Client Relationship in a Language School Environment

In October, 2014, I first posted this text based on a presentation given at a BrazTesol One-Day Seminar.

The original title was something like Dealing with Parents.

The presentation has been improved and Dealing with Parents has been put into a broader perspective: Client Relationship.

At schools, our clients are the students themselves and their parents or legal guardians. Lots of times their grandparents, stepparents and nannies as well; hence the need for teachers to be able to relate effectively and productively to students - children, teens and adults -, parents and... grandparents... and nannies... and stepparents is imperative.

For years now I have been reflecting on career development and career management. I have been trying to apply concepts that are widely used in business, such as having a mission and a vision, knowing about strategies and tactics, or being aware of negotiation principles to improve my own views of my career and to try and help fellow EFL teachers improve theirs.

In the path to becoming a T-shaped professional – one that is able to see their job, their career, the institution they work for from a broader perspective – teachers should try and look beyond the classroom, without overlooking it, obviously.

Here is the Prezi that goes along with this text.

As a child and a teenager, I was a cub scout and a boy scout. I left the Movement and years later, as an adult, I became a leader scout. I deeply admire the Movement, its principles and its educational method.

Do you know what the Scout motto is? Check the Calvin and Hobbes strip on the presentation.

Being prepared is, in my opinion, the most important aspect when relating to clients. The preparation I refer to here is the technical and the emotional ones. A teacher must know what he or she is doing and must be able to explain and demonstrate it to students and parents. Also, teachers must be emotionally stable enough to deal with clients' not always reasonable demands and reactions.

Probably Keep calm and be prepared should be the last slide of the presentation. Even thought the Keep calm phrases are now cliché, this one summarizes the two basic conditions for teachers to be effective, efficient and productive when relating to clients: keeping calm refers to the emotional preparation and professionalism teachers must have to make the best of the relationship with parents (stepparents, grandparents, nannies, adult students).

First, let's tackle very important moments that mark the teacher-client relationship: teacher-parent conferences. Here are the key elements for a successful talk or conference:

•   Establish a positive atmosphere: greet the parent, smile, give a firm handshake, thank him/her for being there;

•   Report student’s successes, always based on facts; yes, the obvious first-say-positive-things approach; give details, be as specific as possible; use objective language;

•   Talk about challenges the student faces, again based on facts; yes, it is an euphemism; the same principles form above apply here: objective language;

•   Focus on the next steps; be specific, objective and establish intermediary aims.

IMPORTANT TIPS: smile; mind your tone of voice; give a firm handshake; sit on the same side of the table or next to the parent if you are sitting on classroom desks; try to establish a give and take pattern to the conference in which the parent also contributes to the success of the meeting by providing relevant facts on the student; thank the parent for being there.

Talking about tone of voice, you may want to check what Leny Kirillos say about communication. She is a phonoudiologist who talks about communication and leadership. She has a space at Rádio CBN every Friday and I found a quick course on communication at Cursou.com.br.

Another crucial element to being able to manage parents is knowing the institution's policy towards teacher-parent contact. If this policy is not made clear upon hiring or during the inicial training sessions, make sure you talk to the school coordinator, supervisor, administration, manager, mentor, coach, to whomever may help you understand how the school sees it.

Thoroughly understand the school's rules and communication system with parents. When talking to a superior or mentor, clarify how far you can go when in contact with parents. Also, make sure you keep a channel open to ask for help when necessary.

Again, be prepared and share. When dealing with a more delicate situation or when you foresee a more problematic student or parent, share it with the person in charge.

Remember that managing your career and understanding how the company works is also your responsibility. Take an active role in this process.

In extremely difficult situations or with extremely problematic parents, you may have a colleague be with you in the conference with the parent. This way, you will split the parent's focus and new arguments may raise or at least there is someone else with you to go through a tougher situation.

Another important aspect of talks with clients is showing who leads the conversation. My experience has shown that when the teacher takes the initiative of the conversation, he or she will keep being in control of the conference. It is important to show the parent that you are in charge, that you know what you are doing.

Take the time now to make a list of relevant questions that will help you take the initiative in a conversation with parents. In the presentation, I suggest a few questions that work for me.

Try and picture...

Smile, give a firm handshake, thank the parent(s), invite them to sit down and start the conversation: good evening, thank you for coming. Please take a sit here. Tell me, what does Xxxx report about the classes?

And the conversation goes on. You listen, ask again, listen, ask again and start building a scenario.

Being in control gives you the chance to change the course of the conversation or end the meeting when needed.

Another key aspect to the teacher-client relationship: always base your interactions on FACTS. I cannot stress it enough. FACTS, FACTS, FACTS. Specific and objective language to describe FACTS.

