Integrating new teachers into an experienced staffroom

This was the title of the fifth in a series of monthly CPD webinars hosted by the British Council.  You can read more about the programme here.

This webinar was presented by Fiona Dunlop and what follows is a summary of what she had to say.

What are the reasons for hiring inexperienced teachers?

• they are generally enthusiastic and dynamic
• to bring new blood to a stale staffroom
• they often have new ideas
• to develop/invest in them
• they have no bad habits
• more experienced teachers may not be available
• they will often accept short-term contracts
• it's cost effective
• they are local
• for emergency cover

Challenges and drawbacks

• inexperienced teachers often have unrealistic time and preparation management
• they can be overwhelmed by a full timetable
• they may be unable to manage admin demands
• they could have a lack of language awareness
• you may be limited as to which courses they can teach
• the pace of their lessons is often too slow - they are thorough, but tend to pitch to the lower end of the group
• they may have a lack of cultural awareness
• they may not be comfortable with firm classroom management and have problems dealing with difficult students
• there may be a desire to be the students' friend
• they may be compared to previous teachers
• they may not gain the students' respect
• they don't have a bank of ideas at their fingertips which allows them to think on their feet
• they may not be accepted in the staffroom by more experienced teachers
• they may get stressed and be unwilling to say they are struggling

Things which are important to remember

• New teachers are clients of the school and first impressions count - from the first contact, the experience should be as positive and stress-free as possible.
• You should compare the new teacher's experience to the student's journey.
• Remember your own first day in a new school - remind yourself how it feels to be 'the new kid on the block'.
• Treat new teachers as 'internal customers'.  If you treat them well, then they will look after the school's 'external customers' - the students.
• The staffroom will be energised by the input of a new ideas.  This is the time for more experienced teachers to shine.
• Your students will benefit from having new staff and the school's reputation will be enhanced.
• Treating new teachers well also enhances the reputation of the industry.  ELT gets a lot of bad press - it is often seen as a 'stop-gap' before people move in to a 'proper' profession.

Induction for new teachers

A good induction process is vital.  It should be ongoing and it should be revisited.  Here are some of the induction ideas used by Fiona in her role as DoS of the Wimbledon School of English:

Before the contract starts:

• Arrange a meeting time with the new teacher.
• Prepare or e-mail induction documents and other necessary policies.  Include a copy of the student handbook and/or school brochure.
• Check all materials and class handover notes are ready.
• Arrange a mentor for the new teacher.
• Organise a desk and/or locker for him or her.

First day/week

• Have a copy of the induction checklist for you to talk through.
• Talk through each point on the checklist, allowing time for questions as you go.
• Take the new teacher on a tour of the school, including the classrooms where they will be teaching.  Remember to point out fire exits.
• Show them around the teachers' room and explain where to find everything.
• Introduce them to all staff members by name and job.
• Provide preparation time.
• Be available to help where needed.

First week or two of teaching

• Check lesson plans regularly - even experienced teachers take a while to settle into a new house style.
• Arrange an informal observation of the new teacher.
• Arrange for the new teacher to observe their peers.
• Give observation feedback and do post-induction - this might include a quiz about your institution.
• Go through the induction checklist again to check for any problems.
• Arrange the first formal observation to be done by the end of the third teaching week.

Ongoing

• Record stages on induction spreadsheet.
• Do formal observation and follow-up.
• Check plans of work and admin.
• Check with the new teacher's mentor.

Developmental opportunities for new teachers

• Don't overwhelm new teachers - give them small, practical pieces of information.
• Development should happen naturally when checking lesson plans and just by being around the office.
• Give short practical workshops and try to grade the training and development according to the teacher's level.
• Do observations and give constructive feedback.
• Use the British Council CPD handbook.

Developmental observation types

These need to be timetabled in to a new teacher's schedule.

• Unobserved/blind - plan a detailed lesson (time the planning to avoid over-planning), run through it with the manager, teach the lesson, have a follow-up meeting with the manager to encourage reflective practice.
• Filmed/recorded - these should be structured.  It's useful to record the students, not the teacher.  It gives a great insight into how a lesson is being received.  Recording is also the best way to make new teachers aware of their TTT.
• Peer
• 10 minute - these should be incorporated into the induction programme.
• Mentor feedback
• Short burst/repeated theme

You can find more detailed descriptions of observation types here.

