TESOL Career Path Development

Creating Professional Success

Liz England

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781138312050
• eBook ISBN: 9780429857867
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

This book addresses a wide range of issues and obstacles that teachers in native and non-native English-speaking countries face in teaching English language learners of all ages, at all levels of proficiency, and in a variety of program settings. The book introduces a model of milestones for career path development specific to the specialized needs and skills of the TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) community that caters to the many unique challenges faced by teachers at a range of experience levels, from preservice and novice teachers to veteran and semi-retired professionals.

Taking an interdisciplinary approach and drawing on the voices and experiences of TESOL scholars, England demonstrates how best to apply one's education, background, and experiences to individuals who work in the field of TESOL, and offers unique tools, strategies, and training techniques. This book provides a clear and engaging framework for scholars and teachers at any stage in one's career to grow and develop professionally in fast-changing and increasingly complex professional climates.

This book is ideal for scholars, graduate students, and researchers in TESOL and language teaching, as well as scholars and researchers in international teacher development and language.

1

INTRODUCTION

Overview

In these times of attacks on education in general and teachers in particular in the United States and worldwide, we need to support professionalism in teaching. This book is designed to provide a tool for Teachers of English to Speakers of Other Languages (heretofore described as “TESOL”) professionals who seek to build satisfying careers.

Why are TESOL career paths important to address now? With increasing changes in the world – economies, organizations, industries, and societal perspectives – the world of work is changing for us too. With increasing numbers of employable retirement-eligible people, larger numbers of single parent and both adults working households, and job options for working “remotely” or “from home,” lifestyles are changing generally. And professional work lives are not what they used to be – one job for one's entire career. Increasingly nowadays, employers – schools, universities, and organizations – want to hire based on a portfolio of skills and knowledge both for the present and for the future needs of their clientele. TESOL professionals need to be thinking more strategically about their work lives with a focus on ways in which their skills and knowledge maximize their value for a school, university, or organization. The balance between the needs of employees and the needs of schools and other institutions is dramatically changing. Today's TESOL employment world means maximizing individual needs with organizational potential. The predictable straight-line to success and job satisfaction is no longer available to most of us.

One approach to this new way of looking at our work can be found in Carter, Cook, and Dorsey (2009), where five fundamental components of career path development (CPD) were identified (p. 4). While their analysis addresses industry, there is much to be learned for TESOLers in this list (adapted for TESOLers): (1) a sequential description of one's positions and roles, (2) educational qualifications (academic degrees) and licensure and/or certifications, (3) critical developmental experiences (formal training courses beyond those for educational, licensure, and/or certification above), (4) information about the strengthening of competencies, and (5) information about the importance of prospective employer's list of key factors. Other information may vary, depending on the context (salaries, growth rates, recruitment plans, etc.). In TESOL, we rarely hear this type of conversation. Instead, we focus squarely on the responsibilities of teachers to do a good job. A brief scan of recent TESOL International Association Conference programs or International Association of Teachers of English as a Foreign Language (IATEFL) programs reveal a strong emphasis on learners', not teachers' needs.

In fact, until now, the emphasis in TESOL professional excellence has been placed almost exclusively on learners – providing teachers with new ideas and research to improve the ways in which they deliver instruction. Programs, too, are the object of study as they address efforts to increase learners' speed and level of proficiency in learning English. Rarely do we see efforts to provide teachers with research-based tools for addressing satisfying careers. While acknowledging the value and importance of learners and programs in effective instruction, this book emphasizes the role of teachers and their value and importance. By focusing on a better and clearer understanding of what TESOL CPD actually is for teachers, we can understand and support teachers in new and better ways. This book is a first in doing that: establishing a research base for studying TESOL CPD and ultimately, providing tools for research, strong teacher education programs, and efforts to promote job satisfaction and instructional excellence.

