Job Discussion Forums

[Sashadroogie]

Did I mention classroom methodology input sessions? The observed lessons? The writing out of clear, reconstructable lesson plans? The writing of a rationale, based on your research and reading, in order to justify what you are doing during a lesson? Post lesson analysis? True, this is similar to a Celta TP, but it is a whole lot more intense.

Many teachers assume that they already know how to do this properly. Many of them do not really know. But they learn.

[fluffyhamster]

[Voyeur]

To my mind, the primary advantage of the DELTA and MA are, for the lifers, income security during your later years. From what I have been reading, it gets harder and harder to land entry level jobs as you get into your fifties. Furthermore, after 20+ years, it probably becomes increasingly difficult to do such work. And in the future, this dynamic will only be exacerbated by the overarching trend of qualification inflation.

Regardless of their inherent value, formal qualifications like the DELTA and MA TESOL (or App. Ling.) are the hoops to be jumped through. They are a form of insurance--no doubt a teacher with less formal qualifications can work themselves into a nice situation that SHOULD provide for them in their older years. And if they are lucky, it will. But what happens if they aren't? What happens when you are in say your late fifties, with only a BA and a TEFL cert, and that perfect school that has treated you so well for the last 15 years--that you planned to teach at until the end of your days--suddenly goes bankrupt? And you face the qualification inflated job market of 2025 with your bachelors, gray hair, and nowhere near the needed youthful energy to start over as an entry-level academy monkey?

So I feel that much of this debate is academic. If you plan to make overseas teaching your career, you need the security of qualifications. In fact, if you are young and are looking at 30+ more years in the biz, I'm starting to think that an education path that ends with 'just' a MA TESOL and a DELTA might be a bit risky. It could be that for true security in the future, you want a PhD/EdD + DELTA for the ESL track, or teacher certification plus a Masters if you are taking the international school route.

[fluffyhamster]

@Sasha: My writing may not be the best, but it is better than some, and seems to have been coherent enough for you to follow it thus far. Implying it is incoherent is just so much more smoke and mirrors.

Yes, you mentioned input sessions, and we agree that that and the observed TP etc might bring harrowing flashbacks to (Viet)'Cert, but could be 'a whole lot more intense' (<shudders>). Do you have to take some form of stimulant stronger than coffee to get through it all?

Do tell us more about your experimental PTA. What was eye-opening about it? I like phonology, and reading about it, and watch clips like that Underhill one (posted a while back on another thread) with interest.

Syllabus design, I've dipped into a book or two on it and have a few more on the to-read pile. My fallback position though are the lexical syllabuses of Sinclair & Renouf, and Willis, and COBUILD generally. Those seem to cover quite a few bases without popping one's hernia.

I can't claim to be that experienced or an expert on formal test design and administration in western contexts, but I own and have dipped into books on vocabulary and speech testing, and have helped make the somewhat informal tests in Japanese high schools more coherent and fair (especially the actual marking if not design). On the Teacher forums there are posts concerning some of the more awry test items I've encountered. As for the tests I myself wrote, the JTEs remarked that they were unusual but elegant in design, and most importantly ITHO had measured/confirmed their students' perceived individual levels with a good degree of accuracy.

Course book and materials analysis, I have at least stuff like Tomlinson's edited CUP collection floating around here somewhere. There are several reasonably interesting papers in it.

[fluffyhamster]

@Voyeur: If qualification inflation continues unabated~speeds up, further qualifications may be no guarantee of steady employment. It might even be getting very near to or have finally reached that stage already, actually!

[Voyeur]

It all seems relative--there are of course no guarantees. But in a world where a PhD/DELTA combo (with publication, research, etc.) far from guarantee you a job, then one has to think that having just a MA would come close to guaranteeing you didn't have one.

That being said, life is full of exceptions. The one thing that seems clear to me is that if you are a 'lifer', especially someone with many years left, then if you aren't getting qualifications you sure as hell had better have a good alternative plan. And I am sure there are some--from extensive networking to developing a real specific niche. But on the whole, I imagine these are exceptions that prove the rule.

[Sashadroogie]

Fluffy, your writing was not implied to be the worst - certainly not the on this forum. However, just because a reader can follow, generally, the line of an argument does not mention that they have not been labouring under a strain, imposed by the carelessness of the writer. This is one of the criteria on the Delta course, not imposing a strain on the reader. A basic academic skill which may need re-activating fro some teachers. Like a returning sportsman shaping up long dormant muscles. Do you infer this applies to you? Fair enough.

