Reasonable Performance Standards for a TEFL Teacher

Deliver his/her lessons in a professional way

Initiate ways and means to improve a given syllabus

achieve the syllabus objectives creatively ( a classical teacher may use WBs to present a target language but creative teacher may use slides)

Gain students satisfaction and meet their expectation

The above stated performance standards can be measured objectively as they are tangible and visible. The students’ feedback report is one yardstick. The teacher’ teaching documents (lesson plans, tests, supplementary materials) can help managers make an objectively well-informed assessment.
How to communicate these performance standards depends on managers. I personally favour things to be implicitly communicated and on a one-to- one basis.
Publishing individual standards especially if negative surely demoralise and de-motivate teachers. However, publishing positive one is a healthy measure and serves as a catalyst to encourage others.

LESSON PLANNING & THE UNEXPECTED SITUATIONS

Lesson Planning

What can we do to prepare for the unexpected?

To start with, saying that all lessons will go exactly to plan, if I am not exaggerating, is almost like a wishful-thinking in the teaching area. This being said, divergence of the plan is inevitable and most of the time unpredictable situations are cause number one of this digression. In this context, absenteeism can be cited as an example of unforeseeable circumstances.

I believe being always flexible and willing to adjust modifications without affecting the overall course objectives is one way to face the unexpected. We need to have extra emergency plans. The latter can be either alternative lesson plans, review lessons, ready-made worksheets and activities that can a teacher pull out off his/her sleeves anytime. Also prioritizing of aims can be another way to cope with the unexpected.

Case Study:Saudi Arabia

Class Profile

Age range between 19 and 28.
Strengths: Keen interest in improving their language skills. Grasp vocabulary quickly. Good at speaking.
Weaknesses: weak at assimilating grammar, listening and writing.
They enjoy most activities that involve too much speaking .Strikingly enough; they prefer working with handouts to working with the course book. Last but not least, their most favourite activity is games.
As far as energy is concerned, the sessions after lunch are the most critical ones. Their motivation seems to diminish .First because of the number of sessions they have (six sessions per day with many coffee and lunch breaks) and second because of the heavy meals they have at lunch.
Having said that, these factors inevitably affect my planning. So, I prioritise aims and activities in my lesson. Aims and skills that require much concentration and energy are done before the lunch break.

Activities and ready-made handouts are often used in the last two sessions. Both activities and read-made handouts are not used as gap fillers but rather to consolidate target languages. Vocabs miming, broken sentences, simulation speaking games, matching half of sentences and use of the computer lab (interactive educational programs) are but some of the activities I like to plan for the last two periods.

TEFL Methodologies and Business English Classes

TEFL and Business English Classes

To start with, teaching Business English undoubtedly belongs to the ESP area and so does teaching in-company classes.
And in the belief that there is ‘no one best methodology’ , I think teaching Business classes or in-company classes do not necessarily require us to forge a newly made methodology that can only fit business classes. All what we need a flexible methodology that takes into account how does the learner want to learn. In this context, Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters argue that:
‘There is nothing specific about ESP methodology. The principles which underlie good ESP methodology are the same as those that underlie sound ELT methodology in general...the classroom skills and techniques acquired in General English teaching can be carefully employed in the ESP classrooms.’
On this background, I very often approach my in-company classes using my EFL methodology experience and, at the same time, leaving room to implement traditional methodology if the trainees appear to be antipathetic to the communicative -based methodology. However, in some cases at the very beginning of the course, they seem to reject the communicative methodology. Their resentment is justified and mostly it is due to their past learning experiences. So, at times I find myself devoting a session just to discuss and negotiate methodologies and the pros and cons of each. In most cases the trainees welcome the communicative methodology where they are required to work and talk more than I have to do.
In my training sessions, I always favour the communicative methodology which focuses on involving the trainee into the learning sessions. Why? Simply because:
It takes into account the learner .It makes the learner active and not only in class to be spoon-fed by the teacher. It focuses on the use of pair work, group works which spare more time for thinking and hence free the students from undue pressure. Briefly put, it renders the idea of whoever doing most of the work is doing the learning a reality.
In a nutshell, teaching is an interaction between a teacher and a learner and it’s better if the two then decide on matters that the whole learning experience enjoyable and useful.

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1. Mark Ellis and Christine Johnson, Teacher Business English, Oxford University press,( 1994) P.219
2. Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters, English for Specific Purposes: a Learning-Centred Approach, Cambridge University Press ( 1989) P. 142