Teaching Skills For Dummies E-Book

Sue Cowley

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2010

Seitenzahl: 642

Beschreibung

Being a “good teacher” is a difficult goal to achieve, being largely dependent on a huge variety of skills outside of the main curriculum. Teaching Skills For Dummies focuses on these ‘soft’ skills of teaching, from maintaining discipline to creating engaging lesson plans and monitoring performance. This essential guide promises to help teachers gain the respect of their pupils, manage potential confrontations and ultimately get the best out of both their careers and their students.

Teaching Skills For Dummies includes information on:

• Developing Your Teaching Style
• Teaching a Class
• Managing a Class
• Dealing with Different Kinds of People
• Succeeding Beyond the Classroom

“Don’t let the title fool you; this is an essential guide and resource for any aspiring teacher. Sue Cowley uses her experience and insight to provide a comprehensive and informative resource, packed with excellent advice and brilliant suggestions for making both teaching and learning effective. A must for any teacher’s bookshelf!”
                                               - Peter Hadfield, Principal lecturer in Education, University of Bedfordshire

Leseprobe

Teaching Skills for Dummies®

Table of Contents

Introduction

About This Book

Conventions Used in This Book

What You’re Not to Read

Foolish Assumptions

How This Book Is Organised

Part I: Developing Your Teaching Style

Part II: Teaching a Class

Part III: Managing a Class

Part IV: Dealing with Different Kinds of People

Part V: Succeeding Beyond the Classroom

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Icons Used in This Book

Where to Go from Here

Part I: Developing Your Teaching Style

Chapter 1: Building Your Teaching Skills

Developing Your Teaching Style

Understanding your teaching style

Becoming a confident teacher

Improving how you communicate

Managing and Teaching Your Class

Creating fantastic lessons

Being a brilliant teacher

Taking control of your classroom

Using structures to develop effective learning

Handling behaviour in a positive way

Creating a positive classroom climate

Getting to Know the Main Characters

Building relationships with your students

Playing your part in the staff team

Handling parents

Building Your Skills Beyond the Classroom

Dealing with paperwork

Balancing your marking

Working with your students beyond the classroom

Reflecting on and developing your skills

Chapter 2: Understanding Teaching Styles – and Developing One That Works for You

Putting on Your Teaching Character with Confidence

Picking the right character

Appearing confident – even when you’re not

Exploring Different Teaching Styles

‘Old-school’ style – strict and scary

‘Modern’ style – firm, fair and fun

Examining Your Own Teaching Style

What works for me?

What works in my setting?

What works with my students?

Reflecting on your challenges

Developing Your Teaching Style

Playing around with verbal and non-verbal communication

Varying your lessons

Chapter 3: Making the Most of Your Communication Skills

Examining What You Say and Do

Communication’s all about perception

Understanding the subconscious messages you send

Making Magic with Your Mouth

Benefiting from volume

Getting to the truth about tone

Playing with pace

Picking the right words

Keeping to the point

Letting Your Body Do the Talking

The eyes have it

Facing the facts

Helping hands

Perfecting posture and body position

Taking Control of the Space

Part II: Teaching a Class

Chapter 4: Preparing and Teaching High-Quality Lessons

Remembering Your Own Teachers

Planning for Success

The components of an effective plan

The three Rs of lesson planning: Reduce, reuse, recycle

No plan, no problem?

Structuring a Quality Lesson

Sharing the lesson’s structure with your students

Formats for success

When to let your lessons develop organically

Delivering a Brilliant Lesson

Getting their attention

Passion and inspiration

Getting the content right

Personalising the learning to the learners

Making lessons topical

Dealing with differentiation

Keeping lessons interactive

Don’t forget the fun!

