Games and fun activities are a vital part of teaching English as a

foreign language. Whether you’re teaching adults or children, games

will liven up your lesson and ensure that your students will leave the
classroom wanting more.

Games can be used to warm up the class before your lesson begins,
during the lesson to give students a break when you’re tackling a tough
subject, or at the end of class when you have a few minutes left to kill.
There are literally hundreds, probably thousands, of games that you can
play with your students. EFL games are used to test vocabulary, practice
conversing, learn tenses - the list is endless.

This list of ten classic ESL games every teacher should know will help
get you started and feeling prepared. Having these up your sleeve before
stepping into the classroom will ensure your lessons run smoothly, and,
should things get a little out of control, you’ll be able to pull back the
attention of the class in no time.

Want to jump right into the list? Here are the top 10 games we think
your students will love:

1. Board Race
2. Call My Bluff / Two Truths and A Lie
3. Simon Says
4. Word Jumble Race
5. Hangman
6. Pictionary
7. The Mime
8. Hot Seat
9. Where Shall I Go?
10. What’s My Problem?

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 1. Board Race
There isn’t an EFL teacher I know who doesn’t use this game in the
classroom. Board Race is a fun game that is used for revising
vocabulary, whether it be words from the lesson you’ve just taught or
words from a lesson you taught last week. It can also be used at the start
of the class to get students active. It is a great way of testing what your
students already know about the subject you’re about to teach.

 Why use it? Revising vocabulary; grammar

 Who it's best for: Appropriate for all levels and ages

How to play:
First, watch this helpful video of real teachers using this game in the
classroom by BridgeTEFL:

This is best played with 6 students or more - the more, the better. I’ve
used it in classes ranging from 7-25 years of age and it’s worked well in
all age groups. Here's a step by step explanation:

 Split the class into two teams and give each team a colored marker.
 If you have a very large class, it may be better to split the students
into teams of 3 or 4.
 Draw a line down the middle of the board and write a topic at the
top.
 The students must then write as many words as you require related
to the topic in the form of a relay race.
 Each team wins one point for each correct word. Any words that
are unreadable or misspelled are not counted.

2. Call My Bluff / Two Truths and A Lie

Call My Bluff is a fun game which is perfect at the start of term as a
‘getting to know you’ kind of game. It is also a brilliant ice breaker
between students if you teach classes who do not know one another --
and especially essential if you are teaching a small class size.

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 The game is excellent for practicing speaking skills, though make sure
you save a time for after the game to comment on any mistakes students
may have made during the game. (I generally like to reserve this for
after the game, so you don't disrupt their fluency by correcting them as
they speak).

With older groups you can have some real fun and you might be
surprised what you’ll learn about some of your students when playing
this particular EFL game.

 Why use it? Ice-breaker; Speaking skills

 Who it's best for: Appropriate for all levels and ages but best with
older groups

How to play:
 Write 3 statements about yourself on the board, two of which
should be lies and one which should be true.
 Allow your students to ask you questions about each statement and
then guess which one is the truth. You might want to practice your
poker face before starting this game!
 If they guess correctly then they win.
 Extension: Give students time to write their own two truths and
one lie.
 Pair them up and have them play again, this time with their list,
with their new partner. If you want to really extend the game and give
students even more time to practice their speaking/listening skills,
rotate partners every five minutes.
 Bring the whole class back together and have students announce
one new thing they learned about another student as a recap.

3. Simon Says
This is an excellent game for young learners. Whether you’re waking
them up on a Monday morning or sending them home on a Friday
afternoon, this one is bound to get them excited and wanting more. The

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 only danger I have found with this game is that students never want to
stop playing it.

 Why use it? Listening comprehension; Vocabulary; Warming

up/winding down class
 Who it's best for: Young learners

How to Play:
 Stand in front of the class (you are Simon for the duration of this
game).
 Do an action and say Simon Says [action]. The students must copy
what you do.
 Repeat this process choosing different actions - you can be as silly
as you like and the sillier you are the more the children will love you
for it.
 Then do an action but this time say only the action and omit
‘Simon Says’. Whoever does the action this time is out and must sit
down.
 The winner is the last student standing.
 To make it harder, speed up the actions. Reward children for good
behavior by allowing them to play the part of Simon.

The Teaching Excellence and Achievement

(TEA) program provides international teachers with an
opportunity to enhance their teaching skills and increase their
knowledge about the United States. ... Fellows participate in a
practicum in a U.S. secondary school, working closely with US
teachers and students.
The Fulbright Teaching Excellence and Achievement Program (TEA)
provides outstanding secondary school teachers of English, social
studies, math, science, and special education with unique opportunities
to develop expertise in their subject areas, enhance their teaching skills
and increase their knowledge about the United States.

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Teachers come to the United States from all world regions for a six-week
academic program at a U.S. university graduate school of education,
including intensive training in teaching methodologies, lesson planning,
teaching strategies for their home environment, teacher leadership, and
the use of instructional technologies. The program also includes field
experience at a secondary school to engage participants with American
teachers and students.

Six Simple Ways to Get Your

Students Talking
Strategies to increase student talk time
Does anyone remember Ben Stein’s part as the boring economics
teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off? Anyone? Anyone? If you have
no idea what I’m talking about — or even if you do remember but
you want a quick laugh — watch this short clip. If you’re like me,
you can (painfully) recall moments from your own classes when,
perhaps, you felt like Mr. Stein, asking low-level questions in one
breath and answering them in the next, boring the the entire class.

As a history teacher, I worked hard to engage my students and

bring them into the conversation. But inevitably, my own voice
would rise to fill the space in the discussion — I wanted to make
sure the right information was out there.

