Here is an example of why teaching methods are not transferable. I’m teaching very basic language courses this semester because I needed to be assigned something where I can be substituted by part-time instructors after I go on maternity leave. I’m using the syllabi prepared by these instructors because it wouldn’t be right to force them to spend the entire semester following my syllabus.
The syllabi are very well-prepared and meticulous but I have never had a harder time teaching than I do now. I’m struggling with Spanish 101 like I never struggled with teaching any graduate seminar. My colleagues placed activities and projects on their syllabi that work perfectly well for them but that are driving me to distraction. These are very experienced colleagues, and students love their activities and projects. But only when the projects are administered by the teachers who created them. For me, this is pure undiluted suffering.
If I were less experienced, I’d blame my colleagues for sticking me with clunky, confusing, unmanageable activities. I know, however, that the problem here resides entirely with me. This is not my teaching style, and nobody is really to blame.
Clarissa's Blog 
I have to say that something is to blame for this… a system in which you get hardly any maternity leave! Colleagues with normal pregnancies, never mind high risk ones, woulodn’t be teaching the semester the baby was due here, and would start their leave maybe a month before the due date.
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I’m actually lucky in that I can take the full 12 weeks of maternity leave. Many people can’t do that because half of it is unpaid and for those six weeks you’ve got to pay your own health insurance. Many people can’t afford that. 😦 My husband is taking 2 weeks off at work and that, of course, is also unpaid.
Family values, my ass.
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“I’m teaching very basic language courses this semester because I needed to be assigned something where I can be substituted by part-time instructors after I go on maternity leave”
This attitude towards basic language classes is also part of the problem, especially if your whole dept shares it.
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We actually have the best attitude towards basic language courses than I’ve seen anywhere because they are not kept in a reservation for instructors. Everybody gets to teach them, including Full Professors. This is a great thing because we all get to meet students at every stage of the program. We don’t have tenured faculty who disdains languages and only agrees to teach graduate seminars.
I’ve seen programs where TT and tenured faculty despise language courses and shun the instructors. As a result, they have 2 Spanish majors at a huge Ivy League university in an area with a big Hispanic population. And we have 28 Majors in an area with no Hispanic population.
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Yes, this is crucial, but you also have to recognize that teaching these classes requires skills and specialized knowledge as much as your graduate seminar does–which is why they should be as challenging (and also as fun and enjoyable).
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Of course!! At another university where I work, language courses are taught by completely unqualified people (spouses, children of faculty, etc) and they have 1 Spanish major as a result.
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I imagine these are skills found in a greater proportion of the population than the skills to do a graduate seminar, however.
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You are not alone. Even the leaders of education movements are beginning to recognize that teaching methods need more than just a methodology.
http://chronicle.com/article/A-Tech-Happy-Professor-Reboots/130741/
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“He has avoided “clickers,” those remote-control-like gadgets that let students ring in answers, out of concern that they would take up too much class time and limit the amount of material he could cover.”
– Ugh. My school is trying to push us to use these stupid little devices but they are a ridiculous waste of time, worse even than multiple choice.
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