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!Â
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!).Â
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.Â
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.