Teresa

Hub digest – 9th July, 2021

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There was a positive flurry of activity this week, with some fabulous crowdsourcing from Hubsters around how we teach and review phrasal verbs, some great tools for creating flashcards, voice recognition software and hybrid learning. There were also questions around what a digital poster presentation might look like for a conference and we were introduced to hope spots – “a collection of aqua bijoux scattered around the world that are so ecologically distinct they have the potential to heal the planet—if we protect them.”

There was also plenty of chat in our live events too, with our monthly Trainer Talking Time focussing on how we can develop our skills and knowledge in this area and our regular Thursday coffee breaks filled with thoughts on a variety of topics. There was also a question in the Hub about developing a framework for sessions with experienced teachers and our Wednesday Question on niche markets generated some interesting comments too.

Coming up next week, we’ll be joined by Rachael Roberts of Life Resourceful for a special Q&A on using social media for business purposes. That’s on Tuesday morning so feel free to add any questions to the thread in advance of the session (or come armed with questions!). And on Thursday, Zhenya Polosatova will be sharing her thoughts on reflective practice in the webinar.

Coffee and a collection of queries…

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We chatted about pay and whether prep time was included in our hourly rates at schools we had worked at before. Then we touched briefly on how pay can vary wildly in different countries (for example, in Geneva the starting rate is 40€+ per hour!) – though obviously cost of living is very different too. This made us wonder about charging different rates for people depending on where they’re based. A couple of people who are freelance said that they have different rates depending on the platform the student comes via – for example, LinkedIn might be a platform to market on with a higher rate as you’re more likely to interact with business people.

We chatted a lot about social media and about the need to post different content on different platforms. This led on to questions around batching content and whether it’s better to have a strict schedule or more flexibility. There was a question of whether the algorithm gods like consistency 🙂 Instagram was highlighted as a place ‘where all the happy yoga people are’ with a feeling that interactions on there tend to be largely positive simply because you can only love content, whilst on Facebook and LinkedIn there’s a wider variety of responses available.

There were also questions around using the analytics tool with a suggestion that it can be useful to know where your followers are based in terms of creating content to appeal to a particular market. As well, someone mentioned that it’s important to remember that just because someone doesn’t visually engage with your content, it doesn’t mean they don’t have you in their mind. There was a feeling that social media engagement is for a reward in the long-term more than one post immediately generating revenue. One other thing which was mentioned was about the importance of engaging with other people’s content for yours to be more visible and someone had heard the tip of liking ten posts before you post your own.

We touched very briefly on teacher organisations where we’re based and BELTA and ELTA-Rhine got a quick mention as places which promote PD and often have things going on.

And finally we chatted about transcription tools – no new ones were mentioned although we had a chat around how forgiving they can be – it feels like sometimes they aren’t so great for allowing learners to see their pron mistakes as the tech is developing and correcting errors which in recognises in chunks; at the same time it was felt that often if you don’t have a standard accent or if you haven’t scripted the content, the AI is less precise. We chatted a bit around putting closed captions on video content for social media – for example with YouTube there’s an option to automatically create subtitles which you can then edit, and Instagram offers a captioning tool but it might only be available through certain versions. This led us on finally to discuss very briefly whether subtitles are a crutch for learners and whether using them means you practise reading more than listening.

How do you develop as a trainer?

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Wowsers! What an incredible session with lots of great ideas for how to develop once we get into teacher training, as well as some ideas for courses for would-be and experienced trainers. There are lots of really useful links here, but please feel free to add anything else in the comments. Thanks so much to everyone who came along, as well as those wonderful people who shared thoughts with me as they couldn’t make it 😁

Speaking at conferences

There were mixed feelings about presenting at conferences: some people love it, others don’t. Interestingly as well, there were mixed feelings about presenting online rather than at an in-person event. On the one hand, some people mentioned that presenting online felt less daunting, whereas when they had presented at conferences in the past the entire day felt it was taken up by your one-hour session. On the other hand, we talked about the energy of the room generating enthusiasm for the topic at an in-person event, which is difficult to mimic online. Another drawback to presenting at an online event is that the presenter is more responsible for the tech whereas in-person events often have tech set up already and room organisers to help deal with any issues.

