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For Schools

Teacher to Administrator – the perks and pitfalls of moving into the office

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Image by Karolina Grabowska from Pixabay

At some point in their career, many teachers ask themselves if they should move into school administration. For me that question came soon after I moved to the U.S. and realized that in an ESL field dominated by part-time teaching appointments it was going to be challenging to make a career as a teacher. I also perceived that others had a passion for classroom teaching, pure and simple, that I couldn’t match. Having worked in another industry previously, I also felt restricted by the strict scheduling of my time when teaching. It just didn’t suit me that well, and when the opportunity came, I began making the move ‘into the office.’

If you are considering making that move, perhaps these questions and answers will help inform your decision…

What kind of schedule do you want?

As a teacher your daily schedule is fixed. You know when your classes are, and you know where you need to be and at what time. It’s a highly structured work life.

Administrators generally have much more control over their time (other than the slew of meetings they have to attend). Depending on your institution, vacation time is structured differently too. University-based teachers tend to have more vacation, but are restricted as to when they can take it. Administrators may have less time off, but more flexibility.

In both cases though, the ability to really unplug varies. Teachers may spend much of their vacation time thinking about and planning for the next term’s classes; administrators tend to have to be reachable even on vacation, and may have to attend meetings remotely even while they are supposed to be taking a break.

Either way, the way your time is structured will change if you move from the classroom to the office.

What’s going to happen to your teaching skills?

Being a great teacher is a constant process of practicing, trying new techniques and materials, refining routines, reflecting on what went well and what didn’t, and making efforts to become more effective. Teaching is like learning a foreign language in that it requires regular practice. If you get out of practice, you get rusty.

If you make a move into administration, you’ll have to ask if you are going to continue to keep one foot in the classroom or not. Some think that academic administrators should continue to teach, so that they can fully appreciate the experience of teachers and the consequences of the decisions they make. That’s a nice ideal, but teaching and administering are two completely different jobs, and there is a danger that you will not be able to give your full self to either.

In my first job as a school administrator I was a teacher five mornings a week, and a housing director five afternoons. In the classroom students would ask me – or more often complain to me – about their housing. In the afternoon when I was working on housing, my students would visit me with questions about their classwork. This led to long hours for me and the potential for early burnout, as well as the sense that I wasn’t doing either job really well.

It can be hard to leave the classroom behind, but it’s a tough balancing act to keep teaching and office work going at a high level.

Do you care about a career path?

Teachers and administrators may have different mindsets when it comes to their careers. Many teachers just want to teach. Some end up doing similar work year after year; others push themselves to become more effective teachers through professional development and teaching different kinds of classes.

Either way, there isn’t traditionally what you would call a career path for teachers, especially in ESL. Some institutions might have ‘junior lecturers’ and ‘senior lecturers,’ and of course there are part-time and full-time teachers. But in the end, teachers tend to remain teachers, and many teachers are fine with that.

The administrator mindset tends to want to see career progress – increasing levels of responsibility, higher level job titles, broader influence in the organization. If you are planning to move from teaching to administration, it’s a good idea to reflect on what kind of career you want, and what you want to be doing ten or twenty years from now.

How will other teachers view you?

In some institutions, teachers and administration enjoy a constructive and positive relationship. In others though, there may be a level  of mutual suspicion and mistrust resulting from differing perceptions about how decisions should be made, less-than-perfect communication, and a failure to understand and appreciate the demands of each other’s work. If you move from teaching to  administration, some teachers might view you as having switched teams; or feel you’ve gone over to the dark side.

You may not be able to avoid this because while many in the organization call for transparency in decision-making, you may be required to maintain discretion (for example to protect individuals’ personal information), not publicly disagree about higher-level decisions with which you personally don’t agree, and be accountable to individuals or entities that teachers rarely encounter, such as accreditors, boards of directors, the Department of Homeland Security, and upper-level management. Sometimes what teachers may feel is best for the students seems contrary to what is demanded by one of these entities. Too bad – as an administrator you have to comply with demands wherever they come from.

On the positive side, as a former teacher you might be seen by teachers as someone who ‘understands us.’ Either way, you should be aware that perceptions of you may change with your move to the back office (or the corner office).

Finally – do you have the skill set and the inclination?

