When one decides to pursue a teaching career, some concerns may arise: which qualifications should I get? What titles and certificates are relevant? Are they expensive and where can I get them?
These are all valid questions, but they probably won’t prepare us for everything that needs to be dealt with in the classroom (or outside the classroom, for that matter). As a more seasoned professional, you could also advise a novice teacher to ask questions such as “How can I communicate a student’s likeliness to fail a semester to them while also being constructive?”, “Is it possible to adapt the lesson in a way that is better connected to my group’s reality, without losing its aim?” or even “Could I talk to my colleague to suggest a more collaborative way for us to work as a team?”.
The aim of this piece is to encourage reflection upon professional components that go beyond the knowledge of teaching. How can we enrich our teaching practices while we take into consideration the subjectivity of the humans involved in the process?
THE STARTING POINT
The technical aspects of a language teaching career, when considered seriously, are definitely not something that can be ignored. At the same time, the more subjective or even more human aspects of our interactions in the learning journey are something we should pay attention to.
Ludwig Wittgenstein, a philosopher, once stated “The limits of my language mean the limits of my world” (WITTGENSTEIN: 229). This sentence inspired research professor and published author Brené Brown to write a book called “Atlas of the Heart”, in order to provide people with a repertoire to appropriately talk about subjective aspects of their lives. She called this emotional granularity.
“When we don’t have the language to talk about what we’re experiencing, our ability to make sense of what’s happening and share it with others is severely limited (…) naming the experience doesn’t give the experience more power, it gives us the power of understanding and meaning.” (BROWN, 2021: 21)
I learned the importance of establishing rapport with students as an essential element in order to allow me to achieve effective lesson outcomes. But when I looked around, I noticed that fellow teachers had different kinds of interactions with their students, and that made me wonder how they perceived rapport.
In the words of Jeremy Harmer (2007: 113) “In part, successful rapport derives from the students’ perception of the teacher as a good leader and a successful professional”. I bring this specific quote because it’s the one I used to learn about rapport (and it helped me a lot during my CELTA course). Now, revisiting it, I would also point out that “a good leader” can have many different definitions and this can impact the choices we make as teachers. We need o keep on building our repertoire.
THE PATH TO EDUCATE EDUCATORS
After having this encounter with Brené Brown’s work, I reflected upon the power and responsibility that comes with being a language teacher. We could be providing our students with a whole new set of words and expressions that could enable them to better communicate their experiences or even think critically about their lives. This mindset seems to already permeate many initiatives, which is something extremely positive – Soft Skills, Cambridge Life Competencies, 21st Century Skills are some of the many already charted ways to bring social-emotional learning into our classrooms.
On the other hand, when faced with a myriad of choices, some teachers or teacher educators may find it challenging or even overwhelming to decide which one(s) to follow. And at a time when many courses and coursebooks focus on developing students’ creativity, communication or critical thinking, making informed decisions towards proper development is crucial. With that in mind, the suggestion brought here, elaborated by Pachauri & Yadav (2014), shows a model that allows room for adaptations that are suitable for specific contexts.
In the table below, you’ll see an adaptation of the seven social-emotional learning competencies, that are also known as soft skills, which can be part of a program designed for teachers. To see the table in its entirety, check the references.
There are three reasons why this table created by Pachauri & Yadav is shown as a suggestion. Firstly, they explain in their article that these soft skills can be explored in a stand-alone model (having sessions that exclusively explore the given skill) or an embedded model (a session on lesson planning that also explores features of critical thinking). Secondly, the must-have and good-to-have columns help us map the layers we intend to explore in our social-emotional learning program. Then, there is the perception that this table can be seen as a starting point. As sessions go by, other soft skills can be added to local programs and the structure can help institutions lay out what skills teachers must have, and which ones are good for them to have.
It is understandable that it might be challenging for some people to discuss more subjective aspects of their professional careers. For instance, learning how to communicate with others when a limit is not respected. Tapping into these areas is the starting point needed to make proper changes. Being in a workplace that encourages growth beyond the development of technical aspects can be paramount for a person to feel appreciated and completely seen. Imagine the positive effect this can have on students.
Even though we are coming to the end of this text, I would like to emphasize that this is only the beginning (or another beginning) of highlighting the importance of developing teachers’ social-emotional competencies in a structured manner, with proper theories and applicable aspects to given context. If you’re a teacher educator, I would advise you to, together with your team, map what needs to be developed, look for sources and references that are reliable and use them to create a learning scenario that caters to your team’s needs. Even though some conversations might be uncomfortable at first, we can find appropriate ways to start having them.
