Stress In And Out Of The TEFL Classroom

My latest EFL read is the July 2006 issue of Modern English Teacher where I found an article on reducing teacher stress. Paul Bress points out that nowadays people expect more from their jobs – so not only do employees, including EFL teachers, put more pressure on employers, but also, I think, on themselves.

Paul actually carried out research into the lives of 27 teachers; the main problems he found were:

Feeling they didn’t have enough time
Irrelevant and slow staff meetings
Observations conducted in the “wrong spirit”
Lack of a culture of praise

Some solutions he proposed for reducing stress:

Check classroom equipment before using it (I wouldn’t put it first as, while broken equipment can certainly lead to problems during the class, I don’t personally find it to be as much of a stress as some of the others.)
Try to be “good enough” rather than perfect (I think this is extremely important and in different aspects of your life as well; it can be especially challenging for teacher sometimes as they so often work in “isolation” from colleagues, which could help them realize they are doing everything alright.)
Tune in to each student’s linguistic ability and personality (This is perhaps hard given the last point, but certainly something to strive for.)
Keep fillers up your sleeve (Exactly! For when the tape recorder isn’t working.)
Have a plan but be prepared to modify it (Yes. See the TEFL Logue’s lengthy thoughts on this topic here.)

I’d add a couple more:

Try to find friends outside your work environment – surprisingly difficult when you are abroad, especially if you’re only there for a year, but it is very easy to end up talking shop with colleagues.
Compliment your students, and even others around you: it doesn’t have to be about their English language performance. Be genuine, but make an effort to do it. It may sound like a stretch, but people like being told when they’re doing something well and can tell if you mean it. This can do wonders for the atmosphere.
Finally, take a nap from time to time! The TEFL Logue is not a big napper, but had an especially refreshing nap today. It works!