While some of the soft skills of teaching transfer well to administration – planning, organization, and effective communication, among others – teaching and administering are fundamentally different jobs, each requiring a refined set of skills. Do you enjoy working with spreadsheets, budgets, student records? Are you ready to handle complaints from students, teachers, and staff? You will need to ask yourself if you have those skills or are able and willing to develop them. And of course, working in an office is very different from working in a classroom. Will you be happy with significantly less contact with students?

So, is administration for you?

Educating our students requires many different roles and functions, from classroom teacher to academic administrator and student services provider. We are all educators, no matter our job. Education can be a rewarding field to work in regardless of your role. I hope you will find the right niche for your talents, skills, and inclinations.

Other news

Intensive English Programs and the SEVIS Fee Increase

 SEVP recently announced an increase in the SEVIS fee from $200 to $350, a 75% increase. All international students who wish to study in the U.S. in F-1 status must pay the SEVIS fee (in addition to any additional in-country visa application fees), and are not eligible for a refund if they are denied an F-1 visa. The SEVIS system was an unfunded mandate introduced to keep track of international students following 9-11. It is entirely funded by its users: the students and the institutions they study at.

But not all users are equal. In particular, students wishing to study in short-term programs at intensive English programs (IEPs) are disproportionately burdened by the SEVIS fee, compared with those who come to study for a bachelor’s or master’s degree. $350 is a large chunk of the outlay of an IEP student in a short-term program. Doubtless the fee increase will deter many students from choosing the U.S. as a destination for study in an IEP, and U.S. IEPs stand to lose significant business.

A comment campaign organized by EnglishUSA made clear the unfair burden on IEP students, but it fell on deaf ears at SEVP, which went ahead with the fee increase for all students. IEPs will be responding by sidestepping the SEVIS system entirely. Already many IEPs offer part-time (such as 15 hours per week) programs, with students entering the U.S. on the Visa Waiver Program or on a B visa. Rather than a workaround, this approach will increasingly come to be seen as business as usual.

Although some IEP administrators or designated school officials at universities may be reluctant to admit students for part-time students, it is acceptable to do so. An ESL program of less than 18 hours per week is, by the Department of Homeland Security’s own definition, not a full course of study, and individuals in such programs are not eligible for an F-1 visa. F-1 status is a privilege: it allows individuals who have demonstrated academic accomplishment and financial means the possibility to remain in the U.S. for as long as they remain in a full-time course of study at a recognized institution. People coming for part-time ESL do not seek that privilege, are not eligible for it, and should not apply for an F-1 visa.

I recommend that IEPs refer to the people who come to part-time programs as program participants, not as students. This will avoid any confusion as to the correct visa status for them (that is, they are not F-1 students). And please keep in mind that there is nothing illegal or dangerous about sitting in a room talking about English grammar, whether you are a U.S. citizen or not. U.S. IEPs offer valuable opportunities for people around the world, and should use the means available to them to continue to do so.

For Schools

Putting Students First

At a recent professional development session at Stafford House Boston, Miyo Takahashi Le and I presented some principles and practices of good service to intensive English program (IEP) students. The simple mantra “Students come first” particularly resonated with many in the audience. It means that in any policy or practice consideration, staff should always prioritize what is best for the students. Putting students first may seem obvious, but although individual staff and faculty approach their work with their students’ best interests in mind, in practice there can be institutional or structural impediments that inhibit good service. Here are three examples.

Silos
At one IEP, the Admissions team was responsible for first-day check-in of students for its semester-length program. The team had made the process – which included scanning passports and I-20s, checking students’ insurance, and ensuring that tuition was paid – highly efficient. There was no involvement from the Academic team in first-day check-in, because it was viewed as an Admissions process. Yet many students had academic-related questions when they came in on the first day, and there was no process to get those questions answered. Worse, for new students who had traveled thousands of miles to come and study at the program, there was little in the way of a warm welcome, no chance for students to meet their teachers, and only limited opportunities to start bonding with other students.

This was changed by having Admissions and Academics collaborate to develop a first-day check-in experience that included a warm welcome and conversation with faculty, and advisors on hand to answer students’ questions. It resulted also in the Academic staff and faculty being able to take care of some academic procedures (such as elective class selection) on check-in day, which was more efficient and of better service to students.

Breaking down silos and seeing first-day check-in as an institutional effort rather than the activity of just one department led to better service to students.

