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While I (thankfully) haven't been in a situation where my supervisor lambasted me in front of students like Novice Teacher 2, I have been in situations where I was diminished in front of colleagues, not students. Being a younger female at the start of a teaching career can exacerbate some uncomfortable situations. There were instances where I realized I was being relegated to tasks or was being spoken to in ways I did not feel were appropriate, but I recognize that I also had to learn to grow in my confidence to speak up when I needed to (came with experience) and respond appropriately. I will say that dealing with demoralizing situations became harder or easier depending on the support systems I had in place.

I would advise novice teachers to invest in critical friends they can go to for support, to share, and reflect together with as well as mentors they can go to for advice and guidance. Demoralizing situations are a reality in teaching-- if it doesn't happen with a supervisor, it will happen with a student or the admin or perhaps another teacher!

Having friends and mentors with whom you can debrief and problem-solve together with will make the process much more bearable and productive.

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I can definitely relate to Situation 1. Being provided with certain materials and being expected to bring them to life in an engaging way with little support as a novice teacher is very intimidating. As a novice teacher especially, there were times when I felt like I was expected to be more like an entertainer than a teacher. Certain schools are very much a business before a learning institution, where the only thing that matters is the money coming in, not the learning of the students. It didn't matter if the students were bored, repeating "tea, Tom, door" and not learning much, as long as the money was still coming in. In that situation, I spent hours and hours (unpaid, of course) combing through endless resources trying to make my lessons entertaining because I thought that that was what was expected of me above all else. This led to exhaustion very quickly, and I slowly began to realize (with the help of many more experienced teachers) that what I was doing wasn't necessary. So, my advice for novice teachers would be that you don't necessarily need to completely re-invent the wheel and make all of your lessons amazingly fun and entertaining, but do try and play around with your style and don't be afraid to experiment and try new things!

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While I (thankfully) never had an episode like Novice Teacher 2's supervisor lambasting the teacher in front of students, I have had demoralizing situations where I was treated dismissively and I felt diminished in front of fellow peer teachers. Being a younger Asian female at the start of a teaching career exacerbated some uncomfortable situations, but I do recognize that some of these situations were part of growing pains where I had to learn to grow my confidence (which came with experience) and communicate if I was being disrespected. I will say it was harder or easier to overcome demoralizing situations depending on the support systems I had in place. I would encourage novice teachers to make sure they invest in critical friends (fellow practitioners they can reflect together with and lean on) as well as seek our mentors. Demoralizing situations will always happen-- it is a reality of teaching and working with students, parents, admin, etc. It's important to have people you can seek advice from, find support, and problem-solve together with through these situations.

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When I first started teaching ESL I was given a pronunciation class as my first elective class. I had been struggling to teach a high -advanced class main class; I felt like a charlatan pulling the wool over the students eyes to varying degrees of success each day. So I was excited and relieved because I was afraid I would be given something extreme like Advanced-Grammar. I thought at the time that pronunciation was a topic I could handle. How hard could it be. I was lucky to have access to some good materials and texts, and found that these came with built in fun activities and games. So I excitedly, dove into this class, and students seemed to respond well to the lesson. However, as the classes went on I kind of ran out of steam. I was comfortable drilling students on minimal pairs, but was afraid to approach topics like intonation and stress or make classes communicative. In hindsight, I feel like I hid behind the easy bits and didn't really challenge myself or the class. Perhaps, this was because I was functioning in survival mode. I taught pronunciation a few more times throughout my career and gradually was able to flesh out my approach to something much more 3 dimensional. I guess my advice for novice teachers would be to push yourself out of your comfort zone, but do so at a manageable pace.

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Turning Adversity into Growth with professionalism and growth mindset

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Turning Adversity into Growth with professionalism and growth mindset

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Thanks, Javeria and Yashmin for bringing up this important topic. Here is my reply to situation number 2.

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Novice teacher 2:

“You call yourself a teacher moment?!”

You are teaching your lesson (doing a communicative activity in groups) and your supervisor disrupts your lesson, and suggests that you are not doing it/the lesson correctly. She/he proceeds to take over the class for the remaining sessions drilling the students via teacher-led grammar activities. When the class ends, the supervisor says – That’s how to do it!

Questions:

What has been your experience with such a ‘moment’? How did you overcome such a situation?

What can be done to help novice teachers in situations like these – bearing in mind how demoralizing such situations can be especially being diminished in front your students.

(Farrell, 2012:2016)

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Novice teacher 1:

They expect me to teach pronunciation and they say “Here’s the pronunciation book.” And then they say, “Make their class fun. Experience the language.” It just kills me that I’m expected to do it. I’m like, every Friday I’m dreading because the students just sit there like this (mimicking a bored voice) “Tea, Tom, Door.” Click the tape off. “Okay everybody get up. Take a deep breath. Stretch! Everybody’s awake.” Sit down. It is absolutely brutal.

Questions:

How did you deal with a situation like this when you were a novice teacher? Did you abide or did you rebel?

What advice do you have for present novice teachers in dealing with such situations?