Am I ready to be a teacher trainer?

Am I ready to be a teacher trainer?

Submitted by Tessa Woodward on 7 October, 2009

Experienced teachers sometimes ask themselves the question, 'Am I ready to be a teacher trainer?' They may ask in response to a request from a boss to run a workshop, in response to seeing a job advertisement, or in response to their own desire to keep developing and moving on in their professional field.

Each individual needs to answer the question for themselves, of course. But in this article, I’ll provide a few areas you might like to think about when turning the question over in your mind.

These are:

1.    What do you need in order to be any kind of teacher?

2.    Do you need anything more in order to train, educate or mentor other teachers?

3.    How can I judge if I’m ready to be a teacher trainer?

What do you need in order to be any kind of teacher?
It seems to me that in any kind of teaching, whether you teach a modern foreign language to someone who doesn’t speak it, or teach tennis or physics, you need the following:

·        Physical and mental stamina

·        Good management skills

·        The capacity to engage participants, relate to them both one to one and in groups, and find out what they know

·        A good understanding of the content you teach and an ability to transform it into (a) clear, succinct messages and (b) practice via tasks and materials

·        Good classroom skills – for example, the ability to hold attention, question, wait, listen well, make good quality interventions, explain, demonstrate, negotiate learning that is meaningful and relevant for participants, monitor groupwork and synthesize everyone’s offerings...

·        The ability to get on with colleagues and those above, to the side and below you in your context.

In addition, it’s good if a teacher can keep up to date on relevant literature, theory and practice; have thoughts on their own role as a change agent; and keep developing.

I’m sure you’ll think of other important areas that I’ve left out but it already reads as a pretty long list. Of course, if you are a teacher of teachers, all the above still apply. But let’s look at the next question.

Do you need anything more in order to train, educate or mentor fellow teachers?

Working with adults
If you normally teach children or teenagers, then the first extra is to get some practice working with adults. Adults may differ from young people in their relaxed pace, longer concentration spans, constructive sense of humour, ability and willingness to bring in their longer life experience, their motivation and their desire to know why you are asking them to do this or that task.

Getting experience
To be useful to other teachers, you really need to get as much experience as possible with different class sizes, levels, types of student, types of course, materials, teaching contexts, and so on.

Getting ‘meta’
It’s just not enough to be able to teach any more. You’ll now have to have a good understanding of what you can do in a classroom, who with or to, when, how, and why. In other words, you’ve got to get meta – that is, look over and behind all you do from a professional viewpoint so you can comment on it lucidly and provide shortcuts for others.

Core tasks
Many teacher trainers/mentors/educators, no matter how different their settings, find they are all involved with certain core tasks such as: helping teachers with lesson planning; observing teachers at work; giving feedback on observed lessons; and supporting teachers while they process new knowledge and experience, map the new onto what they knew before and draw their own conclusions. There are parallels between some of these teacher training core tasks and ordinary teaching. Thus, it could be said that giving feedback on observed teaching is similar to giving a language student feedback on an oral presentation done in class. Some skills – such as using tact, providing support and giving data-based commentary – can transfer from the language classroom to the teacher training classroom. Nevertheless, the core tasks of language teaching are pretty distinct in some ways and so their content and process, their what and how, need to be learned and practised.

One other thing that is distinct, in my view, is this: By becoming a workshop leader, conference presenter, observer of teachers, or any kind of teacher trainer, you are setting yourself a little apart – not just from your new adult students of teaching, but also from your colleagues, the teachers who have chosen not to become trainers. This will have implications that depend on the culture and context you work in. In some cultures, it will immediately give you pride, respect and support. In others, you will stand out like a lightening rod on top of a building. And if there’s any static electricity around in the atmosphere, you’ll draw it – especially if you are of a gender, age, religion, race or other group that is normally either conspicuously dominant or oppressed. It’s time to look at the last question.

How can I judge if I’m ready to be a teacher trainer?
Even someone who has just a little more knowledge or experience than another can be helpful to the other, for a time. So, even if you’ve just been teaching for six months, you can still be useful to the newly qualified teacher who’s just arrived in your staffroom. We can, too, take a very broad definition of a teacher trainer and say that it is anyone who helps a colleague with an idea for their next lesson or who spends time listening to an upset colleague after a bad class.*

In this way, if we start naturally with colleagues, if we start small, then most of us actually are teachers who are part mentor, part teacher trainer. Being a teacher trainer, in my view, shouldn’t mean leaving the language classroom. For if you stop language teaching for months on end, how can you keep realistic and helpful to those who are about to be, or who still are, in the thick of it all? So to answer this final question… if you’re enjoying your language teaching, and getting better at all the tasks noted under question 1, if you’re being turned to for help and support by colleagues, as noted under question 3, and if you’re willing to work on the tasks under question 2, then you’re probably as ready as you’ll ever be!

