Hello, dedicated educators and champions of knowledge! As we gear up for another exciting academic year, it’s time to reflect on the lessons learned, the challenges overcome, and the fresh opportunities that lie ahead. The landscape of education is ever-evolving, and in 2023, teachers find themselves at the forefront of this transformation. Whether you’re a seasoned pro or a newbie, here are some key considerations to ponder as you embark on this new journey.
#1: Fostering Inclusivity and Diversity
The world is a vibrant tapestry of cultures, perspectives, and backgrounds, and your classroom is a microcosm of this beautiful diversity. As we step into the new academic year, make it a priority to create an inclusive and welcoming environment for all your students. Embrace multiculturalism through diverse teaching materials, celebrate different holidays and traditions, and encourage open discussions that allow everyone’s voice to be heard. By doing so, you’ll be shaping not only informed minds but also compassionate and empathetic individuals.
#2:Blending Technology and Tradition
The fusion of technology and traditional teaching methods is no longer a distant concept—it’s now a necessity. Embrace edtech tools that enhance learning experiences, from interactive apps to virtual field trips. However, remember that while technology can enrich education, the personal touch of face-to-face interactions and handwritten notes is equally valuable. Striking the right balance between digital innovation and human connection will be a hallmark of successful classrooms in the years to come.As I’ve mentioned in an earlier blog post, post-pandemic teaching is very different to what we did before COVID, mainly due to students becoming disenfranchised and disinterested with independent learning tasks that are heavily tech-dependent.
#3: Nurturing Critical Thinking and Adaptability
In an era marked by rapid change, the ability to think critically and adapt is a superpower. Encourage your students to question, analyze, and approach problems from multiple angles. Assign projects that require creative problem-solving and collaboration. By cultivating these skills, you’ll be equipping your students with tools that will serve them well in an ever-shifting world. Check out this blog post of mine about deep learning strategies for ideas to include more critical thinking in your lessons.
#4: Promoting Mental Health and Well-being
The past couple of years have underscored the importance of mental health and well-being. As a teacher, you’re not just an educator but also a source of support for your students. Keep an eye out for signs of stress or anxiety and create a safe space where students feel comfortable discussing their feelings. Incorporate mindfulness exercises or short breaks to help students recharge. Remember, nurturing their emotional well-being is just as crucial as nurturing their intellect.
5. Flexibility in Assessment and Evaluation
Gone are the days when rigid exams were the sole measure of a student’s progress. Embrace a more flexible approach to assessment, including project-based evaluations, portfolios, and real-world application of knowledge. This allows students to showcase their skills in ways that align with their strengths and interests, fostering a deeper understanding of the subject matter.
Conclusion
As you step into the new academic year and beyond, keep in mind that you are not just imparting knowledge but shaping the future. By fostering inclusivity, embracing technology, nurturing critical thinking, promoting well-being, and adapting your assessment methods, you’re not only equipping your students with tools for success but also inspiring them to become lifelong learners and responsible global citizens. Here’s to a year filled with growth, discovery, and countless “a-ha” moments! Happy teaching! 🌟
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As we bid farewell to the hustle and bustle of the academic year, we find ourselves at the threshold of a much-needed break: the glorious summer vacation. While some might envision teachers lounging on sandy beaches, sipping fruity drinks, and enjoying endless relaxation, the reality is that our time off is much more precious than that. As a current teacher myself, I understand the importance of making the most out of our time away from the classroom. So, let’s explore some fantastic ways we can recharge, grow, and make this summer unforgettable!
Unwind and Recharge
First things first, take some well-deserved time to unwind and relax. Teaching is a rewarding yet challenging profession that demands our mental and emotional energy throughout the school year. Use this summer break to rejuvenate yourself. Whether it’s spending a lazy day reading your favorite book, indulging in hobbies, or simply binge-watching your favorite shows, cherish this time of rest and self-care.
Travel & Explore
Traveling not only broadens our horizons but also rekindles our creativity and passion for teaching. Exploring new places, cultures, and cuisines can inspire us in unexpected ways. If you can, plan a trip to a destination you’ve always wanted to visit. However, if travel isn’t in the cards, become a tourist in your own town or city. There’s always something new to discover nearby!
