Career Features - TEFL.com

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Saturday 4 February, 2012

Career Centre

Career Features

	Career Tip
	Ask if there is a company/organisation development plan.

YOUR CAREER PLAN
- framework for success (continued)

The Job Plan
Your job plan should be:

made up of objectives
cover a set time period, e.g. length of contract or one academic year
established as early as possible
agreed between staff and management
used with your job description to set and agree standards of performance
about improvement, new departures and progress
flexible and able to be changed
relate to higher level plans, e.g. those of the employing organisation

Setting objectives
When setting objectives it is important that they are SMART, i.e. specific; measurable; agreed; realistic and timebound, e.g. a SMART objective might be:- 'to have agreed with management, developed and run a pilot (for approximately 40 students) 60 hour distance learning programme for intermediate business English students in Poland by 5 March 2002 while covering all costs. While an example of an objective which is not SMART might be:- 'to clarify student registration procedures'

Setting standards
In our job plan, it is important to know not only what tasks we intend to undertake but to what standard of performance. It is to the teacher's advantage that performance standards are agreed and measured by both staff and management as that way one avoids unrealistic expectations on either side and so, potential conflict, while allowing for achievements to be recognised. Performance standards should be realistic, appropriate and measurable and should be reviewed along with the job plan on an agreed regular basis. Standards can be set in terms of quality; quantity; time; and cost and should be incorporated in the plan's objectives. To summarise, objectives should be agreed jointly, should include agreed measures of measurement and an agreed realistic time scale. They should be achievable yet challenging and allow the teacher to decide how they should be achieved and to use them for personal development and, finally, they should be reviewed regularly.

YOUR PERSONAL CAREER DEVELOPMENT PLAN
In addition to the self questioning and objective setting within the framework of your job plan, you will also want to consider longer term career development. The process is the same, while some of the considerations may be different, e.g.,

Where do I want to go?

in the long term
in the short term
in my professional relationships
in my learning/development

How can I get there?

action I can take in the long term
action I can take in the short term
people and/or resources I need to help me
human/physical resources available to me
my SMART goals are

Often when we think of career development the first thing that comes to mind is a training course. While these have undoubted value, there is a gamut of other options which can enhance our personal and professional growth. Some examples are:

on the job training
coaching/partnering/shadowing
mentoring
brainstorming
project teams
work group specific training
seminars with colleagues/peers
substitution
observation
keeping a personal journal
videos/audio tapes
action research
reading professional journals and texts
subscribing to ELT e. lists
trawling the vast resources of the Internet

MEASURING SUCCESS AND REVIEWING OBJECTIVES
For any plan to be current and effective it requires regular review and re-adjustment, therefore it is important to build in review dates to the original plan, e.g.

Competence (skills/behaviour/knowledge)	Development Objective	Review Date
Error correction techniques	To undertake 1 month's action research with 2 colleagues and share findings on the effectiveness of error correction techniques	1 February

Also, if one's objectives are SMART and include performance standards, measurement of degrees of achievement and identification of new objectives will be facilitated. This way, we should be able to stay ahead of the tide and stay on course in the personal directions we choose.

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