As a new year starts, many English teachers begin to make decisions regarding their careers. This is the best time to analyse their strengths and weaknesses. They evaluate the labour market and may start looking for new jobs. Which aspects of their careers, as seen on their CVs, should they improve in order to stand out from the crowd?
Some teachers take pride in their years of experience and consider them to be their best asset. Granted, seasoned teachers know the profession, which helps them justify their classroom decisions. However, if this experience is not linked to progress, it may not be so attractive to potential employers, since it may mean that these teachers were not able to step out of their comfort zone and try out new dares: teaching more challenging courses, preparing students for international exams, changing schools or adopting new methodologies, doing research, etc. Having said that, there should always be one or two areas in which English teachers should feel most confident and demonstrate more expertise.
On the other hand, postgraduate courses (Diplomas and Masters’ Degrees) are nowadays much more attractive and more readily available than in the past; this is why quite a few teachers choose to take this option as part of their professional development. This seems to be a good idea: postgraduate courses usually provide theoretical foundations to many of the things that happen in class, as well as foundational research methodology for those more academically inclined. However, in practice, postgraduate study may not have an impact on the quality of language teaching and learning overall as some courses are probably too abstract or do not cater for their audience’s everyday needs.
We could argue that English teachers may find that strengthening their language proficiency is probably more useful in the long run, as this is the core of their daily work as well as an important asset when seeking further challenges in their ELT careers. Teachers are usually advised to be at least one level above their students in terms of proficiency. This is especially true these days, since many Peruvian schools have decided to start teaching the language from early years and more parents also decide to enrol their children in private language schools after school classes. This results in an interesting challenge: by the time pupils arrive at secondary school, their standard is very close to B1 or B2, which means that teachers would need to operate at a good B2 or C1 in order to deal with language issues more confidently and without “losing face.” Naturally, spending in language training and qualifications requires time and money to invest, which not all teachers have, although maybe they could compensate for this by being constantly exposed to the language outside work.
All in all, the three aspects are important for English teachers, and should be upgraded as much as possible throughout their careers; but, if they want to make themselves more attractive in our current career market, they should think very carefully about which of the three points they need to hone the most. Arguably though, improving their own language proficiency could yield the best long-term results.
Now, it’s YOUR turn:
Is it enough to focus on one aspect only?
Is there one that you consider more important than the others?
Estimated reading time: 2 minutes, 45 seconds
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