Chapter 5: Getting (and Keeping) a Class Engaged

The Keys to Engaging Your Students

Creating connections

Creating engaging lessons for modern students

Creating a sense of curiosity

Looking at Learning Styles

Teaching for different learning styles in the classroom

Getting hands-on for learning

Developing activities for different learning styles

Creating Multisensory Lessons

Why the senses are key

Using the five senses

Playing with the senses

Chapter 6: Getting the Most Out of Your Students

Keeping a Class On Task

Introducing the activity

Using targets and time limits

Incorporating rewards

Creating a sense of pace

Fostering Focused Learning

Developing focus and concentration

Developing good listening skills

Managing noise levels

Using a Variety of Tasks

Hallmarks of a nicely varied lesson

Achieving variety across different subjects

Making the Most of Resources

Different kinds of resource

Getting hands-on with resources

Unusual ideas for resources

Creating Fantastic Displays

Exploring how displays contribute to learning

Understanding what makes a good display

Finding interesting places for displays

Getting Assessment Right

Different kinds of assessment

The balancing act of marking

Part III: Managing a Class

Chapter 7: Structuring Your Teaching and Your Teaching Space

Establishing Your Routines

Understanding why routines are so vital

Creating routines that work for you

Creating routines to suit different age groups

Maintaining your routines

Managing Your Lesson Time

Predicting how long activities should take

Pacing a lesson to fill the time allotted

Working with Groups

Understanding why group work matters

Organising your groups

Getting the most out of every group member

Setting Up Your Space

Understanding the importance of layout

Developing layouts for learning

Managing the learners in the space

Using a seating plan

The teacher in the space

Chapter 8: Building Better Behaviour

Establishing Your Expectations

Defining what’s inside the box

Picking the right time

Sharing your expectations with your class

Helping students mind the rules of the road

Making a Class Come to You

Getting silent attention

Maintaining focus

Maximising Your Strengths

The power of personality

Creating a powerful relationship

Establishing empathy

Overcoming Your Obstacles

Dealing with nerves

Staying calm

Being consistent

Maintaining a distance

Staying on track

Avoiding aggression

Finding Strategies that Work for You

Matching the strategies to the situation

Matching the strategies to your style

Practical strategies for managing behaviour

Chapter 9: Creating a Positive Classroom Atmosphere

Understanding Why Positivity Is Important

Establishing a Positive Atmosphere

Put on a happy face

Make your students feel worthwhile

Use rewards and sanctions appropriately

We’re in this together

Manage your own moods

Maintaining your positive atmosphere

Getting Rewards Right

Finding the right motivation

Choosing and applying rewards

Suiting rewards to the individual student

Setting the Scene for Sanctions

Understanding how punishment works

Applying sanctions

Sanctions in your setting

Chapter 10: Handling Challenging Situations

Dealing with Confrontation

Understanding why confrontations happen

Avoiding confrontation

Dealing with confrontation

Handling the aftermath

Managing Challenging Individuals

Handling the refuser

Dealing with the aggressor

Coping with the verbally abusive student

Winning Back the ‘Lost’ Class

Spotting the warning signs

Getting a class back under control

Coping with a lost class

Managing Your Stress Levels

Recognising signs of being over-stressed

Strategies for dealing with stress

Part IV: Dealing with Different Kinds of People

Chapter 11: Getting to Know Your Students

Discovering How to Build Relationships

Why good relationships are vital

Building bonds with your students

Using questions to ‘click’ with your class

Buddy or boss – getting the balance right

Treating them as people as well as students

Names, names, names – knowing and using them

Dealing with Different Types of Student

Differentiating your approaches

Handling students with special needs

Managing the brightest learners

Boosting self-esteem and confidence

Dealing with those who opt out

Developing Your Pastoral Role

Understanding what your pastoral role is about

Developing your pastoral role

Chapter 12: Working as Part of a Team

Building a Positive School Ethos

Fostering a Team Environment

Supporting other team members

Taking a consistent approach

Understanding different perspectives

Valuing everyone’s contribution

Trying not to pass on your problems

Sharing your ideas and resources

Rewarding and motivating others

Understanding Who’s Who in Your Team

Teaching staff

Teaching support staff

Non-teaching support staff

Finding other sources of support

Working with Teaching Support Staff

Getting to know your support staff

Making the most of your support staff

Exploring useful roles for support staff

Getting to Know the Right People

Good acquaintances to make

Staff you’re best to avoid

Chapter 13: Building Bonds with Parents

Understanding Parents

What parents really want from teachers

Looking for the perfect parent

Working with the difficult or indifferent parent

Getting to Know Parents

Building lines of communication

Getting parents involved

Using parent volunteers

Reporting to Parents

Handling the parents’ meeting

Writing effective reports

Part V: Succeeding Beyond the Classroom

Chapter 14: Climbing the Paper Mountain

Dealing with Paperwork

Determining what’s essential and what’s not

Bin it, deal with it, pass it on: The three rules for managing paperwork

Your ‘To Do’ List: A Lifesaver during Busy Times

Marking Papers and Writing Reports: Achieving the Impossible

Handling your marking load

Dealing with report writing

Learning the Art of Filing

Creating an effective filing system

Maintaining your filing system

Chapter 15: Getting Involved in Extra-Curricular Activities

Inspiring Beyond the Classroom

Just how involved can you be?

Why extra-curricular activities matter

Different types of extra-curricular activities

The ups and downs of getting involved

Taking Time Out for a Trip

Deciding to take a trip

The technicalities of trips

Handling behaviour on school trips

Getting the most out of a trip

Chapter 16: Evaluating and Furthering Your Teaching Skills

Taking Stock of Your Situation

Understanding your strengths and weaknesses

Considering where you go next

Getting the Most Out of Observations

Preparing for an observation

During the observation

Getting feedback after an observation

Dealing with inspection and inspectors

Furthering Your Personal Development

Taking additional qualifications

Doing something just for yourself

Part VI: The Part of Tens

Chapter 17: Ten Great Ways to Engage with a Group

Build a Relationship

Use Inclusive Language

Create Imaginative Scenarios

Remember Their Names

Give a Little of Yourself

Find Out What They Love

Use Imaginative Rewards

Take Them Outdoors

Use the Power of the Peer Group

Give ’em a Surprise

Chapter 18: Ten Key Strategies for Handling Difficult Behaviour

Stay Calm

Ignore Attention Seekers

Be Reasonable, But Don’t Reason with Them

Give Troublemakers a Choice

Stick to Your Guns

Know When to Be Flexible

Turn on a Penny

Apply Lateral Thinking

React from Your Head, Not from Your Heart

Put Yourself in Their Shoes

Chapter 19: Ten Tips for Dealing with Stress

Keep a Sense of Perspective

Don’t Take Things Personally

Build a Support Network

Create a Home/Work Divide

Put Up a Wall

Maintain a Sense of Humour

Feel Pity, not Anger

Learn to Forgive Yourself

A Fresh Start Every Time

Give Yourself a Pat on the Back

Chapter 20: Ten Best Book and Website Resources for Teachers and Trainers

Books

Cracking the Hard Class

The Craft of the Classroom

Getting the Buggers to Behave

Surviving and Succeeding in Difficult Classrooms

The Teacher’s Toolkit

Useful Web Sites

Primary Resources

Teachernet

Teachers TV

The Times Educational Supplement (TES)

Woodlands Junior School

Teaching Skills For Dummies®

by Sue Cowley

Teaching Skills For Dummies®

Published byJohn Wiley & Sons, LtdThe AtriumSouthern GateChichesterWest SussexPO19 8SQEngland

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Copyright © 2009 Sue Cowley

Published by John Wiley & Sons, Ltd, Chichester, West Sussex

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data: A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

ISBN: 9781119996705

Printed and bound in Great Britain by Bell & Bain Ltd, Glasgow

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

About the Author

Sue Cowley is a teacher, writer, trainer and presenter. She qualified with a BEd (Hons) from Kingston University. Although she originally trained to teach primary school children, Sue later moved into teaching English and Drama at secondary level. She has taught in schools in London and Bristol, and also at an international school in Portugal. She reached the giddy heights of ‘subject co-ordinator’ on the career ladder, but made a conscious decision to stick it out in the classroom, rather than moving into management.

