TEFL Trainer Hub

Online training skills

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My apologies – I should have written these notes up immediately after the session when it was all fresh in my head! Please do add anything I’ve missed in the comments 🙂

A big theme of the chat today was around digital literacy, as well as the assumed digital literacy teachers and learners have. We identified a need for our teacher development sessions to involve introducing teachers to the tools they can use and demonstrating how to use them – similarly to how we (should) showcase a website for learners to use at home as a part of our lessons, as opposed to just sending them home with a list of links. As to often happens when we talk about tech, the question of the pedagogical value of the shiny new tool came up and the need for teachers (and trainers) to think critically about the benefit of delivering content in a particular format. Similarly, a reminder for tech not to overwhelm: introduce one tool at a time and give people the space and time to familiarise themselves with it.

Tech in training

From a tutoring viewpoint, we also asked how easy it is to assess someone’s teaching skills if the lesson is tech-heavy. I remember a few years ago, I observed a trainee who was superfluous to the lesson – everything was on the Powerpoint presentation and as long as a learner could press next (and didn’t have any questions), the teacher didn’t really need to be in the room! 

Thinking about the materials assignment on the Trinity CertTESOL too, we said how moderators are trained to ‘see through the sparkles’. And, similarly to how we often tell train to Select, Adapt and Supplement the coursebook, they need to learn to exploit digital materials in the same way.

Another point which came up was around having a specific question on the assessed lesson plan around anticipated problems with tech. In the past, we would also tell teachers to have a plan B for if tech didn’t work, but what happens when everything revolves around tech? We also noted that we had seen a lot of ‘tech-blaming’ in trainee’s reflections: either blaming the tech for them not achieving their lesson aims adequately, or (worse) blaming the learners for not using the tech effectively and so not achieving the desired outcome.

Cross-training

Online teaching was around before the pandemic and it’s not likely to disappear anytime soon! As such, we agreed that pre-service training courses should constantly encourage trainees to consider how things might be different in each environment. It’s tricky on an initial qualification course to know where someone might end up, but we can do our best to prepare them as far as possible in the time we have.

There was a suggestion for face-to-face courses to involve some online sessions, either with trainees working on their own devices in the centre or – as is much more realistic nowadays – working from home online. There was a suggestion that the Unknown Language component of the CertTESOL – which involves four hours of instruction – could have a 50-50 split with two lesson delivered face-to-face and two online. This would allow trainees to experience learning in both environments, even if all their teaching practice is delivered face-to-face.

We wondered as well whether the way people approach an online course might be different to how they participate in a face-to-face course. There was a question of whether note-taking is a generational ‘thing’ with some trainers saying they felt the younger generation seemed to be able to ‘absorb’ knowledge more easily nowadays.

However, we also felt that it was important to set up expectations for how they view and participate in the learning environment. On a face-to-face course, people come to the centre, they sit in the classroom and they behave in a particular way (hopefully!). 

Some challenges of training online

One thing we identified as being difficult as an instructor – and so something to think about as we train others – is not getting visual feedback from others. In the physical classroom, it’s far easier to read the room; in the online classroom this becomes much trickier, even if participants have their cameras on. However, working in an environment with cameras off is also something we should consider when training others. especially as it may lead to increased TTT to ‘fill the void’.

Another challenge was the distractions which participants might have around their online environment and the fact that it is far easier for people to be doing more than one thing at once, for example checking emails whilst watching an input session, popping onto Facebook during a lesson observation, etc.

Linked to this was a feeling that there is perhaps a more ‘casual’ vibe around video conferencing. We wondered whether this was perhaps as people might have used it before the pandemic to chat to family and friends, plus the fact that when suddenly we were thrown online, we spent a lot of time breaking down the affective filter, trying to make our online classes welcoming and enjoyable for learners as we all dealt with the disruption of a global pandemic.

Perhaps not a challenge, but an observation: we need to have more patience and do more learner training. At the start of a course, but also at the start of the academic year with our students, we should spend time looking at the resources they’ll be using. 

Some final thoughts…

One positive we all felt which had come out of the pandemic was a sense of community around teaching and training in ELT. There was a lot of helping each other out, with new skills being taught and learnt by all. And we highlighted the need for this community to be built for our trainees too and the need for there to be rapport-building opportunities built into the timetable for our online courses to try to mimic those moments when trainees would have a chat before or after the lesson, or ask each other how there weekend had been. Teaching can sometimes be quite a solitary profession and now more than ever we need to provide space for people to build relationships.

