September 2023 - In September 2003, I started teaching languages. Twenty years ago now — a long time, no doubt.
These past few days, I've been sorting through my teaching materials, and in doing so, the memories have come flooding back. I found myself thinking about old friends, colleagues and mentors, about the books that had just come out when I got my degree, and about how differently I prepare lessons now compared to twenty years ago. I remembered sending my CV out to several language schools in the summer of 2003, and heading off to my first job interview that September (which was, frankly, a disaster). I can still recall my doubts, my determination, and my desire to be not just any teacher, but a genuinely good one. I spent a while reminiscing about some of the harder moments, but before long, the "bests" started coming to mind instead — the best advice, the best school, the best books. Let me share a few of these here; my younger self might well have found them useful.
1. Best teacher's book
I've noticed that most of the prompts, cards and exercises I've been using for years actually come from older teacher's books. Don't get me wrong — there's excellent material being published all the time. But just as in literature, there are some real classics too. How many of you remember the Reward Resource Packs published by Macmillan Heinemann ELT? My "free practice" tasks for A1–A2 classes are still drawn from, or adapted from, that excellent series. All things considered, I'd call the Reward Resource Packs the most useful set of teaching materials I've ever bought.
NB: No product placement intended — Reward isn't even published any more.
2. Best course book
A hard one to choose, but I'd say English File (Oxford University Press) was genuinely well made, at least the second edition (again, no promotion intended — the second edition is long out of date by now). I was sorry to see the graphics change in the third edition; the pictures, and the layout generally, feel a little jarring, and I hope they eventually return to something closer to the second edition's style and structure.
3. Best school
I don't mean the best school from a student's point of view here — I'm speaking purely as a teacher. I worked in around ten different language schools before going freelance, and one stood head and shoulders above the rest, because it ran on a genuine merit system: teachers who were valued and recognised by their students could take on entry testing and enrolment duties, and were promoted accordingly. It worked both ways, as I'll explain in a future post. Schools often like to pretend all their teachers are interchangeable simply because they work under the same roof, but that's simply not how it works. Teachers are individuals, and students deserve the right to choose whichever teacher's style and approach genuinely suits them. What's more, teachers at that particular school were paid strictly according to the number of lessons taught, with no fixed minimum hours. The usual system of weekly or monthly minimum hours for a set wage is something of a trap: almost every teacher ends up teaching far too little some months and far too much in others, then has to make up for the quiet months between February and May — which is exactly why so many teachers end up overworked and burnt out come spring. This problem disappears when teachers can choose which classes to take on, provided, of course, that pay genuinely reflects the difference between "easy" and more demanding courses. In twenty years, I've only ever come across this system at one school, but I sincerely hope more schools move towards something similarly flexible and merit-based in future.
4. Best advice
I've been given plenty over the years, but the most useful, by far, was simply to remember. Remember your students' names, and their children's names too if relevant. Remember birthdays, especially with Young Learner and teen classes. Most importantly, remember to go back and find the answer to any question you couldn't answer during the lesson — chasing down a response (if one exists) matters far more than pretending to know everything. It shows students you're listening, that you care, and that you genuinely want to get to the bottom of their good questions. Finally, remember certificates: my son actually made me switch language schools, because three out of four reward certificates were handed to him at least a week late. The first time, he came home saying his teacher had simply forgotten to print it, despite his good behaviour, full attendance across ten lessons, and completed homework. The second time, he braced himself in advance, predicting she'd forget again — and she did. The third time, he came home and announced he no longer liked his teacher. Reward certificates only mean anything if they're handed over immediately, or at the very latest, in the next lesson. Children care about them. People care about them.
5. Best invention
Not the mobile phone, I'm afraid, given how often I'm still messaged late at night about schedule changes or last-minute cancellations — sometimes for the very next day. (Incidentally, if a change concerns any day other than tomorrow, surely it could wait until after 8am?) That said, I can't deny how genuinely useful a smartphone can be. My real pick for best invention would be the apps that let us create, edit and share personalised online flashcard sets. I won't name names, since my own favourite has recently switched from being entirely free to a paid model for everyone. Even so, students manage to expand their vocabulary at an extraordinary rate with these apps and online vocabulary games.