Sue is the author of more than a dozen books on teaching, including the best-selling Getting the Buggers to Behave. As well as having a big following in the UK, her books have also been translated into various other languages and her work is popular with teachers in China, India, Poland and Slovenia, amongst many others. Sue divides her time between delivering INSET in schools and colleges, writing books and articles, presenting at conferences and on Teachers’ TV, and bringing up a young family. She still spends time working with students ‘at the chalkface’, helping out in local schools.

Sue’s belief is that what teachers need above all else is practical, realistic and honest advice about how to survive and succeed in their classrooms. She bases all her work on her own experiences as a teacher and on tips and advice she’s been given by others. In her books, Sue guarantees you a ‘theory-free’ experience. When it comes to teaching, her motto is: ‘Whatever works - for the teacher and for the kids’.

Sue loves to spend her spare time reading crime novels or being out in her garden getting muddy. She lives in Somerset, with her partner, her two children and a cat called Herbie.

Dedication

This book is dedicated to Álvie and Edite, with all my love.

Acknowledgements

I’d like to thank Tilak, because this book wouldn’t have been possible without him. He makes it possible for me to get on with writing, mostly without interruption. Thanks to you for putting up with me and my disorganised (or rather, ‘creative’) approach to life!

Special thanks go to my Mum, who passed the ‘teaching gene’ onto me. They do say that it runs in the family.

I’d also like to give a mention to all those teachers I’ve worked with and learned from over the years. Thanks for letting me nick your ideas and copy your approaches.

And finally, thanks to all the students who’ve passed through my lessons - the well behaved ones and the ones who weren’t quite so great. I’ve learned an awful lot from you guys as well.

Publisher’s Acknowledgements

We’re proud of this book; please send us your comments through our Dummies online registration form located at www.dummies.com/register/.

Some of the people who helped bring this book to market include the following:

Acquisitions, Editorial, and Media Development

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Introduction

Teaching is one of the best jobs you can possibly do. And if you’re a teacher already or thinking about becoming one, then I do hope you agree. Teaching is also one of the most important jobs you can possibly do. The future prospects of a whole generation of children lie, at least partly, in your hands. And teaching is also one of the most difficult jobs you can do. Okay, it’s not brain surgery, but it can be challenging, stressful, frustrating, emotionally draining, physically demanding, high pressure and incredibly hard work.

But for all the tough days and all the challenges, teaching’s definitely worthwhile. The joy you get out of helping your students succeed makes worthwhile all the effort you have to put in to get them to work their hardest. The excitement of having a class in the palm of your hand makes worthwhile the struggle you had to reach that moment. And of course, the holidays are great as well.

When I go into schools to work with teachers, I ask them: ‘What motivates you to turn up at school every day?’ Their initial response is always to laugh: ‘I need the salary to pay my mortgage!’ But within seconds, they highlight all the bits of the job that really make it worthwhile, all the rewards teaching gives them that money simply can’t buy.

Teaching’s a vocation, pure and simple. If you’re only in it for the money, you’re in the wrong job. Okay, the salary isn’t too bad these days, but as a graduate you can do something a lot less stressful and earn the same money or more. As a teacher you get the chance to make a difference. And you don’t find many jobs that can offer you that.

About This Book

I want reading this book to feel like you’re sitting down with a friend for a chat. You’ve asked her for some words of advice because she’s been teaching for a while. She has some commonsense ideas about what does and doesn’t work, which she’s happy to share with you. Your friend has your best interests at heart. She understands all the joys of being a teacher, but she also know about the demands of the job as well.

This friend of yours doesn’t expect you to be perfect, like your head teacher may. She understands that you’re a human being and that all your little habits and imperfections are part of what makes you unique. And she knows that in some schools, and with some students, even getting to the point where you can address your class, let alone teach them anything, is sometimes nigh on impossible.

Your friend’s keen to give you honest, practical and realistic advice about the things that may actually work in your classroom. She knows that this is what busy teachers really need when they read a book about teaching. She understands that what works in one school or situation may not work in another, but she trusts you to figure out for yourself what works for you. She wants you to try to maintain a positive approach in your classroom, although she fully understands how difficult that can be at times.

This friend of yours also wants you to feel empowered to make changes to your teaching and your classroom practice. She understands that when you’re trying to change student attitudes in the most difficult schools, you can feel like a fish swimming against the tide. She knows that sometimes you’re very tempted to give up and say ‘whatever’ as you slap a worksheet on the students’ desks.

Your friend wants you to focus on what you can change, rather than on what you can’t. She knows that you can’t change your head teacher or senior management (much as you may like to). And you can’t change the kids for some other, better-behaved ones (no matter how desirable that may feel at times). But what you can change, what you can do something about, is your own teaching and your own teaching skills. And that’s what she believes this book can show you how to do.

This friend of yours has taught the ‘class from hell’, but she’s also had classes in the palm of her hand. She’s taught in many different schools and worked with students of all different ages. She’s taught in nursery, primary and secondary schools, with students from ages 3 to 18. She’s been a permanent member of staff, but she’s done supply teaching as well. She’s also watched, worked with and trained many thousands of teachers, both in the UK and overseas. She wants you to know that whatever your teaching situation, she has some understanding of how you feel.

