The Proactive English Teacher
Teaching what Students in English Class Really Need
The teaching of English is a journey; it is an unobtainable quest for perfection that nevertheless makes teachers stronger as they pursue what they need to know and be able to do to best reach their students. The volume and depth of new literature, methodologies, and criticisms grow geometrically every year, so it makes sense that taking a proactive approach to teaching can be better in the long run than letting it just filter in for the highly-motivated teacher. Here are some quick thoughts on how to do just that.
What is Proactive Teaching?
Most good language arts teachers always assume that they have a long way to go before they become the kind of teachers they really want to be, so they try hard not to miss any opportunities for growth and development. So, how does a language arts teacher become a proactive practitioner? First, a teacher of English should be a practitioner of the art, and enjoy every aspect of the language arts: writing, reading, speaking, listening, debating, etc. A teacher should have occupational credibility before the students decide that he or she is believable or authentic as a teacher. To this end, language arts teachers should write quite a good deal (sometimes even recreationally!), try to be as precise as possible when speaking with the students, and read good books whenever feasible.
Proactive teachers should always on the lookout for what works in the classroom, and not be afraid to jettison an older technique or book just because it has worked for the past few years. English is a content best mastered through students’ discovering and working through their own various curricular initiatives, so students need to take an ownership and responsibility for their own learning. This works for the teacher as well.
Improving as a teacher is always continuing to hunt for what works for the students that year, in that class with those students, and at that time. How can a teacher know what works? By aggressively attending workshops, reading trade journals and books, and sharing with ones peers.
Different Looks
Proactive teachers need to feel comfortable with a multiple-instructional approach and try to initiate at least two teaching schemes for every language arts class. Introducing many different “looks” and approaches into the instructional repertoire, such as multi-media events, debates and oral declamation contests, research forays to the library media/center, large and small group discussions, lectures, field trips, word and vocabulary games, and whatever other opportunities he or she can discover will help make the curriculum more meaningful.
When exploring an issue, teachers should take great care in ensuring that each student receives a focusing question that he or she is capable of responding to with an appropriate reply. Further, teachers should make use of numerous instructional strategies including cooperative learning, project-based lesson plans, team/peer editing of students’ written or spoken works, and developing classroom writing, grading, and behavioral standards.
Students are a part of this equation as well, and should be responsible for each other’s major papers and each other’s deportment. They also should be accountable for a good amount of their own researching, and the success or failure of a number of classroom projects. An example of this is a creative method for student self-evaluations following group exercises that can look like this:
Standards for self-evaluation after each cooperative group activity:
Self-evaluations of group work sessions focus on your role in the group and how much you gave to its progress. The four issues you must address after each group activity is your role in:
- 1) that you participated fully;
- 2) that you encouraged others in the group;
- 3) that you can explain what happened in that group;
- 4) that the others in the group would agree with your self-evaluation.
Rate each issue 1 - 10, with 10 being excellent and 1 being very poor. Feel free to add comments and examples. Also, rate yourself overall for the session. Be sure to sign the self-evaluation form.
Teachers should also consider writing developmentally appropriate lesson strategies, giving the students the tools they need to cope with issues that may beyond their intellectual preparedness. For example, the “No-Fuss Thesis Statements—Demystifying the Creation of Thesis Statements in Expository Writing Through Use of Webbing Techniques,” is a way of helping students conceptualize difficult issues.
Nobody said that being an English teacher was going to be easy. Every time a paper is assigned, language arts teachers begin the mental exercise of crossing out a few nights’ activities for editing, assessing and commenting on the slew of paperwork that will be handed in. Nonetheless, for those who have the drive and determination, being an English teacher can be the most rewarding profession of a lifetime!
