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Teachers and Management What do English teachers need to know about management? By Fernando Cezar Based on professor David Charles’ ELT management program.  Teaching at a private English institute many years ago made me think of some managerial aspects which the career of a language teacher involves. At that time, the coordinator and owner of the school literally wore her heart on her sleeve – she told us about the difficult financial situation the school was undergoing due to increasing student drop-outs. Consequently, we all became involved in the ‘let’s-save-our-job’ motto. Collectively, we thought of using strategies and carrying out projects to keep up the students we had at school and to bring back the ones who had given up their course for any reason. That was when we decided to count on professional help – a marketing consultant was going to work with us in order to solve the problems we had. I must confess that sometimes I asked myself what an English teacher’s job had to do with marketing. As a matter of fact, as English teachers, we hardly ever consider that management has always been part of our professional life and that teachers do a job of classroom management that underlies their students’ interests and the organization they work for. We should consider also that there are student interests to be managed well beyond the organization if we consider the various stakeholder involvements that students bring into the classroom with them. Moreover, there are complex relationships with colleagues that have to be managed. This means taking a clear view of yourself as part of an organization, or – more broadly – of a system. Above all, it’s worth remembering that, in that system, unless you are right at the top of the tree, you are being managed, and this requires an aware and sensitive response from you. At this point of the article, you might be questioning yourself what role a teacher actually has in management. Well, let’s first consider that some of you may already be playing a management – or an administrative – role. And that is welcome, if that’s what you want. Overall, it could be argued that a teacher who understands and accepts the interdependency that exists between the teaching activity and all the other operational aspects of an organization should play a management role; however, we might define that role. Being a shrewd and powerful contributor will surely have a positive effect on the way you are managed and responded to – on a personal level, and on the organizational level in which you operate. Additionally, the management realities that surround you aren’t a question of your being pushed or inveigled into management as some sort of career if you don’t want that. What we’re trying to achieve is an understanding of where you position management, what you can do for management, what it can do for you, how you can better exert influence and look after your interests. Amidst all this, you will obviously stay solidly as a teacher, a trainer, a teacher trainer, a consultant, whatever, if that’s what suits you best. Inevitably, there may be some of you who may be initially skeptical towards management but it is this sort of skepticism that you might, in the future, equally want to dispel. It appears, in the extreme, in those in the educational world who seem to think that the notion of management poses a threat to their own liberal values. “Managing people” has even been construed as some sort of intrusion on personal freedom – with “management” taken to be interfering, insensitive, domineering and exploitative. That notion would be biased. It would be a one-dimensional view, lacking the broad sense of management relationships that we have started to sketch above. There should never be that tension. Probably, bad management, with the experiences it has provoked, can take some of the blame. Perhaps if we look on management as entirely neutral, something to be done well or badly, and simply as an essential way that we have of organizing our affairs, then we shall have found a balanced position. In fact, the ELT world is a much bigger organization than we can think of. If we take the simplest of systems views, we can see that we are plugged into environments far greater than the one we are immediately concerned with in our own particular organization. We should remember that in many cases the students who come to our ELT classes have big pictures in their minds. They come from big organizations with big perspectives, international horizons and considerable worldly experience. In relation to the school case first described, the result of marketing studies, questionnaires, the teacher’s reunions and the consequent and ultimate investment in marketing not only increased the number of students but also improved our management skills. Therefore, “marketing” no longer was seen with disdain and the misconception we had that it was only about ‘selling” was definitely abolished. As we can see, the truth is that more educational establishments find themselves in a highly competitive world where they have to work very hard to get their share of the customers. The coordinator’s attitude was fundamental in making her co-workers really work together. She put herself in a position where the whole organization should be seen as only one, despite the task everyone performed individually. It was a key element to encourage everybody to strive to have better and more effective results. In conclusion, try to analyze situations you have undergone in which management was necessary. Try to analyze what solution was given to the problem and if management was well or badly administered. In addition to that, consider where any faults lay, if the “system” you are in – rather than the people - is getting things wrong, if it is a pure personality matter or if the fault is on both sides. After analyzing all these aspects, what was the solution given? How did you achieve it? If you are interested in furthering your studies in ELT management, here are some suggestions of core readings you could do: Handy C 1993 Understanding Organizations 4th edn. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Impey G and Underhill N 1994 The ELT Manager's Handbook: Practical Advice on Managing a Successful Language School Oxford: Heinemann Mead R 1998 International Management: Cross-Cultural Dimensions 2nd edn Oxford: Blackwell. White R Martin M Stimson M and Hodge R 1991 Management in English Language Teaching Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. |
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