Reading about the adventures at Sands School, I am extremely interested in working in a school where students are able to chose the subjects they want to persue (and need to commit to them for at least a week) and where teachers are able to discover new subjects together with the students. As an example, I am going to start teaching French in September, although my subject knowledge is only intermediate. Same with my Spanish. Even though I hope that I will know more than my students, I am aware that this may cause some difficulty in the higher classes. Working at a school where students and teachers are able to work together and the teacher is able to teach skills rather than facts sounds amazing!
In my experience as a young EFL teacher (and sometimes I was barely a year or two older than teh kids I was teaching) it's all about the enthusiasm and commitment to the subject. Yes, you may know everything about yoour subject area, but if you can't deliver it, you are not a teacher but a lecturer! Creative, convincing lessons will engage learners in the subject and enccourage them to follow their interests at home and in the school. They will want to learn and as a result they are more likely to remember and apply knowledge. It is my firm believe that teacher should be rewaded for the enthusiasm the spark in the children they are teaching. Test scores may not necessarily reflect this love for the subject at all but one should actually talk to the learners!
After all, the goal of a lesson should be that the learner has increased his/her knowledge about the subject, shouldn't it? As a teacher, I want to take a masters degree to find new ways of getting students ineterested in my lessons and if the masters degree is in the subject I am teaching rather than in pedagogy, the widening of the subject knowledge should again only be there to find new niches which the children could be interested in.
Taking a masters is a good thing, but only if it happens for the right reasons and/or if the right things are taken away from it. If the teaching has not improved after a masters degree, was it worth it? As a result, I return to my other point that teachers should rather be rewarded for their ability to engage students rather than for possessing a higher degree as the latter should follow from the former.
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