So I hope that as you read this book you feel like I’m that friend of yours. That I’m on your side. I’ve put the sum total of all my teaching experiences into this book. And I genuinely hope that some of it, and hopefully a lot of it, is valuable to you as you develop your own teaching skills.

My hope is that this book helps you to:

Enjoy your teaching and the time you spend with your classes.

Develop a teaching style that works for you and your students.

Explore interesting and effective ways to communicate with your classes.

Understand how you can create and deliver high-quality lessons: ones that help your children gain knowledge effectively and also enjoy their learning.

Pick up techniques to help you keep your students focused and engaged and to make your life in the classroom easier and less stressful.

Discover the structures you can use in your classroom that allow you to keep everything and everyone under control.

Explore the many ways to build better behaviour with your classes and create a really positive environment for work.

Handle every situation in the most positive way, no matter how challenging or difficult it feels.

Get to know all the different people you work with and how best to build a sense of partnership and team work with them all.

Deal with all those bits of the job that happen beyond the classroom walls: paperwork and marking, or extra-curricular activities.

Build up a whole battery of teaching skills so that you can deal with every eventuality the job throws at you.

Conventions Used in This Book

A few conventions in this book are designed to help you navigate the text:

Italics are used to give emphasis and to highlight new words.

Bold is used to show the key concepts in a list.

Monofont is used for website and email addresses.

In order to keep things fair and concise, I’ve used alternating genders in each chapter.

What You’re Not to Read

You’ll find some stuff in this book that is interesting, but that you don’t have to read to make sense of what I’m saying. Sometimes you’ll see an icon that asks you to ‘Think Of’ a situation and how you might respond to it. These sections are great for when you have a chance to sit and reflect on your teaching skills, but you can skip them if you’re short on time. Similarly, the sidebars are all asides and, although you might find them thought-provoking to read, they’re not critical to understanding the book.

Foolish Assumptions

If you bought this book, I think it’s fair of me to assume that you’re either a teacher already or someone who is considering going into the profession. I don’t cover the ever-changing nature of the curriculum and I don’t explore the various routes into the profession; I assume that you’ll locate that information for yourself, if you need it. What I do focus on is the kind of key skills you’ll need to become a really successful teacher. You might disagree with some of what I say, but I hope that you’ll be open-minded enough to give even the craziest ideas a try!

How This Book Is Organised

This book has 20 chapters, divided between six main parts.

Inside each chapter are sub-sections about the main topic of the chapter. My aim is to make this book both practical and easily accessible. You should easily be able to find and read the topics that are most relevant to you. You may like to dip in and out of the book or you can read it cover to cover (if you have any time left over after all that marking!).

Part I: Developing Your Teaching Style

The first part of the book shows you how to develop a teaching ‘style’ that works for both you and your students. You find out how to create an aura of confidence, even when you don’t feel like that inside. You examine a variety of different teaching styles to help you figure out which approach works for you.

In this part, you also see how you can use both verbal and non-verbal approaches to communicate with, and connect with, your class. You discover how to make the most of what comes out of your mouth and also how to use your body in the most effective way possible.

Part II: Teaching a Class

In this part, you find out all about how to teach your class so that the students learn loads and everyone gains a positive feeling of success. You see how you can prepare and deliver really good-quality lessons. And you discover the different approaches to your teaching that can help you meet the needs of every student.

In this part, I show you how you can get your students interested in their work and keep them engaged right through a lesson. You also find many ways to push your students to achieve their best and to stay focused on the activities you set.

This part also shows you how to maximise aspects of your teaching outside the immediate lesson – things like assessment, resources and displays. You explore how to incorporate a variety of interesting objects and approaches into your lessons so that you can really get the most out of your children.

Part III: Managing a Class

This part helps you discover loads about the ins and outs of actually managing a class and a classroom. You see how routines and structures can help make your time in the classroom both easier and more effective, and how different classroom layouts affect the way your students work.

In this part, you find out the best strategies to use to handle problem behaviour. You investigate how to get better behaviour from your students; how to maximise your strengths as a classroom manager; and also how to overcome any weaknesses you may have.

You also find out how to develop and maintain a positive feeling in your classroom and how to use rewards and sanctions as effectively as possible. And you explore how to handle the really challenging situations and students and cope with the way these situations make you feel.

Part IV: Dealing with Different Kinds of People

In this part, you find out how to deal with the different kinds of people you need to work with as a teacher. You see how you can develop good, strong and positive relationships with your students, and explore how you may develop the pastoral side of your role.

This section also helps you investigate how you can work effectively with the other staff at your school, and which people you may be best to avoid. You also see how to build up the lines of communication with your students’ parents or carers and how to develop the kind of positive relationships with them that help your students to work at their best.

Part V: Succeeding Beyond the Classroom

You find a lot of advice in this section about developing your teaching skills beyond the classroom. Whether you need to sort out that ever-growing pile of paperwork or get involved in extra-curricular activities, everything you need to know is here. You also discover how to take stock of your current situation and plan for your development in the future.

Part VI: The Part of Tens

In this final part, you get some quick, simple and effective tips for dealing with some of the knottier aspects of the profession. You get quick, no-nonsense advice on topics as diverse as engaging with a group and dealing with stress.

This part offers a great ‘dip-in’ guide for when your time’s short but your need’s strong. Dive into it and see what you can discover!

Icons Used in This Book

You come across little icons throughout this book. These icons are designed to highlight specific bits of text. These sections give you a particular strategy to use or something important to consider.

