Choose to excel

I believe that settling for less than extraordinary is not for English language teachers. We will definitely have ordinary days and teach lessons that are not necessarily extraordinary; this is necessary for us to notice the special moments in our careers. However, by embracing teaching as a profession, questioning what we do routinely or even automatically and choosing to improve, challenge our practices and/ or constantly seek for development, we will be focusing on excellence. The groups we teach are diverse, resources available are varied and in constant change, the world we teach in and the subject matter we teach are living organisms and different by the minute. It seems that we could have a lot more opportunities to grow as teachers if we too move forward and choose to excel and strengthen the quality of our work.

Confidence is important to performing our jobs, but being overconfident may lead us to a state of blindness to our blindness (Kahneman, 2013) which prevents us from reaching higher. In order to shake us out of our comfort zones sometimes, here are some ideas:

1. Seek for a mentor who will guide you towards learning more about your own teaching style, choices and practice and may suggest paths or ways of experimenting with techniques you haven’t tried yet. A mentor aims ‘to create in the teacher the ability to be self-evaluative and autonomous’ (Randall and Thornton, 2001: 120), empowering teachers to reflect and act upon their practice. Ensure you choose someone who will lead you towards questioning your teaching, rather than directing you towards answers.
2. Critically observe attitudes and choices of people you admire in the ELT market. This is a conscious process of considering what may work for you as well, what you could learn from other professionals or even about yourself by contrast with others. Choose a way to keep track of your observations in a systematic way (e.g. notes on your mobile phone when you observe how teachers interact with students in the corridor) to help you choose what to experiment with.
3. Put lessons in perspective both when planning and after teaching, consider whether you would like to be your student sitting in that lesson. With time, add perspectives of people you know – would they enjoy the lesson? Would they feel comfortable to learn in your class? This may help you make informed decisions to meet learners’ profiles and embrace diversity in the classroom.
4. Balance work on your strengths and the areas for improvement. We often consider development as the work on competencies we do not have or our weaknesses. However, in order to excel at what we do our strengths need to stand out and we need to dedicate time to refine those as well. Development will help us grow as teachers; as humans dealing with other humans there will always be faults and areas we are stronger at. Being aware of those may help us make choices and define foci for future action.
5. Challenge your beliefs and habits. Letting go of habits may be painful, but it might bring a teacher to a whole new level of professional greatness. Besides, what worked a decade ago may not be effective to the learners of today and if we want to excel in teaching, we need to question what we do and its results every now and then. Is there a better way of teaching that? How would a different approach benefit my learners? I would not recommend you question all your beliefs at once (it may be frustrating or overwhelming) and I cannot say you will change the habit you decide to critically analyse – sometimes questioning will lead you to strengthening your beliefs and practices. In any case, never settle for less than extraordinary.

What do you do in order to excel in language teaching?

Kahneman, D. (2013) Thinking, fast and slow. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.

Randall, M. and B. Thornton (2001) Advising and Supporting Teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.