How to Share Useful – and Respectful – Feedback

How to Share Useful – and Respectful – Feedback

Carter McNamara, MBA, PhD

Feedback to employees is information regarding their performance and also is information they can act on. Feedback must be shared in a manner that is understandable to them and is perceived by them as being provided in a highly respectful manner. Sharing feedback involves skills in effective listening, verbal and non-verbal communications, and working in multi-cultural environments. Consider the following guidelines, as well.

 

1. Be clear about what you want to say before you say it.

You might have already sensed what feedback you want to convey. However, you should be clear to yourself about what you want to convey and how you want to convey it.

 

2. Share your feedback in a concise and specific manner, then you can embellish.

People often lose specificity when they speak because they say far too much, rather than not enough. Or, they speak about general themes and patterns. When giving feedback, first share what you saw or heard, what you want instead, and how the person can achieve it. Then you can add more descriptive information if necessary.

 

3. Avoid generalizations.

Avoid use of the words “all,” “never” and “always.” Those words can seem extreme, lack credibility and place arbitrary limits on behavior. Be more precise about quantity or proportion, if you address terms of quantities, at all.

 

4. Be descriptive rather than evaluative.

Report what you are seeing, hearing or feeling. Attempt to avoid evaluative words, such as “good” or “bad.” It may be helpful to quickly share your particular feeling, if appropriate, but do not dwell on it or become emotional.

 

5. Own the feedback.

The information should be about your own perception of information, not about the other’s perceptions, assumptions and motives. Use ‘I’ statements as much as possible to indicate that your impressions are your own.

 

 

6. Be careful about giving advice.

When giving feedback, it is often best to do one thing at a time – share your feedback, get the person’s response to your feedback, and then, when he/she is more ready to consider additional information, share your advice with him/her. 

 

Giving and Receiving Feedback

Feedback: Negative, Positive or Just Right?

Gail Zack Anderson

Some of us are really good at giving positive feedback. Others are really good at giving negative feedback. Not many seem skilled in providing both, what I call balanced feedback. Occasionally a client will tell me, “just tell it like it is. Be brutally honest.” Or, “you are just being nice.” This makes me wonder if my feedback is too polite, or too subtle, even though I try to give it honestly and in a balanced fashion. Why? Let’s take a look at what can happen when you give feedback, either too positive or too negative.

 

Too little positive feedback

While working recently with a manager, I noticed that he tended to give mostly negative feedback, and very little positive. This manager stated that he had been taught that giving negative feedback would be more motivational. He also thought positive feedback seemed “too soft” and unnecessary. As he added: “Why should we praise people for just doing their jobs?”

When most or all feedback is negative, people know what you don’t like, but they often have to guess at what you do like or want from them. They may feel overwhelmed and discouraged by the criticism, and they may take it personally. They don’t ready minds, and so are often confused about what you really want. They may lose confidence, since everything they do seems wrong. In addition, if the only time they hear from you is when you have a complaint, they may soon begin to feel defensive, or try to avoid interactions with you.

That said, negative feedback has its place. To be effective it needs to be specific and non-judgmental. Compare these two comments on a written report:

1.    “I can’t believe you turned in such shoddy work. Don’t you know any better?”

2.    “One of your conclusions was faulty and you had 3 typos on the report.”

The first comment is shaming and demotivating. I feel bad, but I don’t know what I should do differently. The second comment seems deliberately unemotional, so it takes the shame out of it. It also gives me specific information about what I can do to improve.

 

Too much positive feedback

If you are a big believer in positive feedback, or if you don’t want to hurt people’s feelings, you may be relying too much on positive feedback and fail to deliver the bad news. We have all heard about employees who received glowing performance reviews right up to the day they were let go for “performance issues.” Obviously, there were problems that should have been addressed. If all you give is positive feedback, people can have an unrealistically high view of their worth and performance levels. Because they receive unbalanced feedback, they can have confidence above and beyond their actual performance levels.

