Just came from a great post over at Micronarratives blog that has me thinking a big “Yes.”  (Quality Management for Language Schools.)  I really enjoyed what Watt had to say, and as a Language school owner/director, I find myself heavily challenged in this vital area. Quality service. Everywhere inside the company. That’s what it’s all about.

I’m passionate about providing great service, and I think we all are if we’re serious about staying in business and doing well at it. But one thing I have found is that it is sure hard to consistently hold yourself to high standards of quality on a day to day basis when all life breaks loose on you. Guess just saying that it’s hard to hold your focus on the right things each day, and EVERY day, in order to uphold a high standard of excellence.

So one thing that has me thinking is in the whole area of goals. Watt mentions in his post that “You won’t get anywhere without clear, achievable goals.” Totally agree. Goal setting is vital. But I’ve been wondering what that looks like at a School/Teacher/Student level where the school and teacher have course goals that need to be covered in the class.

Our company mission is to adapt ourselves to what our students need in English each day. We strongly believe that we’re supposed to be there to meet our client’s needs, verses trying to follow our own strict program. I’ve had days where I had a full lesson plan mapped out for one of my students, only to have said plan tossed out the window 2 minutes into class as the student has an urgent email or presentation or conference call to prep for. In English. Needs my help. I wonder where goals go there?

On one level, I feel excited when these change ups happen. I’ve been in workplaces where strict service to school agenda was the rule. Nothing else mattered. The goal was the god of the classroom, and we had to bow down and serve without question or deviation.  And the results were excellent. For the school.  But what about the student? They often left their class knowing they had completed a school level goal or objective, but out there, outside our nice little classroom, the real world awaited. Usually quite different to what we had just been working on.

So how do you balance working towards goals and objectives, and really meeting the needs of your students? And my biggest pain in the brain: how to do that in tiny blocks of time that corporate budgets love to box you into. (Later post for that I guess.)

To language school goals: I would still say that I embrace the CEFR (Common European Framework of languages). The “Can Do” statements are broad and open in that they allow you to work towards them using any content area you desire. They give you a firm direction to go in, but how you get there is between you and your student. (Still allowing for personalization of the class to student need.)

A language school can work with their teachers to set up which goals teacher/students will work towards in that month, still encouraging the teacher to adapt to serving the client’s day to day needs.  (Situation: student brings in an email to work on. Teacher knows that an objective that needs to be worked on is student being able to write short coherent messages or notes. Emails should  be short and coherent, right? Adapts easily. Goal accomplished, and student helped.) Important to become very familiar with CEF objectives in order to be able to serve up a flexible class. Adapting on the fly.

What do you think? How should you as a teacher adapt to your student’s need, while at the same time meeting course objectives along the way? Thoughts? Strategies? All are welcome.