Picture this. A harried ESL teacher rushes into her classroom laden with bags, books, and boxes. She has only a few minutes to spare before class starts since she has spent her morning marking her students’ papers in infinitesimal detail, collecting realia to use as a conversation starter, and baking cupcakes for a student who is having a birthday. When she finally gets settled, she realizes she won’t have time for the conversation starter, and then in horror, she notices that she has left the cupcakes on her kitchen counter. She slumps on her table feeling like an absolute failure.

Unfortunately, this scene is all too familiar. At some point in their careers, ESL teachers are sent into new teaching situations, unprepared and sometimes undertrained. They may mask their insecurity by overpreparing their lessons, but in the process, they often overwhelm their students and themselves. They are suffering from a dangerous malady: overteaching! This moniker was coined to encompass the characteristic signs—overstuffing, overplanning, overgrading, and overspending—that describe a set of behaviors which are first used as a temporary patch to cover insecurity or lack of experience but later become an inefficient habit that can lead to burnout. Still, who suffers most from burnout? Research suggests that it is most prevalent among novice teachers and, surprisingly, those with a lower teaching load. In fact, a study of ESL teachers in Malaysia asserts that teachers in the highest workload category—30 hours per week—showed fewer effects of overteaching (Mukundan & Khandehroo, 2010). Perhaps because of their higher teaching load, these teachers were forced to manage their time more efficiently. Yet no one in a teaching position is exempt from the consequences of overteaching, which come in a variety of forms and affect not only teachers, but also students and educational systems as a whole.

Effects on Students

Every aspect of overteaching can lead to adverse effects on students in direct or indirect ways. To illustrate, students sometimes develop unrealistic expectations about the role of the teacher, which can lead to disappointment in the long run. In one disconcerting example from a student blog, (Student blog, 2014) a student asserts that “teachers are the second mothers for the students” and that “all students depend on [the teacher] for everything. . . . If something goes wrong, the only [one] responsible is the teacher, even if it was not their foul [sic].” This scenario represents an impossible role for a teacher and, offered as a model, predicts dissatisfaction.

Students faced with an overstuffed class may feel overwhelmed by the sheer volume of work or the lack of time allotted to practice. Likewise, classes that are overplanned often move at lightning speed regardless of student comprehension. Indeed, students who are faced with written assignments that are consistently overgraded may feel distressed or even defeated. What’s more, those who notice insincere or excessive spending of money by their teachers may lose respect for the academic nature of the class.

Effects on Teachers

The emotional exhaustion, depersonalization, and lack of professional efficacy that are part and parcel of overteaching—and burnout—have a number of unfavorable consequences on teachers, too. Although it is sometimes assumed that burnout is caused by repetitive, dull, and dreary work, Maslach (1993) states that “emotional exhaustion is the result of being invested in one’s work and experiencing a toll on one’s personal resources over a period of time” (Emery & Vandenberg, 2010, 120).

While overteaching is the result of good intentions on the part of teachers, in due time, emotional exhaustion can lead to physical health risks such as fatigue, recurrent flu, colds, and headaches. Moreover, depersonalization, when it extends into the private lives of teachers, can have negative effects on personal relationships outside work. By the same token, ineffective teaching techniques may leave teachers with a sense of inadequacy and embitterment, contributing to decreased professional motivation and job satisfaction and eventually triggering a desire to quit.

Effects on Educational Systems

If overteaching has negative consequences on students and teachers, it stands to reason that it is inimical to the educational system as a whole. One notable consequence is absenteeism. Indeed, teachers who are burned out are more likely to take sick days for legitimate—and sometimes questionable—reasons. Teachers who are discontent with their work environment may experience reduced job commitment and decreased job performance. If they become restless, an increase in faculty turnover may follow. A natural outcome is a downturn in student satisfaction, which may lead to student attrition.

Solutions to Overteaching

Typically cited stopgaps for overteaching include yoga, meditation, time management, and the like, but rarely include doing less. However, conserving our personal resources may be the ideal corrective to the burnout experienced at the hand of overteaching.

In order to reduce teacher burnout, we propose some possible remedies for the situation at administrative and personal levels. First, programs could help by creating new teacher-mentor relationships, with more experienced teachers sharing time-saving tips with new teachers. They could also hold staff development workshops in which teachers share their best methods to counter overteaching.

