5 Ways to Deal with a Red Light/Green Light Leader

by | Mar 3, 2012 | Blog, Education, Teacher's Corner

For most educators it’s hard to not have at least one working experience with a typical Red Light/Green Light administrator.  It usually starts with a stroke of inspiration while relaxing with coworkers on Friday night or if you work in Asia in the middle of a foot massage.  You’ve just discovered the solution to a nagging school problem.  On Monday, after the morning rush has passed, you walk into the “gate keepers” office (principal, headmaster, department head, etc) to lay out your sweeping vision for the school.  Oddly enough, they don’t seem as excited about it as you were when you first thought about it. So what’s wrong?  Well it could be a number of things.  Maybe your idea just isn’t that good.  Or maybe something else needs to take priority right now.  Or maybe you’re working with a Red Light/Green Light leader; a leader who instead of encouraging colleagues to be creative, take risks and solve problems, demands “veto power” on all potential projects.** Don’t be discouraged. Here are 5 ways to deal with a Red Light/Green Light Leader: 1.  Experiment Within Your Sphere of Influence If you’re like me you feel surrounded by problems that are begging for a solution.  Here in the Philippines I see intense poverty, pollution and wasted resources outside of school, and in school there’s a whole different set of of problems. Whether working with Red Light/Green Light leaders or not one should first ask whether the issue is within my sphere of influence.  aAsking this question will focus your time and energy on projects that you hold some sway or authority over.  It’s...

Bridging The ESL Divide

by | Feb 16, 2012 | Blog, Education, Teacher's Corner

Like many international schools in Asia the classroom’s in my school seem to be swarming with English language learners.  We have an ESL department that works hard to bring students up to mainstream requirements, yet I find myself constantly battling a divide in my classes between strong English speakers and English language learners… By the way, what’s the deal with all the different terminology, ESL, ELL TEFL, LEP, etc.  It seems like every school has their own phraseology for this population.  Maybe I should create my own new term and see if anyone can tell the difference.  How about IPLLSP for In-Progress-Language-Learning-Student-Population?  Sounds good to me. Here are list of strategies I recommend to improve your IPLLSPs? Divide and Conquer–Avoid placing similar level IPLLSPs in the same grouping.  Hopefully they’ll be challenged to work with others who can raise their language ability. Keep Talking–Too often we allow these students to fall back on their written ability.  We need to ask questions and expect responses. Discussion-Based Teaching–This year I’ve started a discussion-based model in many of my classes from Philips Exeter Academy in the US.  Known as the Harkness Method it emphasizes community-learning and the Socratic Method.  Everyone is expected to speak and if done correctly it creates an environment were all levels of IPLLSPs can participate.  Philips Exeter does a training seminar over the summer for teachers who are interested in learning more. Translation–Allow for monitored translation time in discussions so everyone can catch up and reset. Slow Down–I know this sound a little contradictory to the idea that the students should be mainstream.  But sometimes we speak too...