessively than the natives.

I’m not sure if being ‘scrutinized more than the natives” applies in EVERY country, but that’s certainly been my experience in Thailand and China – and that’s understandable. I am a foreigner. I have to be respectful of the local rules, culture and environment. 

I think it is important to realise that the world is an incredibly varied place. If you’ve lived your whole life in one country (as I did before moving out to Thailand in 2008) you’re going to find that your new home will be different in many ways. The most profound of these differences, however, is that people probably won’t even ‘think like you think’ on many issues. 

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Being understanding and accepting of the host culture and environment kind of comes with the job of being an international school teacher. If it gets too much for you, you can always move back home later (or to another country). 

Rule #4: Get as many qualifications as you can (and as much experience as you can) back home before moving out – it’ll all look good on your resume/CV and you’ll definitely use the skills and knowledge you’ve learnt.

International schools tend to have more difficulties recruiting specialists than, say, a domestic school in western country would. This, coupled with the fluid nature of international education (schools at different phases of development) means that you may be asked to teach subjects outside of your specialism. 

Before moving out, try to get skilled-up in anything pedagogical – accelerated learning techniques, Assessment for Learning, teaching ESL students in mainstream classrooms training, etc. The skills you learn on courses like these will definitely come-in handy when you teach overseas.

Online learning is, of course, great for this. There a large number of high-quality, inexpensive courses available on places like edX, Coursera and Udemy. You can also take my Classroom Management Fundamentals certificate course with UK Ed Academy.

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Some notable additions

“Make sure your social media accounts are private and that your profile pic is respectable. Recruiters often check you out on social media. Do an in-class or hybrid course. There is so much to be said for REAL PRACS with real students. Do an intro video if you can – either just introduction, or even better of you in the classroom showing your rapport with students. Be punctual for any interviews!” – Rose-Anne Turner, Founder of Destination TEFL

“Get someone to proofread your c.v and covering letter. The number of applications we get with poor punctuation and spelling mistakes…” – Kate Lloyd, Director of Studies at London School of English, Ukraine. Check out her website for teachers at What Kate and Kris Did.

“Expect things to go a bit wrong/unplanned from time to time but make sure you’re flexible and ok with that” – Stefan Hines, Secondary Science Teacher

Rule #5: Kinda linked to number 2: make sure you are going overseas for the right reasons – to inspire and help your students, to gain teaching experience and to gain a unique cultural experience. You’re not coming over to have a big, never-ending holiday, or to find a local boyfriend or girlfriend (although that last one might be a nice by-product).

This is quite an important one. If you don’t have the right mindset before you come out, then you could be in for quite a shock. 

International schools (and local public schools) tend to have very high professional standards. In addition to this, there often comes the added pressure of being expected to perform well. Thing about it: your school has most likely paid for your flight, immigration visa, work permit and maybe even housing and a competitive salary. You’ll be expected to measure-up. 

Have a holidays at holiday time. Experience the local culture and food all that good stuff, but remember that you must be just as professional at your job as you were back home. 

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The Rogers’ Pedagogical Planner: A New Kind of Teacher’s Planner

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

An article by Richard James Rogers (Author of The Quick Guide to Classroom Management). 

The Rogers’ Pedagogical Planner is finally published and ready after two-and-a-half years of painstaking work and research. It is, quite simply, the product of my mission to create the world’s most useful teacher’s planner.

I’m going to be completely honest with you – the aim of this blog post is to advertise The Rogers’ Pedagogical Planner and to inform teachers about how it can be used to make life easier for us. However, I’m also going to try and throw in some useful lesson-planning tips in here too, and links to other blog posts about lesson-planning will be given throughout this article. 