But research shows that the more the students speak in the class,
the more they learn. This finding has been demonstrated over and
over again by education researchers over the last few decades
(Lotan, 2012; Holthuis, 2012; Michaels, 2008; Bianchini, 1997;
Cohen, 1997; Leechor, 1989; Vygotsky, 1978). It’s clear that, in

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every study, the more students talk and work together, the more
they learn.

And yet, in today’s classrooms, teachers talk, on average, around

75% of class time (Hattie, 2012). We are still a long way away from
the student-centered classrooms we know are best for learning.

Student talk matters, and we all know that one of the best ways
to increasestudent talk is to decrease teacher talk. Reducing the
amount of time we spend talking takes careful thought and
planning, and requires that we structure lessons and units to
include opportunities for student speech.

Below you’ll find six simple strategies that are guaranteed to get
your students talking:

1. Ask Authentic Questions

Maren Aukerman, a professor at Stanford’s Graduate School of
Education, tells us that the language we choose to use shows
students how much we value their thinking. Are we asking
questions that simply “test” whether our students can produce an
answer we already have in mind? Or are we asking questions
meant to gain access to our students’ thinking or perspective? Ask
your students “authentic” questions — that is, questions where you
as the teacher are truly curious how the student will respond.

So how do you know questions are “authentic”? Authentic

questions are typically open-ended, and empower students to join
their classmates in a line of inquiry in which the answer is not
already known or owned by the teacher. Of course, what matters
here is a student’s perception of what’s going on in the classroom.
Do students see the teacher as keeper of knowledge, as someone to
please with answers? Or are students encouraged by the teacher’s
questions to take risks and build knowledge? Anyone?

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2. Play Volleyball, Not Ping-Pong
Are you responding to every student comment (ping-pong), or are
students responding to and interacting with their peers’
contributions to the conversation (volleyball)?

One of the greatest challenges teachers face when facilitating

classroom dialogue is the urge to stay in control of the discussion,
or to evaluate student responses in real time. Students are
accustomed to seeing their teachers as the experts in the room,
and are in the habit of trying to guess what the teacher wants in a
response. Such a routine can stifle thought and limit engagement,
as students’ brains will shut down once their classmate has been
called on.

To play volleyball, you’ll need to kick this habit. One way is to

encourage, or even require, students to evaluate, respond to, and
extend their classmates’ contributions. Offering a range of
sentence starters (“I heard my classmate say…”, “I agree
because…”) on a poster or cheat-sheet can help students build this
habit.

3. Use — And Trust — Wait Time

Mary Budd Rowe, a science teacher and educational researcher,
spent over a decade (no kidding!) studying the effect of “wait
time,” the time spent silent after a teacher poses a question. Her
research, conducted in the 1970s and 1980s, is fascinating. Here,
I’ll highlight two of her greatest hits.

First, Rowe and her team were able to identify 2.7 seconds as the
duration needed for wait time to be effective. In her research in
elementary, middle, and high school classrooms across subjects,
2.7 seconds of wait time contributed to over ten distinct benefits

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for students and teachers alike, including increased length of
student responses, an increase in the use of evidence and logical
argumentation by students, and even improved achievement on
written work.

Second, Rowe made the important distinction between Wait Time

1 (after a teacher’s question) and Wait Time 2 (after a student’s
response). It turns out that Wait Time 2 is the more important of
the two, and also the more challenging one to manage given our
desire to keep the conversation moving. When you roll out
discussion norms for students, tell them to wait a moment after
their classmate finishes speaking before jumping into the
discussion. This will help everyone listen to the discussion, and it
will ensure that the speaker feels respected and heard. Have one or
two students model this type of active listening for the class.

4. The Good Ol’ Socratic Seminar

The best teachers live forever. Almost 2,500 years ago, Socrates
figured out that bringing students into the conversation was far
more effective than the best lecture. Today, this is known as the
Socratic Method.

Socrates as the teacher claimed to “know nothing,” and engaged in

dialogues where he forced his students into the role of a teacher.
In a discussion with Socrates, students did the intellectual heavy-
lifting, reasoning their way to satisfying conclusions.

The Socratic Circle is a popular discussion method that asks

students to step up and lead the discussion.

In a Socratic Circle, the class is split into two groups, and form two
“fish bowl” circles in the classroom. One group conducts a student-

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led discussion, typically around a specific text and/or authentic
question, while the other group watches the discussion and keeps
track of the direction of the conversation. After a certain amount
of time, the groups switch roles. The outside group must remain
silent, but can refer to statements made by the other group. The
teacher’s role is passive, and steps into the conversation only to
help it move in whatever direction it’s already going.

For more tips on leading an effective Socratic discussion using

CommonLit texts, check out this blog post.

5. Micro-Debates As Class Starters

With the school year approaching, I was looking for ways to hear
from my students every day, so I decided to introduce “micro-
debates” as a routine to start class a couple times each week. I
would write a controversial statement on the board which typically
related somehow to the objective for class that day (“The Puritans
were champions of religious freedom” or “Abraham Lincoln is
deserving of the title ‘The Great Emancipator’”) and ask two
students to take the pro and two other students to take the con.

Some days, I would use a current event as a hook, an event which

only tangentially related to the class objective but that I knew
would spark engagement (“Colin Kaepernick should be benched
for kneeling during the National Anthem” for teaching about the
1st Amendment, or “All school restrooms should be gender
neutral” as a way to introduce the 14th Amendment).

As the year went on, students begged for more of these debates,
and I found that starting with student voices rather than my own
ensured I had more kids engaged for the entire class.

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6. Measure It!
There’s an old saying: “What gets measured, gets done.” With that
in mind, I started using an app last year that automatically tracks
the ratio of teacher talk to student talk. Having that data on a daily
basis was a revelation — it forced me to be more reflective on my
teaching, and to be more proactive about getting student voices at
the center of my classroom.