We also chatted about the process of preparing a session and how we don’t need to feel that we are ‘experts’ in our chosen field, but rather using the conference as an opportunity to share what we’re learning ourselves. The conference presentation can be the end product after time researching or reflecting, but it can also be a mid-product, giving us the opportunity to share our thoughts with others and reflect on their input before we continue. We highlighted as well the old adage of ‘there’s nothing new in TEFL’ and noted that talks can often be a way to reassure participants that they’re doing the right thing, or encourage them to reflect on different ways of doing things.

As well as speaking at conferences, getting involved in the behind-the-secenes organization was mentioned. One Hubster was a regional coordinator for their national teachers’ association, which allowed them to interact more with other trainers in the process of organising events.

There was also a feeling that a lot of conferences could do more to cater for teacher trainers. It feels like a lot of conferences are aimed at teachers and often offer a lot of practical sessions which perhaps lack the research behind why those ideas are sound. There was a suggestion for conferences to offer a Teacher Training strand as they do with other specialisations, such as BE or YLs.

Training

We talked a lot about how we develop through the process of training. One way in which we can broaden our horizons is to interact with trainers from different centres, as this allows us to see how different people approach a topic. The topic of communication between trainers working together on a course also came up, particularly around the need to develop effective communication when working online. Those who have trained online felt communication with colleagues, for example via WhatsApp or email, was often more time-consuming than it would be if they were sharing a staffroom.

The staffroom – whether in a teacher training centre or language school – was also a source of inspiration. Eavesdropping on people’s conversations or finding a resource which somebody had left by the photocopier were both ways people felt they had developed, with one Hubster saying they’d probably picked up 90% of whet they knew from the staffroom.

Another aspect of training which we talked about was observing others train. This generally happens a lot during the process of becoming a trainer and some people mentioned how interesting it was to see the notes that observers made when they were deliviering a session as this helps us to reflect on our training style and the way information is conveyed. Furthermore, observing colleagues giving a session, or comparing notes on how you might deliver a session was considered a useful way of reflecting on our training style, and we chatted about the different approaches trainers take to delivering content, such as using a PowerPoint presentation or flipping the content and having trainees look at a topic individually then coming together to discuss it. Another suggestion was to use Padlet so that trainees could post any questions they have about a topic before an input session. Then at the end of the session, there would be a slot to look at any unanswered questions as a group – which may also bring in new perspectives for the trainer too.

We also said that the shift to online training has forced many of us to evaluate the way we deliver certain sessions, particularly when we’ve repeated sessions for a number of years in an in-person context.

A further suggestion for how we can develop through training is to record ourselves. One trainer mentioned reflecting on the lesson planning sessions had made her less prescriptive in subsequent sessions; another trainer talked about being particularly interested in evaluating the interaction techniques in her sessions, with a ficus on the type of questions she asks and how her trainer talk scaffolds the session and supports trainees.

We suggested the possibility in a future session of sharing a snippet of a recording and providing feedback on each other as a way of helping to develop our training skills. There was a feeling that training is perhaps more ‘closed door’ than teaching but that it’s important to have that accounatbility and feedback as we can easily become fossilized in our training techniques.

Another possibility for a future Trainer Talking Time would be to prepare notes on how we would deliver an input session on a particular topic and then compare our staging and activities.

There was lots of chat around ways we can share good practice – with an aside about a move away from calling it ‘best’ practice given that teaching and training contexts can differ so wildly. People mentioned wanting to see what goes on behind the scenes, for example the ways trainers use a backchannel during online training or the feedback people share on a lesson.

Doing standardisation activities is a way that we can share and learn from our colleagues. Instead of being an obligatory task that we need to carry out each year, it’s good to use them as a developmental tool, looking at the comments which other people have in terms of wording, the balance of formative and summative feedback, the length of comments, and so on. 

How people use their whiteboard was also mentioned as a way that we can learn from others and you can find a number of posts on Twitter where people share and comment on each others #ELTwhiteboard.