Rogers ped

Here’s a brief overview if you’re just looking for what the planner gives you, and where to buy it (but keep reading if you want some background and links to helpful articles and blog posts about planning and classroom management):

+ 45 weeks of double-page lesson planning templates for you to write all of your lesson plans on

+ A full A4 ‘notes’ page for every week of lesson planning

+ A full A4 ‘targets’ page for every week of lesson-planning

+ 45 pedagogical articles from this blog (richardjamesrogers.com) – one for each week of lessons

+ 578 pages

+ $22.99 and available globally on Amazon

Here are some extracts from the book, so you can see what the inside looks like:

Each week contains an article from my blog to provide insights into classroom management techniques, behavior management methods, active engagement strategies, tips for using technology in teaching and even advice on how to work with colleagues and parents:

Slide1

 

Each week comes with a full A4 ‘Pedagogical Targets’ page which is designed to help you formulate goals for your own continuous development:

Slide2

 

Two A4 pages of lesson-planning boxes/grids are provided for each week (45 weeks in total), giving you plenty of space to write your plans:

Slide3

 

A full A4 ‘Notes’ page is provided for each week of planning: great for recording the details of meetings, incidents that have happened, events that are coming up, notes from training sessions, reflections, etc:

Roger's Pedagogical Planner

The planner is available as a beautiful A4 paperback from Amazon here ($22.99). However, for those of you who like to use stylus devices (e.g. the iPad Pro) or who want to print the planner yourself, I am selling the pdf version for only $15.00. E-mail me at info@richardjamesrogers.com to request your instant copy (payments are made via PayPal). 

My story (briefly)

I graduated from Bangor University (UK) with a bachelor’s degree in Molecular Biology in 2005, and followed that up with a PGCE in Secondary Science Education (also from Bangor) in 2006. I taught at UK State Schools for two years, before meeting my lovely wife, Nicki, after she finished her master’s degree in 2007. She is Thai, and had to fly back to Thailand as soon her her student visa ran out. I followed her to Thailand in the new academic year of 2008 and I have been teaching at international schools in Thailand (plus a brief one-year stint in China) ever-since. 

My books, and why I started writing

To be honest, I always found teaching to be enjoyable and fun, even when dealing with the ‘problematic’ students (e.g. those who required the active adoption of behavior management techniques to handle). However, my boyish energy and hyper-enthusiasm led me to make a number of silly mistakes over the years: little things, usually, that caught me off-guard when I wasn’t paying attention, such as:

  • Not thinking about where students would sit at different points in the lesson.
  • Setting too much homework, and not having the time (or effective strategies) to mark it quickly and properly.
  • Not pacing my lessons to get all of the content finished on-time.
  • Focusing too much on short-term positive reinforcement, and not considering the long-term effects that consistent praise can have on a child’s life (see my blog post about subtle reinforcement for more on this).
  • How much I allowed myself to relax at staff-parties (often overlooked in teacher-training courses).
  • The effects of physiology and biochemistry on my ability to function during the day (waking up early, having breakfast, exercising, etc.).

I knew that I had to learn from my mistakes, but I realized that I could only do that if I remembered my mistakes. I’ve always had problems with remembering things, so I decided to write my first book (The Quick Guide to Classroom Management) as a no-holds-barred record/journal of the blunders I had made (and seen others make) during my then 10-years of teaching experience. My goal was to simply have a record for my own reference in book-form.

I was surprised, and happy, when that book hit the bestsellers’ list for classroom management (number 1 spot) on Amazon on no less than three occasions.

Conclusion

I hope I have provided you with a good overview of what The Rogers’ Pedagogical Planner is, and why I think it is a great tool for educators everywhere. If you do happen to purchase the book, then THANK YOU (and enjoy!).

Skip to the end for links to lesson-planning blog posts I have written

 

Lesson-planning blog posts (great advice for teachers):

The Importance of Planning

The Top 7 Strategies for Efficient Lesson Planning

My Top Three Tips for Teachers

Can Progress be ‘Engineered’ from the Start?

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We welcome you to join the Richard James Rogers online community! Join us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates, giveaways of Richard’s books, special offers, upcoming events and news. 

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Reliability and Flexibility: Two Traits Every Teacher Must Have [An Interview with Gill Murray]

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

The idea that teachers should be role-models for their students is a complex one to grasp at times. What are the key teacher-behaviors that need to be adopted for modelling to be effective? Today, I’ve invited Gill Murray (Founder of Alba English Class Online and Homestay) to share her thoughts and tips for educators. Gill shares her perspectives on teaching from the viewpoint of a language school owner – a unique take that I’m sure my readers will find interesting.

Accompanying video:

Tell us a little about yourself

I was born and raised in Scotland, UK.