Vagueness in the language only leads to misunderstandings or inactions or dissatisfactions or frustrations. Perhaps all of them. Or maybe any combination of which you may think.

The two most vague, pointless and even offensive statements in my opinion are: “Ele não está entendendo/aprendendo nada/He does not understand anything in your class”, from parents: “Ele não está interessado/He is not interested”, from teachers. Two very typical statements heard in T-P conversations.

What do they mean?

Saying that a student understands or learns nothing makes the teacher feels totally frustrated. It means that NOTHING the teacher does is relevant or reaches the student.

Also, telling parents that their kid is not interested in studying is also devastating. Me, as a father, try my best to show my daughters how important studying and acquiring knowledge is. If I head from a teacher that they are not interested in the classes or studying, I would feel I had failed.

In the parent-teacher relationship, it is essential that conclusions are drawn from FACTS and, preferably, TOGETHER with the parents. The idea is to create a give-and-take situation, from clients to teachers and vice versa.

I propose that teachers try the exercise of changing xxxx to yyyy, where xxxxs are vague, meaningless, fruitless statements while yyyys are factual, substantial, effective ones.




Here is a crazy though real exchange:

Parent: She understand nothing in your class.

Teacher: Yeah, she is not interested in studying.

Let’s start the exercise from the teacher’s statement.

Instead of She is not interested, talk about the student’s performance, punctuality, completion of tasks, participation:

“She tends to use a lot of Portuguese in class and she is frequently disruptive because the talks to her classmates a lot; or she tends to be extremely quiet and easily loses her concentration. Based on this behavior, it seems to me she… What do you think? Does she have a similar behaviour at her regular school?"

Now, the other statement.

Instead of accepting She is learning nothing and maybe getting offended by it, try eliciting facts for you to understand what the parent means by the sentence:

Is she able to do her homework? What does she report about the classes? Is she able to understand the commands in class? Has she reported any problems with classmates or staff?

Then, based on the answers, you may draw your conclusions, share it with the parent and ask what they think.

Two important observations here: part of keeping calm (and being emotionally prepared) is not taking the He-understands-nothing sentence personally; also, be prepared to realize you are not reaching this specific student effectively and think about a solution. Proposing a solution necessarily implies knowing the institution you work for and its processes, services and rules.

Here are typical xxxx sentences that should be changed to eye.

Instead of: ele/ela está bem; ele/ela pode melhorar; ele/ela precisa se dedicar mais; ele participa bem; ele/ela não está interessado; ele precisa gostar de estudar;

Try: Yyyy

Other vague and meaningless sentences are: Tá muito difícil, Parece que ele não quer estar aqui, Eu não sei o que está acontecendo, Eu não sei o que fazer com ele.

Besides vagueness, another mortal approach to the students' progress is judge their actions and base your conversation with the parent on your impressions, opposed to basing the conversation on facts.

Also, finding out information about the student is essential. There may be many aspects of the student's life, personality, behavior and routine that should be taken into consideration. Have a set of questions that may help you discover these aspects and help you and the parents find the best solution to any challenge the student may be facing.

In the teacher-client relationship, teachers should be mindful not to create traps for themselves and their superiors. Remember, when in contacts with clients, in the classroom or outside, YOU are the school; YOU represent the beliefs, the principles, the marketing campaign, the tradition of the company for which you work.

There are sentences that may imply that the school or even you are not competent enough to teach English. There are things teachers say that will have to be justified.

Here are some of these trap sentences that teachers use to justify their actions or difficulties:

É, essa turma é difícil mesmo./Yeah, this group is really difficult.

Eu não sei o que fazer./I don't know what to do.

A sala não comporta tantos alunos./The room is not big enough for so many students.

A turma está um pouco cheia mesmo./Yeah, the group is a bit large.

Esse nível não é adequado para ele./This level is not appropriate for him.

Esse curso não se encaixa com seu estilo./This course does not fit your son's profile.

We now go back to the beginning of the presentation when I mentioned that you should clearly understand the rules of the school.

Last aspect of this section of the talk: addressing parents and teachers.

I have always been bothered by teachers being addressed tio or tia. In Professora Sim, Tia Não (Ed. Olhos D'Água, 1997), Paulo Freire wrote:

Ensinar é profissão que envolve certa tarefa, certa militância, certa especificidade no seu cumprimento enquanto ser tia é viver uma relação de parentesco. Ser professora implica assumir uma profissão enquanto não se é tia por profissão.

I used to be rude to students in the past. When they called me tio, I used to say, "I'm not your father's or mother's brother". I deeply regret the rudeness - I know it is horrible - but I do not regret my belief.