The app uses a machine learning algorithm to distinguish your

voice from your students. It’s called TeachFX, and it was created
by a former teacher. It’s super easy to use, basically like an alarm
clock that you set for the classes you want to analyze. I’ve gotten in
the habit of checking my talk percentages every day.

As teachers, we operate on a lot of assumptions. “Oh, that class

went well,” I might think as I walk back to my desk. Measuring
your actual student and teacher talk keeps you honest. Maybe I
thought a class went well because I made a lot of brilliant points,
but the students weren’t really that engaged.

Using the app also pushed me to look for new strategies to get
students engaged. And, maybe most importantly, it lets me see
how well I’m implementing new teaching methods. For example, I
could see that when I was more conscientious about wait time, my
student talk went way up. Mary Budd Rowe would be proud.

Finally, CommonLit has many more resources on class discussion.

For starters, check out this short video, which has even more
strategies for how to lead an effective classroom discussion with
CommonLit.

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 remember the first time I heard the phrase “student-centered
classroom” and I almost chuckled.

I had always believed my classroom was about the students, they

were the reason we taught and my focus was always on their
learning.

This new terminology sounded like another buzzword and I didn’t

pay much attention to the presentation until I heard this:
Whoever is doing the talking is doing the
majority of the learning. In your classroom
what is the ratio of teacher-talk to student-
talk?

I had never thought about this balance between teacher-talk to

student-talk before. It made me reflect on how many of my lessons
had me talking, entertaining and presenting to my students. And,
yet, as I continued to reflect the best lessons were always the ones
where students owned what they were learning and doing.

Whether it was a discussion, a project, or an activity–they were

more engaged and empowered than when I was doing the
entertaining.

I set off that year to give my students more of an opportunity to

lead classroom discussions, have a choice in their projects, and
ultimately make my classroom a student-centered space to learn
and grow.

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Then Reality Hit…
The idea of a student-centered classroom is great. Like most
educational theories, it sounds doable, but then, in reality, it is
challenging to get up and running.

One way to talk about changing to a student-centered classroom

(and probably the most popular way to talk about this move) is to
focus on getting rid of lectures. The lecture was a staple of
classrooms for years and years but has always been a bit of a hot
topic. Just recently the debate over lectures flared up again with
Seth Godin taking issue with the stand-and-deliver mode of
teaching on his blog:

In a recent NY Times op-ed, Susan Dynarski, a professor of

education, public policy and economics at the University of
Michigan, describes why she has forbidden students from
using laptops in her lectures.

There’s now plenty of data that shows that in a lecture setting,

students with laptops don’t do as well or learn as much as
students without one. The reasons make sense, and I applaud her
standards and her guts.

But she missed the real issue.

How about this instead: No lecture hall.

Godin (an author of many best-selling books and founder of

AltMBA program) goes on to dispel many of the myths around
lectures, but ends on this piece that hit home:

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A great teacher is smart enough and
connected enough to run an interactive
conversation, a participatory seminar in the
concepts that need to be learned.

I agreed with this sentiment whole-heartedly. But, when I first

tried to move away from the usual lecture in my classroom, it was
not easy.

In fact, I was awful at it.

I struggled to get the students involved. I didn’t have an answer for

when the room went silent (when they were supposed to be
leading a discussion), and the project-based learning that had all
the choices became a madhouse of options that were too hard to
assess and too broad to connect to what we were learning.

Later that year, in a conversation with a great mentor teacher of

mine (love you Jen Smith!) she asked me a very simple question:
How did you scaffold the change? Or did you just jump into
students owning their learning head first?

I attempted to respond with the ways I scaffolded this change until

I realized I had nothing to say.

**Crickets**

After admitting my faults as someone who tends to jump in

headfirst, she laughed and said, “Let’s start with where the kids
are at and what they are used to. Then, where we want them to be.

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All we have to do after that is plan steps to move them from point
A to B.”

The Three-Step System For

Getting Students to Do
the Talking
Most of my students were used to a teacher lecturing and then
asking a few questions during the lecture. They would either raise
a hand to answer or sometimes “turn and talk” to discuss in a
small group.

For project-based learning, most of my students were used to a

very detailed project outline, with step-by-step directions that
were more like a recipe than a wide-open project. They would get a
rubric that was geared towards the final product, and rarely had
anything to do with the process of learning.

I was throwing these kids into projects like our “Junk Sculpture
Project” where they had to create a sculpture (using household
items and junk) that represented various symbols and motifs in a
recent short story. The rubric was process driven and there was
not a fourteen-step process for the kids to follow, it was a project
they could modify to their needs, but instead, the kids were lost
and not sure how to proceed.

Similarly, I was putting these kids into a Socratic seminar where I

did none of the talking and they discussed with their own
questions, insights, ideas, and answers as a large group.

Most of the time during this Socratic seminar it was dead-silent or

dominated by a few students who ran the conversation.

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In order to get my students to take ownership
in their learning, we started where they were
at, instead of where I wanted them to be.

We began by focusing on the classroom discussion habits. Most

kids were only answering questions that I asked with an answer to
that question.

They weren’t asking their own questions of why, how, when,

where, and who. They weren’t sharing what they “think”, what
they “know”, and what they “connected to” during the discussion.

In reality, they were just focused on getting the right answer. And
we set out to fix this during the first step to a student-centered
classroom.

Step #1: The Discussion Game

My students rolled into class like any other day, and not much was
changed. The tables were still set up in small groups, the projector
was on with their “Do Now” activity on the board. And, the
Homework for the week was written for each day.

The only difference was that each seat had a white envelope on it,
filled with five cards of all different colors.

This was the opening of our first discussion game. I got the idea
from our colleague Melisa Perlman and have seen variations of
this game all over the place online. The best part about it is that it
is simple to create, simple to explain, and completely modifiable
depending on your subject, grade level, or classroom setting.