Some top techniques, strategies and pointers for you to bear in mind as you develop your teaching skills to the max. Don’t forget these techniques: they stand you in great stead in your classroom.

These are practical ideas and suggestions that have worked for me in my classroom. Often they’re suggestions another teacher’s kindly given to me. Only common sense and realistic advice to be found here!

Watch out! When you see this icon, get primed for some top advice about what to avoid in your classroom and in your teaching.

Take a moment to reflect on things from your own experience or imagine how you may respond to a situation. A chance to think things through outside the pressurised classroom environment.

Where to Go from Here

If you’re brand new to teaching, this book contains pretty much every technique I’ve ever tried, been told or been taught. No matter where you ‘land’ inside the covers, you can find some practical and honest advice about coping in your classroom. As a new teacher, you may get great benefit from reading this book from start to finish, but you don’t do any harm at all if you only have time to dip in and out.

If you have a specific issue in your classroom, then turn to the contents pages to see if you can spot where I deal with it. Often, I cover that issue in more than one chapter. Teaching’s a complex business, and sometimes you need to come at your problem from more than one angle to help yourself solve it.

If you’re an experienced teacher with plenty of years in the profession, then this book may offer you a reminder of some of the techniques you used to use, but maybe haven’t employed for a while. Or it can show you how you are doing all the right things, but that sometimes circumstances mean you can’t always be perfect.

And if you have a problem that I don’t cover in this book, then feel free to contact me via email. I’ll see what I can do, although I can’t promise an instant solution. To contact me, visit my website, www.suecowley.co.uk, and follow the links from there.

Finally, please remember that no magic wand exists in teaching. No simple answer solves all your problems. But if you keep plugging away and never stop improving, then with time you become the best teacher you can possibly be.

Part I

Developing Your Teaching Style

In this part . . .

We teachers are a stylish bunch. No, I’m not talking about leather elbow patches on tweed jackets, or dodgy pinafores and sandals with socks. I’m talking about the teaching style you have – a style that’s all your very own. I’m going to show you how your style works, and the kind of impact it can have (positive or negative) on your chances of success in your classroom. I share all those little tricks of the trade with you. The ones that make your students believe you’re in charge, even when you’re a quivering wreck inside. You need to project confidence and a belief in your abilities. Get started on building that confident persona!

Chapter 1:

Building Your Teaching Skills

In This Chapter

Developing a teaching style that works for you

Discovering how to communicate effectively with your students

Understanding how to manage and teach your class

Examining the kind of relationships you want to build with students, staff and parents

Exploring how to develop your skills beyond the classroom

Being a teacher is a tricky job – you have so many different areas to get right. You have to develop a style of teaching that works for you and your students. You have to communicate with both classes and individuals, and build up bonds between you and your students. You also have to know how to plan and teach your lessons, so your students get to learn loads, and hopefully have fun at the same time. And on top of all that, you need to build up effective relationships with staff and parents as well. The job’s a big one!

But teaching’s well worth doing. Being a teacher is one of the best jobs to have. If you get things right, you help your students discover new things each and every day. If you get things right, you inspire your students to go on to great things. As the saying goes, nobody forgets a good teacher. This book can help you become the best teacher you can possibly be, and this chapter gives an overview of the challenges that await you.

Developing Your Teaching Style

As a teacher you have your own, individual teaching style – a teaching personality that’s as unique to you as your fingerprints. Some teachers take a firm, strict, old-school approach, like the classic sergeant major with his authoritarian manner and loud voice. Other teachers have a fun, relaxed and even comic style, using humour to get the best out of their students.

No one style is right for every teacher, although some styles work better than others. Similarly, no one style is right for every class. Some students respond brilliantly to a teacher who’s strict and scary; others become confrontational if the teacher tries to lay down the law. Much depends on the type of students and the sort of class you’re teaching.

The more you develop the positive aspects of your teaching style, the better teacher you become. This development’s all part of the process of becoming a great teacher. The following sections give an overview of the key characteristics of a successful, confident teaching style, and Chapters 2 and 3 offer a variety of other strategies you can use to develop a style that works for you.

Understanding your teaching style

The key to success is to understand your teaching style: to become aware of which parts of your style work well and how to develop them; and to know which parts of your style aren’t so effective and how you can improve them. To develop your teaching style to its peak of perfection, you need to:

Reflect on your teaching approaches and how well they’re working, preferably while you’re teaching.

Be conscious of how your behaviour in the classroom affects the way your students respond to you.

Adapt the methods and strategies you use to suit the way your students respond (again, preferably during the course of the lesson).

Vary the approaches you use according to the age and type of students.

Adapt the style you use to fit with the mood and ‘feel’ of the class or of individual students.

Watch other teachers in action to see what works and what doesn’t.

Work out which strategies and style best fit the setting where you teach.

Build a style that’s confident, definite, aware, positive and flexible.

The better you understand yourself as a teacher, the better your students respond, behave and learn – and the more you can get on with the fun bit, which is, of course, the teaching.

Becoming a confident teacher

I can remember being terrified the first time I set foot in a classroom as a teacher. I had a sick, hollow feeling in my stomach, like you get when you ride a rollercoaster and it drops suddenly down a steep slope. My head was full of self-doubt. Were the students going to like me? Were they going to understand my explanations? Were they even going to listen to me so I could teach them?

Feeling nervous at first is entirely natural. In fact, you should probably be worried if you don’t feel nervous the first few times you set foot in the classroom, because being over-confident can be a recipe for disaster. If you’re too sure of yourself, before you even know the class, you may appear unresponsive to the students sitting in front of you. Take care that self belief doesn’t tip over into arrogance or aggression.