Huberman (1993) describes the life of a teacher drawing heavily on Fessler (1985), who identifies what might be called psychological stages of teachers' career paths. And in addition, Huberman refers to Steffy and Wolfe (2001), who found six stages of teacher development, emphasizing the fact that these stages are not necessarily linear while describing findings including disengagement and teachers leaving the profession. While these findings are of interest and useful to those who want to study CPD among teachers in one specific geographic region, the teachers who were subjects in the research reported by Huberman, Fessler, and Steffy fit a different profile from those who are the focus of this book. Here, I focus squarely on teachers of English to speakers of other languages who work in many different countries worldwide. In addition, teachers described in this volume seek to remain in the profession, at least for as long as it is possible for them to do that. The forces that guide TESOLers along their career paths are different from those found in the aforementioned studies; and at times, those forces operate in complex, nonlinear ways.

Indeed, the research reported by Steffy and Wolfe (2001) reminds us of the fact that CPD is not a superficial experience for most TESOLers. Our career paths affect us deep down inside – our self-esteem, self-image, identity, values, and meaning. We experience a wide range of emotions as we move along. All career paths know ups and downs, promotions and downsizing, tenure decisions, making choices about work and home life, and dealing with successes and failures. We have fears, concerns, anxiety, self-doubt, disappointments, failures, rejection, criticism, and doubt from friends and even from our families. And for many, there can be incredible guilt attached to TESOL careers as we work long hours (sometimes in service to the profession and/or as volunteers) and for many, travel the world leaving sometimes sad and frightened family members and friends behind. My own mother literally planned the funeral of my son and me as we prepared to leave for Egypt in 1984. She phoned the funeral director in our small town: “Jimmy,” she said, “I want to plan my daughter's funeral. She's going to Egypt.” After a pause, Jimmy said, “Dorothy, she has to die first. Let's worry about her funeral when she's actually dead, OK?” I went to Egypt knowing that my mother thought I would die there – and I was taking her only grandson along with me too. A lot of guilt there!

And finally, consider the following brief story, familiar to many TESOLers and related here by a colleague: I remember all the times when I've said “I teach English as a second language” and get a return comment like “Oh, I was going to do that.” Or “I was thinking about doing that for extra money” or “I'd like to try that – so I can travel!” – and my own cringing as if it were something one could just “do” – with no training, because one has the privilege of having been born as a native speaker of English. While the TESOL profession was established in 1966 with the founding of the TESOL International Association, still, today, in 2018, we face this ongoing misunderstanding among those who simply don't know we exist as an actual profession, containing an academic research canon, postgraduate educational requirements, and specific knowledge and skills. It is overdue for us to begin thinking more strategically about TESOL professional employment issues in general. In this book, we begin to do that by addressing teachers' career paths in our field.

In my experience (and that too perhaps of some readers), career paths and talent management have simply not gone together for TESOLers. The result is the too frequent reality of programs staffed by teachers who are untrained or undertrained and who secure jobs for reasons having little to do with their professional expertise nor their track record, teachers who enroll in and complete educational programs where there is little or no connection to or awareness of the real world of TESOL professional employment and sadly, teachers who become burnt-out, abused by employers, unprepared with the skills and credentials needed to obtain good jobs or working in programs where instruction is not a priority and teacher compensation is below standard.

In the chapters that follow, I hope to offer a pathway for TESOLers to acquire knowledge, skills, and habits that will allow not just a few but all TESOLers to know the kind of joy, satisfaction, and sense of professional accomplishment I have personally been fortunate to have known.

I hope that in reading this book, English teachers worldwide will be asking themselves, their professional associations, and their employers for appropriate levels of investment in and prioritizing of funding so that training and development needs of teachers are adequately addressed to create opportunities for excellent instruction and professional satisfaction for teachers at all stages of their career paths.

At the same time, building a career in TESOL can be exciting and empowering. My own career, with a number of job changes, is one example. And I invite readers to consider their own TESOL careers – however long or short – as you anticipate moving ahead. Ours is a truly extraordinary field; and we have knowledge and skills of interest to other fields too. Consider your TESOL life – all of it – and read on.