Professional Development
Summer vacation is the perfect time for personal and professional growth. Consider attending workshops, conferences, or online courses to expand your teaching skills and knowledge. Engaging in professional development not only benefits you but also enriches your classroom and benefits your students.
Reflect & Set Goals
Take some time to reflect on the past academic year. What worked well in your teaching practices? What could be improved? Set goals for the upcoming year, both for yourself and your students. Goal-setting provides a sense of direction and motivation to start the new year with renewed enthusiasm.
Connect with Colleagues
Summer is a great opportunity to reconnect with fellow teachers. Organize informal meet-ups, picnics, or potlucks. Sharing experiences, exchanging ideas, and supporting each other can create a stronger and more vibrant teaching community.
Pursue Passions & Hobbies
Remember those hobbies and interests you had to set aside during the busy school year? Now’s the time to pick them up again! Whether it’s painting, gardening, playing a musical instrument, or engaging in sports, invest time in your passions. These activities provide a healthy outlet for stress and enhance your overall well-being.
Volunteer & Give Back
Summer is not just about leisure; it’s also an excellent opportunity to give back to the community. Look for local volunteer opportunities that align with your interests and skills. Whether it’s tutoring, mentoring, or participating in community events, making a positive impact can be incredibly fulfilling.
Plan for the Classroom
Although it’s essential to relax during the summer, a little classroom preparation won’t hurt. Organize your teaching materials, update your lesson plans, and brainstorm fresh ideas for the upcoming year. This way, you’ll start the new school year feeling more prepared and confident.
As teachers, we play a vital role in shaping the future of our students, and to do that effectively, we need to take care of ourselves first. So, make the most of this summer vacation, embrace the sun, and let it invigorate your spirit. Here’s to a well-deserved break filled with relaxation, growth, and lots of unforgettable moments!
Enjoy your summer, and see you in the next academic year, recharged and ready to make a difference!
With sunny smiles,
Richard
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What is the first thing that comes to mind when you hear the word ‘diversity’?
Most people will come up with a variety of answers, which may include race, gender, economic background or even neurodiversity. As educators, we must first be able to recognize diversity when we see it (which isn’t always obvious), and then work to both embrace it and manage the challenges posed by it. Classrooms are becoming more and more diverse as international travel and the ability to work overseas become easier, migration increases, and neurodiversity becomes easier to diagnose. The cost of living crisis has also hit schools hard, and we are seeing more children coming to class without the tech tools that some of their more affluent peers may have, or even basic essentials such as stationary.
Today, I’ve invited Kiara Miller from The Speakingnerd to share her ideas on how teachers can respond to the unique challanges present within diverse classrooms.
Diversity is a growing reality of the modern world. Whether it’s in the education sector, communities, the workplace, or political realm, the age of diversity is here to stay. Diversity generally refers to the state of varying dimensions.
Diversity commonly captures the differences among people (i.e. culturally, politically, socially, and religion-wise among other aspects). Diversity also takes into consideration age, social background, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation, race, and belief differences among people. Like in any other area of life, diversity in education presents administrators with both opportunities and challenges.
Diversity in the classroom is an excellent avenue for teaching the immensity of the world we live in. When students are introduced to the vastness of the world we live in, they learn to embrace differences at the personal, regional, national, and global levels. They also attain better insights and skills.
Diversity in the classroom can exist due to varying intellectual abilities or learning disabilities, interpersonal or social skills, beliefs, and language differences. Diversity in educational institutions, including universities, isn’t a myth due to a range of factors like globalization, technological advancements, and scalability goals.
However, despite the fact that the world is now a global village, diversity presents a range of issues. Within classrooms, diversity cultivates several challenges for teachers, and these include the following:
#1: Complex disciplinary issues
Diversity in the classroom can cultivate a new set of disciplinary issues. Their complexity can also exacerbate due to equality and inclusion problems in the educational institution, or even the fixed-mindset nature of school leadership. Some teachers may find it difficult to manage learners of diverse backgrounds, gender, religion, and different languages.