Trainer development courses

There was a definite feeling of ‘floating’ into training, with many of us working in training before taking any formal development courses.

We talked briefly about the Train the Trainer course offered by CELTAthens and NILE’s Trainer Development course. Both involve an amount of synchronous and asynchronous work, but it was felt that perhaps the Train the Trainer course offered more of an interactive experience, with two Zoom session per week over the 5-week course. If you want to read more about people’s experiences with these courses, Rachel Tsateri blogged about taking the Train the Trainer course through Anatolia Training Insitute and Sandy Millin took the face-to-face TD course at NILE a couple of years ago.

Another couple of courses mentioned were the IH Teacher to Trainer course, From Teacher to Trainer, also offered by NILE, and the e-Moderation course run by TCE. 

Differentiation

As always, there were other fantastic comments around training, which don’t fit nicely into the sections above!

Differentiation was discussed, both in terms of supporting trainees on pre-service qualifications and providing personalised CPD in-house. One drawback of moving towards a personalised CPD programme for teachers is that it may affect the ‘community’ as they are likely to be less moments when all staff are together. However, it does mean that teachers can have more choice in the areas they would like to develop.

Thinking about differentiation on a CertTESOL or CELTA, we said that it can be challenging to provide extra content to stronger candidates. We also touched briefly on the benefit of peer observation on these courses and noted that when given the option, many trainees continue to observe, though when someone chooses not to, it tends to be an individual who would most benefit from it.

Questions to reflect on:

  • What do you feel are the differences between training on a pre-service or teacher development course, training in-house and presenting at a conference?
  • How often do you have the opportunity to observe someone training?
  • What other suggestions do you have to develop as a trainer?

Further reading

Lots of teacher trainers have fantastic blogs about their experiences. As well as the ones already shared, here are five more you might like to check out:

Hub digest – 2nd July, 2021

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Happy Friday as we start July – this year is absolutely flying by! As always, it’s been a chatty week in the Hub and there have been some great threads in the Facebook group around recommendations for Business English courses, crowdsourcing ideas for reading texts and thinking about how we share resources with colleagues in our own context and further afield.

In our Focused Forum on Tuesday, we discussed coaching as this is a topic which had come up in a number of Hub chats. You can find the link to the notes here. The Wednesday Question generated lots of interesting responses this week as we talked about our favourite aspects of phonology. Some people liked individual sounds, others features of connected speech or working with rhyme.

And then on Thursday we had an awesome chat with Ixchell Reyes and Brent Warner of The DIESOL Podcast. We talked about their favourite tech tools, how they develop an episode of their podcast, the likelihood of tech replacing teachers in the future and much more. The notes for that will be coming shortly in the webinars section.

At the end of the webinar, we also announced another new feature coming this month in the Hub: Speaker’s Corner. It’s an idea Simon and I had been thinking about for a while, but a recent thread about getting into conference speaking spurred us into action! We’ll be replacing one of the Tuesday Focused Forums with this new event and the idea is for there to be three speakers who present a five-minute talk/idea/practical tip and a question followed by a ten-minute chat in groups to discuss. We’ll be posting a call for speakers in the Hub in the next few days.

Finally, coming up next week we have Trainer Talking Time on Tuesday and our fabulous Coffee Breaks on Thursday. Have a great weekend and see you all soon 😃

The DIESOL Podcast

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Digital Integration - with Ixchell Reyes and Brent Warner (webinar)
Watch now

Thanks to the power of the PLN, after a tweet I sent out a couple of months ago, we were joined by the fabulous hosts of The DIESOL Podcast, Ixchell Reyes and Brent Warner. Ixchell started out as a kindergarten teacher, but always wanted to teach language and has been teaching in adult education for around the past 12 years. Brent started working in ESOL during college and spent a few years overseas before returning to California where he and Ixchell met. Brent used to run another podcast which Ixchell listened to before they met as there was a lot of resistance in her context to integrate tech into lessons. Their idea for The DIESOL Podcast came from a similar idea: that they couldn’t find what they were looking for and also wanted to share their passion for edtech with others. Even before the pandemic, learners and teachers had access to so many resources that they could use to make the language learning process more effective but there was often a feeling of ‘why do we need to add something new?’ in many contexts.