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Here’s the basics. Each student gets a number of different colored
cards to use throughout the discussion. They must play each card
once, but can play the question card multiple times after using all
other cards.
Red Card = I think
Blue Card = I know (because)
Yellow Card = Pose a Question
Green Card = I feel
Orange Card = Connect (to yourself, to the world, to another
text/idea/subject)

Each card is worth a point (if you want to grade this activity,
completely up to you and your classroom/school) and the goal is
to replace assessing only the final product (quiz) and instead the
process of learning (having an active discussion).

This scaffolds the student-centered classroom in two ways.

First, the game is centered on your subject, concept, content, text

for the lesson. Students have to be engaged with that content in
order to respond with the above answers and questions (I think, I
know because, I feel, Connect, etc).

Second, it models the many ways you can contribute to an active

learning discussion. This helps the students who may be shy or
want to hide during the discussion.

Finally, we added a back-channel component to this game where

students did not have to always talk out-loud to the class to discuss
and earn points, but could “play their cards” online in platforms
like TodaysMeet.com for participating in the discussion.

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Step #2: The Fish Bowl
After playing the discussion game a few times, students began to
get into discussions and own the conversation. Yes, they were
prodded into answers and asking questions, but the goal of the
first step is to get them talking (and have me talk way less).

It worked for our class and for many in our school. But, it was not
the final goal. I’d rather not have the carrot (or stick) be the only
reason students are talking, so we had to continue moving away
from that reason, and also change up the format to one that is less
scripted by the cards.

Enter, the Fish Bowl.

This activity was used by our colleague Anthony Gabriele, and like
all good things we modified it to work with our group of students.
There are some good write-ups online for the Fish Bowl (like this
one) and many different ways to do it, but here is how we did it in
my class as the second step.

Fish Bowl Prep: Students are to have read, learned, or already

delved into a specific text or content before the start of class. This,
however, does not need to be homework. It could be learning that
happened in a previous lesson or experience. The key is that the
students are not learning something “new” during the Fish Bowl,
they are instead going to learn from each other during the
discussion and share their insights and questions (much like the
discussion game).

Classroom Setup: Set up your classroom with two sets of

circles. One big circle will be on the outside and then on the inside
there will be a smaller circle of four-to-five chairs (depending on
class size this could also be three or six chairs).

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How it Works: When students come into class they will grab a
seat. Don’t worry where they sit as all students will eventually get
into the middle of the circle (The Fish Bowl) for the discussion.
The inside circle does the talking and discussing. They should be
prepared but focus on having an active conversation using the
techniques learned in the discussion game. The outside
circle takes notes on the inner discussion. This could be
scaffolded by the teacher to focus on specific areas of the
conversation, or more wide open like taking notes during a lecture.
Depends on your situation for how you want to prep students for
the outside not taking.

Every five minutes you’ll want to replace the inner circle with new
students to discuss. They can pick up where the previous
discussion left off, or start new.

Two keys to making this work. First, as a teacher, you must not
prompt or get students talking. The goal is for them to have a
productive struggle in the beginning and then get into a flow.
Second, depending on your class you may want to pick the
fishbowl groups ahead of time to get a good mix of students for the
discussion. This, of course, is your preference as the teacher.

Finally, you can assess this conversation in a few ways, but I’d
focus more on the active discussion part than what was said at
first. Then as you do it more often and students become
comfortable you can change a rubric to have different assessment
pieces that reflect the content of the discussion.

*Note: As with the Discussion Game, you can add an online

component to this as well. Have the outside of the circle write
their feedback and notes on a shared doc, a backchannel like
Today’s Meet, and discussion board forum inside an LMS, or any
other way to make the note-taking more collaborative.

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Step #3: The Symposium
When students have successfully played the discussion game and
then moved onto the fishbowl, you’ve already got them to do most
of the talking. This is a win (and should be celebrated)!

But, remember our original goal?

Student-centered, where they are asking and answering the

questions, learning from each other, and having a choice in where
they head with their learning.
The Symposium is the final step in the
scaffolding to get kids to do the talking.

At first glance, the Symposium looks much like the Fish Bowl. The
classroom is set up the same with two circles (one smaller inside).
But, this time the prep is different.

Students will get into groups of 3–6 to prepare for their

symposium discussion. The discussion will be 20 minutes long
where they will share their insights, connections, commentary,
and questions on the content. As a group, they can prep together
or separately for this discussion.

The outside circle plays an important role in the symposium. They

take notes the first twenty minutes, but then they get to “grill” the
inner circle with questions for the next 15–20 minutes. This takes
the inner conversation to the next level with a back and forth
between the entire class.

As a teacher, you sometimes have to play moderator during this

second part of the symposium.

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The fun is seeing the students do the talking, the question asking,
the debating, and the learning. This is what I was hoping to see
when I first did a Socratic Seminar, but it did not work, mainly due
to the fact that I did not scaffold a way for students to slowly get
into the habit of doing the talking.

It doesn’t matter if you look at Bloom’s Taxonomy, Webb’s Depth

of Knowledge, or any other set of educational standards or
guidelines.

When students are communicating and collaborating (and talking)

much more learning is happening!

This is the three-step system we used and it worked well, but

constantly needed to be tweaked.

It looked very different in terms of setup and time allotted when I

did it with different groups of students depending on their age,
level, and experience in a student-centered environment.

Call to Action
If you are like me and wanting to get students to talk more (and
learn more) then I’d love for you to share any strategies or tips
used in your classroom! Please share in the comments with any
ideas and/or questions.

You can also sign up here to get the handouts for the
discussion game, fishbowl, and symposium (thanks to
Anthony Gabriele for keeping these resources
handy)! This is the first in a 12-part series on real-world
strategies to get students started with project-based learning.

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eaching styles have changed significantly over the years. The traditional way that education was
delivered was through recitation and memorisation techniques, whereas the modern way of doing
things involves interactive methods.