It can significantly worsen behavioral issues and also lead to teacher burnout. In situations like this, teachers who lack emotional intelligence and professional agility may find it hard to prevent and control disciplinary issues.
Leaders, on the other hand, must check their leadership styles in order to exercise authority as per the extent of diversity. There are different leadership theories and understanding plus assessing their efficacy can help teachers manage diversity effectively. The most common disciplinary issues in a diverse classroom may be aggression, bullying, disrespect, and defiance.
In these situations, teachers need to exercise excellent overall behaviour management skills and communicate regularly with heads of phase, line managers, senior leadership, school counsellors and even parents to gather information and respond appropriately to what may turn out to be a range of evolving scenarios.
#2: Communication and language issues
With the fact that students may come from different backgrounds and nationalities, there may be a language barrier. It may be difficult for teachers to communicate with students from other regions or nations. With such communication inefficiencies, it becomes difficult for students to understand the concepts in the classroom.
It will also require a teacher to leverage creative teaching strategies that can help learners comprehend material better. On the other hand, foreign students may find it hard to communicate their needs or attain the help they need. This can trigger feelings of loneliness and depression in students.
#3: Observance of holidays
Diversity in a classroom requires a proper approach to inclusion. Failure can trigger feelings of injustice and poor conduct among students. This means that the institution must ensure they celebrate cultural and belief differences. For example, it must recognize official public holidays like Christmas, Independence Day and others. This helps to prevent student outrage.
#4: Teamwork and collaboration difficulties
Diversity in the classroom also impacts teamwork and collaboration. Differences among students can either help them learn how to collaborate or they can prevent them from working together. This can present complications in teaching such students as they may not be willing to interact with others in order to attain new insights. In this case, students become highly teacher dependent. In the long run, it increases pressure on the teacher’s side.
#5: Individual differences
Diversity in the classroom can increase the likelihood of individual differences. Students may fail to recognize and respect each other due to their race, culture, or ethnic orientation. Such differences can affect communication and collaboration in a classroom. It may also prevent students from conducting group assignments or collaborating during extra co-curricular activities. This can hinder progress and academic achievement.
Managing Diversity in the Classroom
Diverse classrooms require a unique art of classroom management whether at K-12, college, or vocational level. Diversity challenges are surely predicted to increase and their management may prove difficult in case educators aren’t professionally trained in this area. A lack of professional experience in managing diverse classroom environments can increase behavioral issues and also affect students’ academic performance.
Diversity management in classrooms requires a range of guidelines to be set and followed. First and foremost, the educational institution must be open to equality and inclusion. Equality and inclusion in educational institutes are fundamental for creating a positive learning environment.
Generally, an environment that can help students learn, share ideas, collaborate and cultivate quality networks is the goal. Additionally, there should be programs to help students learn the common language to improve communication. That should be emphasized before joining an educational institution or within the first few months of commencement.
Besides that, there should be no partiality or favoritism. School rules and policies must apply to all students to ensure respect for all cultures and individuals. With this, chances of disciplinary issues will be reduced and teachers will be able to manage classrooms better.
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Good teaching is built upon the foundations of effective classroom management. Most teachers recognise this, and I believe that’s why my 2015 book, The Quick Guide to Classroom Management, became an award-winning bestseller within a very short timeframe. We know that order must be maintained in the classroom for deep learning to take place, but how do we maintain that order in a way that is not confrontational, or stifling, for our students?
Thankfully, we have the wise words and fresh perspective of a great expert to guide us today. I’ve invited Mitch Metzger from Destination TEFL, Bangkok, to share his top tips for using proactive and reactive classroom management strategieswith our students.
Let’s face it, classroom management is the hardest part about teaching abroad.
Managing a classroom in ANY country is an immense challenge. It requires emotional intelligence and a deep understanding of human behavior. It involves aspects of psychology, educational pedagogy, and even philosophy.
Managing a classroom abroad means doing all of this on TOP of the fact that your students don’t speak your language!
ESL classroom management is a unique and, honestly, daunting challenge. Even with all of the right books and the best TEFL training, it can still take years to truly master managing student behavior.