How do they develop an episode?

They get a lot of inspiration from what’s happening in the broader edtech world and see what people are chatting about on Twitter. The podcast sometimes involves an interview with either someone who’s working in ELT and integrating tech into their lessons, or with someone who’s working in edtech but not necessarily limited to the world of ELT. Then they also run shows to look at a product or topic. They start by sharing some background on the topic – and one thing I love from their website is that they talk about “thoughtful, pedagogically sound approaches” – and then go on to share some practical ways to integrate tech into the topic or classroom. Sometimes it can be a problem-solving approach, as if they’re aware that something is an issue in their own context, it’s likely it’s happening in other contexts too.

Jumping the gap

We talked a little (obviously!) about the impact of the pandemic on edtech and how many less experienced teachers suddenly became the experts people turned too as they were more familiar with edtech and how it could be used effectively. Ixchell made a great point as well that if you let the gap between you and tech grow, the jump you have to make to close the gap becomes scarier the larger it is. When we were suddenly forced to jump, some people had a small gap to cross; for others, it felt like a chasm. But, it’s definitely part of your mindset as well and those who have the support to learn and are open-minded towards the process will be able to bridge the gap more easily.

What are their top tech tools?

Brent says Google and the G-Suite tools are in his classes everyday. They give learners easy access to everything you’re doing in class, plus you can add comments and annotations easily.  There’s also a great add-on, Mote, which allows you to add audio into the Google file. There were some comments in the chat around the use of Google from concerns around it being an omnipresent data gatherer to the challenges of learners using Google Translate and submitting poorly written assignments and how we can teach them to use the tools available to them – perhaps not to encourage them to use them in class but to give them the skills to use them effectively in the future.
He says podcasts are also a great resource for learners as they can listen to English and pursue their own interests – a huge boost for their intrinsic motivation. We’ve chatted in the Hub before about how we rarely consume audio content without visual support nowadays and so encouraging learners to listen to podcasts also provides them with that exposure to audio-only content, particularly useful for learners who are preparing for exams with an audio component.

For Ixchell, Google docs is also a big favourite, particularly as it allows for learners to collaborate in real-time (and asynchronously). Another bonus of using Google docs is that learners don’t need an account to be able to contribute. Access, particularly when working with students based in different countries, is an important factor to consider with edtech as there might be limited access to certain apps and websites in some places.
Flipgrid is another firm favourite with lots of great features such as allowing learners to hide their faces or adding captions. If you’re looking for inspiration on how to incorporate Flipgrid into your lessons, check out this episode of the podcast.
Adobe Spark is a simple interface which allows learners to illustrate without requiring a lot of tech skills (more on how to use it in this episode). This is fabulous for allowing your creative learners an outlet and also a great tool to provide visuals as a teacher. Brent adds that these last two have really inspired learners to do more outside the classroom as they’ve enjoyed using the tech so much.

For more of their favourites, check out the episode 21 Tools for 2021.

The ‘bells and whistles’ of edtech

There are a lot of apps for language learning which aren’t developed by linguists and are probably developed for the market to make money rather than actually support language learners. Brent and Ixchell are keen to promote free resources which support language learning and will empower teachers to explore the tools available to them, so they spend time researching tools and identify how effective the tools they present will be. Ixchell talks as well about getting feedback from the learners about the tech she uses in class as a way of measuring its effectiveness and whether to use it again in the future. Brent mentions how learners (and teachers) access the tool as well: is it an app that needs to be downloaded? Is it a website that people can access easily from anywhere? What about wi-fi connection and memory?

New to Clubhouse

Speaking of apps which are limited to only one platform, Clubhouse is now available on Android after originally being developed as an Apple product. And Ixchell says that another joy of working in edtech is that just when you think everyone’s tired of a particular product, you realise that it’s new for someone. 
It’s like talk radio in an app so you can choose from different rooms to go into and listen. However, if you do want to interact, you can raise your hand and might be invited to the stage to ask a question or add a comment.
It’s not limited to ELT, so there are rooms on a wide variety of topics and you can come and go as you like. For example, Ixchell mentions a lullaby club – a group who get together and whisper their songs around 11pm. Brent says there are a lot of conversation clubs happening too, with langauge learners from around the world coming together to chat – another way that tech is empowering learners to take learning into their own hands.

