Column:
Professional Development (October, 2005)
(2005.10.25) Thomas
S.C. Farrell
Welcome to this first column of Professional
Development. I am delighted to have been invited to host this
column for Asia
TEFL NewsNet and I feel it a great honour and indeed a challenge
to talk to my colleagues throughout Asia about this amazing profession
we share, language teaching. Yes, I said "profession" because if you
too did not consider this a profession, I think you would not be
reading this at the moment as it shows you are interesting in
furthering your knowledge and career, surely one sign that you are a
professional teacher because we never really stop learning. As Richards
& Farrell (2005) have suggested, the need for ongoing renewal of
teachers' skills or knowledge is not a reflection of
inadequately
training, but a response to the fact that the knowledge base of
teaching constantly changes. What you learned five years ago may not be
relevant today due to the nature of a profession that continuously
reinvents itself (Richards & Farrell, 2005). In addition, after a
teacher has been teaching for some time, his or knowledge and skills
sometimes become outdated and so, I see this column as a place where
you can take some timeout from your regular teaching and reflect on
important issues related to your professional development as a language
teacher.
I will address such issues as how you can gauge your present level of
development as a teacher (this article), and issues related to planning
language lessons, and classroom management (next column) regardless of
your level of teaching experience. For example, I know some of you are
saying that you do not plan formal lessons—well I say to you that maybe
you should: would you go to Paris, France and try to find the Louvre
without using a map of Paris? I think not! Well, lesson plans are just
that and they make life easier for you when teaching.
I have found over the years that I actually plan my lessons MORE rather
than less. Also, when we say classroom management, what comes to your
mind? I wonder if how you arrange the seating comes to your mind.
Anyway, it may be time for you to reflect on these two important issues
once again. In future issues I will also ask you to reflect on your
teaching methodology when teaching reading, writing, grammar, speaking,
and listening. These columns will not be overly theoretical; rather I
will suggest some specific teaching strategies they can easily
implement to teach each skill area. I will also discuss issues related
to language assessment, both oral and written tests. Later columns will
directly relate to methods you can incorporate as you focus on your
professional development. These include conducting action research
projects, writing journals and many more.
As Richards & Farrell (2005) suggest, teachers are generally
interested in adding to their professional knowledge and keeping up to
date with theory and practice in their field, in improving their
teaching skills so that they feel more confident about what they do and
achieve better results with their learners. They may also be interested
in clarifying and understanding their principles, beliefs, values, and
how these relate to their classroom practices. I hope this column can
help you reflect on issues related to your professional development. In
future columns, I will cover areas related to subject-matter knowledge
related to the disciplinary basis of TESOL: methodology related to
teaching English reading, writing, grammar, and listening as well as
language assessment. Here are three questions to reflect on. Feel free
to e-mail me your answers.
1.
What does teacher development mean to you?
- Improving language
skills?
- Improving teaching
skills?
- Becoming a better
teacher?
- Learning new teaching
methods?
- Learning how to
develop curriculum and materials?
- Keeping up to date
with what is happening in ELT?
- Learning more about
current theories and research?
- Learning how to carry
out research?
- Other?
2. Where do you get
ideas about teaching methods/techniques?
- Talks/demonstrations
by other teachers (brown bag lunches)?
- Talks by invited
speakers?
- Workshops?
- Short courses?
- In-service courses at
your institution?
- EFL textbooks
teachers' manuals?
- Conferences?
- Teacher resource
books on teaching theory?
- Academic journals?
- EFL magazines?
3. Where do you get
information about language?
- Grammar books?
- Colleagues?
- Teachers'
books?
- Textbooks?
- Dictionaries?
I will be talking about issues concerning lesson planning and classroom
management. I hope you find the contents of this column useful--feel
free to contact me to discuss them some more at tfarrell@brocku.ca
Reference:
Richards, J. C &
Farrell T.S.C. (2005). Professional
Development for Language Teachers. New York: Cambridge
University Press.