I don’t have a degree, which is the most asked question I get asked from potential TEFL students and teachers. I did a Higher National Diploma in Hotel Management (this is my second obsession: all things hospitality). 

I owned my own catering business, worked in recruitment and, I can happily say, I am the owner/teacher at Alba English Class Online and Homestay.

I started teaching as a Trainer in the hotels I worked in and was a Lecturer at Glasgow College of Food Technology for 3 years. While I was there, I was asked to deliver a 3 week course on Sales and Marketing in Moscow for new business start-ups.

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I have been teaching English for nearly 10 years:  face to face in classrooms, online via Skype and as part of my Homestay courses.  I spent nearly 3 years living and teaching English in a language academy in Spain and now live in beautiful Scotland. Focusing on conversational English, I concentrate on vocabulary and pronunciation. My lessons are relaxed and flexible, making students feel comfortable and confident about learning English. 

Why did you choose to become a teacher in the first place?

I had 2 career paths I wanted to follow whilst at school: teaching and hotel management. I chose hotel management and specialized in training people in the hotels I worked in. The process of delivering information to people to improve their skills, efficiency and value was our objective. Then, a chance meeting 11 years ago with a colleague in the work’s tea room opened the world of TEFL to me and I have been addicted to it ever since. I teach my own students online and face to face during my homestay courses, I do visiting classes online in other language schools across the world and I teach new TEFL Teachers how to teach online and I mentor them.

What advice would you give to someone who is new to teaching?

– Welcome to the best job in the world!

– Do a recognised qualification. Employers want to see you have the skills they need and that you have invested in their environment.

– Keep it easy to begin with until you become familiar with your working environment. We are so lucky to have so many resources available to us but it can be very confusing if you are new to it.

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“An AMAZING Book!”

– Have several income sources (e.g. regular hours from an online school, some face to face students, some from other platforms such as Preply or Italki). This allows you to have a steady income and avoid dips in student numbers.

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– Keep a database of contacts and students for future reference. I guarantee you will use them in your future teaching life.

– Try everything once and you will learn from that. The simplest of ideas can be your best ideas.

– Get a “character” to work with: e.g. an animal, a doll… I have a Harry Potter I use for everyone and it is a real icebreaker and lifesaver.

– Laugh and keep it fun!

What is your personal teaching philosophy?

Reliability and flexibility! This has been the way I have worked my whole life and it is fundamental to a good, strong teaching business. Lesson cancellations happen and you must be prepared to be flexible, regularly using your free time to do classes. Time differences mean early starts or late finishes but it all goes towards your reputation and business development. 

Q & A

Keep it simple and have fun! I have the privilege to teach other people how to speak my native language. They work hard earning money to pay for my classes so I give them the best class I can for the fairest price. 

With these 2 philosophies in place, you will never have an empty schedule. 

What changes do you see happening in the future with regards to the teaching profession?

I think we have just lived through the biggest change in teaching over the last few months with the Covid 19 situation. Classroom teachers and parents have been thrown into online teaching and they have all done the most amazing job. 

I think parents realise just how hard a job it is and have a new respect for teachers.

I think student teachers/qualified teachers will have online teaching training added to their skills base as this method will continue in the future.

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Online teaching of any subjects will continue to increase as people have now realised how convenient it is in their lives. 

What are the biggest lessons you’ve learnt in your journey as a teacher?

To respect every student, their nationality and cultural differences. It all goes to build the relationship between teacher and student and improve their learning journey and yours.

To embrace the profession I am in and to experience as many parts of this profession as possible.

To listen to the student: for an idea about their mood during the class; to the information they share with you; for their response to your teaching and they understand what you are teaching.

What’s next for you and your career?

I am so lucky to be working in the profession I am in. I love marketing so I am always thinking up new ways to diversify my business.

Last year I started Homestay courses from my countryside home in Scotland. Students came to stay with us and immersed themselves in English with daily classes and excursions. I was truly surprised at how much the students improved in such a short time. After Covid, this will continue.      

I will continue to deliver online classes to current and new students.  Details can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/Alba-English-Class-Online-and-Homestay-436805727098408/

I created my 2020 Challenge allowing me to give a free hour of my time to deliver a conversation class to students to allow them to speak with a native speaker. This has been a great success so far and continues until December. This had led to many new teaching contacts and new working relationships developing for the future.

