The next step in my EFL journey was as a Director of Studies (DoS) in a small language school beginning in June 2014. This would involve being responsible for all the teaching staff, teaching both young learners and adults. My responsibilities also included implementing British Council recommendations (which had not been acted on before I arrived at the school) and also preparing the school for an upcoming British Council accreditation inspection. This would involve a lot of assistance from others on the management team. Unfortunately, that wasn’t forthcoming and there seemed to be a climate of disrespect and idleness in some areas. This made it very hard for me to work in an organisation where progress was not taken seriously. Consequently I left a year later as I did not want to be associated with the behaviour of some of the management team. In one case, I had to tell the British Council inspectors not to associate me with another member of staff as their behaviour was complete anathema to me.
While I was at this school, I implemented programmes of observation, appraisal, teacher development, weekly teachers’ meetings and a payment grade system for teachers dependent on their experience and qualifications. Much to my horror, I discovered that teachers didn’t have contracts and some were paid cash in hand. I managed to rectify that eventually, but I wasn’t really granted much authority as DoS and had to rely on others, and as I have said before some of them were lazy.
Again, I dealt with many Italian teenage students as we had arrangements for thirty or so to come over at a time. Many of these students would take the Trinity exam test relevant to their age and level (in most cases, but as I said before disorganisation and chaos reigned here).
One positive point arose from this period in my EFL career and that was how much support I was able to give my teachers, whether they were fresh from an EFL training course, studying for their DELTA or hoping to upgrade their MA in EFL status to a DELTA equivalent. I managed to implement a number of programmes to assist the teachers in this way. I also encouraged my teaching staff to try new classes such as IELTS or a higher or lower level than they were used to. As they knew they had my support, they worked very hard and became very valuable to their students.
It was about this time I realised how much I enjoyed helping teachers develop and that if you show your staff that you are supportive of them, they will reciprocate. Despite me tearing out what little hair I had at times, there were some funny incidents. One member of staff used to take incredibly long lunch hours. They weren’t academic staff, so although I didn’t like the attitude, it didn’t really bother me. Although, one afternoon they decided to let a non-native speaking member of staff lead a marketing meeting by herself. The poor woman’s English was not adequate enough to get her through the meeting, so I was asked by other staff to sit in and help. I’m not a marketing person, so was furious to be put in this position. It was then I realised that a certain member of staff’s attitude towards anyone but themself was very poor. One afternoon the aforementioned member of staff was having what I suspected was another extended lunch. When they turned up hours later, it transpired they’d been stuck in the building lift for most of the afternoon. Schadenfreude, I think they call it.
As mentioned before, I decided to leave this place after a year and had a short sabbatical including a trip to Liverpool where I visited the famous Cavern Club. Unfortunately, I can’t find the photos I took there, but as a consolation I’ve included a photo below of Savile Row in London. The Beatles gave their last live performance on the roof of this building in 1969 (as evidenced by the Blue Plaque).
