You have been a teacher of English as a Foreign or Second Language for at least two years now.  What are some of the most important things you have learned about teaching?  What advice would you give to a colleague who had just completed his/her Certificate and was beginning to teach?

One thing I have developed since becoming a teacher is a bank of five-minute activities and games to use in class.  I think it’s great for new teachers to build up their own collection of games early on in their careers as there are always moments when you need a quick activity – either because you don’t have enough time to do something you had planned, or just an activity to review something done that lesson.  I started my blog as a way of storing the ideas I had picked up over the years and refer back to it when I feel like I’m stuck doing the same activity.

I’ve also learnt the value of conferences and would encourage new teachers to attend events whenever possible.  Throughout the year we all need a bit of a boost and workshops and conferences are an excellent way of picking up new ideas, but also reaffirming that wnat we’re already doing is useful and valid.

It’s also important to share your experiences with others as we often have similar problems with classes (dynamics, use of L1, behaviour).  A new teacher may worry that it’s only happening to them, but as you talk to colleagues you find that there are similar issues in most classes and I’ve found that although you may not be able to solve a problem, by talking it through with a colleague you can find different ways of dealing with it.

– Trinity DipTESOL Supervised Written Task, 2012

We had a session on one-to-one teaching yesterday afternoon and during a chat about the advantages and disadvantages for the teacher, one of the trainees mentioned the lack of a staffroom.  I think it was interesting as obviously during the course the trainees spend a lot of time with each other, bouncing around ideas in preparation for teaching and providing constructive feedback on each others’ lessons.

A couple of years ago, we ‘lost’ our staffroom due to expansion, though I’m hoping we’ll get it back one day!  There are certainly a number of problems with a communal staffroom: it can easily become messy, with nobody willing to take responsibility for tidying away books which have been left out or half-drunk bottles of water which go unclaimed; what’s more, depending on the size it may cause frustration if there is too little space to work in…to be honest, I’m struggling to think of further problems.

So, let’s think about the many benefits of having a communal space:

• the opportunity to bounce around ideas
• a place to stick up important information for staff
• a place to share useful worksheets or links
• a physical space to put bags, so as not to clutter up your classroom
• a space to relax in between classes (some teachers at our school work split shifts)
• somewhere for the photocopier and other resources to be stored

A number of these could arguably be solved with an online staffroom (which gets us into a whole other debate), but I still think I’m all in favour of a physical staffroom.