Will tech ever replace teachers?

Brent feels that top-down teaching may be on the way out – lecture halls might disappear as learners will be able to access this type of content in a different format. Labs and small group contexts which allow learners to interact will become more important. Furthermore, in terms of the teacher, a person who can give feedback and make adjustments as a learner goes through the process (‘the guide on the side’) will continue to be important. As well, learners will continue to need support in how to take responsibility for their learning, so someone who can provide them with vetted, effective resources will still be required. 

Ixchell agrees that there’ll be a shift but that we won’t be replaced (phew!). She says that while students can still learn without having a physical teacher, the motivation of engagement and interaction can’t be fully replaced. She says that an online search might be the first step but that she then goes on to look for a human guide, adding that there’s something technology and algorithms will probably never be able to replicate.

This question generated some lovely comments in the chat on Facebook too, with some people talking about a move towards coaching or mentoring more than teaching and the role of the teacher to facilitate, rather than direct, learning. For more on encouraging independent learning, check out this episode of the podcast.

Bringing tech to life

We touched briefly on the challenges of showcasing tech tools in an audio-only environment. Ixchell highlighted that the podcast is less about teaching people how to use the tool, but rather giving them ideas for how to incorporate it. They hope that the podcast motivates people to look into the tools available and although they would like to do some ‘deep dives’ into topics or products, it’s sometimes difficult to make this content engaging for listeners. 

How has podcasting helped them as teachers?

Ixchell says that listening to other people’s podcasts in preparation for high-interest episodes helped her to grow as a teacher and increased her knowledge of the tools that are available. SHe says as well that introducing her students to podcasts has really helped them in their preparation for the TOEFL exam as they are able to listen to topics that interest them and this in turn helps build their vocabulary.  Brent adds that it gives you the opportunity to interact with other people, especially in the world of teacher podcasters. He says teachers who podcast tend to be very motivated and motivating so can give you a boost when you need it.

We hope you enjoyed the chat and take a listen to the podcast on Apple, Spotify or via their website (and please leave a review if you’re listening on iTunes).

If you’re interested in getting in touch with Ixchell and Brent, you can find them on Twitter:

They’re also interested in hearing from teachers to get involved in the podcast, so do get in touh if you’re using a particular tool or a special edtech focus.

Some questions to reflect on:

  • How has your relationship with edtech changed since March 2020? How do you think it will develop moving forward?
  • Is the tech you’re currently using in lessons pedagogically sound?
  • What tools have you heard about that you’d like to try? How can you find out more about them?

How is coaching different to teaching?

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First off, an apology! After making the ad for the session, I listened to the podcast which Karen shared in the group and discovered that the order of actions is slightly different to what’s shown above, as it’s known as the GROW approach to coaching. First you identify your goals, then consider your current reality. From there you start to consider your options (which can be feasible or crazy, the idea is to get as many ideas down as you can) and then you identify the way forward.

Who is coaching for?

We talked a little about the difference between coaching in training and teaching contexts, as well as the challenges of coaching in a group situation. For the most part, our chat focused on coaching English language learners, rather than trainee teachers or others.

Whoever you’re working with, we identified a need to understand the degree of support people want as coaching is directing not leading; therefore, as Niamh Ryan points out in the podcast, it isn’t suitable for people who want to be told what to do.

We all agreed as well that we were initially a little resistant to the term ‘coaching’ and that it perhaps felt like a bit of a marketing ploy to charge more for classes! However, we also felt that in many cases, a lot of our teaching involves an aspect of coaching anyway, in terms of directing learners to resources they can use outside the class, as we felt that if they only have an hour or two of class time, the responsibility lies with them to put in the effort if they want to improve quickly.