Quality assurance observations

These are necessary to the successful running of any school/department and there should be clear, practical policies and procedures set out, including the name of the person who is going to carry them out.

It's important not to over-observe!!

What to look for when doing a QA observation:

• Preparation
• Presentation
• Pitch
• Pace
• Staging
• Achievement of aims
• Subject matter
• Error correction
• Variety
• Rapport
• Pronunciation work
• Use of aids
• Classroom management
• Flexibility
• Learner training

British Council CPD Framework

Use the website - englishagenda.britishcouncil.org

It has:

• a handbook for managers
• a handbook for teachers
• a framework for CPD
• a portal with advice, suggestions and video clips

Give a copy of the CPD handbook to new teachers during induction.  It can be used by mentors and teachers together.

Hints for the manager

• Make sure the induction process is ongoing.
• Induction should be for everyone regardless of why or for how long they are in the school.
• Use an induction checklist to make sure nothing gets forgotten.
• Provide clear guidelines for mentors.
• Compile FAQs and example scenarios to talk through at induction.
• Give hints on lesson preparation and provide sample plans - provide time limit guidelines and give teachers the opportunity to prepare together.
• Provide a bank of last minute lessons and ideas in the teachers' room.
• Run regular ideas swapshops - immediate and practical.
• Introduce everyone to each other!  Provide a board with teachers' profiles and photos and a 'come to me for.....' section.
• Don't assume anything!
• Provide a survival checklist of admin jobs for the first day/week/month.
• Arrange 10 minute meetings every Friday with the DoS if possible.

Conclusion

• Clear systems will set the foundations.
• Notice the positives new teachers can bring.
• Remember your first experiences.
• Retention of staff is good for your school!

Five Communicative Language Learning Activities

This was the title of a recent Cambridge English Teacher webinar given by Peter Lucantoni.  What follows is a summary of what he had to say including descriptions of his five suggested activities.

Communicative Language Learning (CLL)

• CLL seeks to bring students beyond grammatical competence.
• Students need to decode language and manipulate it in private dialogue.
• This leads to communicative competence.

 

We need to move from knowing the forms and structures to using them in practice.

 

Some activities:

 

1. From letters to grammar

Students must listen to a series of letters and then think of a meaningful phrase which uses each letter as the first letter of a word.  The order in which they use the letters is not important.

For example, given -  A D I F , students might produce:

• A day in France
• Fantastic dreams are incredible
• I ate David's fruit

Students think of the vocabulary first and then the grammar they need to make a phrase.  It becomes easier for students as they do more examples.

 

You can make this activity more challenging by telling the students that one of the words needs to be something specific - an adjective, an adverb, a pronoun or an irregular verb, if you are focusing on grammar, for example.  If the emphasis is on lexis, you could ask that one of the words be a colour or a family member, for example.

 

As an extension, you could put students in groups and allow them to choose four letters which they then exchange with another group to make phrases. This is a good warmer or filler activity to reinforce grammar or vocabulary.  It encourages creativity - students could make silly sentences, for example - as long as they are grammatically correct.  It can be used with all levels. Generally, students like the element of competition involved.

2.  Numbers and sizes ratios

(From 'Grammar Activity Book' published by CUP)

This activity focusses on general knowledge and guessing numbers and size.  Learners then have the chance to produce their own version of the activity.

• Put learners into groups of 2 or 3
• Learners look at comparisons on the board or in a handout and discuss how big the difference is between them
• They then match the comparison to a ratio
• Then they write a sentence expressing the ratio

For example:
The world's tallest man is 2.5m tall.
The world's shortest man is 0.5m tall.
The ratio is 1 : 5.
The world's tallest man is five times as tall as the world's shortest man.

or:

The age of the Egyptian pyramids v the age of the Aztec pyramids - 1 : 2.
Aztec pyramids are twice as old as Egyptian pyramids.

or:

Number of rows on a chess board v number of squares - 1 : 8.
There are eight times as many squares on a chessboard as rows.

Other examples you could give:

• Number of circles on the Olympic flag / number of circles on the Japanese flag
• Paris, distance from London / Athens, distance from London
• World's highest mountain / world's highest waterfall
• Population of London / population of Mexico City
• Number of countries bordering Spain / number of countries bordering the USA
• one mile / sixteen kilometres

Students will need to research the answers using websites in English.  They can also do further research and compile their own ratios which they then exchange with classmates to write further sentences.

The purpose of this activity is to get learners to think logically and critically, to use their general knowledge and to practise comparative forms.

