Language teacher professionalism

Knowledge base, peer networks, autonomy

About teaching

Teaching is considered an advanced and complex undertaking. It's a process that takes time to master. Generally, teacher effectiveness is defined through a) student achievement, b) performance ratings from supervisors and c) student feedback. Empirical research findings suggest that a teacher’s pedagogical knowledge is even more important than their subject knowledge. Moreover, teachers are expected to implement various innovative and creative teaching strategies and fully meet students’ individual learning needs. Many believe that only teachers can increase learning motivation in students.

Another common understanding is that an effective teacher communicates well with parents, other teachers and community members. They're good at role modelling and mentoring their less experienced colleagues, as well as contributing to professional organisations. In fact, it's considered of uttermost importance that teachers keep communicating outside school how challenging and complex their job really is.

About student and teacher expectations

A number of surveys show that modern students focus on the personality rather than subject knowledge of their teachers. Quite often, a good teacher is described as respectful, approachable, engaging, communicative, organised, responsive and humorous. Moreover, students highly appreciate those supporting diversity, balancing fun and fairness, and making the learning relevant for their individual interests and needs.

Teachers expect their students to be respectful as well: towards teacher authority, towards themselves and their learning environment. Students should know that the concepts taught at school are meaningful and make real life connections. They should always apply their strengths and continuously work on their weaknesses.

About old and new approaches to teaching

Old teaching practices used to focus on certain fields of study. In fact, teaching was mainly about subject knowledge, somewhat less about pedagogy, and very little about technology. Modern teaching practices, however, are based on all-embracing ICT, combined with blended, classical and innovative pedagogy. In the past, teaching was about learning outcomes. These days, teaching is about the learning process.

About various language teaching methods

Language teaching has gone through dramatic changes, from the grammar translation method to the communicative method, via direct, audio-lingual and humanistic methods. Today, however, they're talking about something called principled eclecticism (fitting the method to the learner rather than the learner to the method). There is no single best method for everyone, and no one teaching method is considered better than the others.

Experts say

According to OECD, the three teacher professionalism domains are a) knowledge base (formal teacher education and professional development), b) peer networks (information exchange, mentoring, network of teachers and direct observation), and c) autonomy (a teacher’s decision-making power over aspects related to their work, e.g. content, course offerings, discipline practices, assessment and materials).

The author and educator Ben Johnson suggests that many teachers face passive aggression and battle of wills when they expect their students work hard. Moreover, they're often overwhelmed with trivial matters. So teachers need much more support, be it study materials and technology or just a few kind words from the senior management every now and then.

Phil Benson and Jing Huang claim that teachers should be autonomous in relation to their own practice; they should have the right and responsibility to choose their own teaching methods and strategies. Also, teachers should be free to go against constraints and burdens of educational systems. In fact, teacher autonomy is the very outcome of their professional development.

We say

We understand that the art of teaching is dramatically changing. Like all other teachers, we're changing, too. Still, in spite of all new and modern approaches, we'd like to keep the freedom of choosing our own methods as we see fit.

We strongly oppose the popular opinion that classical learning and teaching methods are out. Granted, ICT is an important part of modern school, but digitalized classrooms do not always guarantee quality either.

When it comes to foreign languages, broad vocabulary and excellent grammar skills have always been essential to creating literate text, oral or written. An effective language learner never stops learning.

And we never stop showing our great enthusiasm for the language we teach.