The benefits of coaching in a 1-to-1 environment

We thought that it might be easier when working with individuals as you have the time to dedicate to talking to them about their goals, as well as helping them to identify the next steps they can take and providing support in the reflection process too. This might be more challenging in a group context, however we did come up with some possibilities for how it might work which we’ll look at shortly.

Another benefit is that you can develop a more personal relationship with the person. We said that coaching is very much about creating a safe space for coachees to open up about any problems they’re facing and the coach is much more able to ask delving questions to get to the underlying causes of issues, taking the time to form their questions carefully to support their coachee.

How might it work in groups?

We felt it would be tricky to coach everyone effectively in a group situation as each individual has different needs. However, we did suggest some ways of working which might enable us to incude more coaching aspects:

Build in one-to-one tutorial moments as an ongoing part of the course. We may sometimes do tutorials at the end of term; however we felt that these would be more effective as a more routine part of the lesson, as chances are that at the end of term everyone is winding down. Starting with a one-to-one moment following your initial needs analysis as a group, you can pinpoint areas which individuals are looking to work on and then reflect on their progress in a formative way during each term.

Structured reflection tasks. We identified that for learners to fully benefit from coaching, there needs to be a more in-depth reflection on the process of learning. For example, Francesca mentioned that on the pre-sessional courses which she’s worked on, learners are often given criteria to help them self-assess their work, whether it’s their level of participation, the range of vocabulary they used, or other areas. 

One of the criteria of assessment in Diploma-level lessons is that “learners are encouraged to evaluate, review and reflect on their learning” and we talked briefly about ways of doing this, such as by using exit tickets or having learners annotate the screen to highlight which activity they enjoyed most (as very basic ways of engaging learners in the reflective process…feels like that could be another Focused Forum topic!).

Some questions learners could perhaps ask themselves at the end of an activity to reflect on it include:

  • How did I feel about this activity?
  • Did I participate as much as I wanted to?
  • What words, phrases or structures did I use which are new to me?
  • What prevented me from doing better in the task?
  • What would I need to do differently next time?

Adding to the chat around reflection, we felt that it needed to be given more importance in class – though this is obviously a challenge with the time we have with learners to get through everything as it is. We also noted that coaching needs to be consistent and part of a planned, ongoing activity throughout the course. We all worried that we easily start the term full of new ideas and great intetnions, but for these things to work in practice, it needs dedicated planning and time.

We also thought in a group context that it would be wonderful to do some learner training to enable them to coach each other. It would require significant thought and training to be effective, but the results could be something magical.

One final comment about the reflective process was around accountability and we thought that perhaps as a coach, your role is to support people in their reflection, but not judge or evaluate their progress. This again links back to the podcast and the idea that coaching is linked to intrinsic motivation, so also not as suitable for those who value external approval for progress.

Areas for coaching

Confidence was a huge area where we felt that many learners would benefit from coaching, particularly if we can ask them the right questions to help them see their improvement.

Linked to this is the idea of a growth mindset – and a recommendation to watch Carol Dweck’s The Power of Yet if you haven’t already seen it.

Another suggestion was to work with learners’ will power and we all agreed that we’re guilty of choosing to watch an episode on Netflix instead of an ELT webinar which has been on our to do list! Similarly, we can work with our learners to encourage them to use those thirty-minute slots for something useful in their language learning.

We also suggested looking at study skills with them – another area which often isn’t given the importance it deserves as part of a general course.

And obviously we also thought that learners could use some coaching for how to improve certain skills, such as listening, writing or pronunciation. In terms of skills work, we said that this might be where coaching becomes more feasible in a group context – you could have a focus for each couple of weeks and provide the group with resources to help them work on a certain skill, but with a nod to those learners who specifically identified it as an area of interest during your needs analysis and initial tutorial.

And around pronunciation we had a little rant about the distinction between a pronunciation coach and an accent reduction coach 😬

Some interesting follow-up reading and viewing were mentioned:

Some questions to reflect on:

  • What elements of coaching would you like to incorporate into your teaching? How?
  • At what age could learners start reflecting on the learning process?
  • What questions have you asked your learners recently to help them reflect on their learning?

Huge thanks to everyone who came along 😍