Prioritizing Staff or Faculty Interests
In an IEP that ran three semesters per year, the summer semester was set up differently from the fall and spring semesters. The daily schedule was shorter, with all days ending at 1:00 instead of 3:30, because students were restricted to one elective rather than two. The summer was divided into two six-week sessions, giving faculty the opportunity to teach less or concentrate their teaching into one half of the semester. This also meant that electives that were designed to be taught over 60 hours were crunched into 30 hours. None of this was great for students.

The original rationale given for the different summer schedule was that the IEP was running its main semesters in the fall and spring, and summer was seen as just an extra that was not taken as seriously. But students wished to study year-round, and there was no reason why the program should be any different in the summer. In fact, it looked suspiciously as though the summer had been designed for the convenience of the faculty rather than the good of the students.

After much discussion and a faculty vote, the summer semester was brought into line with the fall and spring semesters, creating a smoother study experience for students studying over several semesters.

Institutional Inertia
At a residential program, students were required to sign out when they left campus and sign back in when they returned. This was an onerous process that began twenty or thirty years before, and was intended to increase the safety of the students by enabling staff to check who was on campus at any time. Upon review, it was found that many students failed to sign out and sign in correctly, making the system ineffective. Given that the Student Service team’s mission had recently been updated to include empowering students and helping them to be more independent, the sign-out/sign-in system seemed outdated and intrusive. And on reflection, staff realized that the system had been introduced before the age of smart phones, which students now all carry at all times, making them easier to reach than ever before. The reason the sign-out/sign-in system continued was simply because that’s how it had always been done. While some staff had reservations initially, the burdensome sign-out/sign-in books were finally removed, and in a subsequent survey, students overwhelmingly supported the change.

Serving Better
No matter how much you may want to provide top-notch service to your students, impediments – such as silos, prioritizing the interests of faculty or staff over those of students, and institutional inertia – can get in the way of great service to students. Do you recognize any of these impediments in your program? How can you serve better?

 

 

Thank you to Ece Gürler of Stafford house Boston for devising and publicizing the session ‘How Can We Serve Better?’ 

Other news

Left behind? Intensive English programs have to adapt to survive

Image result for student visa

At the recent IIE summit in New York City, Assistant Secretary of State for the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, Marie Royce, trumpeted governmental support for international education. “We must step up our game,” she declared.

While it is heartwarming that the administration, particularly this administration, intends to support increasing enrollment in U.S. higher education, intensive English programs (IEPs), which attract over 80,000 students to the US each year, are unfortunately left out of the conversation. And if cost, as Royce stated, is “a major reason that students decide not to pursue US study,” then the current government proposal to raise the SEVIS fee from $200 to $350 (additional to the visa application fee, none of which comes with the guarantee of getting a visa) impacts prospective IEP students disproportionately.

Prospective students who want to pursue a full-time course of study at an IEP are required to obtain a student visa. Somebody somewhere at some point in time decided that full-time for an IEP student is an arbitrary minimum of 18 class hours per week. Here is a key to how IEPs can respond to the increasing costs imposed by the government’s obsessive need to monitor international students since 9/11: by adapting programs so that they have a smaller number of class hours than 18, students will be ineligible to apply for a student visa and can enter the country using a visa waiver, B visa, or other means that are cheaper and less burdensome than the F-1 student visa. IEPs can fill out their program by adding out-of-class cultural and social activities.

The 15-hour-per week program is a good solution for those who want to come to the US for a relatively short time to improve their English, and return home. This is still a sizable portion of the IEP market. And it could be a more economical program for the price-conscious.

In order to survive tough conditions, even with professed administration support for international education, IEPs have to adapt.

For Schools

What you should know about language placement tests

Most intensive English programs offer a placement test or a set of procedures to try and ensure that students are receiving instruction at an appropriate level. Minimally, a multiple-choice test is offered at the school on the first day,  or online. Other procedures typically include an interview and a written assignment that are assessed by the program’s teachers.

If your program is introducing, reviewing, or revising placement procedures, here are some important considerations.