3.  Question to question

Sometimes we answer one question with another question, rather than giving a direct answer.  Why do we do this?

• for clarification
• because we don't know the answer
• to show interest
• to stall

Common questions we might use:

• I'm sorry, what did you say?
• Really?
• What do you mean?
• Could you repeat that?
• Why do you ask?
• Don't you believe me?

Give students a jumbled dialogue like this:

and get them to put it into the correct order:

Then get students to create their own dialogues having given them the functional language they need.  First they need to think of a context or situation (for example, parent/child, husband/wife), then write the dialogue, then read it aloud or act it out for their classmates to guess the context or situation.



The purpose of this activity is to teach functional language, to practise intonation and question forms, as a confidence booster, and to have fun!

4.  Alphabet dialogue

Students create a paired dialogue so that each line begins with the next letter of the alphabet.  e.g.:

• Ahmed, how are you?
• Bad, really bad!
• Come on, it can't be that bad!
• Do you think I'm joking?
• Everyone knows you're a joker.

Stick to four or five line dialogues and start with random letters of the alphabet (perhaps drawn from a hat).

For higher level students, you could combine 'alphabet dialogue' with 'question to question'.

The purpose of this activity is as a warmer, a confidence booster, to practise real time speaking using colloquial language, and to practise sentence starters.

5.  Sloobie

In this activity, learners look at a text which contains nonsense words and try to make sense of it from a grammatical perspective.  It is good for helping students with their 'decoding' skills and gives great opportunities for creative language use.


An example of a nonsense text:

Students need to identify parts of speech by looking at the word order.  For example, 'brumpting' and 'ticfrous' must be adjectives.

 

You can ask students to speculate on meaning by asking questions such as:

• What is a sloobie?
• What does it do?

They can then discuss and justify their answers in groups.  Alternatively, for lower level students, you can give the students the words they have to substitute into the text:

You can get students to create their own 'sloobie' for their classmates to solve by writing real sentences and then substituting some of the words for nonsense words.

 

The purpose of this activity is to practise guessing meaning from context, to identify parts of speech and to be creative.





It's important to model all of these activities well and to give students the functional language they will need to complete them.

 

 

30 Goals Challenge - 3. Choose your personal theme song

Goal number three of Shelly Terrell's fourth cycle of her 30 Goals Challenge is to choose a personal theme song.  Shelly began her own blogpost on this  with a quote about music, and I'd like to do the same:

“Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and life to everything.” – Plato.

 

The type of music I enjoy would surely be unrecognisable to Plato, but the sentiment behind his words still resonates strongly with me. 

 

Music has always been a huge part of my life.  My Dad loved popular music and some of my earliest memories of my childhood involve him belting out his favourite tune of the moment while my Mum begged him to put an end to 'that racket'!! :-) 

 

Moving on from my Dad's choices (though I have to say some of them remain favourites of mine to this day!), my musical influences were those of my peers.  I was never one to want to stand out from the crowd, so, along with every other young girl in the UK in the seventies, I loved Donny Osmond, David Cassidy and the Bay City Rollers!!  Later, I did become a bit cooler, especially when I went to university in Manchester in the eighties and discovered great bands like The Cure, The Clash, The Smiths, The Housemartins, etc. etc.

 

So, there has always been a musical soundtrack to my life and, being an EFL teacher means that I can also bring my love of music into my work setting by using songs in the classroom - some of my best lessons over the years have involved music to some degree.  Choosing one personal theme song, then, has proved somewhat problematic, so I've cheated and chosen two!

 

The first is 'Something Inside So Strong' written by Labi Siffre, a British singer songwriter who was inspired to write after watching a documentary about apartheid in South Africa.  It became a hit in the UK in 1987, while I was at university, and was soon adopted as an anthem of the campaign to secure the release from prison of Nelson Mandela.  It has been used in other campaigns since, notably by Amnesty International.  It remains inspirational to me - I can't hear it without thinking back over all of those years to my political awakening.