Traditional teaching
The back-to-basics traditional education method, also known as conventional education, is still
widely used in schools. The old-fashioned way of teaching was all about recitation, for example
students would sit in silence, while one student after another would take it in turns to recite the
lesson, until each one had been called upon. The teacher would listen to each student’s recitation,
and they were expected to study and memorise the assignments. At the end of the module a written
test or oral examination would be conducted; this process was called an Assignment Study
Recitation Test.
The way in which traditional methods were taught ensured that students were rewarded for their
efforts, used class periods efficiently and exercised clear rules to manage students’ behaviour. They
were based on established customs that had been used successfully in schools over many years.
The teachers communicated the knowledge and enforced standards of behaviour.

Progressive modern teaching

Education reforms mean that learning is taught from a completely different angle. Progressive
educational practices focus more on the individual student’s needs rather than assuming all students
are at the same level of understanding. The modern way of teaching is more activity based, using
questioning, explaining, demonstration and collaboration techniques.

One modern method is spaced learning, this is when students are encouraged to quickly switch
through activities, for example; providing 10 minutes of knowledge on a subject with a PowerPoint
presentation and then having 15 minutes of sport. The aim of spaced learning is to achieve better
grades, and it works! It is claimed that this is a more effective than teaching students by traditional
methods for four hours, thus helping the brain cells to create connections that they need to
remember knowledge. It also helps people relax.
Sonia Jackson who wrote an interesting blog post about modern teaching methods for Getting
Smart states:
“The traditional “chalk and talk” method of teaching that’s persisted for hundreds of years is now
acquiring inferior results when compared with the more modern and revolutionary teaching methods

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that are available for use in schools today. Greater student interaction is encouraged, the boundaries
of authority are being broken down, and a focus on enjoyment over grades is emphasised.”

Conclusion
Because traditional techniques used repetition and memorisation of information to educate students,
it meant that they were not developing their critical thinking, problem solving and decision-making
skills. Modern learning encourages students to collaborate and therefore be more productive. Saying
that, traditional and modern teaching methods are both effective and useful in today’s education.
Sarah Wright, who blogs for TES, explains, “As with most things, it’s all about balance. We need
to understand when a traditional method works best and when it’s right to try new and innovative
approaches.”
In the centre of academic Cambridge, CCSS collaborates with the cutting-edge neuroscience
researchers at Cambridge University. CCSS staff receive training and advice about how best to
structure learning, and they devise methods for integrating that into their lessons. Furthermore,
students learn about studying effectively and discover about active approaches, the importance of
self-testing and the value of sleep.

professional as I am assigned with training up the minds of thousands of other

professionals of different ages including doctors, engineers, lawyers, scientists
etc. So, he has a potential reason to think himself contended since he has a
good and sound networking.
No single principle of school reform is more valid or durable than the maxim that student
learning depends first, last, and always on the quality of a teacher
LEADERSHIP IN THE PERSPECTIVE OF TEACHER-STUDENT RELATION

The word ‘Leadership” has been defined and evaluated in many ways. Leaders have a multitude
of roles they fill and many duties they perform each day. There are many traits and behaviors
that create effective leader. Whenever we talked about teacher-student relation as an aspect of
leadership, many of us inappropriately incorporate the old-fashioned ideas of leadership into
the pattern of leadership that teachers are supposed to exert while dealing with students. We
also prosaically perceive the leadership a leader-follower relation where the follower follows the
foot prints and dictations of the leader passively and passionately. At the same time, we portray
in our mind the pictures of super leaders or charismatic leaders who seem to be mythical

22
heroes and can never be emulated by a large numbers. We usually forget, deep and sustained
reform depends on many, not on the very few who are destined to be extra-ordinary.
In fact, Leadership nowadays, is no more a leader follower relation but indispensably a mutually
reciprocal relation. In these modern days of educational and industrial expansion the ideas of
leadership has got a revolutionary insight and vertical hierarchy in organization is giving way to
horizontal information sharing networks and collective decision making.
Structures of organization are becoming an anachronism, while organization fluidity is taken for
granted. To ravel the inextricable complexities of life rife with paradoxes and dilemmas of the
21st century the ideas of leadership is built upon partnership and human relation with a view to
attaining a common goal. Teachers by virtue of their profession have got the best laboratory of
the world for the study of human relations and for, they are no longer expected to follow a set
of structured criteria for teaching a lesson as outlined in an educational text books, rather they
are supposed to act as well resourced transmitters for establishing a supportive culture.
To turn now directly to my subject, what opportunities for leadership has the teacher and what
is the nature of his leadership? It is an unpleasant truth that teaching is still considered a dull
profession and only a shallow brain takes up the job as he/she, perhaps cannot manage job
elsewhere. It is also a matter of fact teachers directly deal with children not bureaucrats or big
guns of the country. Besides, teaching in our community is a flat carrier and there is no ladder of
professional development. At this critical circumstances how the ideas of leadership can be
infused into the static nature of teaching profession.
In fact, if we go deeper into the truth, the nature of teaching profession automatically confers a
leadership on them. It is unarguable that they instill, mold, and ultimately control much of the
learning and intellectual development in their charge. It would be difficult to find a more
authentic but unacknowledged examples of leadership in modern life.
c When the teachers feel positively about their position they will have the tremendous
influence on the students and the reverse is also true.
In the extremely dynamic field of education, the role of teacher has drastically changed and
quality of teacher leadership, is not just educational issue but also an economic issue. But as
long as leadership remains mostly top-down and hierarchical and school superintends are
waded to patriarchal notions of leadership, there is a little chance of imbibing the knowledge of
true leadership and translate it into action to bring about a positive change.
Teacher leadership is not about ‘teacher power’. Rather, it is about mobilizing the still largely
untapped attributes of teachers to strengthen student’s performance at ground level and
working toward real collaboration, a specially tailored kind of shared leadership. When teachers
take on leadership role beyond the classroom, the collaborative and inherently creative nature
of their relation empowers and encourages the heart of learners and ensures their meaningful
access to the diverse range of working areas with the true sense of leadership.
Leadership does not mean coercion in any form or it does not mean controlling or exploiting.
Then the question naturally arises what the implication of teacher leadership is.
It means freeing. The greatest service the teacher can render the students is to increase his
freedom his free range of activity and thought and his power of control but within method,
within the laws of group activity and group control.
No single principle of school reform is more valid or durable than the maxim that student
learning depends first, last, and always on the quality of a teacher. The leadership skill of a