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I am now offering coaching sessions to potential or new TEFL teachers where we discuss their career possibilities and goals. These sessions include real-life online classes with my students to alleviate any nerves  for the new teacher. I am there to support them and help with any questions.

Thoughts and reflections from Richard James Rogers

Thank you, Gill, for taking the time to share these really useful, unique and insightful tips and experiences with us. Some key takeaways for me personally were:

  • Treating your job as a teacher as if it were your own personal ‘business’ (for those of us who don’t actually own our own schools) is a great mindset to take-on. It ensures personal accountability so that high-standards of ‘customer’ service (i.e. service to our students and their parents) remains high. 
  • I really like the two foundational ‘pillars’ of flexibility and reliability as key philosophies to guide teachers in their practice. In my personal experience, it took me a long time to realise what profound, life-changing effects I was having on my students – effects that lasted well into adulthood. The creation of this blog and my first book, The Quick Guide to Classroom Management, involved me ‘chasing-up some of my old students who I taught at high-school and who were now in their mid-to-late twenties. After numerous discussions and interviews, it became clear to me that teacher reliability (in particular) was one high-effect characteristic that literally had the power to change people’s lives. I use the word ‘people’s’ instead of ‘students’ because I realized the ultimate truth that what we do as teachers affects our students well into their professional lives as adults. When we fail to be reliable, we can generate resentment that lasts for decades (literally). When we choose to be reliable, we can set students on a path to success. It really is that simple. 

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We welcome you to join the Richard James Rogers online community! Join us on Facebook and Twitter for regular updates, giveaways of Richard’s books, special offers, upcoming events and news. 

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How to Ace Your Observed TEFL Lesson

Posted on by richardjamesrogers

Lesson observations can be nerve-wracking and stressful for many teachers. Often, this is a result of not-knowing how to effectively deal with the observation (or anticipation of it) on an emotional, professional and strategic level. Today, I’ve invited Rose-Anne Turner, Admissions Director at Destination TEFL, to share her advice on how to ace a TEFL lesson-observation.

Images for this guest blog post have been kindly provided by Destination TEFL and show teachers they have successful trained in-action, interacting with students. If you’re thinking of getting a TEFL qualification and teaching overseas, then Destination TEFL can help you!

There are so many things to think about when you’re being observed, that it’s easy to forget the obvious. Here are some ways to make sure you ace your observed lessons. 

Before the lesson 

This applies to observed practicums during your course: Pay attention in class! Know the correct procedures and techniques, so you know what is expected of you. 

PRACTICE, PRACTICE, PRACTICE! Practice the steps and procedures (drilling, back-chaining etc) and practice your full lesson beforehand, on your own or with your partner. Get your classmates to act as students and let them point out any mistakes afterwards – all in good faith of course, and you do the same for them. Ask for a copy of the observation form that your observer will use and understand what they’re looking for. Your trainer should make it clear what is expected of you. 

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This will also apply should you be doing a demo lesson for a job interview. When you are called in for a demo, be sure to get all the facts beforehand, including the number and level of the students, how long the lesson will be, the topic, the facilities on site, etc. 

Have a backup for everything! Always have a spare board-marker – they have a nasty way of suddenly dying when you least need them to. Time wasted scrambling for another pen will affect your lesson time management, and the curveball will make you nervous, as well as having a knock-on effect. If you plan to show images on a projector, print the images too. If you’re giving students handouts, always have a few spares on hand in case your observer wants a copy or in case there are more students than expected. Have a safety net for every aspect of the class. Be prepared to upscale or ‘dumb-down’ the lesson in case the level of the students is not what you were expecting, so make sure activities can be adjusted accordingly. 

Have a checklist. Having an amazing board game or a fun worksheet is pointless if you leave it behind – we’ve seen this happen too many times – you can only be marked on what you actually do in class, not what you left at home. Attached to your lesson plan, have a checklist of what to bring, including a bottle of water and a sweat towel – there’s nothing worse than dripping sweat over the kids (yes, we’ve seen this happen too!). Make sure you have all your materials required for the lesson. 

