Those in the ELT profession are generally very supportive of one another. Chris Ozog discusses how sometimes comments can have the opposite effect. ‘What is a teacher?’ This seems like a silly question, we are all teachers and we are all in this together. When we talk about our profession and colleagues, we are supportive. But, sometimes we might not be as supportive as we think, in fact we might be the opposite.
The would-be teacher’s view
Let us take an example from a would-be teacher’s communication:
“I’ve always toyed with the idea off [sic] going off to teach English” (accessed 8/4/17 here).
On the surface, we have someone thinking about their future and whether or not to teach English. They are also telling us that they have thought about it before. But that’s not all, they’ve also revealed value judgement about teaching English through their choice of words and metaphors:
- Toy with the idea of – the consideration was not serious
- Go off to do something – depart in an unserious way
For this writer, then, it seems teaching English is not particularly high status or serious. There is a suggestion in their tone that English teaching is something you can just ‘do’, qualifications or not. They don’t appear to imagine teaching English language as something existing teachers take seriously or have a serious career in. Further, they unintentionally dismiss the hard work of teachers in most worldwide contexts who cannot just ‘go off’ and teach somewhere. The writer, not yet a teacher, seems to know what one is.
The professional view
What about the views of those already teaching? Below are two comments from ELT professionals made online last year:
“Here’s a list of ideas to get you started [with your development]. They’re mostly aimed at teachers fresh off a CELTA looking for inspiration, but some will be useful whatever your experience.” (accessed here, 8/4/17)
“…. a bit of self-evident common sense didn’t make this [a blog post] a must-read post for me I’m afraid. Perhaps it will be useful to teachers coming fresh of [sic] a CELTA though.” (available on request)
Just like with our first example, these two comments seem to be straightforward enough. They are aimed at new teachers, one with ideas for CPD and one recommending a blog post. However, the story changes if we dig a little deeper.
The Cambridge International Corpus tells us that boat and plane are by far the most common nouns following fresh off. Breaking that down, fresh off in this context suggests:
- New to something (teaching)
- Newly arrived somewhere (the classroom)
- Not yet ‘assimilated’ (into the profession)
- Naïve (make mistakes/lack knowledge)
- Low-skilled (need to develop/basic teaching)
- CELTA (or equivalent)
The comments suggest that being fresh off a CELTA is to be inexperienced and at the start of your career. The use of a CELTA further suggests a factory line production, a shiny new teacher ready to be delivered and displayed. This reveals an implicit hierarchy at play in describing teachers. At the bottom come the post-CELTA teachers and towards the top are the experienced ‘in-crowd’ of trainers.
The reality
However these conceptions do not reflect reality. Consider the following example of a real group working on their CELTA. 11 out of 12 candidates are existing teachers (one even has 35 years’ experience!). These teachers all teach in Japan and have only ever taught in Japan. Some of the teachers are Japanese and some others can speak Japanese fluently. They are able to understand the linguistic issues their learners face, use L1 in class if needed, and they know the context and the culture. These teachers are not new, newly arrived, naïve or low-skilled. Nor are they the finished article (who is?). And they won’t be ‘going off’ anywhere ‘fresh off’ a CELTA when the course ends.
Conclusion
What is a teacher? When we say we will ‘go off and teach’, we tell the world we are not serious (see author Peter Viney here); when we use metaphors like ‘fresh off a CELTA’, we are potentially (unintentionally) exclusionary and patronising. We should certainly encourage qualifications, but we also need to recognise the importance of context. We should all be valued for what we bring to the classroom. After all, loose lips sink ships, fresh off them or not.