Does your teacher training encourage similar approaches and standard procedures, or teacher freedom and creativity?

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These were the sub-questions we shared in case people needed a starting point, but it was great to see how conversations developed naturally in groups as well:

  • When we’re thinking about training staff we’re working with, how much does it depend on the teachers you are working with and how much is school policy? If it was just down to you, what would you do?
  • For teacher training courses (like Cert/DipTESOL or CELTA/DELTA), the scope of many initial teacher training courses can be limited, what can we do to push certain trainees further while at the same time helping others reach minimal levels?
  • Thinking about initial teacher training courses as well – and leading on from Jason Anderson’s talk with DublinTEFL last week – should trainees be limited to a particular teaching model on a course? What are the pros and cons of introducing them to different approaches?

It was really interesting to get perspectives from different contexts: in-house trainers, those involved in pre-service qualifications as freelancers and those who train with one centre, trainers who have experience working with teachers around the world or in different contexts such as CLIL and EAP.

Experience

One area we chatted about was teachers’ motivation to develop; some people said they found new teachers were more open to professional development, whilst those with more experience were less motivated to attend training courses or sessions.

We also spoke about how it can sometimes be challenging to work with experienced teachers on a pre-service qualification (or indeed on a further qualification) as sometimes people can be less open to change. It can also be difficult for people who have been teaching for a number of years to then be observed and have their approaches and delivery critically assessed. It’s essential that we acknowledge people’s prior experience and approach feedback carefully.

Another challenge mentioned around working on a pre-service qualification was finding the balance of pushing stronger trainees whilst supporting those who need it, and we talked about the fact that trainees will often compare themselves to each other and need to be encouraged to focus on their own progress.

Thinking as well about initial training, that it may be very different to how you were taught at school – both in terms of how you’re expected to approach the content as well as the methodologies you’re being encouraged to use.

Communication

A key area which was discussed in relation to being a freelance trainer was in the centre communicating their values and beliefs – though it’s equally true that a centre should share their fundamental principles with any trainers they employ. One person mentioned not wanting to feel they were “selling their soul as a trainer” if they were asked to train in a way which was contrary to their beliefs. There was a brief bit of amusement as we shared some of our training pet peeves – things which are often demonstrated on courses to raise trainees’ awareness of certain things but which can easily be overdone (the main two mentioned were ICQs and eliciting).

We talked about how it can cause unnecessary stress for a trainee to get mixed messages about approaches to learning and teaching if trainers have different views on a topic. For example, if one trainer tells a group of trainees that they shouldn’t pre-teach lexis and then another trainer demoes a lesson pre-teaching lexis, it gives trainees a mixed message. It’s essential that we highlight to teachers that there are different ways of doing things – and this applies not only to approaches, methods and frameworks, but also thinking about how we might do things differently in an online class compared to a socially-distanced class.

Coursebooks

Most initial training courses will have trainees follow a coursebook and we talked about how it’s important that teachers know how to use them effectively – critical SAS (select, adapt, supplement), identifying what each part of the coursebook page is doing and knowing what could be used as a lead-in and where there is scope to personalise the language.

As trainers, we all tend to be quite prescriptive at the start of our courses, allowing trainees more freedom in their planning as the course progresses and, thinking about using different frameworks during a pre-service qualification, we discussed how difficult it can be for teachers to see them in action. This was particularly true for trainers who work in centres which have 40-minute lessons.

Adding to the chat around frameworks, there was some discussion over whether trainees get a little overwhelmed by being shown different teaching models in such a short amount of time.

In-house development through Covid

There was a sense that many teachers aren’t feeling inspired to attend training this year. “We just want to get through it” was a feeling mentioned, as well as the fact that teachers were forced to develop their teaching skills so much last year that they’re less inclined to do further development this year. There was again the sense of Zoom fatigue but also the stresses of being back in the physical classroom – remembering all the various protocols which are in place, honing emotional intelligence, working with windows open and the strain on the voice of teaching wearing a mask and in a classroom where learners are often speaking more loudly than before as they are socially-distanced. Also the fact that many of the things we did intuitively in the past have had to be reimagined; in all, it felt for some that Covid had taken the fun out of teaching.

Thinking as well about in-house development, questions came up which might be more suited to the Management Meet Up around the obligation to provide development for teachers or the obligation to attend in-house development. There’s so much available online now – often giving teachers the flexibility to watch recorded sessions in their own time. Furthermore, some people mentioned that difficulty of bringing people together and not just with social distancing regulations, but also in terms of finding a time which works for everyone’s schedule, especially in bigger schools or in contexts where people work in different places.

