Teaching English as a Foreign Language, Second Edition

Administration
Administration is very important, and inefficient
organisation may kill a department, but it is less important
than the professional aspects, and no department can claim
credit for merely being well organised: that should be taken
for granted. In the following paragraphs a number of
suggestions are made about organisation, but obviously not
all departments will be responsible for the same things, and
each one must adapt the general principles to its own needs.
Listed below are some of the main areas for which English
departments may be responsible:
1 Reception, stamping and storage of new books and equip-
ment.
2 Maintaining inventories of all equipment.
3 Preparation of orders for new equipment.
4 Running external and internal examinations.
5 Filing all information of importance to staff and students,
so that it is readily accessible.
6 Maintaining records of students’ progress.
Each institution will vary in its approach to each of these
problems, but the English department, in self-defence, should
know what happens in each of these areas, and should be
prepared to take it over if it is being inefficiently done
elsewhere. It seems worthwhile, however, to make a few
comments on the last of these areas.
It is a good idea to keep a check on classes collectively as
well as on individuals. An easy way of doing this is to have an

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The English Department
209
exercise book as a record book to accompany each class
through the institution. In this can be entered for each pupil
his examination marks, details like reading speed if they are
tested, and report comments. General comments on the class
can also be included, together with the stages in the scheme
of work reached at the end of each term, books which have
been used, comments on particularly successful books and
exercises, and so on. In this way there is a convenient way of
handing on information about a group which changes hands,
especially if this happens unexpectedly. It is necessary for the
head of department to insist that details are filled in
conscientiously every term, but any serious teacher will see
the advantage of the system and be prepared to co-operate.
The book can be completed with an entry of external
examination results, where appropriate, and stored for
reference as a complete record of the work of a class. In this
way continuity is maintained.
Other areas where the English department may be able to
offer administrative help are in organising libraries of class
readers, appropriately graded for level (by content as well as
language), and in liaison with other institutions. In general,
any matter where several heads are better than one will work
well at department level, whether it is a highly skilled issue of
how to solve a teaching problem, or a large administrative
chore like cataloguing library books related to English
language.