But there are simple mindset and habit changes you can make that will immediately improve your ability to manage a classroom abroad. Mastery may take years, but applying what you learn in this post can have you managing like a pro in a matter of weeks.
ESL classroom management is a challenge, but it’s also an incredible opportunity. An opportunity to improve your EQ. An opportunity to become an expert at body language and non-verbal communication. An opportunity to learn transferable professional, personal, and leadership skills that will change your life even once you move on from the classroom.
Studies have also shown that these skills in teachers have a direct and significant impact on student achievement. At the end of the day, it’s all about our students.
Working to change their lives is what truly changes our lives.
So grab a notepad and pen (or, let’s be real, your phone), and let’s dive into some strategies that will put you on the path to classroom management mastery!
What is Classroom Management, actually?
Before we get into the secret sauce, it’s essential to first understand what we’re actually talking about when we say “classroom management”.
Because it’s not what most people think it is.
For many people, those words elicit memories of teachers yelling, sending kids out of the room, and otherwise strictly enforcing a set of rules “because I said so”.
Think about it, how did most of your teachers enforce classroom rules when you were growing up? Yeah, ours too…
Unfortunately, monkey see monkey do and we’re just really smart monkeys. Many of us, myself included early on in my career, fall back on the same disciplinary tactics of our teachers.
But that’s not what classroom management is supposed to be. At least, not great classroom management!
Great classroom management is about getting the most out of your students. Creating a safe space where they can make mistakes and try again. Developing deep bonds and trust with your students. Helping them to create a better vision for their own futures.
Most of all, it means being a true role model. We can’t expect students to do as we say and not as we do. After all, did we when we were young?
So how can we change the paradigm of classroom management? Good question, probably a bit too big to be solved in a single blog post (I smell a series). However, there is one simple shift that can make an immense difference.
Simple, but not necessarily easy.
Proactive vs. Reactive Classroom Management
Understanding (and actually creating habits around) proactive versus reactive classroom management strategies seems like a small change. However, it will forever change the way you manage your classroom, especially while teaching English abroad.
The difference is in the fundamental approach you take to potential issues in your classroom.
Reactive strategies involve solving problems that have already occurred. Disciplining “bad” behavior, what most people think of when they hear classroom management, falls into this category.
Proactive strategies are about anticipating potential problems and putting systems in place to prevent them from happening in the first place.
I like to say reactive strategies are putting out the fire. Proactive strategies are not putting a candle near the drapes.
After all, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.
This is all nice in theory, but what do these different approaches look like in practice? What are some concrete strategies you can actually use in the classroom?
Reactive Classroom Management
Let’s start with reactive management behaviors. Now this isn’t necessarily “what not to do” (though some of these definitely fall into this category). Problems will inevitably arise in the classroom, and sometimes you’ll need to ‘react’.
However, these should be more of a last resort. Only leaning on these strategies, or using the wrong reactive strategies, is where problems can arise.
So, let’s look at various reactive strategies and see which might be effective and which should be left behind.
Reactive strategies to avoid
Some habits you’ll want to be careful to NOT get into include:
Yelling at students
Using shame as a discipline strategy (easier to fall into than it sounds)
Removing students from the classroom
Getting emotional or visibly frustrated
Not checking your biases
Expecting compliance
One thing we always train our teachers to take special note of is this: You can’t expect immediate compliance.
The truth is, respect and trust have to be earned. It doesn’t matter if the people you’re leading are 50 years old or five, you have to do the work to earn their buy-in.
Too many teachers expect their students to immediately listen to everything they say and get distraught or upset when that doesn’t happen.
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But students are people too, and we don’t particularly like taking orders from people we barely know and trust. Right?
Effective reactive strategies
Like we said, problems in the classroom are inevitable. Occasionally you’re going to have to put out some fires (hopefully not literally), so it helps to have a good extinguisher.
Some effective strategies include:
Practicing patience and empathy, even in stressful situations
Having a word or action that refocuses attention on you (e.g., clapping patterns, short phrases, etc.)
