Succeed in TEFL - Continuing Professional Development

Teaching English as a Foreign Language with Teach Yourself

David Riddell

• Publisher: Teach Yourself
• Year: 2015
• ISBN:
  9781444796070
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: English Language
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

The ultimate guide for developing your career as an English teacher. Succeed in TEFL is packed with information on how to develop within the profession including chapters on: - getting the most out of observations
- teaching exam classes
- becoming a trainer
-doing action research
- using online resources
- becoming a manager
- and much more! This is an indispensable book for all EFL teachers: a conclusive guide to making the most of your teaching experience and moving ahead in your career. The author draws on his wealth of knowledge in the fields of teaching, training and management to address the key issues facing today's EFL teachers. Also included is a range of case studies and interviews from teachers with experience of working in different countries and contexts. These bring fresh insight to the topics, which combined with numerous tasks, makes this an engaging and practical Continuing Professional Development (CPD) handbook. This book is ideal for teachers looking for new ways to develop their expertise as well as academic managers wanting fresh ideas on how to foster Continuing Processional Development (CPD) in their staff.Rely on Teach Yourself, trusted by learners for over 75 years.

SECTION 1

A new beginning

1

Don’t sit still

What does ‘Succeed in TEFL’ mean?

When I asked some working teachers to give me a quick answer to the question ‘What does succeeding in this profession mean for you?’, I received the following range of answers:

1 ‘Becoming the best possible teacher that I can be’

2 ‘Career development in the direction I want’

3 ‘Being a good teacher and having a row of smiling students in front of me’

4 ‘Carrying a suitcase, being intrepid, and arriving at a destination somewhere to teach and begin a new adventure’

5 ‘Doing it well’

6 ‘Development and growth – it’s a process’

I love the wisdom of 6, I love the simplicity of 5, I love the spirit of 4 and I love the image of 3. I love the ambition of 2 and I love the goal of 1.

Bringing all these thoughts and ideas together, what are we left with when we are defining the title ‘Succeed in TEFL’? Maybe it is about just ‘doing a good job and getting better at it’ and in so doing helping your learners to learn, develop, cope and be more confident, to enjoy learning and be comfortable doing it. And let’s not forget being professional and reliable, being a good and supportive colleague, doing the day-to-day tasks that your organization requires, and seeking out opportunities to ‘get better’ at what you do. If you end up enjoying it, all those other points such as travelling and having some flexibility of hours would be a bonus.

So how do you do it well and get better at it? Some time ago I interviewed a school director about this and, after saying that ‘teachers need to be looking to develop themselves’, he remarked that ‘a teacher who is sitting still is really going backwards’. That line stuck with me and became the title for this chapter because the sentiment behind it is undoubtedly true: this is a profession where – as teachers or trainers or line managers – you have to strive continuously to develop, to do a good job, to get better. Thus we have ‘continuing professional development’ as the second part of this book’s title. This is the key to succeeding in the profession as a teacher, and maybe then taking on new or additional roles later in your career.

What is continuing professional development?

My first book (Teach EFL, Hodder Education, first published in 2001 and with a fourth edition in 2014) focused on becoming a teacher (of English as a foreign or second language). This book concentrates on being a teacher and a trainer and specifically developing professionally and thereby getting better at what you do. It suggests routes that might be taken for developing a career in TEFL, and firmly grounds career development as contingent upon continuing (or continuous) professional development, or CPD.

CPD is, I believe, the root and catalyst of positive career progression and is the key to succeeding in this profession and to being a better teacher. Without such development a teacher becomes less effective in the classroom, less valuable to their organization, and less likely to make career progress. So CPD is the heart of this book. The book discusses ways to develop and grow, it demonstrates possible challenges to embrace, and it uncovers comfort zones to emerge from.

Keith Harding, in Modern English Teacher (Volume 18 Number 3, July 2009) says that what characterizes continuing professional development is that it is:

• continuous – professionals should always be looking for ways to deal with new challenges and improve performance

• the responsibility of the individual teacher who identifies his or her own needs and how to meet those needs

• evaluative rather than descriptive – so that the teacher understands the impact of the activity

• an essential component of professional life, not an extra

My experience of CPD and career progression

My students constantly remind me that I am ‘of a certain age’. When they have no idea who Elvis Presley is, or never knew a time without mobile phones, or have no idea what an LP is, then I know that my journey has been quite a long one. I thought it would be beneficial to me in writing this book to think back over the years to various examples of when I have done something to further my professional growth, big things and small. Most of my students these days weren’t even born when I started teaching, but that in itself is another joy of the job – you may grow older, but your students seem to remain ageless.

