Characteristic of an Effective Teacher

1. A ‘Calling’ for the profession

This is supposed to be the most important. And this is what is causing me the most headache at the moment. To accept the fact that someone might be doing this job as a job for the perks and the advantages without a real commitment is a real hindrance in achieving my aim of helping teachers become better professionals. How do you train teachers to develop a calling for the profession? Is this something I can possibly aim at?

2. Professional knowledge

I tend to feel that a lot of what is considered professional knowledge is in easy-to-assess tests, like TKT or CELTA. Does he know the different kinds of assessments, and the present perfect? Yes, great, then he’s good. Professional knowledge is a matter of pride among teachers. Local teachers make a lot of effort to speak better English and expect ‘native teachers’ to explain random weird ideas they learnt 30-40 years before. I personally attribute little importance to this aspect.

It’s always going to be more entertaining to watch Friends, or whatever it is teenagers watch these days, than to attend an English class. So, why compete? Establishing an efficient and mutually beneficial working environment is much more helpful I believe….

4. With-it-ness (McEwan, E K 2002. How to survive and strive in the first three weeks of school)

This is an exciting addition to the list. The essential skill of being able to envisage possible classroom and curriculum events. Planning with an awareness of the objectives and the conditions. This is definitely an acquired skill that you can get better with every new year, school and group. This is why every employer should be wary of teachers who do a year or so and then move on regularly. They will not have this understanding of their actions within the bigger picture. It’s arguable of course how important this is, but if we see education – especially public schools – as a continuum with precise expectations, it is important to have teachers who understand them. This is especially true if we want to liberate teachers from prescribed teaching materials and expect them to develop customised tasks for their students.

5. Instructional Effectiveness

To be an effective teacher you have to teach well. Hard to argue. The interesting thing about this is that this demands again a very high level of flexibility and a wide range of expertise from the teacher, since something that may be a piece of cake with one group of students can prove to be an absolute nightmare with another. Even if I planned the same lesson for two different groups, they could and they should never be the same. So, this is again a hunch, not more. This seems to work with this group so let’s go with it, but heaven forbid I would try it with the other group.

6. Good communicator

Well, this is pretty obvious, and necessary not only with students, but with teachers, managers and parents. Communication is not always direct, which is difficult. Other teachers and management hear about you from students and parents. It’s all a vicious circle, and to communicate your message well in all directions is a bit of a juggling act.

7. Street smart

Know about who you teach. This is sometimes perceived as the great advantage of having local teachers or teachers who come from the same-similar context. While I admit that this has its advantages, I think it has just as many disadvantages. There is a false sense of mutuality between the local teachers and students against the foreign teacher in the school. All those dismissive nods from the colleagues and students are the same, really. Sometimes blowing up a little bit of a bomb with a completely innocent face can be very helpful. I’ll never forget the conversation I had with my students about respecting women and giving them rights and me doing the cooking and the washing up. I loved it. In many situations you are expected to be the foreigner. Embracing your foreignness is one way of being successful. You are not expected to be one of them. Why try? Clearly, you don’t want to be rude or hurt anyone but there are several stages between the extremes. Don’t do anything that would offend you if it was the other way round but don’t expect them to eat the goulash as you serve it, what’s more, they can even be allowed not to like goulash.

8. Willing to go the extra mile

This is closely linked to the first one. If you follow a calling, you will go the extra mile. Otherwise you won’t. There is no way of making someone do more than what they are paid to.

9. Lifelong learner

The excitement of Amazon delivering yet another book about ELT, Russell Tarr recommending another mindboggingly good link. A conference near you, a conference on the web, all the tweets from last night. If you are still excited about any of these things, we’re talking about you. If you watch a movie and 2 minutes into the film you start thinking about how you could use this in class, this is about you. Most teachers start forgetting what they learn when they start their education, and will have forgotten why they are standing in front of a class by the time they have finished. They are the life-long forgetters. Heaven save students from them. This is not about the ‘best method’ the ‘best book’ ’the greatest author’, ‘the best publisher’, it’s about you and where you are in the wonderful process of your professional development 10 Life outside the classroom

Your life outside the classroom is the bread and butter you bring to your students and re-contextalise to feed their learning appetite.