Some Advice for New English Teachers

Every so often, a friend from home or a former colleague will ask me about teaching English overseas. While I don't claim to be an expert and still consider myself a novice teacher, here is, I think, some helpful advice for those considering teaching English at home or abroad:

1. At times you have to be "the bad guy." I've referenced Robert MacKenzie's "Setting Limits in the Classroom" before, which incorporates William Glasser's "choice theory" in his work. MacKenzie gives simple examples to illustrate the differences between a permissive teacher (one who lets the students do whatever they want), an authoritarian teacher (one who rules as a tyrant), and a democratic teacher who finds the right balance. I am not exactly exaggerating when I say that in some countries, you will be the first person of authority who ever told some of the students the word "no."

With this in mind, remember that as a teacher you're in a particularly unique position where you have to constantly regulate your emotions. The inability to regulate your emotions can result in burnout and bruised feelings with your students (Sutton, Mudrey-Camino, and Knight 2009). Sometimes you just need to take a breath and relax. Choice theory helps put the emphasis of discipline away from anger and revenge and towards students' choices, and thus, helps teachers avoid losing their tempers.

2. Practice makes better. Bill Gates told a TED Conference that it takes about three years for teachers to "get it." Personally, this is true for me, and I look back in horror at my first year of teaching.  This is true, too, even for the reformers' cheerleader, Michelle Rhee, who supposedly once taped the mouths of students shut; when they peeled them off, the students started bleeding and were crying.

3. Remember the oppressed. Critical pedagogy (I prefer "critical teaching" because I hate the word "pedagogy") helps students challenge domination and the beliefs and practices regarding them, according to Freire, McLaren, Shor and a whole host of others. Consider that not all history, literature, language, science, etc. has been written by dead white guys. As Bill Bigelow asks, what is more beneficial for students: to remember the year Columbus set sail thanks to a clever rhyme, or to consider the consequences of his "adventure"?  (Incidentally, Bigelow's book "Rethinking Columbus" was banned in Tuscon.)  Consider Bigelow's article about teaching global warming called "The Big One."  Sure, students can and should learn the science behind the phenomenon, but the challenge is to help students grasp in a personal way what's at stake (and who benefits from the status quo). Some may argue that critical teaching has no place in language learning, but Sarah Benesch has written considerably about critical teaching in ELL, and McKinney and Norton found that adult ESL students found many classroom activities "domesticating," thus justifying critical teaching in the classroom. These two videos point out the need for critical teaching far better than I can, particularly the second one which is specifically about English language learning.

4. Less talking. Of course, you want the students to speak quite often, and that's likely why communicative activities are so popular these days. Remember, though, that while a teacher standing at the front may not only be easier and more like the education experience many of your students are familiar with, it's probably the least effective. And if teacher talk is not reduced, your students will be frustrated, especially if you are using native English speaker idiomatic language and pronunciation which likely will be above most of your students' levels. Try to forget to be so polite; in English, sometimes we are overly concerned with politeness. It feels natural to ask our students, "Can anyone please tell me what the answer is to number five?" But to students, particularly lower-level students, this is unnecessarily difficult. "Five?" is much more beneficial to use.

5. Technology, technology, technology. Technology in the classroom still seems to have a bad reputation for reasons I cannot understand. Someone once told me that technology hinders communication in a classroom. He was right to some extent. A teacher observing me once noted that I asked a student a question while simultaneously setting up a projector. I therefore wasn't really listening to her (and didn't even realize it until someone pointed it out to me). But if used correctly, technology can be incredibly beneficial. At the very least, there's a certain "wow" quality and it helps retain students' attention. There's dozens of websites on how to use it, and this one is particularly helpful. Show clips of movies (not full movies) but use them correctly: as listening activities, pre-writing or pre-speaking activities, or simply as a topic introduction. A classroom without technology is doable, but for me it's so much more frustrating.  

