No matter what type of educational institution you teach in, whether it’s a school, a college, or a university, you always have the opportunity to grow in your profession. If you truly want to maximize your skills and reach your full potential, be sure to put the advice laid out below into practice.

Here’s everything you must do if you want to climb to the top of the teaching career ladder:

Take part in training courses

You may have already graduated from your teacher training course, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that you know everything there is to know about the profession. No matter how many years you’ve been qualified to teach, there’s always more that you can learn about both yourself and the field of teaching as a whole.

If you want to keep your finger on the pulse of all the latest teaching trends, it’s imperative that you take part in training courses on a regular basis. This will help you to remain abreast of what teaching tactics are currently resonating with the students of today, and it will help you to retain a greater amount of passion for your job over a longer period of time.

Do you want to take the next step in your career without disrupting your day-to-day teaching commitments? If so, you should seriously consider enrolling in a competency-based program. This will allow you to earn your M.Ed., and Initial License, your add-on license, and your Master’s. Plus, this will all be in your own time and at your own pace, which in turn will provide you with more control over your schedule.

Remain motivated

If you seriously want to reach the top of the teaching career ladder, you need to remain motivated in your work over a sustained period of time. The moment you lose your hunger to teach is the exact moment you will lose your focus. This lack of focus will have a negative impact on your performance in the classroom, which in turn will hold you back from obtaining promotions and working your way up the ladder.

To ensure that you continue to operate at a high level while you’re in the classroom, you need to be motivated by your work. If you ever feel your motivation wavering, try putting the following advice into practice:

  • Set yourself goals throughout the course of the educational calendar, not just at the beginning of it
  • Incorporate your own passions into your classroom material
  • Go out of your way to teach your students about things that you feel are important
  • Always seek to learn more about the students that you teach
  • Never be afraid to take a break from teaching in order to refocus and re-motivate yourself— there are plenty of things that you can do outside of the classroom, such as teaching training, ELT publishing, or working in a summer school
  • Seek out peer appraisals

Put the advice laid out above into practice, and you’ll be sure to reach the pinnacle of your teaching potential in no time.