Placement tests are not tied to your program’s objectives
If a program uses a commercially available test such as the Oxford Placement Test or the Michigan English Placement Test, the test may give some indication of students’ overall proficiency, but will not tell you which of your program’s learning objectives students have achieved. Even if you include a writing assignment based on a prompt or an interview, these procedures will not cover the range of learning objectives for your program. The results of placement tests are, therefore, highly inferential. They may gain face validity if used over a long period of time, if program staff can say, “Students with x score typically do well in y level,” but they do not tell which level is the correct one based on achievement of your program’s objectives.

Placement tests are not diagnostic
Because placement tests generally yield limited data about students’ proficiency, they they can be used to broadly categorize students into your program’s levels, but they won’t tell you much about each student’s ability on the four skills in a variety of discourse settings. This is why you sometimes find very quiet and hesitant students in a class with fast talkers, which can lead to student frustration – they placed at the same overall level but their skills vary. To serve students effectively, schools need to build in additional procedures (such as a needs analysis or separating skill classes by level) to ensure that students’ individual needs are understood and can be addressed.

Placement tests don’t tell you a student’s level
This may seem counter-intuitive, but in fact there are no ‘levels’ in language learning. Language proficiency improves on a continuum. Levels are imposed by programs as a way to group students (and each program has its own system of levels and grouping). ‘Level’ for a language program means its curricular level – what is specified to be taught to (and presumably learned by) a categorized group of students. Placement is the process of deciding which level a student should be placed in – but it doesn’t tell you ‘the student’s level.’

Placement procedures rarely ask the student’s opinion
Some students are ambitious and want to be challenged. Others want to spend time reviewing and consolidating what they know. Some students lack confidence and want time and space in the classroom to get comfortable with themselves as language learners in an English-only environment. Students’ own learning preferences are not usually taken into account in placement procedures; they are told what level they will be placed in and that this is the right level for them ‘based on the placement test,’ which, as I’ve tried to show above, is may be limited in its effectiveness. Placement procedures should take students’ preferences into account.

The only relevant information you need is…
‘what is the level of our program at which this student is likely to thrive and make the best progress?’ All other considerations are secondary.

So, if you are introducing, reviewing, or revising your placement testing procedures, consider the following

1. Improve the validity of your procedures by linking them directly to your program’s learning objectives.

2. Take proficiency on individual skills into account when placing students.

3. Avoid concluding that a student must be in a particular level because of the placement result – build in procedures for flexibility.

4. Ask students about their preferred level of challenge – if your program is ‘student-centered,’ you should be doing this anyway.

5. Finally, if a student is unhappy with his or her placement, be willing to make a change – understand that the placement test gave you limited information and that adult students have valid opinions about what works best for them.

 

For Schools

Do’s and don’ts of delegation

Many IEPs are staffed by people who started out as classroom teachers. This can be a positive thing, but management skills – especially the skills of managing people – have to be learned. One important skill that can be challenging to learn is delegation. Knowing when and how to delegate is important for all academic directors, student services managers, and program coordinators. Here are some tips for delegating.

  1. Delegate responsibilities, not tasks. True delegation isn’t just asking someone to do something; it is entrusting a person with a responsibility. It could be a project with a deadline such as writing a curriculum, or it could be an ongoing responsibility such as overseeing program assessment. Find an area of work that someone could take on and let a person do it. That’s delegation.
  2. Give ownership. Once you delegate, step back and let the person get on with it. They may not do it the same way as you; they will often find a better way of doing it. Owning an area of responsibility gives employees pride in their work.
  3. Explain your goal, not the process. Tell the person what you are trying to achieve, such as conversion of inquiries into registrations. Let them know how it’s been done before. Then let them figure out how they are going to meet your goal.
  4. Hold the person accountable. Agree on criteria for success, and arrange to check in on a regular basis to discuss progress and challenges. Make the person understand that although they have ownership of this area of work, they are accountable to you and the organization for results.
  5. Anticipate and tolerate mistakes. Employees need space to make mistakes, especially if they are trying out new methods. Agree with yourself that you won’t stress out if the person makes mistakes as they learn to do what you have asked. Repeating the same mistake over and over is a problem, but mistakes in learning are natural.
  6. Support, support, support. Make clear to the person that you are there to support them. When you delegate anything, consider this your primary role. Ask repeatedly, “What can I do to support you? Is there anything I can do to help you do this more effectively?”
  7. And remember: you are still responsible. Although you have delegated, the responsibility is still ultimately yours. If something goes wrong, don’t blame the person you delegated to. When explaining the situation to your boss, take responsibility. Conversely, if your employee did a good job, be quick to praise and advertise his or her accomplishment to your colleagues.