23
teacher is based not only his scholarship or right method of imparting knowledge but also on his
skill of adjusting individual to life. We maladjustment is a problem and the maladjusted children
of school fail to adapt to the demands of a social environment and behave in an acceptable way.
When they enter into the real life outside the school as professional men, the problem of
maladjustment gets revealed through their nonchalant attitude to their professional
commitment.
If we take a snap-shot of professional bodies, we can discover the acute problem of
adjustment. It is a problem of the business manager, Of the courts, of the psychiatrist, of the
legislator and administration, of the league of nations. Likewise, it is a problem of the teacher.
The teacher has to know firsthand a good deal about the life to which the individual should be
adjusted. For, he may be adjusting the students not to the actual situation, but to the imagined
conditions, condition of the past which no longer exists. To adjust the students to the diverse
range of working areas, teachers should not sit academically apart from life. Like many
professors of these modern days teachers should take their sabbatical, not in the libraries, but
in a factory or studying some governmental or social problem first hand. Or if their subject is
one which does not lend interest to this interest, they should sometimes take part in civic
committees or in some portion in community life. The teacher should have a resilience and
spaciousness of mind developed through a seasoned and diversified experience in a workaday
world. In other word teacher should gain some mastery over life as well as over his subject.
To beat time with the advanced civilization a student has to be his own liaison officer between
the wisdom of the past and the occurrences of the present. One of the marked characteristic
traits of present day teacher is that the teacher is taking over this task, is realizing that that
teacher is not one who has lived and the student one who is going to live but that both are
living now in the present, that it should be fresh life meeting fresh life. There can be no more
false dichotomy that teacher with a past wisdom and students with a present experience.
Teachers should understand the environment, in which their students are living, know the spirit
of the age, the deeper trend of our spiritual evaluation. They should have a vision that he can
share with others. Of course, in our time teachers have more opportunity for an abiding
influence through understanding the real trend of the age. But we, the teachers seem to be a
somewhat prejudiced when we say against the current trend of the young or younger
generation. We call it with grief and a sort of disdain Generation Gap. But we should discern the
fact that in the straightness and courage of their youth, in their fearlessness, in their search for
knowledge, even often their unwise experiments, they are showing spirit which teacher should
cooperate with instead of dealing with surface trend. The leaders among our teachers today are
they who are recognizing the deeper soul of 21st century.
It is very important that students should get an experimental attitude toward life. That is, make
experiences to watch, at the same time he gets to know what is bring within the area of
experiences.
After the students become experiences conscious, he should be taught to search for significance
of his experience. The task of the teacher is not to make his students think of great things but to
think greatly of all things. We might say that from one point of view, the essence of the teacher-
student relation is a joint search for meaning. Then the task of a teacher is to translate
experiences into action and character.

24
 The function of a teacher then is to train the students to watch for meanings, to organize
meanings, perhaps to create a new meaning and all with the aim of increasing their abilities to
live not only harmoniously but effectively with his fellows.
Dr. William Temple, himself a man of practical experience as university teacher and a public
school master, defines education as the initiation into social life and says: whatever we going to
do in this world, we shall have to do it with other men. This profoundly true and need more
pause for thinking.
When we think about leadership in connection with the teacher-student relation what probably
comes first to our entire mind are the instances of larger personal influences which some of the
great teachers of the world had. We think of Aristotle or Albert Einstein or the great teachers of
our country. I would like to deliberately omit any consideration of this kind of leadership
because so few of us can ever hope to attain it. I have confined myself to the kind of leadership
which I think every leader should exercise and should be cable of exercising.
Now, I would like to take into consideration the prevailing opportunities for our teachers to
attain leadership qualities.
There is no denying of the fact teaching lacks many of the qualities that stamps a real
profession. Income, one of the most reliable determinants of professional status, still presents a
discouraging picture. People usually like to mention the private tuition a roaring business and a
potential source of supplementary income. But at the same time they question the ethical
standard of the teachers who are involved in private tutoring.
Against this background of fading beauty, as the nation has come to recognize the need to
involve teachers more directly to contributing their knowledge and perception to decision-
making processes , it is clear that the concerned groups must do their part to place them in
right position. Situated as they are on the lowest rungs of the professional hierarchy, teachers
need a lot of help if their voices are to be heard and heeded and if their roles as leaders are to
be truly glorified.
Md. Mostaq Ahamed
MA (Eng Lit) MA (Edu) MA (ELT)
Teachers Excellent and Achievement Fellow
George Mason University, Virginia, U.S.A

Five ways to leverage your personal strengths

 Published on June 12, 2014

James Carolin

James Carolin
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Helping leaders to have more positive impact

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What does leverage personal strengths mean?

Your personal strengths are the things that you are good at.
Leveraging your personal strengths means using more of what you are good 
at to get more of what you want. 

