Six Principles for All Teachers

Written by Dr. David E. Shaffer

 

Everyone has principles. As an educator, particularly as one who interacts with English language learners, what are your principles? Do you have a set of clear ones? TESOL International Association has delineated a set of six principles that they suggest as being appropriate for all educators who interact with English language learners. We will discuss these below. But first, if you are not familiar with TESOL International Association, it is a group of over 13,000 individuals involved in the teaching of English as a second language. TESOL (for short) is U.S.-based and has over 100 affiliate associations worldwide: about half in the U.S. and about half elsewhere around the world. Korea TESOL is the sole Korean affiliate of TESOL. Now, to the principles.

PRINCIPLE 1: KNOW YOUR LEARNERS
Memorizing your students’ names – and pronouncing them correctly – is only a small part of “knowing” your students. This principle refers to knowing them as a group and individually. This involves knowing their character, their social and cultural backgrounds, and their family situation. What are their likes and dislikes? Are they shy or outgoing? Do they have family support? Are they interested in learning English? What is their English proficiency level?

How can we obtain all this information? Time-consuming individual interviews? In-class questionnaires? Online surveys? These information-gathering methods can be used for some of the student information, but much of it can be collected during the lesson, built into language learning activities. For example, for a lesson on asking questions, you could ask students to interview each other and report their findings. After collecting student information, this knowledge could be used to inform the linguistic content of your lessons, the topics that you deal with, how you arrange students for small-group activities, and how you deal with them individually.

PRINCIPLE 2: CREATE CONDITIONS FOR LANGUAGE LEARNING
How well students learn depends a lot on the classroom environment: Is the classroom pleasing to the eye? Is it comfortable? Are the facilities and materials satisfactory? Is the teacher likeable? Are the students comfortable with each other? Students learn best in non-threatening situations, and it is the responsibility of the teacher to create and maintain a learning-friendly environment.

The students must have a clear idea of what the course goals are in order to effectively strive toward them. At the beginning of the course, the teacher should inform the students of these goals and of the course content that will be instrumental in attaining these goals. Expectations for student outcomes should be set high but not too high. We know that if goals are too high to be attained or if the coursework is too easy, motivation to learn will go downhill quickly. A pleasing environment makes for an effective language learning environment.

PRINCIPLE 3: DESIGN HIGH-QUALITY LESSONS FOR LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
“High-quality lessons” does not suggest the use of expensive materials. Rather, individual lessons should be carefully planned. The targeted language must be carefully selected and the content well thought out. Students must be informed of the goals of the lesson and provided with the language learning strategies necessary to attain those goals.

An explanation of lesson goals must be presented in a manner that is easy for students to understand. Rather than being teacher-centered, much of a lesson should be student-centered with large doses of interaction among students and with the teacher. Lessons should be engaging, and students should be made aware of what language learning strategies may be helpful in attaining the goals of the lesson. All too often students are unaware of simple strategies that we take for granted (e.g., using background knowledge, making inferences and predictions, monitoring, and evaluating).

PRINCIPLE 4: ADAPT LESSON DELIVERY AS NEEDED
Teachers often reflect on a lesson that flopped after class to revise it for the next time. This is a good practice, but if this is the only reflection that is done, a whole class hour is wasted. What is needed is what is often called “reflection-in-action”: the in-class recognition that an exercise or activity is not going well and, by thinking on one’s feet, making the necessary revisions on the spot. It is often the case that the activity itself is not the problem, but instead, the manner in which the activity is presented is defective. Was the teacher speaking too fast or too softly? Did the instructions include difficult vocabulary or syntax? Should the students’ L1 be used? Should visual aids be added? Or should more time be allotted? These are some of the questions that attentive teachers should be asking themselves as soon as they detect that the lesson is not going as well as expected.

PRINCIPLE 5: MONITOR AND ASSESS STUDENT LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT
Not all learners learn the same thing at the same time or at the same speed. On top of this, students often come into our courses at vastly different levels of language proficiency. In order to be effective in the students’ language development, teachers need to constantly monitor and assess their students’ progress. This does not mean merely observing participation and giving a summative test at the end of the course for grading purposes. Instead, it means observing their work on class projects and activities, and regularly giving feedback – positive feedback for tasks well done as well as critical and corrective feedback. The feedback is most beneficial when it describes what was done well or what needs to be improved on and how to improve upon it.

PRINCIPLE 6: ENGAGE AND COLLABORATE WITH A COMMUNITY OF PRACTICE
A “community of practice” (CoP) is a group of teachers, large or small, who cooperate in some manner for their own professional development to better serve their students. Co-workers may collaborate on generating class materials, creating lesson plans, and designing courses. Teachers may also form larger associations such as Korea TESOL (koreatesol.org) and the local Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter, which organize workshops, conferences, and a variety of other professional development events, all in the spirit of “Teachers Helping Teachers” for the improvement of the teaching of English in their community.

Teachers who follow these six general teaching principles and fine-tune them to suit their specific teaching situations will be exemplars of quality teaching and of caring about the improvement of their students’ language-learning skills.

The Author
David E. Shaffer is vice-president of the Gwangju-Jeonnam Chapter of Korea TESOL (KOTESOL). On behalf of the chapter, he invites you to participate in the teacher development workshops at their monthly meetings (always on a Saturday). For many years, Dr. Shaffer has been a professor of English Language at Chosun University. He is a long-time member of KOTESOL and a holder of various KOTESOL positions; at present he is national president. Dr. Shaffer credits KOTESOL for much of his professional development in English language teaching, scholarship, and leadership. He is chairman of the board at the GIC and also editor-in-chief of the Gwangju News.