Every teacher needs profeesional development form professionals to learn the best. But, what about listening to some advices from a colleague who has been working for more than ten years?
I never forget my first year in my teaching journey. As I am coming from a teacher family, I had not got any anxieties or fears but I was newly- graduated, very enthusiastic, idealist and happy. My students were a little bit shy due to not knowing me at all and curious about each and everything I would say to them.
As the time passed by, I have had so many experiences about the difficulties that a teacher can come face to face and by the help of the view of learning by doing, I have become a non-formal specialist in coaching new teachers at my school. I must have been so good at that (!), the government gave me a certificate telling me I was a counsellor teacher for new starters in teaching.
Well, I thought that I can type all my ideas and try to help every new teacher around the globe. These are not official advices, of course, and I encourage you to have your own experiences with your own skills. However, whether you agree with me or not, my strategies did work well with me.
1. Be aware of that the time management comes before the class management: To be realistic. We need to acknowledge that no lesson lasts more than 20 minutes. Some psychologists claim that the typical students’ attention span is about 10 to 15 minutes. (Brigges, 2014) It certainly depends on motivation, mood, materials, and topic of course but it would be very optimistic to expect more than that. That’s why you need to arrange the time for the most important thing in the lesson within this range. This is going to make the classroom management easier as they will not get bored and look for something which aims to take your attention on themselves. What about the rest of the lesson time? Find something fun. It could be a game, a song about the topic or an enjoyable formative assessment activity with web2.0 tools like a Kahoot quiz.
2. Expertize on using class walls effectively: As Terada says (2018), what you put on your classroom walls can affect your students’ ability to learn. However, we should pay attention not to use too much visuals as the students may be distracted by these materials or be desensitized. You should make the walls their learning space not an art gallery. In that time you cannot use them effectively when you really need them. Display their work (Barret, 2015), this will enhance their enthusiasm on the assignments and also develop their creativity. Use maps, infographics and posters. Balance the colours and try to use contrast ones together. You may use black borders to remark the essential information. Lastly, remember to take them down when their time is up.
3. Have some carpentry skills: You can repair the cabinet doors just like you use a pencil sharpener, you can make the windows airtight with just a piece of weather-strip. These are going to make you hero/ heroin and stand high with your skills. However, the crucial and the most useful skill you need to have is knowing how to fix the broken copier. I’m telling you, it saves time a lot.
4. Go digital: As we all are in the digital world now thanks to the Covid-19 situation, we all need to improve our digital skills. We must improve the skills to such a master degree that we need to use the digital tools better than them. To tell you the truth, this is not going to be so easy as they started to use computers, the internet and all the other digital tools when they are only babies. We have to catch them up with using technology because it seems that we will need it for ever more.
5. Learn what to do when you suspect a child is bullied in school or online: According to the Office of Juvenile Justice, bullying is frequently misunderstood by adults as an unavoidable part of growing up and, as a result, often occurs in the presence of adults who fail to do anything about it. (Perkins, 2017) Thanks to the developing technology, we unfortunately witness such kind of events more as compared with the past. Cyber crime is a real threat to our students as they still don’t decide properly what to share online. They know very little about being safe on the net. Sometimes they do this just to be popular, sometimes not to be alienated and mostly they are not aware that out there somebody waits in order to abuse these young people. Talk with more experienced colleagues, search the ways of struggling with bullying at schools, ask for the experts to share their knowledge with you and with your students if possible.
6. Keep in mind that you can’t teach them all. Not every student comes to school with the same reasons and not from the same background. They have different aims, different socio-economic lives and different troubles. Most importantly, they have different skills. Some students performs best at Maths, some at Languages and some at Art. Try to reach them, try to make them love your lesson, but you cannot push them to be good at your lesson. They try, believe me. Just sometimes it won’t happen. Do not think that you fail. Do your best but know when to go with the flow.
7. Know how to motivate and entertain your students: To carry out a perfect lesson and engage the students’ attention, the first step to take is knowing the students, their interests and their needs. Use their names form the very beginning of the term, try to learn everyone’s name as soon as possible. Try different activities to learn about their interests and learning styles. Use their favourite songs, plan your lessons from the films they like to watch, choose readings from their best writers. Use drama games as much as possible. Be a gamer, get involved into the play. Be an artist, an actor/ actress, a good playmate.
8. Keep on your professional development: As Heraclitus said, ‘The only constant in life is change’. When I first graduated from university, Gardner had eight multiple intelligences. A few years ago, I learnt that there came the ninth intelligence with the name of existential intelligence. I am afraid, until I digest this new knowledge, someone or he will find the tenth one. What I mean is, you cannot educate your students with the obsolete methods. You should keep going to improve yourself, you should brush up on and you should learn to teach better. You can do this in many ways from reading for the further information to enrolling some online courses which is the new way of learning.
9. Taare Zameen Par (Every Child is Special): Many teachers have watched this Indian movie by Amir Khaan. If you haven’t, forget about the first eight items, and watch the film. A teacher’s most important job is to discover ‘the stars on earth’. Each and every student of us has something really special in them. Not every child can learn your lesson, but they absolutely have an ability. Find it. This can nonrelevant with your field of study, but it worths to find it whatever it is. Realise when they are ready to display their ability. Talk with them, ask them how they success. Believe me, what really matters is being in the heart of the students.
10. Last but not least, maintain your wellbeing: Teaching can be the most challenging and demanding job form time to time. It is one of the professions which need more study even at home. We occasionally read the assignments, exam papers, project works etc. at home and we spend our free times with doing these kinds of stuff. To keep you safe both physical and mental is a must in our job. If you do not feel yourself well, your students will feel this and they won’t feel well, either. Not only for them, but also for yourself, you need to maintain your wellness. You can read your favourite book when you feel tired or stressed, listen to a calming melody, do some yoga. You may try yoga for a lesson activity, as well.
Well, all of these suggestions are just advises from a teacher of fifteen years work. They are not professional ones but experimental ones. You can find more in number and also more effective ones by searching yourself or counselling an expert. If you have any comments, please share them on the comments section below. I would be very happy to hear from your very own experiences.
For further reading:
https://www.opencolleges.edu.au/informed/features/30-tricks-for-capturin....
https://www.edutopia.org/sites/default/files/2020-08/902e4a_6aa724a74ba0...
https://extension.psu.edu/bullying-what-educators-can-do-about-it
https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/blogs/alexenoamen/ways-motivating-efl...
https://barkleypd.com/blog/knowing-your-students/
https://theeducationhub.org.nz/the-importance-of-teacher-wellbeing/
References:
Habibi, A., Mukminin, A., Najwan, J., Sofwan, M., Haswindy, S., Marzulina, L., ... & Harto, K. (2018). Investigating EFL classroom management in pesantren: A case study. The Qualitative Report, 23(9), 2105-2122.
Skeet Creekmore, W. N. (1987). Effective use of classroom walls. Academic Therapy, 22(4), 341-348.
Karlsson, T. (2013). MOTIVATION AND LANGUAGE LEARNING IN ENTERTAINMENT GAMES : The Impact of Instructions (Dissertation). Retrieved from http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:his:diva-8251
He, Y., Prater, K., & Steed, T. (2011). Moving beyond ‘just good teaching’: ESL professional development for all teachers. Professional development in education, 37(1), 7-18.
I am happy that you liked my ideas, Alessandro. Thank you. And, I totally agree with you on bringing critical thinking in the classroom. However, I am at the very beginning level in this kind of activities and I am still learning some strategies. Well, as I mentioned above, we need to improve our teaching skills in terms of different fields.