C is for Coaching

C is for Coaching

This is the fourth of five in the series Giving students VOICE.

When you ask your friend how they’re doing and their reply is “I’m fine”, semantically it means satisfactory, but pragmatically you know somethin’ ain’t right.  Plus their response was likely delivered with a hollowed-out enthusiasm befitting a Wisconsinite like me finding out it’s a dry wedding reception.  

Where am I going with this?  Teaching English is actually pretty easy [gasp] if one considers teaching English as some variation of explaining grammar rules, presenting examples, and then overseeing a class doing exercises from the book or photocopied worksheets, as is often the default. It’s very reasonable to contend that such a job description is the reason why a large proportion of the ESL jobs in the U.S. are part-time.  There isn’t some deeper level of knowledge needed like one would presumably possess in order to explain biological processes or the Renaissance.  Consequently, if a program director hired you to essentially follow a book-bound syllabus, you’ll be…fine.   But somethin’ ain’t right.  

That languid ethos doesn’t jibe with being a language trainer.  Here’s where the C in VOICE comes in: coaching.  A language trainer strives to provide the best possible coaching.  One of the poor deceased horses that I’ll continue to thump is that language learning is fundamentally different from almost all other school subjects. Review is for school subjects that end in a test.   Language trainers don’t review, they lead practice and coach their students until they’ve reached the desired level of performance and confidence.  Consequently, in a classroom having the ability to coach well is paramount.   Prepping, handing out, and grading a worksheet doesn’t require coaching.   Going through the correct answers doesn’t require coaching.  Coaching English is actually pretty challenging. It requires time, patience, and the willingness to change your approach.  (New mindset, who dis?)

In the context of the language classroom, here’s what coaching is not:

-Covering grammar points with a presentation.

-Going through the book and/or homework answers one by one and correcting when a student gives the wrong answer.

-Walking around checking student progress in assigned book and worksheet activities.

-Telling students “You need to work on X,Y, and Z.”

-Giving written grammar tests and quizzes.

In the context of the language classroom, here’s what coaching is:

-Creating the conditions for maximum feedback on spoken language production.

-Recognizing and motivating different personalities to draw full participation, cooperation, and effort from each student.

-Monitoring student output and providing learning-conducive correction

-Managing the pace of class, the rotations, and the sequencing.

If someone graduates from college at age 22 to be an English language instructor, I wouldn’t expect them to be a great coach. I would hope someone with 20 years in the English language teaching field, whether full or part-time, would have developed into a top-notch coach.  But if that instructor has been a talking head and a worksheeter for all those years, they’ve had no reason to improve in the absence of a supervisor who weeds out Next Page teachers. (In fact, that’s one of my motivations for writing these posts and newsletters – to raise collective self-awareness and retire the School of Next Page, the overtried-and-untrue language program curriculum.)

Many of us have had strict teachers that we really learned from, but we’ve also had strict teachers who were strict for strictness’ sake and we didn’t learn much.  We’ve had teachers we enjoyed, but looking back we didn’t learn a thing. And we’re lucky when we had teachers that we enjoyed and we also learned a tremendous amount.   I’m sure some teachers came to mind for you.  Regardless of their specialty, the last type almost certainly had the capacity to be excellent coaches for an interactive subject like language learning.  Why? They were probably very dynamic and in tune with what their classes needed. They weren’t book-bound and they knew how to engage and motivate their students. They did those coach-like things that you didn’t realize at the time and they became your favorite teachers.  In doing so, your favorite teachers weren’t…fine.