 

 

 

My second choice is 'Proud' by Heather Small.  I've always loved Heather's voice and she has made a habit of recording inspirational songs.  When she was lead singer of M People in the nineties, she released 'Search for the Hero Inside Yourself' which includes these lyrics:

 



And that's why (why) you should keep on aiming high
Just seek yourself and you will shine
You've got to search for the hero inside yourself
Search for the secrets you hide
Search for the hero inside yourself
Until you find the key to your life
In this life, long and hard though it may seem
Live it as you'd live a dream
Aim so high
Just keep the flame of truth burning bright
The missing treasure you must find
Because you and only you alone
Can build a bridge across the stream

 

It's a great song, but not the one I've chosen!  As a solo artist, in the year 2000, Heather recorded 'Proud'.  I loved it from the first time I heard it.  The lyrics carry so much meaning.  The song was later adopted by Oprah Winfrey as the theme tune for one of her shows and, later still, by the Olympic Committee for London 2012.  These two facts would normally put me off a song, but, I can't help it, I still love it!!  The question, 'what have you done today to make you feel proud?' is great - it's not about other people - it's about you being proud of yourself!

 

 

I hope you like my choices!



30 Goals Challenge - 2. Avoid Burnout

Burnout!

Goal number two of Shelly Terrell's fourth cycle of her 30 Goals Challenge is to avoid burnout, something which affects many of us in what can be the all-consuming profession of ELT.  Shelly herself reflected on this goal in a blogpost which you can read here.  Before beginning writing this, I also read Vicky Loras's take on the subject.  Both Shelly and Vicky came up with practical ways to avoid burnout and I agree wholeheartedly with all of their points. 

For me, though, the key to avoiding burnout is to do what you love doing.  This rather cheesy cliché has real resonance for me:

A few years ago, a sudden and dramatic illness in the family caused my husband and I to rethink what we were doing with our lives.  We had always intended to retire abroad at some point and 'live the dream', but this was the catalyst we needed to bring our plans forward.  We sold everything we owned in the UK and moved to France, where we bought a seventeenth century water mill.  We spent the next couple of years working harder than we ever had before renovating the property, but we didn't begrudge a second of it because we were doing what we wanted to do! 

When the project went pear-shaped (it's a very long story!!), we had to reassess once more.  This time, the path we chose was for me to revisit my past as a teacher and bring my qualifications up to date as an EFL teacher.  So, began our adventure which has lasted eight years to date and has taken us to Turkey, Italy and, now, Vietnam. 

Over that time, there have been occasions when we've found ourselves in a less-than-ideal situation, but those have been few and far between and our answer has always been to move on, to seek a new challenge. 

I am a person who gives maximum commitment to any job that I'm doing.  I work long hours, including doing extra work at home in the evenings and at weekends, but there's no danger of burnout because 1. I love what I do and 2. I have the unconditional support of my husband.  I realise that I'm very lucky and that not everyone can make the same choices as we have (or, indeed, would want to!), but I do believe that everyone should aim to live their lives doing something they enjoy. 

My choices as a lifelong learner in the 21st century

I love to learn.  That's why I'm a teacher! Over the years, I'm sure I've learned as much from my students as I have taught them. I've learned about global politics and gained an understanding of how these issues affect the individual through the eyes of my students. I've also learned about more functional, but equally fascinating matters, such as how to make fire using only a stick and a stone, how to make the best risotto in Italy, the significance of the whirling dance of the Dervish, or how the medical system works in Vietnam.  I could go on and on!!  

Now, as well as the learning opportunities I encounter in my day-to-day working life, I'm also inundated by offers to teach me things every time I turn on my computer.  My problem is that I find it difficult to say no!  My thirst for knowledge is such that I can't resist the chance to learn!  As a consequence, I've signed up for courses and then been unable to complete them due to work commitments, time constraints, or simply, life, getting in the way!!  I find the idea of learning with like-minded people from all over the globe irresistible, but the time has come to prioritise.  I have to be selective.  I have to accept that I just can't do everything I'd like to do.  I also need to have some balance, so that not all of my learning is work-related.

To this end, going forward, these are my learning providers of choice:

1. Electronic Village Online (EVO)

A description taken from their own website:

EVO is a set of online discussions and workshops that takes place every year from mid-January to mid-February. Sessions include a range from simple discussions to virtual hands-on workshops. They can serve as a run-up or preview to the TESOL Convention, or a discussion of an issue in the field of teaching language, or experiments with and pedagogy of new technology tools.

An online session is the perfect venue to pre-discuss papers from Academic Sessions or Intersessions, or to carry on a discussion of topics important to your member group. EVO provides an invaluable service to teachers all over the globe, for it brings the convention to those who cannot travel. We usually have over a thousand participants, both members and non-members of TESOL. Most sessions also offer live chats (text and audio/video), including Webcasts from the Convention, and all participants are welcome to any of these live events.