Dress professionally. If you look the part, you’ll feel the part and then you’ll act the part. If you’re not confident, fake it! Soon it will be real confidence. Find out beforehand what the dress code is at the school where you’ll be conducting the lessons. If this is for your teacher practicums during the course, you will be told this beforehand, but if it’s for a demo lesson find out! Some schools for instance, insist that female teachers wear skirts, not trousers, and many schools want all tattoos covered up. 

Don’t rush and don’t leave things to the last minute! Do all your printing the day before – power outages happen and that could mean you can’t print your worksheets, lesson plan etc. make sure your computer is charged and is working. Don’t assume there will be WiFi if you need to show a YouTube clip – either download the video or make sure you can send a hotspot from your phone to the computer for internet access. On the day devote all your attention to delivering a great class, not worrying about last minute logistics. 

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During the lesson 

Stay calm. It’s natural to be nervous when being observed. Many people speak too quickly when nervous – take a deep breath and SLOW DOWN, or your students will not understand you. Smile at your students. They will smile back and this will help you to relax. 

Take note of your students. Plans should be followed… however, they should also be adapted if need be, according to your students’ levels. This is why it’s important to plan for your lesson to be adjusted both up and down, particularly for a class you have never taught before, and are not familiar with the level. Involve all your students When nervous, it’s natural to just focus on the students in the front, or those who are actively participating. Try your best to encourage all to participate. 

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Step back and read what you have written on the board. Often our brains are thinking ahead and we make silly spelling or other mistakes on the board. Take a step back and read what you have written. 

After the lesson 

Listen to the feedback, and take it to heart. Getting constructive feedback is the best opportunity for you to develop as a teacher. Sometimes, it’s not easy to hear, but the feedback given during your observed lessons on the course, is done so with the best intentions, allowing you to get the most out of the course. Avoid acting defensively, arguing with the observer and blaming the students. Instead, keep an open mind, ask for more details and note down the suggestions. 

Do a self-analysis. After each lesson, think back to what you did, and how you could have done it differently. Think about how you handled questions, unruly kids, etc and think about how you could improve. Keep a lesson journal, and take your own feedback to heart too. 

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Take responsibility. Think about what you could have done to teach a better class, not about how someone else is at fault for what went wrong in your lesson. Many people get defensive when given feedback. Blame it on naughty kids? Rather take responsibility for poor classroom management, and research classroom management techniques. Not enough time? Look at your time management skills, and how much wasted time there was in the class. 

It’s important to act on the feedback given after a lesson. If you don’t incorporate the suggestions given by your observer in your next lesson, then the feedback was pointless. Make the most of the valuable feedback session given during your course. After a demo lesson for a job interview, ask for feedback too. Your potential employer will value the fact that you are keen to improve and every good teacher knows that the best teachers never stop learning. 

Rose-Anne Turner, Admissions Director – Destination TEFL (www.destinationtefl.com)

Thoughts and reflections from Richard James Rogers

I really enjoyed reading this great blog post, Rose-Anne. Thank you for taking the time to share these great tips with our community. As a high-school Science teacher in Thailand, I found these tips to be just as helpful to me as they would be for a TEFL ‘purist’. I think your advice is beneficial for teachers in a wide-variety of different settings. 

My key-takeaways were as follows:

  • A lesson-observation needs to be dealt with strategically: this is not something that you can leave to chance, or be ad-hoc about. You need to have a plan in-place for the run-up to the lesson, the lesson itself and the after-lesson reflection process. Most teachers focus only on lesson-planning and their presence during the lesson, in my personal experience. 
  • Planning the lesson activities and meeting lesson-objectives is important, but dealing with your own emotions and mental well-being as the teacher is equally important. This aspect of preparing for a lesson-observation is often overlooked and poorly discussed in traditional teacher-training programmes, in my personal opinion.
  • I really liked the after-lesson tips: teachers need to hear no-nonsense advice like “Listen to the feedback, and take it to heart”. I really like how you encourage teachers to “take responsibility”: we live in a world of convenience coupled with flux, and this often causes adults to become resentful and play the ‘blame game’ when receiving constructive criticism. It’s important to detach any negative emotions from whatever feedback you receive, analyse what happened, and take the necessary action steps to become better next time. 

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