This post is mainly aimed at newbies, but anyone teaching TESOL presently can identify with it, I'm sure. I've noticed that there are three mindsets I've been fighting since getting into this. Mindsets that have been pestering me from day one at my TESOL mill. All I can say is "rage". Yeap, we all need to fight these if we want to banish them from TESOL. I find I have to fight them almost daily.

Anyway, on to the mindsets!

Dreaded Mindset #1:

"If you do a runner on a contract, you are EVIL."

Come on. The nature of TESOL almost REQUIRES we do runners on our contracts. If I sign a contract for a year at a school and find a better job that is a better fit for me three months later, am I going to ask that school to "hold" the job for me? Nope. I know they won't hold it, and shouldn't be expected to. I'll grab the job while the grabbing is good and do a runner on my current contract. No way will I sacrifice a good opportunity by doing the "right" thing and fulfilling my obligation. Don't buy into the mill and recruiter spewage that doing a runner is a "bad" thing. You are NOT going to burn in hell if you do a runner nor will doing a runner make you a more terrible person than Hitler.

Perhaps the reasons recruiters try to get you to buy into the notion that doing a runner is a bad thing is because you'll have to rely on their services more if your contracts end during 'non-hiring' periods. If you find a job you want, DO A RUNNER!

Dreaded Mindset #2:

"If a teacher's students are bored, it's the teacher's fault."

Yeah, right. I have students in my English classes who have had all kinds of teachers, great, terrible, and in between, and they STILL don't know jack after ten years studying this stuff. My kids get bored a LOT, and it's even boring teaching them. But this is because they won't study, won't practice, won't do homework, and won't buy dictionaries. I work my students hard, as I see this is the only way they will ever learn. But, alas, a typical Thai TESOL student will spend 500 bucks on a cell phone, yet won't spend 2 bucks on an English-Thai dictionary. They are bored because they don't really want to learn. If they DID want to learn English, they'd know a lot more than they do, especially after ten years of "study".

Dreaded Mindset #3:

"Clowning techniques are effective. Anyone who doesn't use them in his classroom is an inferior teacher."

Ahhh, this is probably my favorite mindset to bash.
Sorry, you "pro-clowners", but I know you're full of bullshit. Like I said in #2 above, my students have had all kinds of teachers, some of whom used the "fun and games" strategies some of you believe in so fervently. Guess what? I'm finding those students don't know anything. This kinda shoots down your "pro-clown" stance, does it not?

Clowning techniques are a band-aid approach pushed by mills to keep teachers in jobs longer; moreover,the clown approach is a desperation tactic to keep our students coming to our schools and paying tuition money. Considering our students don't really want to learn English, it's no surprise bozo techniques are pushed so hard in TESOL. Without clowning, TESOL has nothing else going for it at most schools. Don't buy into being a clown in your classrooms. If ya gotta be a clown, find another school. Your students don't want to learn.