Our role as a teacher today is not easy. Teachers have a wide range of duties, obligations and tasks which they need to complete on a daily basis. Along with this is the huge burden of being motivated in the classroom. The fact that teachers are stressed by everyday challenges and that their role in society is demanding, can easily influence their level of working motivation. By working motivation, I mean their innovative and motivational drive which is influential for their students in order to achieve all the teaching outcomes. To “spice up” this situation a little more, we should not forget that we are 21st century teachers, meaning that we are obliged to be prepared well enough to teach our students how to deal with future labor market demands and to be a competitive and competent workforce.
It is not easy to keep our teachers’ motivation at a high level all the time but it is important to be self-reflective and to do self-evaluation regularly. It is the right way to make us aware of our state of mind, to be honest with ourselves, and to determine when, how, or why our motivation is decreasing. It is our responsibility and the first step to expose ourselves to a deep and sincere self-reflection. Here we need to exclude our teachers’ ego, otherwise self-assessment will not be effective.
The next step is to define the factors that make a distinctive impact on teachers’ motivation. According to my teaching experience I would emphasize some of them here, although there are more to add. They are not ordered by their importance, because I find them all almost equally important. I must be frank here, I have my favourites, but it is up to you, as part of your mini self-reflection to try to list them according to your priorities.
1. Better students’ results
The stress is not just on their results at the English language school, county or state competition, but on their learning results generally and on their personal improvement. By personal, I mean their skills, competences and responsibility towards learning and tasks. If they understand my message, the content they learn and the importance of a particular task or a test, then I am satisfied with my work.
2. Be a better, more innovative and distinctive teacher
The absence of positive teachers’ ambition is not a good start. We need to feel the desire to be better tomorrow. Selfreflection is, again, crucial to start with. To be a better teacher tomorrow means to pay attention to everything that has an influence on teaching outcomes today: teaching methods, high-quality preparation, teachers’ training workshops/ webinars, in other words, constant learning. We need to be open to modern technological demands and take responsibility for being self-educated. It is not less important to be a distinctive teacher because our students remember us as their positive role-model. Our personal teaching distinction shows them the importance of being good at work in different ways and this makes us and our work unique and it makes a difference in the world around us.
3. A better working environment
This does not refer to the colour of our classroom walls or how well our classroom is equipped, but it refers to the working atmosphere. If our students feel comfortable and they are relaxed, then the atmosphere will be more interactive and this is the point of our class. They are supposed to communicate, to ask questions, to observe, to make complaints, to evaluate and assess each other, HUPEzine No. 12 • January 2020 7 to make suggestions and give ideas about the class they would like to have, to laugh, to see their teacher is a human being who can make mistakes and who can make a joke about it.
4. Teachers’ promotion
This is the formal recognition of our good work and practice and it is equally important in our process of professional improvement. The impacts of being officially recognized make teachers more self-confident and aware of their importance in the classroom and society as well. It is a long-term responsibility to keep the quality of their work the same, or even higher, as it is used to justify their advancement to specialists in their fields of work. Official recognition by experts and recognition by the local community give teachers an elevated feeling of being successful. Here, I would underline the importance of making yourself ready to be criticized by the experts or even parents. There is no bad criticism, because each makes you stronger and more focused on work. To conclude, I’d dare to say, each criticism is constructive!
5. Personal and professional improvement
They are a part of being officially promoted, but they are far more complex regarding the level of teachers’ awareness of being self-evaluated. Self-confidence is unquestionably developed along with numerous skills and competences. The more they are developed, the better the teacher’s motivation is.
6. Common cooperation
When my motivation is fragile, working with my colleagues on common projects increases my working energy and gives me a feeling of “butterflies in my stomach”. The point of being together and doing something useful for your students, your teaching community or school, awakens all our senses and lifts us to be productive, effective and efficient. We shouldn’t forget that righteous feeling of helping each other which motivates us to be a more knowledgable and skillful teacher.
7. Better and more significant projects
Whenever I create projects with my colleagues and students, my motivation is, without a doubt, considerable. Every step of creating a project, regardless if it is a school one or big one like an Erasmus+ project, makes your working spirit exceptional. I am personally and professionally growing. If it is an Erasmus+ or an eTwinning project, then they make more difference in your working outcomes than any others. Learning from foreign colleagues in their school systems widens your perspective as a teacher. It is incredibly better if you plan and make a project together as the result of your previously successful cooperation. Your teaching, language, presentation and team-work skills, including your personal ones, give you extra value to your knowledge and experience. The project’s final outcomes and results conclude the whole process by the best prize: you feel your motivation can never fade and you want more challenges.
8. Learning from your colleagues’ best practice examples
When I prepare my workshops or presentations, the motivation to be a good example from which my colleague can learn, makes me do my best. I also learn a lot in that case. The same thing occurs when I attend my colleagues’ webinars, workshops or interactive presentations, or we just meet, “off the record” for “a small teachers’ talk”. I compare myself with my colleagues’ working policy which again leads me to the basis of our improvement: self-reflection. Then I can see what I am doing right or wrong, how to correct my mistakes, how to continue smoothly and successfully, and if I am just blank or without any ideas, I can ask for help if I need some, why not?
9. Be a teacher role model to younger colleagues and trainees
If I may, I would gladly and proudly give an example of my mentoring assignment. It was quite energetic, challenging and a non-stop working period that my young trainee endured with a great deal of stamina and dedication. Later on, she became my colleague, luckily, and deserved that successful end to my “torturing”. A few months later, my grade 6 students had really liked the song Waltzing Matilda when they were learning about Australia so thanks to their spontaneous impulse, I got the idea of making a school play to celebrate Australia Day. My ex-trainee who had become a fresh, young certified teacher, become my colleague. She was still not so experienced but full of motivation. She eagerly joined in to lead her 5th graders, who also participated in the play, to present the story using hand puppets. Everything resulted with an official recognition by the Australian Embassy. Every single student in our 2 classes got souvenirs from the Australian Embassy as a thank you. There is a short trailer about a motivated teacher mentor, a young teacher and students turning two months of hard work into something memorable. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CSC4boQ4mRs
10. Make a difference
It is not just a wise quote we often refer to, it is our reality. As long as we are really aware of it, we are motivated to keep it alive.
Author:
Ivana Bokavšek
English teacher, teacher adviser
January 2020