Keeping other students busy with a task while addressing issues
Having a calming space in the classroom students can go to when feeling overwhelmed.
This is NOT a timeout. It should be a comfortable space (seating, plants, maybe even a little fountain) students want to go to, you just have to train them on when they can be there.
Adding these strategies to your teacher tool belt will help you solve problems whenever they occur.
Proactive Classroom Management
Now time for the real secret sauce! Proactive classroom management strategies will completely change your classroom when done right.
So let’s learn how to do them right!
Here are 3 simple strategies to prevent problems from arising in the first place.
#1 – Be completely prepared for EVERY class
Let’s be real, it can be tough to prepare 20+ engaging classes per week. As a teacher, it’s easy to slide into a bad habit of not fully preparing for every class.
Whether this is just teaching straight out of the book, or over-relying on worksheets from the internet, underprepared classes are the top culprit for why students misbehave in the first place. We know that young learners (and hell, even people our age) have short attention spans. So it shouldn’t come as a surprise that if students aren’t engaged consistently throughout the lesson they’ll lose focus, and this inevitably leads to classroom behavior issues.
So put in the groundwork and prep your lessons.
Work to make them physically and intellectually engaging. Challenge your students. Find ways to make the material relevant to their lives. And most importantly, have all of your lessons fully resourced and ready to go.
Another pro tip here is to work on your transitions. Any ‘gap’ in the lesson is an opportunity for students to potentially misbehave, so filling those gaps ensures students don’t veer off track.
This tip isn’t really fun, because it requires a bit more work on your part. But a bit more work in the preparation will pay off immensely in the form of better lessons, stronger relationships with your students, and better mental health. After all, nothing is more taxing than an ‘out of control’ classroom.
#2 – Get to know your students
This seems like a given, but you’d be shocked (and appalled) at the number of ESL teachers who don’t even bother to learn all of their students’ names.
In their defense (kind of), I’ve had jobs where I have taught hundreds of students. It can be tough to learn that many names, let alone get to know them all.
Yet too many teachers lean on that excuse as a reason not to really get to know their students at all. They spend all of their time in the ‘teachers’ lounge’, or only interact with their students for the 55 minutes of English class each day.
The truth is, though, there is NO better classroom management strategy than strong bonds with your students. If they trust you, if they respect you, if they like you, they will listen to you.
So what can you actually do to bond with your students?
Get a class roster, make name cards, or employ other strategies to learn their names
ASK them about their interests, and talk about yours
Eat lunch with them or play with them at recess from time to time
Come to school a bit early, or do your grading at school and leave a bit late
This doesn’t have to be too much, maybe 15 minutes. But you can get a lot of informal facetime with your students in those quiet little moments before or after school.
Learn a bit of their language (and practice where they can see you!)
If you follow these simple tips you’ll be amazed at how quickly you can get to know your students!
#3 – Let the students make the rules
I know, it sounds crazy. But hear us out…
Letting your students make the rules can be a powerful technique when it comes to actually enforcing the rules. Think about it: aren’t you more likely to follow rules you come up with yourself?
People naturally don’t like being told what to do, so if you give the students the power to decide what rules are fair then they’re much more likely to follow through.
It also makes it way easier for you to enforce the rules. Instead of saying “do this because I said so” you get to fall back on “Hey, these aren’t even my rules. YOU came up with these!”. Trust me, the latter is far superior.
Now, you’ll have to steer the conversation a bit to make sure some essential rules are hit. But this can be as easy as one or two leading questions. “Is it a good idea to talk if the teacher is talking?”
In the ESL classroom, you may also need the help of a co-teacher that speaks the students’ native language. It doesn’t take a really high level of English to make some of these rules, but if your students are at a lower level it’ll be good to have someone there to help formulate their thoughts if they don’t have the vocab for it.
The final proactive management tip
To wrap things up, I want to leave you with one more proactive tip.
Take care of YOURSELF!
Yes, proper self-care and work life balance is absolutely essential for classroom management. If you’re overwhelmed or burnt out, it will inevitably impact your students. Energy is contagious, and as the leader you are the conduit for the classes’ energy. This makes it important to learn to control your own energy.