I took part in an EVO course on podcasting earlier this year.  It was practical, immediately applicable, both in my professional and personal life, and very enjoyable.  I'm looking forward to their 2014 offering - I'm sure I'll find something to pique my interest!

2.  Webinars

Webinars are invaluable for my CPD.  I wrote a blogpost about them here.  I love the fact that I learn through stand-alone bite-size chunks.  Again, the only problem is that there are so many available that I have to be selective.  There's really no point in me doing these things if I don't have time to reflect on what I've learned!

3. iTDi.pro

This is a global network of teachers learning from each other through a mentoring programme and a series of courses.  This is taken from their website:

About iTDi

iTDi is a global online teacher development institute that is owned and staffed by dedicated teachers.

Our mission is to provide quality professional development that is meaningful, accessible and affordable for all teachers. We share a vision of a vibrant global community of educators, helping one another to become better teachers.

The iTDi community brings together teaching professionals working at every level -- newcomers and veterans, native and non-native teachers from a wide range of contexts, all sharing a common belief that being a teacher means a never-ending commitment to growing and learning.

iTDi provides:

Online courses to improve your classroom teaching or English language skills, written by some of the most respected authors in English language teaching.

• A safe, private, supportive, international community of teachers and teacher-mentors, working and learning together online
• Live online workshops and chats with educators from around the world
• Live online advanced teaching skill courses

iTDi Principles

We believe that every teacher deserves the chance to improve. It doesn't matter where you start; what matters is where you want to go.

I am currently doing a course through iTDi.  It's called More Breaking Rules and is presented by John Fanselow.  The final session will be this Sunday, after which I will write a post about the course and what I have learned from it.
 

4. #ELTChat

As regular readers of this blog will know, I'm a huge fan of #ELTChat.  It is the mainstay of my CPD.  This is from the #ELTChat website:

#ELTchat started in September 2010 when a group of #ELTchat professionals began to use twitter to discuss topics of interest to English Language Teachers. It began with the aim of creating a freely available social network for ELT professionals offering mutual support and opportunities for Continuous Professional Development.
Now, every Wednesday at 12pm and 21.00pm, ELT teachers from all over the world log into their Twitter account and for one hour hold an online discussion on a topic they have selected.

I'm a regular participant and summary writer and am proud to say that I have just achieved my gold badge!!
 

5.  Cambridge English Teacher

As well as regular webinars, CET also offers a variety of online courses which are great for CPD.
 

6. Coursera

This is a relatively new concept in online learning.  From their website:

About Coursera ®

We believe in connecting people to a great education so that anyone around the world can learn without limits.

Coursera is an education company that partners with the top universities and organizations in the world to offer courses online for anyone to take, for free. Our technology enables our partners to teach millions of students rather than hundreds.

We envision a future where everyone has access to a world-class education that has so far been available to a select few. We aim to empower people with education that will improve their lives, the lives of their families, and the communities they live in.

Our Courses

Classes offered on Coursera are designed to help you master the material. When you take one of our classes, you will watch lectures taught by world-class professors, learn at your own pace, test your knowledge, and reinforce concepts through interactive exercises. When you join one of our classes, you'll also join a global community of thousands of students learning alongside you. We know that your life is busy, and that you have many commitments on your time. Thus, our courses are designed based on sound pedagogical foundations, to help you master new concepts quickly and effectively. Key ideas include mastery learning, to make sure that you have multiple attempts to demonstrate your new knowledge; using interactivity, to ensure student engagement and to assist long-term retention; and providing frequent feedback, so that you can monitor your own progress, and know when you've really mastered the material.

We offer courses in a wide range of topics, spanning the Humanities, Medicine, Biology, Social Sciences, Mathematics, Business, Computer Science, and many others. Whether you're looking to improve your resume, advance your career, or just learn more and expand your knowledge, we hope there will be multiple courses that you find interesting.

 

For me, this is where the balance comes from!  Although PD courses for teachers are offered through Coursera, I haven't chosen to do any (up to now!!).  Instead, I've opted for courses completely outside my professional life - learning for learning's sake - just for fun.  I have to say that my first attempt was not so successful.  I chose a course about logic, a subject which has always fascinated me.  However, at the time of the course, I had too much other stuff going on in my life, so only completed the first couple of modules.  This time, however, I have chosen a course called The Camera Never Lies about film, images & historical interpretation in the 20th century.  It started yesterday, I've allocated the appropriate amount of time for it, and, so far, it's completely enthralling.  I'm learning so much and being challenged to look at things in a new way.  The fact that I have a whopping 45,000 active classmates is a huge bonus!!