6. Best video-conferencing app
I still vote for Skype. Zoom, Meet and the rest are all perfectly good, but a few small details make a real difference. On Skype, your camera doesn't freeze the moment you open another tab, which matters a great deal when teaching online alongside digital materials — other apps simply freeze your camera until you actively return to their tab. When you open a separate tab in Skype, a small floating window with your student's face appears, which you can drag anywhere on screen, including right under your camera, making it far easier to maintain eye contact with an individual student. In Meet, by contrast, other participants are relegated to a row at the bottom of the screen. Skype also keeps your chat history, along with any documents shared in it, active for thirty days — links and vocabulary, saved indefinitely.
7. Best website
I'm not trying to promote a service here — the feature I'm talking about is completely free to use. I've followed several websites since they first launched, and the most impressive progress by far has come from TestEnglish. They started out focused purely on grammar, and now offer online exercises across every skill, with exam preparation steadily expanding too. Their grammar explanations are clear and concise, and they map neatly onto the CEFR syllabus. Kudos to them for excellent work.
8. Best training course
I've taken a steady stream of training courses over the years (I'm a big FutureLearn fan — excellent free courses, with the option to upgrade), but as a teacher, I still believe a proper, not entirely online, teacher training course (CELTA or similar) remains essential. I started mine after graduating in German Studies with minors in psychology, pedagogy, teaching methodology and didactics, so the theoretical side felt straightforward. What I found genuinely valuable, though, were the classroom demo lessons and feedback sessions. One of the best exercises our trainers set us was "hot feedback": straight after a demo lesson, we had to sit down and jot down our first honest impressions. More often than not, these were fairly disastrous. Later, after the group feedback session, where we discussed our lesson plan and classroom performance with fellow trainees, we repeated the exercise — and this time, most of our comments were positive, constructive, and full of ideas. This routine taught us something important: how you experience your own lesson and how your audience experiences it can be two entirely different things. If you're rigidly following a lesson plan, you might feel you've failed simply because you didn't get through everything — yet you may well have met your lesson aims and taught a genuinely good class. Prepare thoroughly, then set your notes aside and teach your students, not the plan.
9. Best year
Possibly this last one. I had the chance to work with some brilliant minds this year. I now know for certain that I love teaching computer scientists and engineers — their analytical way of thinking really clicks with mine. My most recent company feedback showed 91% satisfaction with materials, course design and lesson delivery. I had the wonderful opportunity to prepare an outstanding fifteen-year-old girl for a B2 exam, which she ended up passing at C1 level (I'm still trying to convince her parents to write a book on how they raised such an extraordinary child). I took my Young Learner boys through their Flyers exam — all of them passed — and they're now preparing for B1 at the age of twelve, genuinely sharp minds. I ran a lovely summer course with three girls, teaching English hidden inside photo stories, cooking videos and make-up tutorials. I started making social media videos myself (kudos again to the many colleagues whose brilliant videos inspired me — I only wish I were a better actress) to help students remember tricky English words and grammar structures. I put three students forward for an INPS (Italy's national social security institute) position, and all three scored highly enough to secure a placement near their home city. One of my students landed a job at ISMETT (the Mediterranean Institute for Transplantation and Highly Specialized Therapies), working towards slowing, or even curing, cancer through diet. Who says teachers can't save lives? Perhaps not directly, but indirectly, without a doubt. Finally, I picked German back up after roughly ten years away from it, and discovered that true love really doesn't fade. 2022–23 was, without question, one of my best years yet. Bring on 2023–24.
10. Finally, best student
This was by far the hardest one to answer — it took me days of thought — but I got there in the end. I've tagged that person in this post.
NB: This post was originally published on LinkedIn on 4 September 2023 on LinkedIn.