Not sure if there was less interest in this topic or just everyone’s very busy (I know I am!) so notes are a little thin on the ground with more questions than answers😃
Pre-course support
Thinking about pre-service qualifications like the CELTA and CertTESOL, how much should/could trainees do before starting the course?
Can you contextualise something before you’re in the experience? Do new teachers have the necessary experience to draw on to make sense of everything?
Something focused on community building – getting to know the platform, each other, with tasks (forum/slack) to introduce themselves and something on beliefs (what will your classroom look like?) and expectations.
Exposing people to just how intense it is – if we know how stressful the course is for almost everyone, is it a problem with the course?
We also had an interesting chat about whether trainers are trying to fit more into the course? (as the profession has developed, there’s more things that we want trainees to be aware of, e.g. nativespeakerism, PARSNIPS, etc. but the four-week timeframe hasn’t changed)
In-course support
Reflection activities – we need to give people time/space and focus to consolidate what they’re learning.
Post-course support
What can you offer trainees as paid support and free support? e.g. careers advice could be free
You need to factor in the extra workload – both in terms of participant effort and tutor response.
Access to materials after the course (e.g. journal subscriptions for a period of time)
Six-month check-in / reflection / feedback (reunion) – what materials are you using that you’d like to share? – also beneficial for the centre to hear feedback after course participants have had more time to reflect as we often get quite immediate feedback at the end of a course