Remember that how you feel inside doesn’t matter, because you can still project an air of confidence on the outside. Your aim is to develop an air of confidence, self-control and a mastery of everything that happens in your classroom. This comes with time and experience, and with loads and loads of self-reflection. (If you’re new to teaching, you can fake this until you begin to believe it.) As a confident teacher:

You put on a ‘teacher character’ – you show that you’re in control of the work, the students and, crucially, yourself.

You give your students a feeling of security.

You take charge of what goes on in your classroom while staying responsive to what the students think as well.

You use a firm, fair and fun approach to your role.

You adapt the approaches you use to the needs of your students.

Your confident, effective approach gives your students the freedom to get on with doing their work.

Your confidence shines through in everything you say and do.

Most teachers feel nervous at the start of the school year. When you’ve been away from the classroom over the summer holidays, you may feel as though you’ve ‘forgotten’ how to teach. But teaching’s like riding a bike – after you have the hang of it, you never really forget.

Improving how you communicate

Teaching’s all about communication. You communicate what you want to your class; they communicate their understanding (or lack of understanding) back to you. Your communication skills can also reinforce or undermine the air of confidence you want to project (discussed in the preceding section). If you look like you mean what you’re saying, and believe in yourself, this gives your students a perception that you’re confident and in control.

You communicate with your students in lots of different ways – some obvious, some not so apparent. You communicate:

By talking to your class: Well, of course you do! But communication isn’t as simple as just opening your mouth and speaking. It’s about getting the volume, tone, pace, vocabulary and emotional quality of your voice just right.

By listening to your students: Communication is a two-way street. When you invite a response, by asking a question, use your verbal and non-verbal skills to demonstrate your interest.

Through your face and facial expressions: You can use your eyes and face to connect with a class, or to indicate that you’re displeased. A single raised eyebrow can say more than a thousand words.

With your hands: Your hands are one of the most expressive parts of your body. Use them to communicate instructions, commands, praise or enthusiasm. Let your hands do the talking.

Through your body postures and positions: Your students ‘read’ a lot about you by the way you stand and hold yourself. A relaxed, confident and welcoming posture helps you build relationships with a class.

By the way you move around the classroom: Don’t get stuck at the front by the board when the troublemakers are at the back, plotting mischief. Move around the space, a bit like a cat patrolling its territory.

Through the way you control the space: Make clear that this is your space, and you are in control of how it looks and how it’s used. The students are very welcome inside it, but you’re the one in charge.

Strike a balance between verbal and non-verbal communication. Remember that how you say something is often more important than what you say. Talking too long is a mistake – use other approaches to get your point across.

Develop your communication skills so that what you say is concise and easy to follow. When you give an instruction, keep it short and clear. When you offer an explanation, you can make it longer but keep it succinct. Use plenty of non-verbal cues to keep your students focused on what you’re saying.

Remember that your students are continually interpreting your tone of voice and your body language, and responding to the messages you give. Become fully aware of the verbal and non-verbal messages you send your class, particularly the subconscious messages. Reflect on everything you say and do, and the effect that has on your students. Discover how to step outside yourself and see and hear how you appear to your students.

You can find loads of advice about effective verbal and non-verbal communication in Chapter 3.

Managing and Teaching Your Class

Your key job as a teacher is, of course, to teach. But the job isn’t quite that simple. Not only must you plan, prepare and deliver fantastic, high-quality lessons, you must also manage the behaviour of your students while they’re in your classroom. You may prepare the most brilliant lesson in the history of the world, but if you can’t get your students to let you deliver it, they never find out how great it is.

You may find a strong link between the way you teach your class and how well you manage the students during their lessons. If you make your lessons interesting and engaging, they’re more likely to listen and behave. This isn’t a magic formula for solving behaviour issues in a really challenging school. But getting your students to want to learn is a good starting point.

Creating fantastic lessons

Creating really great lessons starts with good preparation (most of the time). As you can see in Chapter 4, planning’s a tricky business. Your plans may have tons of detail or very little at all. So long as they actually work for you, in your classroom, with your students, in your situation, that’s what counts.

Don’t allow lesson planning to take over your life. Follow the ‘Reduce, Reuse, Recycle’ mantra in Chapter 4 to limit the amount of time you spend on planning. You can’t be an effective teacher if your work takes up every spare minute of every day – give yourself some time out too.

If you’re training as a teacher or are new to the job, you’ll be expected to give plenty of detail in your plans. As you gain experience, hold onto a few of these more detailed plans, or even just the templates that you used to write them. That way, you can whip them out during inspections or observations.

Fantastic, high-quality lessons have some or all of the following:

A clear sense of structure, so your students know where they’re going and what they’re meant to be doing.

A learning objective, so you know what you’re aiming to teach.

A balance between focused learning and understanding how long your students can concentrate effectively on any one activity.

A lot of hands-on, practical activities to keep everyone involved.

A good balance of activities – some teacher talk (but not too much), some student-led learning and so on.

A sense of forward momentum, created by setting targets to achieve and time limits within which to meet them.

High-quality instructions, so the students know what they’re meant to do and how they’re meant to do it.

Multisensory approaches, and activities that take account of how everybody learns best.

Interactive tasks, which encourage your students to get fully engaged with their discoveries.

Content that reflects the needs and interests of your students, and that they can relate to their lives outside school.

Work that’s differentiated to the needs of your students, so everyone can feel successful.

A sense of fun.

Having said all that, don’t put too much pressure on yourself to create multimedia, whiz-bang style lessons. Doing so isn’t possible all the time. Do your best, but don’t be afraid to take your foot off the pedal a bit when you need a rest.