These are my do’s and don’ts of delegation. Do you have any others?

For Schools

Faculty freedom and curriculum design in intensive English programs

How much freedom do intensive English program (IEP) teachers have to design their courses, choose their materials, and teach to their interests? How much should they? These questions become ever more compelling as accreditation standards push programs to be accountable for their outcomes.

Teachers in proprietary (non-university-governed) IEPs have long been used to teaching within a structured framework, using prescribed textbooks and curricula that map out what is to be covered by the week or even by the day. This has been necessary because, adopting a customer-centric and profit-maximizing approach, they allow students frequent – weekly or monthly – entry and exit points. Students staying for a short program jump in and then out of existing classes with longer-term students. Those long-term students need to be able to move through a defined program of work and progress to the next, and then the next, level. This means that all teachers need to be on the specified part of the curriculum – in some cases on the specified page of the textbook – at all times.

Many university IEPs have inherited the university tradition of faculty autonomy, giving faculty the freedom to write their own syllabi, choose their own materials, and generally teach to their own interests. Under the influence of CEA accreditation standards, faculty are losing some of this autonomy, as student achievement standards require them to teach to a program-wide set of learning objectives. Student promotion to the next level must be based on student achievement of objectives, so faculty have to conform to standard assessment, evaluation, and grading practices. In order to ensure all students are getting the same course, university programs are increasingly prescribing textbooks. As a result, university IEP curricula and faculty work are looking more like those of proprietary programs.

This trend has caused much tension between faculty and administration at IEPs where faculty have fought to retain autonomy in their teaching. Some faculty claim that students are losing out because, being close to the students, they know what is best for them. Administrators charged with implementing accreditation standards argue in turn that students gain when there is a program-wide system that smooths out the differences between faculty styles and preferences.

In proprietary programs, curriculum can be imposed by administrative fiat. This is harder in university programs. Those that have adapted best are the ones where administrators and faculty have a trusting relationship and can jointly respond to the new requirements in a collaborative way that reconciles the divergent demands of individual autonomy and program standardization. Some programs continue to struggle.

 

 

 

For Schools

Keeping your Intensive English Program Relevant on Campus


Created by Ijeab – Freepik.com

These are trying times for many on-campus intensive English programs. Enrollment and revenue are down, and there is increased pressure from senior administration for many IEPs to demonstrate their continuing relevance and usefulness to the wider institution.

At the same time, many universities have enrolled international students who can benefit from language, cultural, and social support. IEPs have faculty and staff who are highly qualified to provide programming in these areas (and who may currently have less work to do), yet because IEPs are typically viewed as profit centers rather than service units, they are not called on to offer such support. This is short-sighted, as increased support for degree-seeking international students will improve their retention and completion rates – which is good for the students,  the university’s bottom line, and the institution’s reputation.

IEP directors can sell this idea to university administrators. Here are some activities the IEP can offer to improve the international student experience on campus:

Workshops for faculty: Offer strategies to encourage international students to participate in class discussions, or give advice on assessing written work of students using English as a second language.

Resource webpage for English language support:  Like this one at Hunter College. Include online dictionaries, grammar resources, and writing advice for international students across campus.

Tutoring: Many universities have a writing center, but few have a place specifically to help with second language issues. The IEP can provide this.

English language workshops: Students who have gained a high score on the TOEFL or IELTS may still be lacking essential English skills. Offer workshops in pronunciation, pragmatics, or giving presentations.

Career preparation workshops: Many international students may seek on-campus employment, co-op or internship positions, or CPT/OPT opportunities. Help them write an effective application and interview effectively.

Pre-arrival language preparation: Develop a short online course to give incoming international students confidence with English. Prepare them for the various situations they will encounter and provide strategies to continue working on their English once they arrive.

These ideas will likely require building relationships with other offices on campus, and IEP directors may run into territory issues. Getting buy-in from a senior administrator who can support these efforts may be essential. This person may also be needed in making the case that the costs incurred in these activities will be more than recouped in international student performance, retention, and completion.

On-campus IEPs are home to enormous expertise on international student success. It’s time to put that expertise to work across the campus.