_________________________________

So, that's my take on 21st century learning.  It's exciting, it's collaborative, and it presents endless opportunities.  Best of all, most of it is free!!

30 Goals Challenge - 1. Define your Moment

Shelly Terrell has just launched the fourth cycle of her 30 Goals Challenge.  This is an annual project aimed at educators.  It sets 30 short-term goals each year, the idea being to get us to reflect on what we are doing well, what is not going quite so well and how best to improve what we're doing, both by making changes to existing practices and trying completely new ones.

I guess I'm not the only one who has looked at Shelly's challenges each year and thought 'what a great idea - I really should get involved' and then done precisely nothing about it!!  So, why is it different this year?  Well, to be honest, this year was shaping up to be like all the others. I joined the 30 goals Facebook group  last week, fully intending to reflect on goal number one over the weekend and write a blogpost about it.  That didn't happen!  Instead, I spent the weekend doing a bit of writing, a few household chores and a lot of watching rubbish movies!!  

Then, this morning, came my 'light bulb' moment!!  I was checking my e-mails over breakfast, as is my wont, and clicked on Vicky Loras's  blogpost about the first goal of this year's challenge.  The first goal is:

Define your moment

Vicky Loras

Vicky had dedicated her post to Rose Bard and had written about how she had been inspired by her.  I was immediately reminded of how Vicky herself had inspired me when I was very new to Twitter and my PLN was made up of a mere handful of ELT professionals.  Fortunately for me, she was one of them!  I was living in Treviso at the time and on a train on my way into Venice to attend a seminar given by Michael Swan.  I tweeted about what I was doing, feeling a little foolish about it and wondering who would care.  Within seconds, Vicky had tweeted back, telling me what a fan she was of Michael and how she envied me my day with him. That contact inspired me to share what I learned that day, both through a series of tweets and a blogpost.  Since then, I haven't really looked back.  I've gone on to share conference and webinar experiences through posts and tweets and have built my PLN into the fantastic resource it is today.  I'm happy to say that Vicky is still a part of that - perhaps we'll even get to meet in person one day!

So, thanks to Vicky, I'm on board with this year's 30 goals challenge.  I've answered Shelly's challenge to define my moment on a wall she's created on Padlet.  I reproduce it here:

Andrea Wade

(@worldteacher)

This is my moment to be inspired by all of the amazing educators from around the globe I come into contact with and to try to give something back by inspiring others.

#MyMoment #30GoalsEdu

What can teachers learn from good managers?

A good manager?

This is a summary of the #eltchat which took place at 12 noon on 19th June.  As a seasoned summary writer (I'm going for the gold medal with this one!!), I'm used to the process.  However, this is the first time I've written the summary not having attended the chat.  As a manager myself, I intended to be there, but, as is often the way, work interfered and I didn't get home in time.  So, what follows is my attempt to give order to the valuable contributions from my fellow #eltchatters.  I hope I have done them justice!  The chat was moderated superbly as always by @Marisa_C and @ShaunWilden.

The idea for the chat came from a talk by Henry Stewart, CEO of the wonderfully named company, Happy Ltd, entitled 'Choose your Boss'.  It was broadcast on BBC Radio 4 as part of their Four Thought series.  You can listen to it here. 

The talk began with the assertion that a majority of workers are not happy with their manager and that people often leave a job because of their manager.  @KatySDavies agreed saying that, for her, having a good manager is probably the most important thing in a job now - more important than school, location, facilities, etc.  @cioccas told us that she had, indeed, moved jobs because of bad managers.

Henry Stewart's solution to this problem is that people should be allowed to choose their own manager from those already in a management position.  He suggests that companies should choose who manage people based on how well they manage people!  Too often, people are promoted because they are good at their job, not because they are good at mentoring and managing people.  #Eltchatters argued that perhaps Henry Stewart's ideas were not so applicable in an ELT setting and that, in our industry, good teachers can and do make good managers.  In fact, most participants agreed that having a manager who had never been a teacher was really not a good thing.

So, what are the qualities of a good manager?

