View Content #25998

Lisa Werner is Past President of the Pacific Northwest Council for Languages (PNCFL) and former World Languages Department Chair at Bozeman High School in Montana, where she teaches German.

Montana does not boast an overabundance of language teachers. World Languages are found predominantly in the larger school districts with high school enrollments of more than 200, but only 49 of the 173 high schools in Montana are that large. The study of languages is neither a graduation requirement nor an admissions requirement at our state universities, so smaller districts rarely prioritize languages when determining which electives to offer.

I’m fortunate to be a member of a department of nine collaborative colleagues, but the majority of MALT members are in a school or community where they’re the lone language teacher. For these teachers, the chances of meeting up with a fellow language teacher are rare. Being able to maintain the commitment of a district to language instruction and communicate what best practices in today’s language classroom look like to the administration further complicates the situation. This can be especially difficult for a new teacher in a school where language learning is still a bit of a novelty.

The resources needed to support such teachers are readily available with the TELL Project. The mission of the Teacher Effectiveness for Language Learning (TELL) Project is to “define what effective language teachers do and facilitate their growth to  prepare for, advance and support language learning.” TELL provides us with a framework that clearly describes the qualities of an effective language teacher, tools and resources that facilitate in assessing those qualities, and the ability to make links to a broader community of language educators.

Teachers in my department turn to TELL in order to self-assess their teaching practice, to set professional goals, or to observe and provide feedback in each other’s classrooms. For our department, the introduction of the TELL resources to our school administration was the pivotal point in our effort to communicate what our teachers aspired to in the classroom, and, because they correlate to the district’s teacher evaluation, the TELL evaluation resources have become an accepted and preferred accompaniment in our formal teacher evaluations.

I would encourage all teachers to dedicate a few hours to investigate the TELL Project at tellproject.org, but especially those teachers who feel isolated in their schools and need some outside guidance. If you’ve already checked out TELL’s resources, do it again. Gain a new insight into your own practice and then share it with the teacher down the hall or across the state.