In an effort to provide a starting point (and for some perhaps a model), here's an abbreviated autobiography. My career path has been guided by an exceptionally well-developed work ethic, honed in childhood as the first-born child and grandchild of my Scottish American mother and father and my grandparents too. Ours was a rich extended family environment filled with obligations and yes, some fun. No one in my family earned a doctoral degree or even a Master's. One aunt got her bachelor's degree in nursing and was a United States Army nurse in World War II. In the course of my growing up, I acquired a deep sense of commitment and ability to help others. My academic beginnings helped me to build skills and knowledge I needed first as a psychology major (bachelor's), then as a school teacher (Master's), and finally, as a language teacher educator (PhD). In the course of my early life, I learned to trust my inner voice – to learn from my experiences and from incredibly wonderful mentors. And I have learned to repackage my skills, knowledge, and habits as I have moved along through the past 35+ years in TESOL. Like many teachers, I have applied and taught my students some practices and habits that work for me; and in many cases, those practices have paid off for my students. But those are other stories.

English teachers working with millions of students all over the world have an extraordinary job. They work in programs in which they deserve better support for their employment and career planning efforts than they currently receive. These teachers should – but often do not – lead full and satisfying professional lives in which they provide excellence in:

• instruction,
• research and scholarly activity, and
• professional and community service – both to their institutions (employment settings) and their professional communities and associations locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally.

The goal of this book is to provide professionals in Teaching English to speakers of other languages (TESOL) at all stages of their career paths with the information they need to advocate for themselves with evidence-based information to support them throughout their careers. While generally omitted from conversations on policy and society in general, TESOLers' voices are needed to anticipate any hope for the future of all English language learners. In our field, in particular, instruction often occurs in under-resourced, poorly understood, low status, and disenfranchised programs – among teachers and learners alike. This book serves to support educators' efforts to improve their own work lives through intentional and informed CPD.

The premise is that happy, engaged, and well-prepared professional teachers will produce happy, engaged, and well-prepared students. And this means all teachers – native- and non-native English speakers, in all geographical contexts worldwide who are teaching learners of all levels of proficiency and social strata, with any first and/or other languages, in all sociolinguistic contexts.

TESOL CPD has sometimes been confused with TESOL professional development. But they differ. It is important to clarify the scope and context of this book. Here, I define TESOL CPD as follows.

TESOL CPD is a description of how individuals proceed in their professional lives. As an interdisciplinary concept, TESOL CPD draws on work in language teacher education, teacher motivation, organizational development, leadership, and life balance.

In their introduction to International Handbook on the Continuing Professional Development of Teachers, Day and Sachs (2004) help to show how CPD differs from professional development in international settings and begin to reveal the importance of TESOL CPD as a critical element for professional development at all stages of our careers:

… what passes for professional development in many contexts may be naïve and uninspiring and in other contexts it is an essential intellectual and emotional endeavour that rests at the heart of dedicated efforts to improve the quality of education. In these contexts, professional development for teachers uses our best knowledge about pedagogy, about professional renewal and growth, about individual commitment and about organizational life and change. It enhances the preparation of new teachers, renews the professional skills and enthusiasm of classroom veterans, even those who may feel disenchanted or disenfranchised, and improves the professional expertise, self-confidence and commitment of all. (p. xii)

Careful study of TESOL CPD begins to help us to see that “teachers' uses of our best knowledge about pedagogy …” is too often defined by others and not by teachers themselves working, as we all do in TESOL, in highly diverse professional and employment contexts with a wide range of issues, challenges, power dynamics, and standards. It is teachers, themselves, who are the rightful subject and recipients of the professional development they experience and how they apply it. Professional development, theref...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Endorsements
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Acknowledgments
• 1 Introduction
• 2 Theorizing TESOL Career Path Development
• 3 Teacher Education
• 4 Teacher Motivation
• 5 Organizational Development
• 6 Leadership
• 7 Life Balance
• 8 Rewards and Milestones
• 9 Moving Forward – Roles of Educational Organizations and Language Teachers Associations
• 10 It’s On Us: Intentional TESOL Career Path Development
• References
• Index