Henry Stewart quoted these eight behaviours identified by Internet giant Google Inc.:

1. Is a good coach
2. Empowers the team and does not micromanage
3. Expresses interest / concern for team members’ success and personal wellbeing
4. Is productive and results-orientated
5. Is a good communicator – listens and shares information
6. Helps with career development
7. Has a clear vision / strategy for the team
8. Has important technical skills that help him / her advice the team

In addition to the eight behaviours they identified for a good manager, they also narrowed down on the top 3 causes why managers struggle in their role:

1. Has a tough transition (e.g. suddenly promoted, hired from outside with little training)
2. Lacks a consistent philosophy / approach to performance management and career development
3. Spends too little time on managing and communicating.

Henry Stewart concluded that people work best when they feel good about themselves and so the main role of management should be on motivating people, valuing them and improving their self-esteem.

So, what did #eltchatters make of this list?

A good manager

@Shaunwilden pointed out that these eight things would equally apply to teachers and their classes, which is probably why the transition from good worker (teacher) to good manager is smoother and more effective in our industry than in others.  @michaelegriffin questioned the correlation between teaching skill and management, but others begged to differ.  After all, teachers are managing groups of people (students) every day of their working lives.  As @JoshSRound said, 'there are some transferable skills: teachers have to manage students, tutor them, coach them, encourage them, direct them.'

@KatySDavies identified one of her bad managers as being someone who flicked between micro management and then gave no support at all when it was really needed.  That person took no ownership of the work given to staff.  On the other hand, a good manager, in Katy's experience, was one who was supportive without being overbearing and who was genuinely interested in her as a person.  She described the great feeling she gets when she senses she's making a real contribution.

@bhrbahar said that a good manager is fair, honest and has organisational skill.  @jo_sayers added that it is someone who cares and encourages.  The majority of contributors agreed that good managers need to be good communicators with a focus on listening and sharing.  Properly listening and responding to the content of what has been said is vital.

The role of 'coach' was seen as essential, with good managers taking every opportunity to coach their teachers - in meetings, via one-to-ones, through e-mail, at social events, in observations and appraisals, etc.  When there aren't enough occasions like this, managers can seem very disconnected from their teachers.  @cioccas pointed out that teachers need to know that their manager is capable of coaching them, even if they don't need them to.  They can show this in what they say and do, the questions they ask, the interest they show, etc.  Managers could also demonstrate their ability through running workshops themselves, or by finding the right people in their team to do it for them, for example.  It's important that managers make time for coaching.  @JoshSRound told us that he's started to schedule one-to-one meetings with all of his team, a fact which @KatySDavies imagined would make them feel really valued. In the same way as teachers do for students, managers have to negotiate achievable goals for their teachers.  It needs to be a two-way process and teachers must have a realistic chance of hitting them.

Another similarity between the role of teacher and manager is that both have to know their 'team members' (students or staff) really well.  @MrChrisJWilson told us that one of the best things about his current boss is that he has endorsed his passions and helped him explore them in teaching.  In the same way, if we find our students' passions, we can use that knowledge to enhance their learning.  Good managers should take into account the different learning styles of their teachers as good teachers do for their students.

A good manager briefs well - a useful skill for teachers, too, when it comes to giving clear and unambiguous instructions.

Good managers and good teachers:

• Listen well
• Manage discourse well
• Stay quiet at times
• Are open-minded
• Make people feel valued
• Give clear instructions
• Allocate tasks well
• Show concern for and interest in their charges
• Are organised
• Negotiate achievable goals
• Recognise potential and nurture it
• Treat people as individuals
• Adapt to the changing needs of their charges
• Don't hold grudges
• Solve problems
• Assess well
• Value the importance of having a balance between hard work and fun in order to build rapport
• Encourage
• Build a sense of team spirit
• Promote collaboration and sharing
• Are fair and impartial
• Step up and take the initiative
• Explain the rationale behind their decisions
• Urge people to push themselves
• Are willing to try new ideas
• Seek to constantly improve themselves and their methods
• Are never satisfied with just 'OK'

Some chat contributors felt that we couldn't always make the same assumptions about managing students and managing teachers, though.  @michaelegriffin suggested that it is much harder with headstrong teachers than with generally manageable students and @pjgallantry summed it up with, 'Managing TEFL teachers is like trying to herd cats!!'  If that's the case, Paul, then I've really got my work cut out!! :-)



Links

Does the DOS do it for you? by @JoshSRound
Differentiating Professional Development - the Principal's Role via @cioccas