Get Out of that Teaching Rut! 6 Ways to Shake Up How you Teach ESL

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting different results.”– Albert Einstein

There have been times in my teaching career when I have been frustrated because my students don’t seem to be learning as much as I want them to learn or their test scores stay stubbornly where they are in spite of all of our hard work. At such times it can be tempting to blame my students or to think well, they just need to study more and harder. I have even been guilty of giving a greater volume of the same kind of homework to students.  I refer you to the above quote, more of the same thing will probably not yield better results.

I have also seen many teachers who don’t like their students’ behavior, performance or outcomes but continue teaching the same curriculum with the same materials in the same style year after year. Why do we do this?

As a beginning teacher I was overwhelmed with work. It took me forever to plan lessons and create materials, I was nervous trying things out I had never done and insecure about giving students feedback on their work. It was exhausting! In those first few years I found activities that worked for me and I stuck with them. Having a “toolbox” of things that worked was a godsend and my workload gradually became more bearable as my lesson planning got more efficient, my nerves calmed down and my insecurities abated.  This was fantastic but soon routines became habits and my teaching stagnated. 

It might be tempting to stay in that rut but I have found that it is when I jump out of it and try something new, my teaching improves and more importantly, my students’ learning improves. 

So, how do you get out of that rut?
​Here are 6 ways:

1. Choose one thing you want to focus on changing for the semester.

If you have noticed that something is not working as well as you would like or you are just getting tired of approaching something in the same way, make it your goal in the following semester to try out new approaches to that one particular thing. You don’t have to throw away the whole curriculum, just that one part of it.

A few years ago, I noticed that my students were not retaining vocabulary as well as I would like them too so I decided to focus my creative energy on that. It took me several semesters and experimenting with a few different strategies to come up with one I was happy with but I really liked how well students were retaining and using the vocabulary in the end.

The next thing I focused on was pronunciation because my students kept complaining that they couldn’t understand the listenings because “the speaker was talking too fast.” I noticed that the speaker was not in fact speaking very fast but that the students were not able to distinguish between similar sounding words or understand connected speech. Next year I want to focus on inserting more games into learning. 

Steps:

• Identify one area of your curriculum you would like to focus on
• Read books, listen to podcasts, read blogs and find out as much as you can about that one thing
• Think about what you are currently doing and how you could change it to be better. 
• Create all the materials you might need
• After trying it out set aside some time to think about how well it worked and what changes you might like to make the next time you teach.

2. Go observe as many teachers in different contexts as you possibly can.

I am always amazed that as teachers we are surrounded by such wonderful resources in our colleagues yet we rarely take the time out of our schedules to observe each other. The last program I taught for had 6 teachers and we were all supposed to be teaching using exactly the same materials yet when I went and watched my colleagues teach, we all had totally different approaches. I didn’t necessarily want to adopt all of those approaches myself but I always came away with new ideas.
Steps:

• Ask other teachers if they would be open to letting you observe their classes. Don’t limit yourself to only other teachers of English, I have gotten great ideas from math, science and art teachers as well as many others. 
• You might want to target your attention on things things you would like to change in your classroom or you could just keep your eyes and ears open to any and all new ideas.
• Take notes and/or pictures while you are observing. If you take pictures, make sure that is OK with the teacher and students beforehand. 
• Meet with the teacher after you observe them and share with them all of the good ideas you got and any questions you may have. They might even be willing to share materials and resources with you. Keep it positive and refrain from criticizing them, after all, they are doing you a favor by letting you observe.
• Make a solid plan to put some of the new ideas into your classroom as soon as possible. It is easy to get an idea and then file it away into the “sometime in the future” file and then never implement it. 
• Reflect on how it went and if it is something you would like to continue doing.