So meditate, journal, go for walks, do yoga, eat healthy, travel on the weekends, pursue hobbies that interest you. Set up good, sustainable systems for work life balance. Grow in areas you feel are important for your life. The best teachers by FAR are happy teachers (not an opinion, studies show this to be true), so be sure to do things that make you happy.
If you do that, then teaching itself will become one of those things!
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The best definition I have found for what ‘Classroom Management’ actuallymeans comes from Carol Weinstein and Nancy Schafer at Oxford Bibliographies:
Classroom management can be defined as the actions teachers take to establish and sustain an environment that fosters students’ academic achievement as well as their social, emotional, and moral growth. In other words, the goal of classroom management is not order for order’s sake, but order for the sake of learning.
When order breaks down in the classroom, student learning is affected and teachers’ stress levels, burnout and anxiety rise – which sometimes leads to teachers making the decision to leave the profession (McCarthy et. al., 2022). It is therefore in every teacher’s best interest to master the fundamental techniques of effective classroom management.
Today, I have invited Tina Hennessy, Head Trainer at Destination TEFL‘s Siem Reap centre in Cambodia, to share her top tips for teachers who want to improve their classroom managementskills.
I’m not sure if what they say about classroom presence is true or not – either you’ve got it or you don’t! If you do, it’s likely that you won’t have too many problems with classroom management, because more than half the battle is won just by your presence in the classroom. Students look up to you, and you have complete control over the class because you demand high standards from them.
If you need help, here are five tips that may assist with classroom management. As with most ailments: prevention is better than cure. Once you’ve lost their attention, it’s harder to rein them back in.
Here’s how you could prevent problems from cropping up:
Be prepared: Being prepared for your lesson shows in your body language and this reflects in your delivery of lessons, conversely being under-prepared shows too! A good plan, a complete set of resources (from working whiteboard markers and flashcards, to crib notes) – anything you need should be organised and ready for use, without you having to worry about them. As you segue from one stage to the next, your students shouldn’t have time for distractions. If, however, your transitions lead to dead time (time with your back to the class), you’re likely to have bored students who will find something else to do.
Use students’ names: calling out their names ensures they’ll do what they need to do, to not be “called out” for negative reasons. Rather than pointing and saying, “You at the back, please be seated”. (‘YOU’ will probably turn his/her head and pretend to look at another student and pretend they’re not at fault.) Using their names will leave no room for doubt. Learning their names also shows that you care, and knowing that their teacher cares, will give them more reason to stay engaged.
Limit distractions: This could mean anything from distractions on a student’s desk, to visuals in a classroom, to views outside the classroom, to sounds. Try to limit whatever is within your control. Establish classroom routines where students start the class with cleared desks – or have only what is required on their desks – no extra books, stationary, or even water bottles. If your students have phones, request them to turn OFF vibrate mode, or put their phones inside their bags, rather than in their pockets.
Use non-verbal hand signals: Avoid students calling out aloud to request permission to use the toilet, for example, by having a hand signal for the same. Design similar signals for other circumstances too. When the student gets your attention by doing the signal, a simple nod of your head will grant permission. Rather than him asking you a question and having you answer it – thereby distracting the entire class and possibly diverting your train of thought.
Call and response: We know all too well that even at the best of times, you’re going to have situations when you’ve lost their attention, the class is loud and they’re bouncing off the walls and you do actually need to try and rein them in! Here are my favourites:
T (teacher): “Yo! Yo! Yo!” Ss (students): “Yo! What’s up!” (Great for middle-schoolers.)
T: “1-2-3” Ss: “Eyes on me” T: “1,2” Ss: “Eyes on you“
Start the chant and continue till the whole class is responding. The first few times you do this, maybe some students won’t join in. Carry on – even if it means you’ve said it 8-10 times, and the rest of the students will egg on the “stragglers”.
And, finally, when all else fails, and your voice won’t work – stand still and silent with your right hand raised over your head. As you make eye contact with the students they must raise their right hand, stop doing whatever they’re doing and stop speaking. They make eye contact with the others who must in turn do the same. Think of this as the opposite of a flash mob. Once the entire gathering is quiet, you have their undivided attention.
