Professional Development: Top Ten Teaching Mistakes

Georgia State University - Department of Applied Linguistics and ESL

During the fall of 2012, I had the pleasure of attending a short seminar on "Ten teaching mistakes" in the Applied Linguistics department at Georgia State University. All of the attendees, including myself sat and exchanged ideas and experiences around a round table in a conference hall. This discussion based seminar allowed myself and others to ponder and give our thoughts on 10 pre-prepared highly-agreed upon teaching mistakes. The following are a few points that I never considered as mistakes before attending the seminar, but I feel fortunate to have had the opportunity to hear.

Number nine discussed the problem of calling on students who feel anxiety while answering, who have not volunteered to answer, and how these students can end up feeling alienated. Members of the discussion thoughtfully offered an alternative to this teaching mistake which was to use a "think, pair, share" activity where students can brainstorm by themselves, pair up with a classmate and share their thoughts with others. Calling on students, who normally have trouble speaking up in class, after such an activity and during a group share could help encourage these students to express themselves.

Another teaching mistake, number six, highlights the consequences of constantly having students work in groups. Constant group work, as discussed by the attendees, offers no visible accountability from each of the students. A solution to this problem could be keeping group projects but requiring peer review from the students.

Number three on the list also offered some sound advice for a common problem from the seminar attendees. What should a teacher do if he or she is stuck in a rut? In order to change or get out of a teaching rut, we should collaborate with others, and put our ideas together. Also try looking at the outcomes of your course and possibly redesigning the course so it meets these outcomes. Another possible solution is to change the content or class materials for the course. If we make even slight changes to a course every year, we can change the outcomes or delivery.

Many other mistakes on the list were very helpful to consider while teaching. These include teaching without clear learning objectives, the use of PowerPoint and how it can actually be a hindrance to your class, and calling on first responders to answer questions. All in all, the seminar was a great and short preview of commonly encountered mistakes and issues that crop up in the classroom. However, it was only an overview and I wish there was more time and research in explaining real life examples for each mistake and real life solutions that have actually worked. Thankfully, the discussion based seminar brought to my attention issues I had not considered - since at the time of the seminar I had not taught a class yet.

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