Leadership and Values in Language Education - Al Akhawayn ...

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56Proceedings of the 27 th MATE Annual ConferenceOn a Portrait of the Teacher as a LeaderFahmi El madaniClasses préparatoires aux grandes écoles d’ingénieurs, AgadirUndoubtedly, in a rapidly changing world, a technologically driven one, twentyfirstcentury teachers are supposed to acquire new roles that will help them makeboth teaching and learning occur and eventually be part of this unprecedentedchange, but this does not mean the eclipse of the usual roles. Among these newroles is that of a leader. It is believed that great teachers have succeeded in theirjob thanks to their ability and know how to lead their followers or students to thedestination they have in mind. Depicting the whole portrait of a teacher as aleader would certainly take much more space and time than this paper allows.Consequently, this paper is restricted to very few characteristics a leaderpossesses, particularly those which are relevant to the trade of teaching. Anotherreason for narrowing the scope of this paper stems from the fact that a goodteacher does not need to possess all the qualities a leader has in as much asleaders themselves neither have nor use all qualities all the time.On Becoming a Teacher LeaderTo teach the language and impact students deeply, teachers of English as aForeign Language (EFL) need to have those important characteristics of a leader.They need to be able to (i) communicate-clearly, simply and avidly; (ii) be able todeal with unexpected and /or problematic learning/ teaching situations, (iii)establish a culture of trust and a culture of partnership; (iii) remember the missionof a leader (i.e. school teacher) and work towards achieving specific aims, andfinally (iv)be creative, balanced, and reflective all the time. These prerequisites,that will be elaborated on later in ‘the courage to teach’ section, will certainlyhelp teachers participate in the creation of future leaders bearing in mind that theteachers also learn much from their students. How teachers are trained to acquirethe above competencies so as to teach and lead in our schools is still a hot issue.It seems also necessary and reassuring here to look at the training of theMoroccan teachers of English whom we want to be leaders or ‘great’ teachers.After graduating from University (department of English), some students join the‘Centre Pédagogique Regional’ (CPR) or the teacher training college ‘EcoleNormale Supérieure’ (ENS). It is clear that the training teachers receive at suchinstitutions is not and cannot be sufficient enough to excel at teaching, though itincludes opportunities for joining theory to practice. Therefore, as soon as they
57Proceedings of the 27 th MATE Annual Conferencestart teaching, they are supervised by inspectors. Supervision is geared towardscatering for teachers’ needs and professional development. In other words,becoming a competent teacher and/ or a leader does not depend on the limitedtraining received at the CPR or the ENS, but mainly on how much personalefforts teachers invest so to grow as professionals and acquire many or all theleadership competencies aforementioned. Furthermore, much of the teachers’professional growth is their own responsibility.Though it is recognized that the training teachers go through is somewhat limitedor insufficient, it is regarded as good basis for teachers’ future development andfor the acquisition of more and more important leadership qualities and skills. Tothis end, it is imperative that educational authorities invest a lot of efforts to makethese teacher training moments more fruitful and qualitative. They are alsorequested to enhance these training institutions and encourage trainers so thatbetter training is guaranteed and the seeds of great teacher leaders are planted.Because of the formidable amount of work that awaits novice teachers whileworking, the training they undergo in teacher training institutions and bysupervisors should lead them, among other things, to rely on themselves; arequirement for being able to lead followers or students. A teacher who does notknow how to lead himself or herself, by managing his/her time, for instance, willnot be able to instill in his/her students such a skill, bearing in mind that thestudents we teach are meant to be a product for a socio-professional context.Therefore, the first quality a teacher should pick up on the road towardsbecoming a leader is the management skill. There is a lot to manage in our tradeof teaching, isn’t there?Another characteristic a teacher should have to be called a leader is vision. Awhole range of successful leaders share this quality, without which theirobjectives would not be met. The relationship between vision and the world ofteaching is very easy to see. It simply means long term planning and clearly setgoals. The performance of a teacher with vision and long term planning and whoshows that to his/her students is a lot better than that of a teacher without such avision. The latter is efficient and pregnant with fruitful results if it is based onevaluating and understanding the followers’ level, needs, ambitions and above alltheir talents. Understanding the students’ talents, for example, is of greatimportance in that it can facilitate the job of a teacher. Some students, forinstance, can become the second teacher in the classroom if their teachers knowhow to make use of their talents to help other students who might be laggingbehind. This is what great leaders do. They delegate some of their tasks and/ or
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