6. Beware the standardized tests. Unfortunately, all over the globe, education environments are engulfed in a "culture of testing." There is an obsession with testing. Standardized testing often not only doesn't incorporate different learning styles but also tests only knowledge (or rather a lack of knowledge), which is, according to Bloom's Taxonomy, the lowest form of thinking. There are much more beneficial ways of teaching, including those that allow for differentiated learning and problem-based (or task-based or project-based) learning. Meier, complaining about the standardization and "teaching to the test" of school systems, perhaps said it best: "It is a time when kids are busting with energy, intelligence and a capacity for learning--and we spend it boring the majority to death, systematically disengaging them from their native intelligence and compassion." Take a look at this video featuring a talk from Sir Ken Robinson, particularly what he has to say about divergent thinking and the problem of "educating" children.

7. Try not to be disappointed. If there ever was a baby-step process, it's language learning. I recently took the famous Meyers-Briggs personality test, and reportedly I am an INTJ. I found this passage on INTJs: they "are perfectionists, with a seemingly endless capacity for improving upon anything that takes their interest." It goes on to explain that this idea of a "perfectionist" conflicts with others' mistakes. As a teacher, this is not ideal, especially in language learning, because mistakes have to be made in order to learn that language. My point is to be patient. But also have high expectations of your students. (Incidentally, for advanced students, such an activity would be a great needs-assessment in helping you learn about your students.) So keep in mind several things, and hopefully they will help bring you down to earth: First, no one really learns a language by sitting in a classroom. And second, it is virtually impossible for non-children to perfect a second language. This doesn't mean that there cannot be valuable classroom time, but don't expect perfection.

8.  Grammar is important. Grammar can be boring, but it can also be fun. Many times it's the most fun part of my week in class.  Mario Rinvolucri's "Grammar Games" (available on Scribd) has numerous communicative activities. (This also means that you need to master English grammar; Folse's "Keys to Teaching Grammar to English Learners" and the Grammar Girl website can help.)

9.  Know thy students. Understand their cultures. Understand their life experiences. Understand if they have a learning disability and how to effectively teach them. Comprehend the differences between collectivist societies and individualist societies. Familiarization yourself with the sociopolitical considerations of your students' home countries and cultures. Learn about their languages--understand the stress patterns and grammar rules of the language to help you understand why they're making certain mistakes. As Brown pointed out, "Culture is really an integral part of the interaction between language and thought." For example, Eskimo tribes commonly have almost ten different words for "snow" to distinguish the different types of snow, such as falling snow, wet snow, etc., while certain African cultures in Zaire have no word for snow at all. Finally, there are way too many horror stories of what the lives of individual students are actually like to justify any sort of cruel rhetoric about your students, to their face or not.

10.  You can't, won't and shouldn't change their culture (for the most part).  In South Korea, there is such an emphasis on education that students become incredibly stressed; as a result, the country has the world's highest suicide rate. Georgia is a severely patriarchal society.  Saudi Arabia bans all non-Islamic religions from its country. These are frustrating parts of other cultures that I will never understand and never admire.  It makes me so angry that I could stay up all night thinking about it. But there's nothing I can do about it. Nobody wants to hear a guest criticize one's home country, and you as the teacher should follow this rule. You can't change their culture, only they can.

11. The world is your playground, but there are consequences for being dumb. One of the benefits of teaching overseas is that you are privy to a variety of different countries and cultures that few of your countrymen and women have even dreamed of experiencing. Travel the world and have fun. But try to remember two things: First, traveling is a benefit of teaching overseas--it's not the other way around. And second, if you do stupid things, the rest of us, and our reputations, suffer.

12. Don't forget the importance of play and remember to smile.  
Enjoy your time with your students.

Works Cited

Brown, H. Douglas (1994). Principles of Language Learning and Teaching.  Prentice Hall, Inc.

MacKenzie, Robert (1996). Setting Limits in the Classroom.  New York: Three Rivers Press.

Meier, Deborah W. (2006).  Undermining Democracy. Dissent.  (pp. 71-75).

McKinney Carolyn; Norton, Bonny (2008). Identity in Language and Literacy Education.  The Handbook           of Educational Linguists. New York: Blackwell Publishing Ltd. 

Sutton, Rosemary E.; Mudrey-Camino, Renee; Knight, Catherine C. (2009).  Teachers’ Emotion Regulation and Classroom Management.  Theory Into Practice. Volume 48, Issue 2, pp. 130-137.

Classroom, Robert MacKenzie, choice theory, classroom management, technology, Myers-Briggs, culture    

Read More →