Silvana Richardson spoke on how to foster professionalism in English Language Teaching.
What is professionalism?
The key theme of Silvana’s talk was professionalism and therefore it seemed only natural that she kicked off the discussion by defining professional. How do we know who an ELT professional is? And does the description coincide with the reality?
The non-professional threat
Having defined what it means to be a professional, Silvana then went on to discuss the non-professional threat to ELT teaching. That is, individuals who work as English Language teachers and earn money and yet, they do not have any, adequate or sufficient teacher training or education. According to Silvana, there are two ‘types’ that present a threat. Type 1 is ‘The Native Speaker’, who is very much in demand and where no formal teaching qualifications are required. Type 2 is ‘The B2 Certificated User’, that is an individual who is a non-native speaker and whose only ‘qualification’ or training to teach English is having sat a B1, B2 or C1 level certificate. So, Silvana asks what it is that a teacher needs to have, and what the problem really is with non-professionals.
Contextualising ELT professionals
ELT teachers are often referred to as the ‘Cinderella’ of the profession, or the ‘aromatherapy’ of the profession. So, Silvana sought to situate ELT teaching within the wider professional context. She found that there is a big difference between professionals generally and professional ELT teachers. There were two main reasons for this. Firstly, teacher professionalism is very different from normal professionalism. Secondly, what it means to be a professional teacher varies across different contexts. For example, how you teach a lesson to primary children and corporate clients will vary hugely, as will the way that different learners take on board lessons and process information. Therefore, context is crucial.
Is initial teacher training fit for purpose?
Given that context is so crucial, Silvana went on to ask whether the initial teacher training certificate is fit for purpose. The short international teaching certificate is very popular however, it is essentially a toolkit for survival in the classroom. If we turn to context once again, how appropriate is that? Silvana argued that there are ‘appropriacy’ issues with these programmes and that this is becoming more pronounced as the diversity of practitioner’s increases. Therefore, we need to abandon the easy answer that claims universality.
(Further) professionalising of ELT
So, what can we do to (further) professionalise ELT? Silvana believes that the key lies in prioritising leadership of learning over simple management. She talked about the 5 most impactful leadership dimensions that have an impact of student outcomes. Organisations should seek to prioritise professional teacher learning and make it part of the culture of learning at that institution. They should invest in professional development now in order to say costs in the future.
Make sure you watch Silvana’s talk:
If you’d like to hear more from Silvana Richardson, then make sure to catch up with our interview series with her, starting with this look at adding the dimension of the teacher’s knowledge.