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An unfortunate stigma has been attached to Teacher Talking Time (TTT) in recent years. A common misconception is that the more a teacher talks, the less effective their lesson will be. This is simply not true. Teachers MUST talk to their students during lessons – for many and varied reasons. In today’s blog post I will describe the best ways to make use of Teacher Talking Time within the classroom.
Accompanying Podcast Episode:
The official consensus
Unfortunately, the official advice published by much of world’s most respected educationalists is misleading at best, and downright inaccurate at worst. Just take a look at these examples:
“TTT often means that the teacher is giving the students information that they could be finding out for themselves, such as grammar rules, the meanings of vocabulary items and corrections. Teacher explanations alone are often tedious, full of terminology and difficult to follow. There may be no indication of whether the students have understood.” –British Council
“Some EFL/ESL researchers say that students should speak for 70% of the lesson. Teachers should speak for 30% of the time. Of course, some lessons may require longer explanations on the part of the teacher. Or other lessons may only require a minimal amount of explanation, and 90% or more may be devoted to conversational activities. But this 70/30 figure works well as a goal in most classroom situations.” – Kostadinovska-Stojchevska et. al, International Journal of Applied Language and Cultural Studies
The majority of the research on TTT has been carried out in English teaching/EFL/EAL settings – yet the conclusions derived are overwhelmingly extrapolated to other subject areas. This, in my opinion, presents everyday teachers with a double-edged sword: bad conclusions to begin with, applied to subject areas beyond the scope of the available research.
Teachers MUST talk to students
Let’s address the British Council’s statement on TTT first – that TTT replaces student-led inquiry all too often, and that teacher-explanations can be tedious, and that there may be no indication of whether the students have understood the content.
This simply isn’t true for most teachers. We are not robots that deliver monotonic talks from lecterns. We use voice inflections, quick-fire questioning, repetition of key words, movement and mannerisms and we are vigilant in checking that students have understood content along the way by providing directed tasks, such as worksheets, learning games and live quizzes.
Let’s also address the student-led research point the British Council makes. Project work, group explorations and directed investigations that encourage students to discover content for themselves work well for low stakes classes that have moderate, or simple content to get through in a large amount of time. Problems arise, however, when teachers try to do these exploration/student-led discovery tasks on a regular basis with advanced-level students who have massive amounts of content to get through in a limited amount of time. Such teachers often find that they fall behind schedule, because such tasks take up large amounts of time, and that students pick up big misconceptions and incomplete knowledge along the way. This time could be better spent on teacher-directed tasks, such as slide presentations, focussed explanations using the smartboard and past-exam papers, that offer clarity in a timely manner.
The 70/30 rule proposed by Kostadinovska-Stojchevska et. al. is also impractical in most subject areas, most of the time. Just think about all of the reasons why teachers may need to talk within a lesson:
To welcome students into class and begin starter activities, or to provide initial instructions – e.g. “Good morning, Year 10. Please take your seats and please log on to Google Classroom”
To provide instructions for project work, such as experiments, practical work, model building, group creation tasks, homework, etc.
To prompt students in real-time as we’re walking around the room – e.g. “Joshua, don’t forget to underline the title”, “Marisa, please highlight the key equation”, etc.
To explain things – e.g. by writing out worked solutions on the whiteboard/smartboard and describing the rationale for each step of the process
To sanction students and have those necessary one-to-one conversations, and to use effective behaviour management techniques (such as building rapport and using questioning to bring students back on task)
As we can see from this list (and I’m sure there are more examples that you can think of), teachers need to talk A LOT during every lesson they deliver. In fact, one could really push some buttons within educational circles by stating an obvious truth – that effective lessons actually involve lots of TTT, as opposed just to the small amount we have been led to believe.
Conclusion
A shift in focus needs to happen within the teaching profession – from TTT to variety of tasks delivered in lessons. All too often, lesson observers cite excessive TTT as a weakness when, in actuality, lack of variety may have been a factor in lowering the effectiveness of a lesson.
