English Teachers are Destroying English

English teachers love their subject. They desperately want their students to do well. But the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

I posted this question less than 24 hours ago, and already 1,400+ students have answered.

Even my ‘own’ students, those who have subscribed to my Substack and learn through the written word, even those literate, and committed students despair at the way we teach.

This is why English has dropped from being the number 1 A level choice to number 12.

You know why. The GCSE has dictated the curriculum, the assessment, the way we teach. You don’t have to believe me. But you do have to look at the student voice.

What is the answer?

Joy.

Get out a pen, or your phone, or your laptop and list the top 6 things you love about English. Not teaching English. The subject. Your first love. What brought you to it in the first place? Who inspired you? What books will you never forget? What writing made you pay attention, made you laugh, made you learn?

Once you have that list, compare it to your curriculum. The endless slog of exam technique and exploding quotes doesn’t match it, does it?

The way we pause to analyse books while we are reading them, interrupting the joy of reading, doesn’t match it, does it?

The way we club a poem to death with annotations, rather than reading, or discussion, or performance, doesn’t match it, does it?

I won’t go on. At least, not that way. I’m going to offer you a way forward. I’d like to teach English teachers online, to show how you can completely master the exams in ways which will delight your students, will let their ideas breathe, and their writing skills blossom.

Just in case you think this is a marketing ploy, it isn’t. Let me show you.

Over the last 6 weeks I’ve been running masterclasses for students on the literature texts. You can find them here. These same students can get all my teaching, totally free, on YouTube. But they come because there is no fluff, and they get any and every question answered. And loads of free resources.

Or, students can skip the masterclass, and go straight to the resources.

This has transformed my business. I’ve earned more in 6 weeks than my business earned in the other 46 weeks of the year.

The profit motive would stop me visiting schools, training teachers, training school leaders, helping to lift schools out of inadequate and requires improvement judgement. My time would earn me much more online.

But I also love English, love teaching, love school improvement. I hope I’m skilled at these.

And this is why I’d like to teach teachers online next year. I’ll run the courses even with two participants, and you can name your price per session. Because I want to reconnect you to the joy of English.

If you are interested, email me at dominicsalles@hotmail.com

Or share this with English teachers who want to rediscover the joy of their subject and get great results.