The background
This post starts with a post that I found to be discussed with my adult B2+ students.
Well, first of all, that very sentence, just as it is. Yes, they exist, these adult students. After ten years I am back in the classroom with a group of adults who are not my trainees.
The other contributing factor is one of the articles that we used as the basis for one of the lessons. My students work in the area of IT and they are top notch experts, great at what they do. It was very interesting to listen to their comments and to compare their attitude to CPD with what we do in our EFL world. This is how this article came together.
All of the ideas presented there have been divided into the usual that are the staple of our EFL lives (at least in my opinion) and the less common but interesting solutions and, later on, I added some of the things that I have tested on myself.
Our bread and butter
The most interesting thing is that, compared with the other professions, teachers do LOADS to develop professionally on daily basis and, regardless of where we are, as regards our professional expertise and the number of years in the classroom, CPD aka continual professional development, is one of the buzz words. Throughout our careers. We talk about it, we think of ways of getting better at what we do, we push ourselves and, sometimes, too, we purposefully neglect it, too. But we are all aware of it. It was somewhat a shock to the system (albeit a mild one!) to find out that not everyone does and that for some professionals the idea of, say, an appraisal meeting with a supervisor, might be of the ‘absolutely out of the question’ kind.
Some of the techniques and recommendations are indeed our typical everyday. Reading, networking and becoming a part of the teaching community, participating in conferences or just having your best teaching friend (hugs, Vita!) and your best teacher training friend (hello, Vika!) is something that we do regularly. Not to mention reflection which is a part of the everyday teaching life, day after day, lesson after lesson. Sometimes it seems that in the classroom I am like this huge searchlight, keeping an eye out for anthything that does not go to plan and that needs to be adapted.
In the same vein, although this might be more typical of the institutional teaching and less of freelancing, goes for feedback and appraisal. Presumably, it is not the easiest thing to do to accept that being an expert and an adult, you are being put in the position of a student or a child, who is being looked at and assessed and, possibly, given a grade. This might not be the easiest and the most light-hearted experience especially that this grade or the feedback might not always be a positive one.
The road less travelled
- Journalling. This is a great one. I have been working on those with my students for some time and I have experimented with journaling in teacher training, with my trainees and as a trainer. I have kept journals and self-reflection notebooks for all of my YL groups, too and this, probably, was the most enjoyable and the most rewarding one for me as I could track my students’ progress better from week to week in all the chosen areas. It was a wonderful exercise for my brain as I managed to train it to be better able to focus not only on the lesson itself but also on reflection and on noticing things that I could put in my notes later on.
- Getting a mentor. I have decided to put it here, in the road less travelled section, because, as I have discovered in some of my research, it is not a given that a teacher always has a mentor. Nowadays, so many of us work independently, as freelancers and so many of us work in context where there is no chance of getting a mentor or a mentor that could actually lead us somewhere in our professional field. Personally, for the past few months I have been a homeless (aka independent) teacher but I have reached out to experts to talk about the areas that I would like to venture into. Irina Malinina was helping me with writing for a journal and Sandy Millin with self-publishing. Or Olga Connolly and Heather Belgorodtseva that have been my guardian angels for years.
- Doing your job better. Isn’t something that we should all intend to do, almost naturally? Maybe not. I have decided to keep it on the list, regardless, and I would like to treat it as the call for improvement, for continual work on getting better. Even though it is not for an assessed lesson practice or for a course with a trainer watching closely over you. Or a boss reading through your observation reports.
- Let your mentees observe you and give you feedback. Way too often the newly qualified teachers or the trainees only pop in and out, without giving the observed teacher any feedback, based probably on the assumption that their comments would not be valuable or welcome due to the fact that they have less classroom experience. However, they are the second pair of eyes and, as such, their feedback is precious. To those who want to listen. In my case, sometimes, it would take a form of a conversation and sometimes I would actually ask them to fill in a form that we use for all the lessons.
Things I have tried recently
- Mentoring someone, No matter how busy you are, there are always people whom you can support on their professional way. It might be formal (if this is the policy of your school) or informal (either through the buddy system or through a community) but it is fun, because you are getting someone else’s perspective and getting involved in helping them out.
- Start teaching a new level or a new area to teach. This is one of the easiest way of broadening your professional horizons. It is also one of the most flexible. It can start with taking on a student or a new group, permanent or temporary and getting involved in everything that can help you become a better teacher i.e. reading, research, getting to know the coursebooks, observing a more experienced colleague, joining a group on the social media etc. It is fascinating to observe and to reflect on how your teaching self uses and adapts the experience gained so far to a brand new context.
- Revisit an old area. This is almost as exciting as you get a chance to set into the same river twice and to boost and refresh your skills and to see how you have changed and developed as a teacher.
- Write an article – There is one big disclaimer here, of course. You must enjoy writing, first and foremost. If you do, there are lots and lots of opportunities.
- Write for a blog – This has been my joy for the past two years. I do not write all the time. I do not have an agenda, although I try to post once a week. There are the lazy weeks, either the holiday weeks or just proper ‘doing nothing’ weeks. But, overall, this blog has been the source of so much fun and entertainemt and it has been truly rewarding.
- Share ideas – If you are a member of a community, it will happen regardless. Perhaps you might not feel like your ideas matter (but they do!) or that people will not react (but in my experience there are more readers than actual reactions).
- Experimenting with the format, going online, going offline or going hybrid. This switch will create opportunities for you to transfer all your teaching skills into a new framework and to find ways of making the most of what you know already in the new environment and to develop brand new skills making the most of what this new envirnment offers. There is some unpleasantness to deal with which is related to the fact that, quite frequently, such transitions are generated by factors that we have no control of such as the pandemic and they might feel like an imposition. As a result, more time will be necessary for you to see the blessing in disguise and to appreciate and to fully embrace it. If you want to read about my personal adventures while moving from the offline into the online classroom, here you can find a few posts: what I thought after a few months and after two years of that experience and another one based on the feedback from my preschoolers’ parents.
- Becoming a freelancer as a way of freeing yourself. Admittedly, it might be too early for me to offer any advice or to even reflect on that since I have been a freelancer for only two months now but it might be a direction worth taking. In my case it was a combination of different factors such as the change of circumstances, the necessity to look for a new job, the expertise and the level of experience and what the potential employers required me to do and what they were able to offer me. That was ‘not much’ and so I became a freelancer. More on that later)
Is there anything else that should be on this list? Anything else, out of the ordinary, perhaps that you have tried and that has been very beneficial for your continual professional development? Please, pretty please, share with the rest of us!
Happy teaching! Happy developing!