The Three Series: Three things managers can do at the end of the academic year

This is part of The Three Series.

In Spain, we are coming to the end of the academic year, and I don’t know about you, but for me this year has flown by. I’m glad to say that many of my teachers have said the same thing – I hope this indicates that the year hasn’t been too hard! Many of my manager readers out there will know that the end of the year is a special time for many things, and not just the fact that we are ‘finishing’. I thought I’d share three things that I find important to do at the end of each year.

Update the mission statement

Effective language teaching organisations (LTOs) have a very clear mission statement (White et al., 2008). Even more effective LTOs, in my opinion, ensure that this mission statement is created and updated in conjunction with all staff members every year. This is a document that I feel is often not really valued enough in ELT, and it’s a real shame as it is one of those documents that can be referred to constantly throughout the year, can be a great place to identify top-down needs, and when created in conjunction with teachers, has the ability to really bring the team together so that everyone understands what the team is aiming for both teaching- and management (on a side note, I think it’s important to bring teachers into the thought processes of management, and share what management is hoping to achieve – for example, sign up numbers). A simple way to do this is to present teachers with the current mission statement at the end of the year, and ask the following questions:

1. Does the mission statement convey what actually occurs in our LTO? 
2. Does the mission statement represent how we feel ELT should be? 
3. Is the mission statement practical and easy to understand? 
4. What should be removed, added, updated? 
5. What do you feel should be the ‘business’ mission of the academy?
6. What areas of ‘business’ should we explore? Can these be included in the mission statement somehow?

The last two questions on this list might come as a surprise to you, but it stems from the idea that staff on the ground often have a good understanding of what learners need and what other courses might be useful. Furthermore, even if new ideas are explored and implemented top-down, this is a great way to get bottom-up support if you can get teachers’ feelings towards these ideas at this stage.

End of year staff feedback – Appreciative inquiry

Collecting ‘feedback’ is probably the most common thing that we managers engage in at the end of the year, and I’d hazard a guess and say that this is done through a questionnaire (e.g., through Google Forms). This questionnaire is a staple in management feedback systems because it is effective at gathering large amounts of data fairly easily, but there are a few issues. One, questionnaires, whilst giving space for personal thoughts, are largely impersonal and more often than not focus on gathering qualitative data through the use of Likert scales (i.e., on scale of 1 – 5, how well did we…). Two, these questionnaires are done at the individual level, and at times there may be missed opportunities for potentially impactful feedback when everything is left at the individual level. So, how can we get feedback at the group level, without the session turning into a massive ‘complaint’ session? Well, here we turn to appreciative inquiry!

Appreciative inquiry is, in a sense, an approach to reflection that encourages groups to identify what is working as opposed to what is not working. It is, therefore, a strengths-based approach to feedback. Now, I hear you saying, “Well, Jim, I’m sure we already know what is working well. Why do we need more information on this?” My response would be that we don’t always know what is working well, as what ‘management’ sees and feels is working well, might be different to what teachers feel is working well. Furthermore, Appreciative Inquiry is based on strengths, because by exploring what the LTO is doing well (from the team and management perspective), it can aim to amplify these, whilst creating space to develop in other areas.

There are many ways in Appreciative Inquiry can be carried out, although the way that I’ve been running it for the last few years is as follows. This document has been adapted from our Appreciative Inquiry notes for this year.

This appreciative appraisal process is based heavily on Phillip’s (2022) article Post-pandemic faculty development session based on Appreciative Inquiry.

Upwards appraisal

Appraisal carries a whole bunch of negative connotations (Fletcher, 2008), and rightly so. It has often been used as a moment of ‘assessment’ rather than ‘development’. We’ve gone so far as to change the term to Professional Development Discussions because we feel this better aligns with the aim and underlying philosophy around the meetings. However, another problem with appraisal in the traditional sense is that it is top-down, unidirectional. Sure, we have feedback forms for the teacher experience within the LTO, as I mentioned previously, but how often do your teachers get to provide you as a manager with feedback on how you interact with them? It bemuses me that many managers are afraid of this feedback given that their roles within the LTO are to demonstrate effective teaching and management behaviours, and seeking feedback from staff is one of those – that’s why our teachers have observations, coaching sessions, etc.

Now, this is not without its issues, of course. The main one in my eyes is about what teachers can provide feedback on. It would be great to get feedback on everything you do as a manager, but your teachers don’t see all the stuff that goes on behind the scenes, so it’s very difficult for them to provide some kind of evaluation on a lot of what mangers do. In my context, myself and my director engage with all teachers through coaching, and other development and managerial interactions, of course, but this is one of the clearest and most frequent interactions that we have. So, at the end of each term, we ask teachers to provide us with feedback on how we are as coaches. These feedback forms are anonymous, and largely qualitative to avoid knowing who said what, but we’ve received some really interesting feedback (e.g., one teacher mentioned that they would like me to share information with them through different types of mediums – not only articles). My advice, then, is to find something that all your teaching staff can effectively ‘evaluate’ and provide feedback on – something that has impacted them significantly throughout the academic year (and that involved interacting with you, of course).

Our coaching feedback questionnaire is nothing state of the art, but hopefully it gives you an example of something you might do in your context.

Final notes

The end of the year is a great time, and let’s be honest – everyone is looking forward to the holidays! However, even though the end is in sight, we need to make the most of these opportunities to collect useful feedback and engage with staff to ensure that the LTO continues to grow and be successful. Having said all this, I know that there are plenty of other activities managers might engage in at the end of the year, and I’d love to hear about your favourites – so do comment!

References

Fletcher, C. (2008). Appraisal, Feedback and Development: Making Performance Review Work. Routledge.

Phillips, J. (2022). Post-pandemic faculty development session based on Appreciative Inquiry. Pilgrims – The Teacher Trainer Journal, 35/3, p.19-22.

White, R. V., Hockley, A., van der Horst Jansen, J., & Laughner, M. S. (2008). From Teacher to Manager: Managing Language Teaching Organizations. Cambridge University Press.