TTT in-and-of itself is not detrimental to learning: it’s the ways in which we use our TTT that matter.
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Teachers are expected to demonstrate high competency in a range of skill areas. Some skills that may come to mind are personal organisation, classroom management, behaviour management and confidence in the use of educational technology. One skill that may not immediately come to mind, however, is leadership: yet this is vital, as teachers are required to be good leaders of their students (and, sometimes, other teachers). Today, I’ve invited Mitch from Destination TEFL, Bangkok, to to share his tips on how to be a good leader in the classroom.
Truly great teachers must also be leaders. By devoting time and energy towards developing leadership skills, along with technical teaching skills, teachers can make a profound impact on their students that transcends the information they teach.
Leadership seems to be a bit of a buzzword these days, but maybe there’s a reason for that.
Just take a look around. In government, the corporate world, and yes, in education too, our world seems to be suffering from a lack of leadership. We have a surplus of bosses, managers, and influencers, but not enough true leaders.
But together we’re going to change that.
The classroom is your domain, one place in the world where you truly can make a difference. You may not be able to fix the government, or even the overall culture at your school (toxic bosses tend not to take feedback well), but you can absolutely change your classroom and, in so doing, your students’ lives.
Here’s how to do it.
What is true leadership?
In order to become great leaders in the classroom, we need to really nail down what leadership actually is. And more importantly, what it isn’t.
Good leadership is NOT:
Being right all the time
Never making mistakes
Making all of the decisions
Always being strong, confident, and outgoing
Surprising, right? Many of the usual stereotypes we have about leadership (ones that many leaders today try a bit too hard to represent) aren’t actually what leadership is about at all.
True leadership, especially in a classroom full of students, is much more nuanced and, honestly, more accessible than many are led to believe.
In contrast to the list above, true leadership in the classroom looks a lot more like:
Being human, and acknowledging mistakes
Letting your students make decisions, and teaching them to make the right ones
Being the best version of yourself, not fitting into boxes
Focusing on empathy and emotional intelligence
Real leadership is about putting others first, and doing your best to help them become the best versions of themselves they can be. As teachers, this is something that probably sounds familiar to us!
So now that we know what leadership is, how do we grow in these areas and incorporate them into our classroom?
Becoming a leader in the classroom
The first step in becoming a better leader is to know that you can!
People are conditioned to believe that you are either born with leadership qualities or not, and this is true for something like being naturally outgoing. But that’s not what great leaders are really made of.
“An AMAZING book for teachers!”
Emotional intelligence is something you can work on. Taking responsibility and acknowledging mistakes is something you can work on. Becoming the best version of yourself is something you can work on.
Real leadership is accessible, and it’s accessible to you.
All becoming a leader in the classroom takes is recognizing areas you want to grow in as a leader, focusing on developing yourself in those areas, and (most importantly) finding opportunities to implement what you’re working on in the classroom.
You listen to their advice and start doing things like labeling your emotions, practicing empathy, and opening yourself up to feedback. The more you do this, the more you notice your sensitivity to other people’s emotions increasing.
Now it’s time for the most important step: bringing it into the classroom!
What better group of people to practice empathy and emotional intelligence with than your students? You start looking for root causes of misbehavior, and the emotions that underlie them. You teach your students to become aware of their own emotions, and the emotions of their classmates. Most importantly, you provide an example of how to do this.
Congratulations, you have not only become a better teacher, but you’ve also become a true leader. You are now impacting your students not only through what you teach them, but how you teach them.
You’re no longer just teaching them about English, now you’re teaching them about life.
Final thoughts
Becoming a great leader, and a great teacher, takes time. It isn’t something that can be done in one semester: it’s an ongoing process of self-discovery and self-improvement.
However, as people teaching abroad, we’re no strangers to this process. Living and working abroad is a journey of self-discovery, finding new and exciting pieces of yourself in different contexts and cultures, growing in ways you never thought possible.
Leadership in the classroom is another one of those ways, and it’s an area of self-improvement that will end up changing not only your own life but the lives of others.
At the end of the day, that’s what teaching is all about!
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.