As for how to use them, what they are, how much more and what it is you 
actually want, well those are the complicated bits. Let’s start with what 
you’re good at:
You might say you're a good cook. Or that you're good at writing. Or that 
you're good at telling scary stories or that you're good at making cocktails. 
Maybe you're good at being determined or you're good at staying positive. 
Maybe you're good at playing the guitar, learning new things or just being 
dependable. There are literally an infinite number of things you could tell me 
that you're good at.
So how do we make sense of all this potential? We’re going to dive a bit 
deeper into this, but first let’s be clear on what personal strengths are not: 
they are not your true passion and they are not something you desire to be or 
have. Personal strengths are here and now, in front of your eyes. They can be 
evidenced ­ that means when you demonstrate them you can point to 
evidence that you have done so.
For example ­ you say you are a good cook? Great, make me some scrambled
eggs…
When you're considering what you're good at, it's useful to think of three 
layers (think of layers of an onion).
1. The outer layer consists of skills. These are things that someone can be 
taught fairly easily through demonstration. Think of driving. I can show you 

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how to turn the car on, how to accelerate, brake, indicate, park, etc. If all 
other factors are normal then I could reasonably expect you to slowly acquire 
and perfect the skill of driving as I demonstrated more and more how to do it.
Some skills are easy to get good at, and some are hard, but all are improved 
through repetition.
Examples of skills (that are useful in the workplace):
Public Speaking
Writing
Time­management
Networking
Decision making
Trade maths
Online search
2. The second layer consists of behaviours. These influence the way I go 
about learning skills and applying the skills I have learned. I might be patient,
or determined, or careless... Each of these behavioural traits will influence 
how I go about learning how to drive. The best research we have suggests 
that it is impossible to call out one behaviour or even a cluster of behaviours 
as good (or strong) vs bad (or weak) because different situations call for 
different behaviours. That being said, Researchers have identified a broad 
range of behaviours that tend to lead to success in business in the long term.
Examples of behaviours (that are useful in the workplace) :
Influencing
demonstrating compassion
being stable and consistent
being open to feedback
Adaptablity and flexiblity
Resilience
3. The inner layer consists of attitudes and beliefs. These set the boundaries 
within which my behaviours support the development of my skills. Think of 
learning how to play football. If kicking the ball is a skill and getting good at 

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it enables me to reliably kick a goal, then my behavioural strength of 
determination will help me practice enough to learn how to kick goals, which
will only be useful to my team mates if it rests on my belief that I must 
follow the rules and kick the ball into the correct goal
Here are some examples of attitudes and beliefs that are useful in the 
workplace:
Hope
Believing that people are fundamentally good and want to do good work
Believing that I can handle what life throws at me
Your personal strength can be any of these layers individually, or a 
combination of all three. When people talk about realizing your full potential 
they are usually talking about aligning all three.
So to summarize, your strengths are the things you are good at. They tend to 
exist in three layers: skills are the front line, behaviours mediate and attitudes
and beliefs are the core. Leveraging your strengths means doing more of what
you are good at to get more of what you want.
How do you identify and leverage your personal strengths?

Go to work on acquiring the skills and knowledge you need to fully realise 
your strengths ­ Peter Drucker 

How do you go about doing this? The first step is identifying what you’re 
good at. Once you have that, the outer layer ­ the skills ­ tend to be the easiest
to get to and to change and develop. After that, b ehaviours are a bit more 
tricky. You really need to understand psychology ­ either explicitly or 
intuitively ­ to make behavioural changes, but it is wholly possible (and the 
information is freely available). Ultimately, t he grand regulator of being able
to leverage your strengths is your attitudes and beliefs.
Can you change your beliefs? The short answer is yes. The long answer is ten
years on a psychotherapists couch...

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I bring you pragmatic and applicable solutions here. Unfortunately that 
means I can’t give you ten years of therapy, but I can show you the way to a 
few short cuts (and you can always call me or email me any time if you get 
stuck).
Identify what you’re good at part 1
Start with Skills ­ your current skills. It is most useful and constructive to 
start in the here and now. I’ve met people who say “I’m not good at 
anything” ­ but they are normally comparing themselves to where they would
like to be, rather than to where they currently are. You might not like where 
you are, and want to get somewhere else, but the plain and simple fact is that 
you are where you are. You can only build from where you are. At the risk of
over quoting Drucker, “You cannot build performance on weakness"
So the first step on the journey is to plunge into the here and now. Take a 
deep breath, become aware of yourself in your clothes with your feet resting 
on your shoes, and consider what you are good at. If you need some help with
this then just google “skills inventory”. You’ll find about 15 million pages 
that can provide you with checklist after checklist. Try to identify 5­10 skills 
that you have right now.
Once you’ve identified your current skills, take some time to identify which 
of these your current role requires ­ you can circle them or underline them. 
An example for me that spans both is public speaking. I’m good at it and my 
job requires that I do it.
About 4 in 5 people find this exercise pretty easy. If you’re the 1 out of 5 that
struggles to find the link, then come back to the here and now. This is not an 
aspirational activity. When I do this with coaching clients I refuse to accept 
that there are no current strengths required in your current role. The same 
applies to you: review the lists until you have your current skills that are 
requirements in your current role. Don’t judge what you come up with. Just 
be brutally honest.
Park this list for now ­ we’ll revisit it shortly.
Identify what you’re good at part 2