Don’t get so hooked up on structure that you forget the reality: some of the best lessons are those that develop organically, in partnership with a class. Sometimes, be brave enough to throw caution to the wind and let your creative side have the upper hand.

Being a brilliant teacher

Some teachers are naturally brilliant: they have ‘it’. Charisma, a bond with the children, a natural ability to communicate. Plenty of strategies exist that can help mere mortals to emulate these ‘natural’ teachers. To become the best teacher you can be, aim to:

Find interesting and imaginative ways to get your students’ attention – focus on the creative side of the job as well as the daily routines.

Hold onto the passion and enthusiasm that got you into the classroom in the first place. Aim to be an inspiration to your students.

Maintain your own interest in the job, by keeping things fresh for yourself as well as for your students.

Strive to be the best teacher that ever lived, taking every tip and opportunity to develop that comes your way.

Use your voice and body in an engaging way – communicate your love of knowledge through the way you speak and present yourself to your class.

Be a role model for your students, someone they want to please.

Maintain a sense of humour and perspective at all times.

Be genuine and caring with your students and find ways to engage with them and build relationships.

Build on the natural sense of curiosity everyone has as a young child – make your students want to know.

Go against the norm – be a bit subversive, crazy or surprising in your efforts to engage with your class.

Play around with different sensory responses, bringing your lessons to life in a fully rounded way.

The more effort you put into varied approaches, the better your students behave and learn. This isn’t an instant solution, but you do have total control – you can be the teacher you want to be.

Taking control of your classroom

Your aim is to get the most out of your students while they’re with you, whether that’s once a week in some secondary subjects or every day in aprimary school. You want them working at their peak, so they can discover as much as possible in your lessons together.

You can get the most out of your students by keeping them engaged, using strategies like these:

Ensuring that they stay on task during lessons, setting activities that suit their needs and setting them in a way your students understand.

Building a bank of rules together, so that it becomes ‘our’ classroom, and you create a feeling of mutual respect and ownership of lessons.

Using targets and time limits to create a sense of focus and increase on-task behaviour.

Incorporating a lot of rewards into your teaching, using positive methods far more than you use sanctions.

Building a sense of pace into your lessons and your teaching, particularly through the way you use your voice.

Helping them to develop their concentration, but understanding how long you can reasonably expect students to focus at one time.

Encouraging them to develop good listening skills and managing the noise levels within the room.

Using assessment effectively, as a method of showing your students where they are now and where they need to go next.

Incorporating a wide variety of interesting and engaging activities within your lessons, so your students want to stay on task.

Utilising resources in the best possible way, and thinking about the more unusual types of resources that may inspire your students.

Using displays to develop and extend their discoveries and to make your classroom a more creative place in which to spend time.

With all these strategies in place, your students should get the most out of the time you spend together. They should also look forward to being in your lessons, so they arrive with a good feeling about what’s going to happen. Head to Chapters 5 and 6 for more information.

Talking ’bout my generation

Remember that the students you teach are this generation, not yours. These young people have been brought up in a world that’s very different to the one that existed even a couple of decades ago. Even if you’re close to your students in age, they’re still a world apart from you.

Young people these days know all about their rights. This can be negative in some respects (when they insist that asking them to work is ‘against their human rights’). But I’m glad to work with youngsters who stand up for themselves, and who don’t allow teachersto demand respect simply because of a supposed position of authority. I want to earn their respect, thanks.

Using structures to develop effective learning

As Chapter 7 explains, the way you set up your classroom and the approaches you use to structure your lessons all contribute to high-quality learning. You need to create routines and structures that really work. Establishing these routines is an ongoing process, but after you get the task underway, you free up much more time for the fun part – the teaching.

Get your structures and routines right by:

Setting up routines for how students behave within lessons – the way they enter and leave the classroom, how they approach group work, and so on.

Adapting the structures you use according to the needs and age of your students, and the kind of environment in which you work.

Maintaining and developing your routines over time, so you adapt them until they work optimally for everyone.

Taking care to manage lesson time in an effective way, so no one feels rushed, but equally, no one gets bored.

Ensuring that you differentiate the activities you use, so that all students can access the work.

Being particularly careful about the way you start and finish your lessons or your day, and understanding why this is so important.

Using effective approaches and structures for group activities, so the students use this format in the best possible way.

Setting up, and adapting, your teaching space so it helps you both manage behaviour and teach more effectively.

Exploring the benefits and downsides of various layouts, and being willing to try different approaches to find what works best for you.

Managing the students within the space: thinking about where they sit in relation to you, and how this may affect their learning and behaviour.

Using the space in an interesting way yourself, as a method of both controlling the class and also making your teaching more effective.

The ideal is for your structures and routines to become ‘invisible’. For them to work in such a way that the students don’t realise how you’re controlling them, even though they’re aware that the control’s going on.

Handling behaviour in a positive way

Managing behaviour is one of the key concerns for many teachers. After all, if you can’t get your students to behave, then you aren’t able to teach them properly. Behaviour management is a complex issue, which Chapter 8 explains in detail and you can’t find any easy answers. But with time and practice you can get behaviour management right, and make great strides forward, even in the most challenging situations.

To handle behaviour in the most positive way possible, follow these suggestions:

Establish clear expectations at the start of your time with any class: explain the behaviour you want, and what happens if that behaviour doesn’t occur.

Use every possible way to get silent attention from your students when you need to address them. Refuse to talk over a class that isn’t listening.

Find ways to get your students to maintain their focus, so what you tell them actually sinks in.

Play up to your strengths and take account of your weaknesses. Have an understanding of how your students perceive you.

Build strong and solid relationships with your students, establishing a sense of empathy with the class.