Positive reinforcement certainly has its place, and to be effective it also needs to be specific and clear. Consider these two examples:

1.    “Good job. Keep it up.”

2.    “Your report was clear, your conclusions were on target, and the writing was crisp and accurate.”

The first comment may make me feel good, but I am not really sure what was right about my work. It might make me feel bad because you didn’t even take time to notice what I did. In other words, the easy compliment seems canned and can come across as insincere. The second comment is all positive, but it tells me what you valued, and clearly shows you read my report.

 

 

 

Balanced feedback

Balanced feedback provides feedback on what is being done well as well as what could be improved. The positive feedback builds confidence and reinforces the “good” behaviour you want to see more of. It clarifies expectations. It feels good. The negative feedback is given factually and preferably with suggestions for improvement.

Consider this example of balanced feedback:

“Your report was clear, your conclusions were on target, and the writing was crisp and accurate. There were several typos, and for that I suggest more careful proofing. And one of your conclusions wasn’t clear to me. Let’s talk it over this afternoon and compare notes. Overall, great job!”

If you lead, coach or develop people, I suggest aiming for balanced feedback that builds confidence, shows the direction you want the performance to take, and highlights areas for improvement in a clear, non-punishing way. At the same time, note that people react differently. Some crave the honest feedback, and some crave the “feel good” aspects of positive feedback. Some remember and take to heart any criticism, and some live for it. So adjust accordingly, but always strive to be honest, sincere and matter-of-fact.

By being honest and straightforward, and by offering balanced feedback, the people you influence can build skills and confidence at the same time.

Physically active reading activities

Physically active reading activities

One solution to many potential problems with reading is to use texts in ways that get students physically moving around.

Written by Alex Case for TEFL.net

There are all kinds of issues with using reading texts in class, such as it being silent, students finishing at very different times and needing to wait for the slow ones, being something students could just as easily do at home on their own, and reminding some students of the uncommunicative language classes they had at school. Another potential problem is that you can’t be sure what they are doing or what is going through their heads as they look at the page, unlike during a speaking activity. None of these reasons mean that we shouldn’t use texts during class time, however, as students may well be using bad methods like looking up every word in a dictionary when they read at home and never learn good strategies like skimming, scanning and guessing words from context without help. Texts are also often used as examples of language in context for later language analysis and production. In fact, when some of our students rarely read anything longer than an SMS even in their own language, it is increasingly important that reading is done in the classroom.

One solution to many potential problems with reading is to use texts in ways that get students physically moving around. Ideas like these are particularly useful when you need a warmer (especially in specific reading or exam preparation classes), when you have young learners, or when you have students who are so little motivated to read the text that you suspect some of them are doing little more than moving their eyes across the page and then waiting for you to give them the answers. Below are six ideas of how to put a physical element into almost any reading activity, with descriptions of different ways of using each idea. Most of the ideas are suitable for both young learners and adults, with the exceptions explained each time.

1. Cut up pieces of paper on the table

This is the most well known but least physical of the ideas here- cutting up the text and asking students to work in groups to put it back in order and/ or to match the headings to the paragraphs. A variation on this which works well for exam classes is to get them to match the questions to the texts in this way as a reading for gist activity before they later go on and answer the questions. You can add a bit more physicality to this and other cut up text activities by putting a huge pile of sections for everyone to help themselves to somewhere rather than giving out separate sets for each group. Putting this pile of slips of paper far from everyone adds to the amount that students have to move.

Another idea is to turn matching up cut up texts into a genuine jigsaw text activity where the meaning and whether the pieces physically fit have to be used together to finish the task, but note that this takes some planning to make sure that each section can physically fit in several places but not everywhere.

2. Texts pinned up around the room

Perhaps the most well known version of this is a running dictation, where one person from each pair goes back and forth from the text on the wall to their desk in order to eventually dictate the whole text for their partner to write down. Although reading is involved, the activity as described here is not a particularly good test of reading comprehension as people can write down things they don’t understand and it encourages reading slowly word by word rather than quickly searching for information that you are interested in. You can easily adapt the idea, however, so that the person sitting down has the comprehension questions, which they can read out (but not show) to their partner a few at a time. Their partner then goes up to the text to find the answers and relay them back so that the person sitting down can write them on the answer sheet. You can also have the whole class walking round in this way by telling them to keep their questions on the table and while the text is pinned to the wall, possibly split into pieces so that they aren’t crowding round the same piece of paper at the same time and have to move around more. You could also have the text on the table and the questions on the wall- or even the paper to write their answers on on the table, the comprehension questions on one wall, and the text on another wall. With young learners, you could get them more excited by making a statement about one of the texts on the wall so that they run to the right text as quickly as possible and touch it with their left little finger, put their Post It on it and sit down, or whatever other action you tell them to do.

