For many, indeed probably most, getting a TEFL certificate is a means to occupy a gap year, take a short break from a hectic career, or facilitate travel, and nothing more. Their intention is to teach for a short specific amount of time, then return to university or their chosen career with some great stories and adventures. For others, the TEFL certificate represents the first step in a major life and career change, the intention being to teach for an extended period of time.
I am the latter, and as such have been doing reading beyond the TEFL course material. One of my very close friends has a Masters in Education and works teaching special needs children in Washington DC. She gave me one of her course books to help me further my skills as a teacher, and I've found the information on it's pages to be invaluable.
The book is titled The Skillful Teacher, by Jon Saphier, Mary Ann Haley-Speca, and Robert Gower. It is university textbook sized and about 500 pages. The edition I am currently reading is published in 2008, by Research for Better Teaching, Inc. It retails on amazon.com for just under $50.
The book itself is divided into 4 sections: Introduction to Management, Introduction to Instruction, Introduction to Motivation, and Introduction to Curriculum. The subsections are: Part 1 - Attention, Momentum, Space, Time, Routines, Discipline. Part 2 - Clarity, Principles of Learning, Models of Teaching. Part 3 - Expectations, Personal Relationship Building, Classroom Climate. Part 4 - Curriculum Design, Objectives, Planning, Learning Experiences, Assesment, Overarching Objectives.
What I've found particularly powerful about the book's approach is it states in the introduction the claim that there is no one correct or incorrect way to teach, but rather teaching is situation based, and the best teachers are adaptive and have a repertoire to deal with as many classroom situations and student types as possible. It makes good on this promise by analyzing classroom situations and their causes, and giving a number of possible teacher responses, with explanations on each, when they are most effective, and even why they might not be effective.
I was most recently able to put the Discipline section to use. I have a 3 year old student currently who is an absolute terror, and the information in this chapter has given me insights into probable causes of his behavior which I would not have previously had, and how to write a detailed plan to reduce his disruptions and hopefully eliminate them entirely (this Sunday will be the first time we work with him with this new plan). It goes through a number of methods of basic control in the classroom and where new teachers often fall short with discipline, typical causes of discipline issues, as well as 6 theories in detail to deal with students who do not respond to regular discipline and need special attention.
The Skillful Teacher may be too large of an investment, more in time as it's a long and dry read, for those intending to teach only one semester, but to anyone willing to invest the time into it, I would say it's a great tool to becoming not just a decent teacher, but a great teacher, and vastly improving classroom competence. The book deals with things outside the scope of the TEFL cert, and in much more detail. I would definitely recommend it to anyone who wants more information about teaching theory.
by Phill Harmon
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O well done Phill...you can be proud not only of your achievement, but also your little student's as well.
It's been about two months now... and we saw improvement in the trouble student almost immediately. At this point he understands things like if he gets angry and throws something across the room, I expect him to pick it up. I think I'm the first teacher that has actually taken the time to work with him, his previous teachers just ignored him after they couldn't get through to him, and I think he's very happy that we're happy to have him in our class now. He's also learning a lot more.
So, in short, it worked very very well though it was exhausting the first few weeks. I feel pretty rewarded for the effort though.
Your information is very informative and interesting Phil....please let us all know how you get along with your 3year old. I currently work as a nanny and have done for many years...and believe me, there probably is not a single type of child with bad behaviour I haven't had to deal with. Nice to hear its not all rosy though because we newbies need to hear tings like that.....as long as there is follow up later.
Cheers
I'm defintiely going to have to look into this!!! Sounds like something I just might want in my collection. Thanks for this suggestion!
Hey Phill,
Thanks for sharing - it's always great to have recommendations for people to further their teaching skills! Good luck with your class on Sunday - it'd be great to hear how you get on with the little 3-year-old terror :)
Honor
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