On a personal level, there are some general ways to counter overteaching, such as electronic networking between meetings where teachers can engage in a forum for discussing classroom problems. Teachers should also remember to “hope for the best, but expect the worst.” They should target the types of events or episodes that stress them out and have a “planned emergency response.”

Teachers could benefit by keeping a journal for 3 days of how they spend their time so they can analyze it and make changes. Another suggestion is to limit distractions. Rather than trying to do several things at once (responding to Facebook and grading essays), they can carve out a specific time to focus on finishing the task at hand so as to have more free time to rejuvenate. Finally, they can establish boundaries for their time. Instead of taking work home, they can try to finish their grading at work, which may serve as a catalyst to working efficiently.

More specifically, some teachers who tend to overstuff their classes could consider enlisting the help of students. For instance, when teaching a lesson on comparative adjectives, rather than writing loads of adjective-noun combinations, printing them, and laminating them—all time-intensive tasks—the teacher could have students do many of those tasks. This could be done with flashcards, study guides, and games as well! Teachers should also become comfortable with quiet time/work time in the classroom. Finally, teachers can move from “sage of the stage” to “guide on the side.” A number of strategies enable students to take ownership of their learning (e.g., summarizing what they’ve learned as they present to each other).

For teachers who tend to overplan, it should be noted that a great deal of time spent preparing does not necessarily translate into a productive class. Instead of a detailed point-by-point lesson plan, teachers might benefit from a rough outline, leaving room for detours and questions. Teachers can also follow a daily or weekly routine to minimize prepping. In addition, giving students time to personalize the material, verbally or in writing, takes virtually no prep time and gets students involved. Teachers should be wary of reinventing the wheel. It is important to reduce, reuse, and recycle (activities, that is). Handouts can be replaced with board work, and slide presentations can be limited to make lectures more interactive and reduce prep time.

In order to streamline work for themselves, overgraders can grade pre-established elements of an assignment rather than every mistake. Research on feedback, in fact, suggests that less is more (Williams, 2003). Rubrics can help to simplify the grading process, as can scheduling assignments carefully to avoid a lot of time-intensive grading all at once. Other ways to simplify include providing verbal—even recorded—feedback, giving group assignments and group grades, and letting students identify each other’s mistakes on first drafts or low-stakes assignments. Students will think more deeply about their own work and learn how to decipher the class editing symbols as well. Exercises could be graded as a class, revealing situations in which a majority of the class fails to understand the core concepts of a lesson and allowing teachers to adjust their lessons immediately.

Finally, for those teachers who overspend, it should be remembered that it’s the thought that counts. There are ways other than spending money to show students that a teacher cares. Instead of handing out prizes to recognize student achievement, teachers can read student-generated work aloud or post a certificate on the wall for the “Student of the Week.” Teachers may share the cost of a party by planning a potluck and simply providing the sound system or locale.

It is hoped that with these remedies in mind, teachers can accomplish their goals of being successful in all their teaching situations, new or old, while retaining the joy of teaching.

References

Emery, D. W., & Vandenberg, B. (2010). Special education teacher burnout and ACT. International Journal of Special Education, 25(3), 119–131.

Mukundan, J., & Khandehroo, K. (2010). Burnout among English language teachers in Malaysia. Contemporary Issues in Education Research, 3(1), 71–76.

Williams, J. G. (2003). Providing feedback on ESL students’ written assignments. Internet TESL Journal, 9(10). Retrieved from http://iteslj.org

Student Blog.  What is the role of a teacher?  Retrieved March 6, 2014 from http://www.csun.edu/~meq75037/paper1.html

George Plautz is the director of the English Language Institute at the University of Utah, where he has worked since 1992. His teaching specialties are content-based college prep courses and spoken English using drama techniques. He is also on the Board of Directors of Wasatch Theatre Company and is a co-creator and script writer for The Starry-Eyed Puppets in Salt Lake.

Korrin Ebira is the assistant director of the English Language Institute at the University of Utah. Her teaching specialty is content-based college prep courses. Her interests include language assessment and student counseling.

Naomi Lee is an assistant professor at Kansai Gaidai University, in Osaka, Japan. She has taught master’s level teacher training courses in South Korea, worked as a fundraising consultant and materials developer for a decade, and is currently collaborating on a guided journal slated for publication by Chronicle Books.