One member mentioned that teachers at the schools she’s at are required to complete a minimum number of hours CPD – but that this can be in-house, attending conferences or online sessions. For this school, the system is based on trust and teachers don’t need to provide evidence of the professional development they’re doing.

There was also a question around in-house development of who decides the topics to be covered: is it top-down with management saying, “This is what we’ll be doing”? Or are teachers asked at the start of the year or during appraisals what they would like to focus on?

Thanks everyone for coming!

Final thought…we didn’t discuss specific frameworks during the morning, but if you didn’t get a chance to attend Jason Anderson’s talk on lesson planning frameworks from DublinTEFL, I recommend giving it a watch.

Trainer Talking Time

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This was our first monthly event focussing on teacher training and it was great to see so many Hub members there. We broke off fairly quickly into breakout rooms after an initial hello and these were the three suggested questions:

  • How have you supported your teachers in their in-house professional development with the move online?
  • What other skills have teacher training courses needed to include?
  • How is observing online classes different to face-to-face classes?

From monitoring the chats, it felt like a lot of the conversations were around supporting teachers, initially with the move to online teaching in March 2020 and then again for those going back into the classroom – either in a socially-distanced or hybrid format – in September.

Supporting teachers

Different schools took different approaches to the move online: for some, teaching online was optional, with the opportunity to observe their more confident colleagues before starting their own groups online; in other cases, staffing was drastically reduced, sometimes with one teacher taking on all the remaining students whilst learning to use Zoom at the same time.

Some schools had a weekly trouble-shooting session for the move online, which started changed as teachers became more comfortable and confident with teaching online.

There were also ideas-sharing sessions, such as a monthly ‘Zoomroom’, for teachers to come together and share what had been working for them.

It also felt like a positive move that those who were ‘just’ teachers were becoming the experts, as trainers and managers often weren’t in the online classroom learning the important lessons about what works and what doesn’t. The role in that case became one of a facilitator – spotting who the experts are and asking them to help others.

For those involved in in-house development, adapting paper-based books to the online environment was mentioned, although in some cases learners are able to access their own copies of the books.

Another positive note was a feeling of becoming more ‘Zoom competent’ – as teachers and students gained experience working with whichever platform they were on, routines became much more routine and activities flowed more easily.

Supporting students

In some cases, schools provided guides to support parents during lockdown to help them help their own children.

There was also some chat around the idea of ‘digital natives’ – whilst many of our learners feel confident with a smartphone or tablet, many struggled with digital literacy on a desktop.

There was sometimes a degree of ‘assumed literacy’ for students which wasn’t always there.

People also mentioned how having the chat function had helped support weaker learners during online lessons – they could ask questions privately to teachers so felt more confident during the lessons.

And, another positive is that after the initial feeling of being a bit of a YouTuber when classes first moved online, some people now feel that the online classroom is a much less teacher-centred space, allowing for more collaboration between students and higher-order activities.

The hybrid classroom

It felt there was a distinct lack of resources to support teachers who were dealing with hybrid classes from September, particularly around ways of increasing interaction and engaging learners in both environments.

Teachers found a lot of online support through Facebook groups, particularly as in the States it was already being used in mainstream education. Doing a search in the groups (e.g. ‘hybrid’) will throw up great resources. These groups were highlighted (thanks Lucie!):

Teacher Tech – Alice Keeler

Teach with Tech

Teachers teaching with tech

Teachers using Jamboards

Some key points which were mentioned to make the hybrid class easier were the positioning of the camera, using a mic which can pick up the responses of learners in the traditional classroom and a reminder to always nominate rather than asking an open question to the class. And when nominating, it also helps to alternate between the two environments – or encouraging students to nominate a classmate in the other environment. It can also help to tell the students in the non-virtual classroom to imagine that their classmates are in the room next door as this encourages them to speak more loudly and clearly J

Some teachers have tried a buddy system, whereby a student in the classroom is paired with a student online. Alternatively, having one student in the physical classroom who’s ‘responsible’ for those online – ensuring instructions have been understood, sharing vocabulary in the chat box, etc.

For the teacher, it’s better to think of the class as having two objectives: one for those in the masked classroom and one for those online.

Working with lower-level groups was mentioned as being particularly tricky, as a combination of poor audio quality and mask-wearing can make it difficult for them to hear each other clearly.

Harry has also done a couple of great blogposts with tips for the set-up of a hybrid classroom and some hacks and activities.

