The English Teachers. RF Duncan-Goodwillie
to read this book
Ironically for a teacher and academic manager, I hate telling people what to do. However, sometimes ways of doing things are not so obvious and some pointers can be useful. This is how I justify myself at least.
With that in mind, you could read this book line after line, cover to cover. And if you can keep track of over 30 different conversations in your head at the same time, then you are welcome to do this.
Another way might be choosing what you want to focus on and skipping right to the section which catches your eye. This is also valid and I’ve tried to give some comments of what was discussed previously for context, though you might need to read the parts of the interviews in surrounding chapters to get a fuller picture. It’s also possible to read this book one conversation at a time and appreciate them as single, continuous dialogues. This might give a fuller experience as though you are a fly on the wall of the conversation.
Whatever your approach, it should be the most comfortable one for you.
This work is for the following groups of people
1) Teachers I often find one of the features of even general conversations with teachers is the constant quest for ideas. How can I improve my practice? How can this lesson be more interesting? How do I make more money!? Hopefully, this work will assist with answering these questions, but they are not the primary focus for teachers. I hope teachers will find common ground in terms of the issues they face and help each other (however indirectly) to find solutions. In particular, the matters of stress management seem particularly pertinent for teachers already in the profession. This book is also designed to be relevant to those who are considering teaching as a start or change to their career. I have found that several teachers have come into the profession with certain expectations which are then not met and they are left bitterly disappointed. I would encourage those prospective teachers to read the sections on what the students are like and the reality of teaching English. Hopefully, it will help them prepare for the rewards and challenges that lie ahead.
Many of the people in this book are teaching, or have taught, in the Russian context and so this book might best be called, “The English Teachers of Moscow”, but I believe the issues discussed here are largely universal and any teacher (or potential teacher) working in any context would benefit from reading about them. Still, I acknowledge that possible shortcoming and hope people will be willing to accept it. If you can’t, perhaps writing a book about teachers in your context is a route to consider. You would certainly find a willing audience in me.
2) Managers Management, like government, strikes many as something of a necessary evil and certainly few people go into management to be liked (and if you have then you really should have known better). As already mentioned, managers are busy people with little free time on their hands. I hope they will use some of that free time to look at the thoughts of those they manage and keep them in mind when they are planning their next steps. The chapter on teaching contexts and teaching in general will likely be the most useful in these cases.
3) Teacher Trainers I would not be exaggerating if I said all the teacher trainers I have ever met have been some of the smartest people I know. Of course, you can know everything in the world and still miss an important aspect: at the end of the day, we are training people. By offering some insight into teachers’ thoughts and feelings about training and professional development, perhaps trainers will be able to tailor their approaches more effectively.
4) Students A book about teachers that students can read?! It doesn’t make much sense on the surface, but students are curious people (in every sense of that adjective!). Why else would they take the time to learn a language and ask questions about it? Students do wonder what teachers do and what they think about. Perhaps by sharing some of this with them, teachers can become more relatable and students can become more engaged with the learning process. It is perhaps a distant dream in the minds of many, but if we do not try to encourage students to understand their teachers, we will never know. With this in mind, I have tried to make the conversations as clear as possible for those who do not speak English as a first language. Of course, if you cannot understand everything it’s possible to use a dictionary… or pay an English teacher to help you!
5) The Ever-Curious Public Everyone has an opinion on education. Everyone. My least favourite opinion is when people tell me (and it is always “telling”, never “saying”) how easy my job must be. It’s all, “Repeat after me, please!” and drinking vodka with the locals. My favourite opinion is when people assume I know everything about English. While I do know more than the average person, I wouldn’t claim a perfect knowledge (though it does provide a nice ego boost!).
I hope the insights shared by the teachers in this book will help enlighten the public about what we do and how we work. We might be teachers but we are still people and, as in any job, we face many issues and garner numerous rewards from our work. Perhaps, through deeper understanding, non-teachers will be able to appreciate our work more fully and appreciate us as people.
I have made the book as open in language as possible. There are a lot of abbreviations and acronyms in ELT – English Language Teaching – and I have added notes where I feel this would help. However, if anything is unclear, I would refer to the glossary at the start of the book and then to the TKT (Teacher Knowledge Test) glossary which was designed for a teaching exam but written in very clear language by Cambridge Assessment English. It is online and free. Also, Scott Thornbury’s A-Z of ELT which is online and free.
The Nature of the Book
I have structured the book by dividing it into chapters broadly based around key questions with explanations as to why this is my focus. I hope I have chosen wisely. I have then provided the transcripts of teachers’ answers to these questions. These have been edited for relevance and succinctness I had no intention of boring readers with every “um” and “ah” – even though we all do it! Furthermore, my audio recording and transcribing software has been far from accurate in places. Speaking is a notoriously less accurate skill than writing, so I have also had the transcripts edited by a professional editor to keep the contributions understandable for readers by making minor changes to the tenses used etc. but with the original meaning kept intact.
At the end of the book there is a conclusion with my own ideas and beliefs as a commentary, and some questions for readers to consider. I have done so to draw the chapters to a close, not with the intention of encouraging readers to believe everything I have written. Indeed, I would be appalled if that happened; life would be very boring if we all had the same opinions.
I’ve kept some of my interviewees anonymous on request. English teaching is a wonderful job, but some aspects of business and educational culture do not lend themselves to open and honest dialogue with a name attached.
Similarly, I have kept the use of the names of specific institutions to a minimum.
The views of 35 people speaking in 2019 have been recorded here and it’s possible they may have changed their ideas since then. Most of the interviewees are teaching in Moscow, though many have international experience which they have also contributed. Some contributors may express what seem to be mutually exclusive viewpoints. I think this is something the vast majority of people do, such is the nature of humanity. Read the book both critically and with an open mind.
My personal email is at the end and I welcome questions, ideas and constructive criticism.
2
“Where do you come from?” – Teacher Backgrounds
English teachers are spectacularly diverse in almost every aspect. They come from all around the world for different reasons, speaking many dialects and possessing a variety of outlooks on life and the English language. When many of us start teaching students for the first time, we are encouraged to do a “needs analysis”. This helps teachers find