8 Tried And Tested Strategies To Build An Effective ELT Teaching Team

25th June 2024

The Department of Education reveals that around 5 million children in the US are classified as English Language Learners.

Despite staying in a native English-speaking country, these students face the dual challenge of learning the resource material. This is because the teachers teaching them face the added challenge of using the right educational strategies that can help them succeed. So, how do you train a group of teachers to build the perfect ELT teaching team? Read on as we give you some fruitful strategies to try.

Top Essential Ways To Create Your ELT Teaching Team
 

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Take a look at some of the best ways to create an effective teaching team to boost your teachers’ morale and help your students achieve their goals:

1. Create Shared Goals

One of the main factors in creating an effective ELT teaching team is setting shared goals. These goals should come from teachers themselves as they could base their objectives on a range of things. From developing numerous teaching resources to scouting the best course books, teachers have their contributions everywhere.

Therefore, the thing to keep in mind is to build a shared goal that every English teacher can contribute and achieve while gaining some benefit from it. The best ELT goals can be created by your teachers and this means that you need to work with them to identify the challenges and shortcomings and offer them the support and guidance as required.

2. Build Trust

Building trust with your teachers requires patience and time. However, it is necessary to trust each other to build a high-functioning ELT team. To build trust among your teachers try to be honest and transparent in your communications. Be reliable, warm, and approachable so that educators can reach out to you in case of any issues.

Also, be prepared to listen to your teachers understand what they care about, and try to help them whenever you can. Hold a brainstorming session with your teachers to figure out their ideas and opinions and give your honest feedback while sharing information that might help them.

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3. Plan Your Communications

Effective teams are a mirror of good and clear communication. Thus, you need to have good communication skills to realize that each and every teacher is unique. However, good communication by now way means communicating a lot as over-communication can be damaging.

Thus, create a communication plan where you include what, when, and who you need to communicate with. Also, include what is the best way or platform to share your message. Remember, that not all communications need to go through you and establish ways so that teachers can communicate with each other and share their doubts or opinions.

4. Make Time For Face-To-Face Meetings

Not every issue can be conveyed via a third person, or through online meetings. Some communications require your face-to-face presence. And this is one of the most essential aspects of building an effective ELT team. You can either have an open-door policy to entertain walk-ins or make yourself available as and when your teachers require you to be.

Give your staff the time and opportunity to raise issues, ask questions, or just get to know you. Being available will strengthen the bond between you and your educators and they will feel valued and heard.

5. Create Project Teams

If you want to encourage your teachers to work as a team, try to initiate several projects they can work on together. These projects could be designing new courses, developing teacher resources, planning events, creating newsletters, etc.

To ensure that the project teams are working well, you need to have a diverse range of people with different abilities and skills within every team. Try to harness the unique skills of all the participants for different roles within the team.

6. Keep Track Of Issues

Dealing with the same issues over and over again can be extremely frustrating as it is evident that there is no way to solve them. To tackle such situations, ensure that you enable your teaching team to track any issues they are having and be aware of what is being done about them.

You can use a spreadsheet to help your teachers out and give them access so that they can see what issues have been raised, what is being done about them, and who is handling the issue.

7. Normalize Failures

You cannot expect your teachers to be perfect all of a sudden and one important part of building trust with your team is to normalize failures. Try to learn lessons from your bad experiences and encourage your teachers to move on.

Learn to admit your mistakes and model this behavior yourself so that your teachers can fail and learn. Allow your teachers the space to make mistakes and support them throughout the learning process. Help them realize that failure is a significant step towards success.

8. Give And Get Feedback

As a team leader getting open feedback will not be an easy task to do. This is because despite you trying to build an egalitarian team, they will always see you as a manager. Regardless, you do need to get feedback to understand if you are doing the right or wrong thing.

Feedback will help you greatly to improve. Therefore, be open to feedback and thank your team for their opinions. Alternatively, offer honest criticism to your employees as it will help them to improve and strengthen their weak areas. This practice will allow all of you to stay fair without any resentment.

Do You Feel Prepared?

Since you spend a large part of your lives working, it is rewarding to have a team you can bank on not just financially, but also spiritually and emotionally. Therefore, creating highly effective ELT teaching teams with teachers who have completed TEFL Courses can collaborate and contribute to helping all your dreams turn into reality.

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