3. Let your students choose the curriculum for the semester.

I love this option but it can be a lot of work. I was once given an adolescent issues class. The principal met with me and gave me the following instructions “you have to cover Sex Education but other than that, whatever the students feel is important.” In the months leading up to the course I planned out how I wanted to each Sex Ed. But the rest I had to leave until after the course had started. The students chose things like addiction and gangs, and mental health, three subjects I had limited knowledge of, so while we were doing the Sex Ed stuff I was busy reading and finding materials for the other units. The class was a success because the students were involved with choosing what they wanted to study and they were engaged. I learned a lot about addictions, gangs and mental health.
Steps:

• Get the first unit ready to go with all of the materials and lessons in the bag as much as possible. Make a framework of how you want to plan the following units. I was using learning menus. 
• Use at least part of the first class to brainstorm possible course topics so you can get started as soon as possible.
• Once you and your classes have decided what they want to study start reading and watching as much as you can on that topic to expand your knowledge and look for appropriate material. 
• When you finish the first few units, ask your students specific questions about the course so they can give you an idea of what is working and what isn’t working.
• Make changes to the next units according to the feedback you got.

4. Take a class

This is my favorite of all the options listed here. I love nothing more than to learn more about teaching by being a student. The best thing of all is that you don’t have to take classes about English or Pedagogy, you can take classes on anything you want! I love photography so I took classes on how to use the darkroom. You might also take a math or science class, anything you are interested in. 
Steps:

• Find a class that fits into your schedule at a local community college, adult program, online or wherever classes are offered. 
• After each class, aside from doing the homework, write down all the things you did that were interesting and different from what you do in your own classes. Also, take time to reflect on how your classmates are reacting to what the teacher is doing. 
• Find ideas you could adapt for your own classes and implement them as soon as you can. 
• If you have questions about how or why your teacher is doing something, make an appointment to talk to him or her and ask them.
• After doing any new activity in your class, take time to reflect on if it is giving you the results you want. If not, are there some things you could do to tweak it a bit so I will work better next time?

5. Volunteer to teach something completely new.

This is a really fun one. Years ago when I was teaching an academic writing course at a university in Turkey, they asked if any of us would be willing to teach an elective history course. I jumped at the chance and decided to teach Latin American History by giving each student in the class a different country. Each week we would examine a different topic. The students were responsible for researching how that topic applied to their own particular country. I gave them a short lecture on the overall topic, sent them off to do their research and then they shared what they found out with each other the next class. It was so much fun for both my students and me. They each became an expert on one country while learning about the whole region. One of my students even said that she got so interested in Haiti (a country she had never heard of before) she was neglecting her other classes and making plans to visit someday.

6. Attend a teaching conference or convention.

I still remember my first conference; it was a Family Literacy conference in Louisville, Kentucky. I had just started teaching for a community college and they only had funds to send 2 teachers so they sent the two of us who had just been hired. I was surprised they would send me because I had no seniority but they explained that they wanted us to feel connected to the larger Family Literacy community. It was amazing! I had never been with so many working teachers before and everyone was sharing ideas and experiences. I was so inspired, the next year I presented a workshop on how to use student generated books to guide curriculum. 

Steps:

• Find conferences in your field, look up dates and prices.
  • ​Family Literacy Conference in November 2019
  • International TESOL convention 2020
  • upcoming ELT events
• Ask your school administrators if they have a budget that might pay for your trip.
• Look for any scholarships or grants.
• Sign up for the event 
• Look at the catalogue well ahead of time to choose presentations you might like to attend. I recommend going to presentations about things you don’t know much about but might be able to incorporate into your teaching. When I attend presentations on things I already know a lot about I find I don’t get quite as many ideas.
• Take notes and ask questions during the presentations.
• When you get back make a list of ideas that you could implement in your classroom that week and start making changes.
• Share what you learned with your colleagues and see if any of them would like to try things out with you.

Some Final Thoughts

• Don’t be afraid to fail. It is OK if you have some hiccups along the way as long as you keep trying and have an open and enthusiastic dialogue with your students. I often tell my students I am trying this for the first time and I want their honest feedback. They are usually excited to follow me on these learning experiments and we both approach it as we would an adventure. 
• If something doesn’t work perfectly the first time, try again. Often it takes several run throughs with tweaking to get it right.
• Be willing to put some extra time and energy into creating something new. It can be tiring but it is totally worth it as you will be more engaged in what and how you are teaching. Being more engaged with what you are doing every day is a huge reward for those extra hours spent.
• Have fun! Use your imagination, your creativity and your sense of humor to shake things up and launch yourself out of that teaching rut!

​What are your favorite ways to shake up your teaching?  Have you tried any of these ideas?  What did you learn?  Share your answers in the posts so we can all benefit from your experience.