ESL School

... thinking about the demands of the post and the qualities required before deciding if it’s a desirable step for you.

In the first place, you will have to be independent, self-confident, resourceful and resilient, because the DO.S is both isolated and exposed. Belonging neither to senior management nor the teachers, you have to be able to mediate between those two levels while not necessarily having allies in either camp. Senior management might try to shield itself from the effects of unpopular decisions by asking you to implement them and teachers might ask you to convey their complains about decisions and working conditions to senior management. And, if you are promoted from among the teachers you have worked with, some may resent your newly acquired authority over them.

You need to be a person who can deal with change because it will be your task to implement change as and when needed. If you are somebody who resists change then this role is not for you. In implementing change you will need to be able persuade other of its advantages and gain their cooperation in putting it into practice.

You need to be well organised because your duties will not follow the same simple timetable you had as teacher. No day will the same so you need to be good at time management and systematic in your approach.

You will need excellent people skills because you will need to inspire confidence and trust and will have to be able to motivate others. In fact this whole area warrants a new entry all on its own so I will deal with this in more detail next time.

Needless to say you require communication skills. And don’t think that because you can communicate well to learners, it will be the same with colleagues. You will require tact and diplomacy, a clear sense of what communication styles work with your colleagues, the ability to deal with difficult people and be able to listen not just to overt messages but to what lies behind the words.

You will need to problem-solving skills: in other words, when a difficulty arises you will have to deal with it and will not be able to pass it on to others to handle. What do you do if two teachers are sick, if books that are ordered do not arrive, if students make a complaint, rooms become unusable for whatever reason?

And I think you will need to be a ‘political’ animal. By that I mean that you will have to be able understand how decisions and actions impact on all involved and work out strategies for keeping everybody happy!

An impossible challenge? Perhaps not, but almost.