Sounds like you are ready to just go straight for the PhD, Fluffy. All the best to you!

[Sashadroogie]

I was being somewhat tongue-in-cheek (note the original exclamation point), and think the discussion provides sufficient context for the remark if not makes up for it.

Actually, here is an example of strain-imposing. I think I can follow this, but there is an element of doubt still. However, if the point you are making is that there was sufficient context to make clear this remark's humorous intent, then I must disagree strongly. The context would argue in favour of its insulting sense, exclamation mark notwithstanding. Some more exemplars of what you mean by this would be useful.]

But, maybe it is my reading problem, which you have already, humorously, alluded to...

[fluffyhamster]

Edgy humour or irony or sarcy sass aside, maybe my posts are somewhat harder going than most because I try to put sufficient detail in them?

By the way, did I say I'd love to hear more about that eye-opening experimental PTA you did? I think you must've missed that bit. Just a couple of sentences would probably be enough to get an idea. Not imposing or anything though.

Some ideas for alternative threads:

How long did you teach before "forgetting" a lot of the things your training may've insisted on?

and

What have you added to your teaching that your training didn't see fit to quite provide?

And so on and so forth.

[spiral78]

[Sashadroogie]

Ah, Fluffy. I have many, many drinks upon me now, so I'll try not to impose a strain on the reader myself.

No, I didn't miss that bit, about the experimental PTA. Just didn't think that anything I offered would be well-received. Everything else has been pooh poohed. But for what it is worth, here it is.

Early on in my teaching days I had resolved never, ever to do any lesson with phonemic script, on account of it being too hard. For me and the students alike. However, being put in a position to 'stretch my comfort zone' (shocking phrase) I opted for this area. As I predicted, the learners, all zero beginners to a man, all had serious trouble with the exercise I had prepared for them, which was an introduction to the phonemic alphabet. Much gnashing of teeth occurred. However, the student feedback forms, written in L1, revealed that as challenging as the lesson was for them, they, most of them, felt that it was somehow more of a real lesson than other lessons. Sure, there were some tears, but the most tearful were the same ones who believed that this was an area that would be of highest importance to their learning.

My perceptions of what makes a valid lesson altered considerably. Phonemic lessons were suddenly not a bogey-man. Learner reaction, and the active seeking of it, became a mainstay of my classroom practice.

This was a vastly new insight for me, in my tender years. It only happened because I was on the course, and was forced into doing something totally new for me. But, I am certain that you'll post back how old hat this is, and you knew all these insights already, having read a second-hand account already.

Hic!

[fluffyhamster]

[Sashadroogie]

Experimental PTA was unobserved, if I recall correctly. However, I was awarded a distinction for my written submission based upon my findings, so trainer reaction seems to have been largely positive. Something about clarity. In any case, I am not sure that the key thing is to get a positive student reaction, during the lesson or afterwards. The key thing is to be aware of what is happening with the students, ask them if you have to, and reflect on how this should change classroom practices. Even negative feedback can help teachers in this regard.

Celta is not supposed to cover phonology in total - how can it? Delta doesn't either, but points the way for self-development. Even MA courses leave students to their own research devices in the main. Spoon-feeding is out.

I of course appreciate what you say about not everyone needing to be forced to do things to improve their teaching. But being on a course, voluntarily, does make you reassess your assumptions about classroom procedures. A second pair of eyes is always going to provide new insight into whatever field of research we are exploring, and whether that insight comes from the trainer or the other trainees is immaterial. In addition, a written exam at the end of a course, old-fashioned as that seems, focuses the mind sharply, and makes one memorise information that one has just skimmed over previously. A structured course, which points the way, with clear objectives and aims, is always going to give far more in the way of academic development than just self-directed research - apart from exceptional cases.

Maybe you are the exception Fluffy (let's have a poll!), but the vast, vast majority of other teachers out there would benefit similarly from initial and further training too. To scoff at such courses, and claim they are a waste of time and money, seems more about bolstering personal decisions, assumptions and fixed positions than a reliable assessment of the efficacy of EFL training.

[coledavis]

I'm not so sure about advanced training, other than perhaps in new techniques, but in my opinion people need refreshers because they develop bad habits and/or forget.