In my first year or two of teaching, I do not recall being aware at the time of any specific experiences of development. And yet, when I reflect further, I realize that I never stopped developing during that time because I was always teaching new classes, new students, new levels, using different books, listening to more experienced colleagues, using different resources, teaching myself unfamiliar grammar before planning how I would teach my students that same grammar, getting better at planning and at timing, and gradually growing in confidence. And the important thing is to recognize all these things because there’s no point in getting better at something if you don’t recognize that improvement is taking place and what you can build on.

What, then, do I remember from those early years and beyond? Here are some examples in no particular order:

• Being observed by my Director of Studies was terrifying, but then I was reassured and encouraged by his feedback and suggestions. (Thanks, John!)

• Agreeing early on to be a regular teacher of the TOEFL exam class taught me so much about language use and rules, the demands of teaching an exam class and the different approach needed compared with a regular General English class.

• Being given tips and ideas for my lessons from my colleagues in the staffroom reduced my preparation time, and added to my still-bare collection of resources for future recycling. Such professional exchange among peers remains a powerful form of development.

• I learned ways of dealing with students who were bored, unmotivated or difficult for any reason – experience helped, as did the advice of more senior colleagues. As part of this, working in different schools and encountering different nationalities and cultures have always been key aspects of my development.

• Attending some of the school’s teacher development sessions provided me with more ideas and techniques to use in the classroom.

• Running some teacher development sessions myself gave me added responsibility and the chance to share my ideas with colleagues.

• Doing other courses helped me be a student again and reminded me of some of the challenges faced by my own students.

• Becoming a marker of Cambridge exam papers helped me in my own experience of teaching exam classes.

• Becoming a pre-service teacher trainer on what is now called the Cambridge ESOL CELTA course, just four years into my career, was a steep and invaluable move for me; it really helped my own teaching as well as giving me other, non-teaching skills.

• Taking up my first position in management exposed me to a new set of responsibilities and skills and brought many benefits and lessons.

• Devising new materials or even new lessons to try out for the first time, and countless occasions of using a new course book, developed my ability to use, adapt and supplement material, and to select appropriate material and tasks.

• Writing my first book forced me to revisit the basics of effective teaching, and this one is focusing my mind on further ways I can continue my own development and help others improve theirs.

• Every time I have started work in a new school I have had the opportunity to work with new colleagues in a new context.

• Becoming a Cambridge assessor, and later Joint Chief Assessor, gave me the chance to visit schools across the world and, as part of my visits, to pick up on how different schools in different contexts approached the same course, and how each school organized its timetables and classes.

• Moving into online training was a significant aspect of development for me, both in terms of the type of course and course participant I was teaching, but also because it required me to become more familiar with technology, never my strongest point!

• Working as a ‘standby’ teacher, where I had to go in and teach someone else’s class at very short notice if that teacher rang in sick, taught me how to plan quickly and adapt to different types of class over a short period of time.

• Reading articles and publications relevant to my work and professional interests has helped me keep up to date with new ideas.

• Watching a lesson of mine that had been recorded wasn’t particularly comfortable, but it highlighted features that I needed to work on.

Just making this list has been valuable as a reminder of some of the things I have done, and made me think about what I can do next…

Who is this book for?

The focus in this book is on teachers of adults, but most of what follows could apply to those teaching young learners and to those working in different contexts. I have interviewed professionals who have experienced many different working environments and their contributions will make the content diverse and relevant to a wide range of teachers of language.

The book will discuss many different ways a teacher or trainer can develop, some of the ideas being familiar but others perhaps less so. The book is aimed primarily at the following groups:

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Table of contents

• Cover 
• Title
• Acknowledgements
• Contents 
• Section 1: A new beginning
• Section 2: First steps
• Section 3: Later steps
• Section 4: Global views and reflections
• Glossary
• Useful web addresses
• Copyright