Another activity where they all walk round the class at the same time involves the teacher putting envelopes on the wall below the bits of the text. I’ve used this for matching paragraphs to headings in the IELTS and other exams by giving each student a copy of all the headings on strips of paper and asking them to write their name on the backs and put each heading into the envelope under the text that they think it matches. They could also do something similar by writing their names on the back of true false questions and then putting them into boxes marked T and F as they read the texts put around the room.

A really challenging and fun reading task that involves following texts that are put all over the classroom and is suitable for both kids and lower level adults who like warmers is a treasure hunt. Write a series of texts where each one gives a hint about where the next one is, e.g. “The next clue is under the desk nearest to the plant”, and then put them round the room in the positions which are described there. Teams can take turns trying to finish the whole thing in a very limited time limit, the whole class could work together with students taking turns to look for the next hint, or you could have one treasure hunt for each team, e.g. on different coloured slips of paper. The students can then design similar challenges of the other teams.

3. Moving around a very big text

The easiest way of making the text big and therefore something students have to physically move around is to project it onto the board. You can then play games like asking pairs of students to race to underline the answer to the question you shout out. The questions can also be held up on a piece of card or revealed at the top of the board rather than shouted out. Another way of doing this is to paste the text into Word, change the font size to the largest one you can without breaking up individual words, e.g. 48, and print the whole thing off on 20 or so pieces of A4 paper. Tape these together in a long strip and then put it along students’ desks, on the floor or along one wall, to be used in the same way as the board ones described above.

4. React physically to a text

The simplest way of doing this is to call out a number on their worksheet or flash something up on the board and ask them to do the action there. A great variation for kids is Chain Actions, in which you make the list of actions they have to do in a row and read out loud longer and longer by adding one to the end of the list each time, until they are completely tired out. For example, you start with them reading “1. Stand up. 20. Sit down” off the board as they do those actions, and then add one from “2. Turn around.”, “3. Touch the carpet” etc each time (not actually getting up to 20 actions most of the time!).A more adult version is to give them a text where they have to move the people and furniture in the room (or paper versions on the board or on their table) around to match what is being described. This is more motivating if they then have to do something with that scene, e.g. solve a murder mystery or find the answer to a logic puzzle.

The problem with the read and react activities above as reading comprehension is that they depend on understanding every word and the texts are much shorter than the ones you would usually use in class. There are, however, physical ways of reacting to normal reading texts. For example, if you have a list of true/ false questions, you can read one out or flash it up on the board and ask them to do something physical to show which answer they think is the right one. Actions include holding up their right or left hand, sillier variations like touching their nose or knee, holding up pieces of paper with “T” and “F” written on them, pointing to similar flashcards on opposite walls, racing to slap their palms down on similar cards on the desk, throwing things at the left or right half of the board, or (with young learners) running and touching those cards on the walls. Similar things can be done with four cards to represent the options in a multiple choice question or letters to represent different paragraphs in the text.

An activity that includes longer texts but demands students listen carefully to every word is asking them to react physically, e.g. put up their hands, every time you make mistakes as you read out a text they have in front of them.

5. Reading as a prompt for mingling activities

Mingling activities, e.g. Find Someone Who, are well known ways of getting students moving around the classroom. Although it takes a lot of work, it is possible to write texts for each person that they have to read from in order to do a mingling activity. The classic Communication Games photocopiable books have some good versions of this, e.g. Haven’t I Seen You Somewhere Before, in which the students read from their life stories and compare with their partners (orally) in order to find when in their lives they could have met before. As with most of the ideas in this article, it is best if the texts are long enough that they have to use normal reading skills, e.g. skimming, scanning and reading for gist.

6. Run (or walk) and check

Do a normal reading activity but ask students to come up to your desk every time they think they have finished to be told how many of their answers are right and how many are wrong, and then go back to their pair or group and try again.

Written by Alex Case for TEFL.net

March 2010 | Filed under Activities, Reading