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Behaviours
Before we can get to leveraging your skills we need to understand your most 
and least useful behaviours. Again we are right here in the present moment. 
No wishful thinking, no aspirational desires. If you have to, go and stand in 
front of a mirror for this exercise and stare into the depths of your own eyes. 
This activity requires honesty.
Your behavioural strengths are the things that facilitate you applying your 
skills to greater effect.
Consider two doctors. Doctor Bob and Doctor Thomas both went to Harvard 
Medical School and both finished top of their class. Both have exemplary 
technical skills. They can diagnose common maladies with reliable accuracy 
and great speed. Doctor Bob sets up a practice and has a full waiting room in 
no time at all. Doctor Thomas is still staring at his empty waiting room 
months in. The difference between the two is bedside manner. It is not about 
he level of skill they have, but rather how that skill is applied.
So this is the looking in the mirror part. Consider the skills you just listed. 
The second list, the ones that are useful in your current role. On the left hand 
side write down the behaviours that help you to apply these skills to greater 
effect. To take my personal example of public speaking, I’m going to write 
down relationship building, interactive, and having fun. I believe that these 
ways of approaching and delivering my talks improves the response I get. My
belief is based on feedback I’ve received.
Doctor Bob might write friendly, patient and compassionate. I’ve already 
given you some examples of useful behaviours from a leadership point of 
view.
On the other side of your skill write down the behaviours that hinder you ­ 
that stop you from getting the best outcomes from applying your skill. For me
I would write down leaving things to the last minute, skipping ahead, and 
overcomplicating. This is based on me looking in the mirror and feedback 
I’ve received.

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Our Doctor Thomas might write too factual, don’t connect with them 
personally, treat them like a problem to be solved.
There are two rules for this activity: be honest with yourself, and be open to 
the evidence. Being open to the evidence means removing your filters ­ the 
subconscious filters that we all use to seek out information to reinforce our 
views… The best way to be open with the evidence is to look for evidence 
that contradicts your viewpoint. If you think you’re compassionate then look 
for evidence to the contrary, not evidence to reinforce your view.
It doesn’t have to be a long list, on either side. Just try to identify 2­3 things 
that enhance the outcomes you get from applying your skills, and 2­3 things 
that hinder or undermine those outcomes.
Do this for each of the skills you identified.
Look for themes in the enhancing behaviours. the more skills you look at the 
more likely you are to come up with authentic behavioural strengths. Martin 
Seligman would call these your signature strengths. They are behaviours that 
come naturally to you that serve to enhance the impact of your skills.
Cherish, nurture and respect these. They are incredibly valuable: skills are 
binary ­ you either have them or you don’t; behaviours are multipliers ­ you 
can apply a signature strength to almost any skill, whether it is a strength or 
not, to get a better result.
Identify what you’re good at part 3
Beliefs
The third and most difficult set of strengths to identify are your beliefs and 
attitudes. If you are interested in finding out more about this topic just type 
schemas, self­limiting beliefs or CBT (which stands for cognitive behavioural
therapy) into google.
Your beliefs are the core of the onion. they are the most deeply buried and 
hardest aspects of personal strength to access and change. And like the 
butterfly wing flap that leads to a hurricane they have an exponential effect 
on the magnitude of your strength. If positive behaviours are a linear 

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multiplier then positive beliefs and attitudes are exponential multipliers. 
Unfortunately the opposite is also true:
Beliefs are the foundation. If you don’t have a solid set of beliefs, then you 
are on shaky ground.
Quite simply, beliefs that reinforce your value and ability in the world are 
useful, and can be considered strengths (we’ve already looked at a few 
examples of these). Beliefs and attitudes that undermine your value and 
detract from your sense of capability are definitely not strengths.
If you want to get more of what you want, you have to identify and eliminate 
your negative schemas / self­limiting beliefs, and choose to adopt more 
positive schemas / self­affirming beliefs. It’s easily said, but not so easily 
done. My advice if you'd like to explore this further would be to talk to a 
professional.
As always, please feel free to contact me if you get stuck.
Leverage what you’re good at part 1
Evidence explosion 

Once you’ve got a sense of your current skills that are required in your role 
(from the first activity in the webinar), list out what constitutes evidence of 
that skill. Do this for each skill. For example, I am good at public speaking. 
My job requires that I speak publicly. The evidence that I am speaking well is
two­fold: people provide me with positive feedback after I speak, and I get 
asked to speak at events at an increasing frequency.
Once you’ve identified the evidence the next step is to come up with a plan to
generate more evidence. Yes I said generate. I have a plan to get more better 
positive feedback from more speaking engagements.
If you want to leverage your strengths ­ and remember this means doing more
of what you’re good at to get more of what you want, then you must plan to 
generate more evidence ­ if you’re ambitious, plan for an evidence explosion.
so much evidence, of so much magnitude, that you cannot be ignored!

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This activity is so critical. This is about learning how to leverage your 
strengths. Once you’ve done this once, you can apply it to any skill ­ but if 
you don’t follow through all the way with one skill ­ taking that one thing 
from skill through behaviours and attitude alignment into the evidence 
explosion, then you will not fully hone the capacity to leverage your strength.
The key message: first, get better at what you’re already good at. Take a deep
dive into improving. Be evidence­based and get world class.
Leverage what you’re good at part 2
Finally, now that you know about the evidence explosion, we can talk about 
developing new strengths.
For some guidance on this, we turn to a recent study of 250,000 360­degree 
surveys of 30,000 leaders completed by the Harvard Business School to 
identify skill combinations that result in higher performance 

The results are quite startling. The study identified 7 core strengths that all 
others build from. If you’re looking to develop a strength you don’t have, try 
to identify one that you do have in one of these clusters, that you can build 
from.
The key message here is that a djacent skills are easier to develop than 
wholly alien ones.
For instance, I might go from giving presentations, to giving speeches, to 
running webinars. These things are not the same skill sets, but they are 
adjacent, and I can leverage my current skill into new skill acquisition.
If you want to be doing something completely different then you need to 
figure out the breadcrumb route in between your current strength and the 
thing you’re trying to acquire. This means building a bridge of adjacent 
strengths to get from where you are to where you want to be. People do this 
naturally ­ they rely on what they already know. If you’d like to check out the
HBR article then just google "HBR How to improve your strengths."
My personal advice, based on no Harvard research but purely my own 
experience with executives, is that in order to learn new things, to develop 

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new strengths, first: you have to get good at getting good. Then you can try 
something similar but different.

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