Backchannelling on teacher training courses

It was suggested that backchannelling – setting up an alternate communication channel (e.g. using the chat box alongside what’s happening ‘live’) – was essential for the hybrid classroom. When working with younger learners, this needs to be done carefully as it could potentially lead to chaos. It’s also important for there to be a community of trust before private channels are opened up between students.

This led us on to talk about the idea of using it during lesson observations. Some trainers mentioned that they had always commented to fellow observers during pre-service training courses as it provides them with the opportunity to get much more from the observation process; others said they felt it could be distracting during a face-to-face course, but would feel comfortable using it during observed lessons.

It was also highlighted that although (online) chatting during the observation encourages reflection in action, it doesn’t provide reflection on action and this needs to be balanced out.

The private chat function can also be a good resource for encouraging pairwork on courses (or in classes). This can be especially useful if breakout rooms aren’t possible.

As an aside, there was a question of who can see the private chat if the chat is saved after the meeting ends – as a trial, we asked participants to send private messages to each other to see if they were visible in the saved chat. They weren’t, and from the settings in Zoom, it doesn’t seem to be a feature, but may be possible on other platforms.

Training online

Trainers were also largely thrown in at the deep end with pre-service qualifications, and some higher-level assessed teaching practice, moving online in 2020.

This feeling of not being an expert was mentioned by a couple of people – whilst in the past you would have gone into teacher training confident in your own teaching abilities, the shift online meant some felt a little like imposters observing and assessing others. However, on a positive note, some trainers felt that it was good for trainee teachers to see that we were learning too and making mistakes.

Keeping to the key principles on a training course was mentioned – balancing the tools available with the teaching skills needed, always with the idea that any tools should make the teaching better, to achieve the learning objective in a more effective manner. It’s very easy for us to get over-excited by a new tool and switch off our critical faculties!

KISS – keep it super(?) simple

However, it feels there’s still a slight discord in online teaching courses, with the best online methodology missing. It feels that at times classes have turned to ‘death by Powerpoint’ and as trainers, we need to be introducing our teachers to other formats, without overwhelming them with too many resources.

Another point which was mentioned was the importance of ensuring an online course provides trainees with the same support (both from tutors and peers) as a face-to-face course. The time dedicated at the end of a lesson for trainees to reflect and then share their thoughts with the tutor and peers is essential.

Recording lessons

This was briefly mentioned as a great tool for self-reflection, followed by some chat around the ethics of recording lessons, who has access to the recording and the purpose of recording.

A suggestion was that it might be possible to pin your video so that you’re the only one visible in the recording, but other people can be heard.

Listening back to snippets of the recording can really help to improve your teacher talk or online interaction.

Someone mentioned that it might be possible for Zoom to provide a transcription of a recording and otter.ai was mentioned as a (paid) site which will do the same.

A couple of extras:

Students accessing the class from home with technology has been explored on a smaller scale before – AV1 is a robot which was designed to support children who are in hospital or aren’t able to attend the school for other reasons.

There was also a report of an 8-year-old that worked out how to block her Zoom account so she couldn’t attend lesson.

Gavin Dudeney’s Facebook post was also highlighted:

So, suddenly not only are people being asked to use Zoom to teach all their classes online, they’re also being told they should be making it even more exciting by incorporating two hundred tools – Padlet, Quizlet, Schnizlet, Kahoot, Schrute, Gamut, Kakadu, Dobedoo and loads more.

Teachers are being told that they can’t just do it – there are experts who work in this field. It’s not the same as teaching face-to-face. You can’t just do what you’ve always done.

But, see… the thing is, you can (at least for the moment), and you probably actually should. Because your students need a teacher at the moment, not someone carrying out hurried experiments.

Ah sure, people will try to sell you things and tools and their advice and more, but maybe – just maybe the first thing you need to do is simply do a bit of teaching. Pick things up slowly, try something new occasionally.

Stick some sticky whiteboard paper on a wall in your house, get a decent webcam and a microphone and do what you do best – teach. Draw, write, show, demonstrate, ask questions, involve people, have discussions. Do what you know. In a while maybe try the breakout rooms, or add something else in. But first get comfortable.

Online teaching IS different, and in time you may well want to do a course, or get some more skills. And these may make you a better online teacher for as long as it’s needed. With some training you’ll acquire new skills and work out how to combine asynchronous tools with synchronous tools, how to plan an online course, how to moderate an online course, how to support and mentor people online. All this would be great, and useful – in the long run.

But for now, you know how to do what you do, so just do it like that and don’t get stressed or pressured. There will be time enough for everyone to become experts, I suspect.