After having my daughters in school, I realized that the habit of calling teachers tio or tia is so rooted into the culture of the schools, that I just thought it was impossible to fight against it. It naturally disappears after a few years.

However, I will never give up sharing with fellow teachers how disfigured it is to call teachers tio or tia.

Probably, as a retribution to being called tio or tia, some teachers call parents pai, mãe or even more disgusting paizinho or mãezinha.

How weird is it when teachers actually have the age to be their students' parents' son or daughter?

Following this logic, why don't teachers call their students brothers and sisters?

Forheaven'ssake - Pelamordedeus - people have names. Please use them.

Now, moving to our next component of the client-teacher relationship: negotiating.

Bringing negotiation to the teaching environment - to the teacher development arena - represents exactly the principle of being a T-Shaped professional. Understanding and applying concepts and principles of negotiation  are in the horizontal line of the T.

The most basic concepts of negotiating are:

• Negotiating is important, whether you enjoy it or not;
•  Negotiating is building up a relationship;
•  Negotiation is an agreement, a pact, a combination among parties.

Negotiating is NOT using its tools to get advantages over other people, but getting the best result possible for BOTH or ALL parties.

Effective negotiators:

• Take calculated risks;
•  Get results with limited resources;
•  Are attentive listeners;
•  Are patient and persistent;
•  Focus on facts;
•  Are flexible;
•  FOCUS ON THE SOLUTION, rather than focus on looking for someone to blame.

Effective negotiators are constantly looking for win-win outcomes in their negotiations.

Now, I would like to propose another exercise. Think about moments or situations in the teacher-client relationship or in a teacher-parent conference in which these concepts are applicable.

For instance, once a teacher reported to me the outcome of his talk to a student's mother. The student had missed five consecutive classes and the midterm test was going to take place the following week. The result of the negotiation was: the student would have the test postponed for two weeks so that he had time to take two remedial lessons, do and present all the homework assignments for the classes he missed.

All the features of an effective negotiator are present in this example. The basic principle the teacher followed: exceptional situations deserve exceptional solutions.

The mother was happy, the student was relieved and the problem was solved.

The teacher took risks, he was flexible and he focused on the solution of the problem. He could only do this because he was completely aware of the institution’s policy and resources. Probably the teacher had to listen to the mother and student attentively, and understand the reasons for the absences.

Interdisciplinarity has its moment here. Paulo Freire, again, in Pedagogia da Autonomia (Paz e Terra, 1996) wrote:

Somente quem escuta paciente e criticamente o outro, fala com ele, mesmo que, em certas condições, precise de falar a ele. (...) O educador que escuta aprende a difícil lição de transformar seu discurso, às vezes necessário, ao aluno, em uma fala com ele.

This is precisely what I am defending when insisting that negotiation applies to our environment. We should learn to talk WITH our clients, build a give-and-take situation for  a win-win outcome. I know, I know, it is full of clichés, but I would rather have my clients satisfied than create several conflicts without solutions everyday.

Now, the final element: being prepared.

Obviously, teachers have to be technically prepared and know what they are doing in class; they have to be effective teachers and efficient employees.

I would like to add to this preparation the accumulation of data and facts about the students. All schools have their evaluation system and probably several different forms to keep record of students’ marks, homework assignments, compositions and so on.

I believe that the thorough record keeping of these pieces of information plus data related to the student’s day-to-day performance makes a huge difference when talking to parents.

In the presentation, I show spreadsheets I use with my groups in which I keep record of their marks as well as their performance in aspects such as participation in class, use of English in class and discipline.

This collection of data is used to give feedback to the students and to base my talks with parents. The record keeping itself becomes an irrefutable argument.

Going beyond the classroom, without overlooking our core business: teaching English.

Slacklining is a great metaphor to what I have been trying to share here. To keep your balance on the line, you have to focus on a point far beyond the end of the line, a point in the horizon. You cannot look down at your feet. If you do so, you lose balance.

To walk on the line, your feet will almost instinctively find their way, while your arms - spread wide open - will help keep your balance. Sometimes, only one foot is on the line and the other leg is also helping you stay on the slackline.

In the beginning, you focus on all movements. You feel your feet looking for the line, sometimes even look down. The movement of the torso and arms to compensate the unbalance is conscious.

The first times on the slackline are frustrating. Your legs shake as if you were standing on giant jelly, your thigh muscles burn, you cannot stand on the line for more than very few seconds.

Then, your body gets used to the type of physical effort and you start building the confidence not to look down.

The point far beyond the line, in the horizon, is how far teachers should look: their career, their job, the company, their student's learning. Their feet, arms and legs are the technical aspects of teaching. As you gain experience, study, improve your teaching techniques, it all becomes a natural movement, almost instinctive.

All the best,

Marcelo Elias