Aim for a confident appearance, even if you don’t feel confident inside. Refer to the earlier section, ‘Becoming a confident teacher’, for an overview, and Chapter 2 for pointers on projecting confidence.

Keep calm as much of the time as humanly possible. Think about the triggers that cause you to lose your temper, and find ways to avoid them.

Be consistent, and aim to treat each and every student in a fair and equitable way.

Maintain a bit of distance between yourself and your students – don’t try to be their friend, because they honestly don’t want you as a mate!

Stick to your guns – once you’ve set your standards, don’t get drawn into endless debates about what is and isn’t fair.

Steer well clear of aggressive approaches: avoid getting angry when a student is difficult, since this only exacerbates the problem.

Be clear about the school policies for dealing with behaviour, making sure that your sanctions and rewards follow the whole-school approach.

Match the strategies you use to your own situation – understand that what works well with one set of students may not be helpful for another.

This last point is vital for getting behaviour management right. You can find lots of suggestions and strategies in this book, so choose the ones that work in your own unique classroom situation.

While most of the behaviour issues you face are low level, you also need to understand what to do when a more serious incident develops. Examine your approaches ahead of time; when a challenging situation arises, you need to be sure what action to take.

To handle challenging behaviour effectively, check out these ideas:

Develop a clear understanding of why some students may become confrontational with you.

Be honest about how you sometimes contribute to the tensions that arise in your classroom.

Develop a teaching style that circumvents the need for students to become confrontational – be positive, assertive, calm and fair.

Understand the kind of approaches that work best in defusing a confrontation, and be aware of your legal position.

Look for support when you need it and consider joining a union as a source of back-up and advice.

Take care to handle the aftermath of misbehaviour for yourself, as well as for the student. These incidents affect you too; take this into account after the event.

Know the kind of approaches you can take with the most difficult classes, and discover ways to win them back.

Understand how to deal with really difficult individuals, adapting the strategies you use to the specific situation or student.

Have plenty of ideas about how to manage your own stress levels and to stop yourself from getting too caught up in your work.

Remember that these high-level incidents are rare in most schools. If you work in a really challenging situation, insist on the support and back-up you need when the worst does happen. Go to Chapter 10 for more on dealing with challenging situations.

Creating a positive classroom climate

In addition to using strategies to manage behaviour and control your class, the ideal is for you to create a climate where good behaviour and hard work are a matter of course. Make your classroom feel like a great place to be – look for the positive, rather than focusing on the negative. To create a positive feeling in your classroom, you need to:

Be friendly, welcoming and positive with your students – make them feel that you’re happy to work with them, and that you want the best for them.

Use rewards and positive ways of motivating your students; avoid negative approaches to classroom and behaviour management.

Maintain and build on your positive climate throughout the school year, taking particular account of times when standards might slip.

Keep a handle on your moods and emotions, and refuse to allow yourself to respond in a negative way when students mess you around.

Discover how rewards work. Understand that some students are naturally self-motivated, whereas others need external motivators.

Use sanctions in a positive way. You do need to punish, but you should aim to do so in a way that may actually change the student’s behaviour.

Give your students choices about how they behave – help them understand that their actions have consequences.

With both you and your students in a positive frame of mind, your time spent in the classroom is much happier, and much more effective. Go to Chapter 9 for more in-depth information.

Getting to Know the Main Characters

You come across a whole host of characters in your role as a teacher. Obviously, the students themselves are the main players. But you also need to develop a sense of team work with the other staff at your school. Plus you have to build up partnerships with parents and carers to help you develop your students to their fullest.

Building relationships with your students

When you relate well with your students and they feel that you have their best interests at heart, you’re bound to get better results in your classroom. Building up these bonds takes time and commitment, but the results that you get are well worth the effort you expend. To build strong, positive relationships with your students, you must:

View them as people and not just as pupils.

Get to know their names quickly and use them frequently.

Adapt the way you handle different students according to students’ needs.

Help your students develop into fully rounded people. Teach them life skills, such as being cooperative and respectful, as well as developing their academic side.

Develop the pastoral side of your role. If you work as a form tutor or primary class teacher, focus on helping your students develop as people, as well as on getting them to learn.

The more students you teach, the harder you may find developing a bond with each one. If you’re a secondary teacher working with hundreds of different students, you have a hard task ahead of you. You can still make headway, though, by following the advice and guidance in Chapter 11.

The vast majority of young people want to build up good relationships with their teachers. Don’t let them get too close, though. You need to maintain a certain distance so you can do your job effectively.

Playing your part in the staff team

Although your role as a teacher can seem quite isolated, in fact you play a key part in the bigger team at your school. This team includes both teaching and non-teaching staff. From the caretaker to the lunchtime supervisors, everyone has a vital part to play. To become an effective team member, you should:

Understand and respect the different roles that various staff play in the daily life of the school.

Remember that all these roles support the whole-school ethos – and that no one job is more deserving of respect than another.

Look for support when you need it, and make sure that you give support to others as well.

Find ways to work effectively with support staff in your classroom. Understand that these people can make a huge difference to your students’ chances of success.

Get to know the ‘right’ people and avoid getting caught up with the ‘wrong’ ones.

Every school or setting has its own particular challenges when working as a staff team. Whether your school has only a few members of staff or over a hundred, you benefit yourself and your students by working effectively together. Go to Chapter 12 for details on how to be part of an educational team.

Handling parents

As a teacher, you come into contact with all sorts of parents and carers – from those who want nothing more than to support you in working with their children, to those who make your life as difficult as they can. In truth, the vast majority fall somewhere in between. Yes, they do want something from you (a good education for their children), but they’re happy to give something in return.

To work effectively with parents and carers, you need to: