COMMUNICATION

One of the biggest challenges for a work team is to achieve and keep efficient communication among its members.
Efficient communication is a challenge in itself. Sometimes what one says or writes is not what the other one hears or grasps. Misunderstandings may happen and our responsibility, as a team, is to try to avoid them. So let us think about how to improve communication and avoid misunderstandings among members of a team.
Usually language institutes use two basic ways to communicate with teachers:

• During pre-service and in-service training courses, refresher courses, meetings, supervisions and observation feedback, spoken language is usually the most used:

• At these moments, when directors, coordinators, teacher trainers interact with teachers, they also have the opportunity to listen to teachers’ contributions and learn about their points of view. The better the interaction, the richer the experience. For that to happen, team members should be willing, motivated and engaged. Remember: teamwork!

• For procedures, guidelines and notices, it’s usually more effective to use written language. It allows everyone to go back to the text, re-read it and check information.

Directors, coordinators, supervisors and trainers usually provide the necessary information and preparation for the teachers to be ready and confident to go into class and do their jobs well. (At least this is the way it should be). If that is not true, teachers can and should ask for any information they feel could improve the quality of what they are doing. This attitude is also part of effective communication and it is good for the teacher, for the language institute and most important, for the students!