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:
- Wednesday Seminars by Zhenya Polosatova
- The Teacher Trainer Diaries, part of Jim Fuller’s Sponge ELT
- the CELTAchat blog (and attend a live #CELTAchat too)
- Matthew Noble journaled 20 days as a CELTA trainer a few years back on his blog, Muddles into Maxims
- Kate’s Crate – by Katherine Martinkevich – is a wonderful stepping stone to other blogs and articles
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