Job Discussion Forums

[fluffyhamster]

[spiral78]

[spiral78]

New Thread Needed?

We could likely have a useful and interesting conversation about something like:

Pros and Cons of basic-entry level training courses

Benefits and Problems of " " " "

or

What basic level courses can/should cannot/should not aim to do....

Anyone want to start such a thread? Good idea - or invitation to quarrel?

I think we'd have to start from the basic assumption that entry-level courses are generally desirable - otherwise we could spend a lot of pages justifying whether they are or not, and never get on to the substantive discussion of what they can/should accomplish.

[fluffyhamster]

I don't think there is any question that one needs to be educated in some basics in order to teach English. And there isn't even really much question as to what those basics should be. The main problem IMHO is the thoroughness of the knowledge aspects (phonetics, grammar) conveyed on "practical" courses, and/or the appropriacy of the methodology used to convey that knowledge. I for one would like to see a truly intensive month or two followed by a GENUINE, extended praticum. And I don't see why a lot of it couldn't be done by distance learning. (The way I usually learn is, I find a book that is reasonably well-written, and then I read it at least once. It broadly seems to work, but obviously a lot more can always be done to make especially phonetics and grammar more learnable. I'm working on a crash but thorough course, that I hope to one day post on Dave's and which shouldn't take more than a few hours to work through).

Language is more complex than medicine, but you don't see doctors qualifying with barely a month of the bare minimum of preparatory reading followed by plodding round invalid wards and dispensing the equivalent of only Band-Aids (TM).

[spiral78]

As I've just posted in the newbie forum, I think we can all agree that a CELTA or its equivalent are considered entry-level - they're only meant to get one started, hopefully kinda on the right track.
If it's being presented as anything more than a start in the right direction, that's false advertising.

I think we could usefully discuss the methodology used on courses - I've worked on both entry-level and in-service teacher training courses for experienced teachers, and I've also been an MA TESL/TEFL tutor: this is interesting to me.

I'd agree that some of the background stuff could be addressed via distance. The lack that I'd feel in such a case, assuming that the course is the current standard of one month altogether, is that I'd miss out valuable hours getting an idea of how trainees work on a daily basis.

Knowing something about a candidates' daily habits is extremely important when 'launching' a newbie teacher.
For example - is the candidate normally on-time and prepared?
Ready to get to work when class starts (as opposed to sleepy/hung-over)?
How well does he/she work with others in general?
More supportive of others as versus competitive or disengaged?
Appearance - professional enough for the context? Needs advising re: clothing/personal hygiene?
How does he/she take criticism (which obviously should be delivered in a professional manner, though I know not every trainer is really good at this)?
Is he/she able to understand and apply feedback effectively?

I agree that an 8-week course, with a month of practicum, would be quite desirable, but I think as most things are set up these days, it would likely be too expensive. In a perfect world, though, it would be great to see something like:
3 weeks on-line training (with some evaluation through writing tasks and chat)
1 week on-site for demo lessons, discussion, and consolidation of what's been covered on line
3 weeks practicum with a range of different class types
1 wrap-up week on-site, for reflection and analysis of what's been done, and some brainstorming on what the newbie teachers can do in future to continue their education in the field.

Too bad cost is an object!!

[Glenski]

[nickpellatt]

Interesting thread. As someone who is still relatively new to teaching, and relatively inexperienced in terms of contexts worked in, Im keen to know how others 'teach' grammar, and also what is wrong with the PPP approach? It may be inexperience, naivety or a combination of both ... but Im kinda struggling to see what could be better than a PPP approach?

I remember a similar thing from my course, or perhaps a book Ive read, referring to the explainer, elicitor, facilitator. I think everyone probably disregards the explainer, but I feel the elicitor and facilitator are quite close together.

Anyway, my experience of PPP as a language learner is kinda like this: (Im learning Chinese with the UK Open University BTW).

Present - A text or listening task introduces a new function / grammar point, students are asked to highlight the sentence that deals with 'X'. Form and function is then further illustrated by a series of rules showing the construction.

Practice - Substitution tasks, tightly controlled listening tasks with specfic TL are used, rearrange sentence tasks may also feature.

Produce - Freer tasks such as writing an email, leaving a telephone message using the TL finish up the lesson.

As a language learner, I quite like this approach TBH. I do have reservations about my course, but thats more over the delivery method of the course rather than these specific methods.

As a teacher, I probably spend more time doing skills based lessons and more traditional grammar based stuff takes up far less of my teaching time. But .... I often follow a similar path to that mentioned above.

Present - TL will occur naturally in a song/text or perhaps be elicited by a set context/photos etc. I generally try to elicit at this point; ask students to identify the grammar, explain rules/formation etc.

Practice - controlled exercises. Dictate something very simplified eg - adjectives connected to taste - students use the rules elicited to make the comparative forms.

Produce - Students act out a role play in a restaurant with a focus on playing the role of an unhappy customer.


As I said, I dont do this kind of thing every lesson. Sometimes its far less focused and students may not have to practice a set grammar point. I like threads like this though ... Im not confident to challenge myself enough sometimes, especially in contexts that Im not familiar with, and so what I cant learn in more challenging jobs, I can perhaps read about here. So I am very keen to learn an alternative, another way of presenting these kind of things!

I will add, as a fairly recent graduate of an introductory teaching training program, I feel that trainees probably need LESS 'hard' grammar, but much more training in how to present grammar. Ive just interrupted my post to have a cup of tea and a smoke and think this over, but for me ... pre-course reading of something like Thornburys 'how to teach grammar' (Is that the right title) is perhaps more valuable than hard-core grammar learning.

Ill expand on my reasoning for this. Again, as a language learner, I have a grammar reference book, and my course material often directs me to this for more information 'on how to use the particle XXXX'. I have to say, I rarely if ever need this. And I wonder, do many of our students need this either? My initial feeling is that many students, in many many contexts, really need the basic foundations and general idea of a point (and a lot of subsequent practice) rather than worrying about the infinite number of exceptions that may occur (but never be encountered) and have a solid grasp of the concept involved rather than be full of knowledge which may never actually apply.

I readily accept this could be a result of my lack of experience and grammatical knowledge! I wont go into too much detail on this one example for fear of hijacking the thread, but a student asked me about the difference between two similar lexical items this week. I didnt give her an answer there and then, although I did have a rather simple answer in mind, but instead spent 20 minutes researching lots of different examples online that night. This research led me to the conclusion I initially thought of....'that 99% of the time there is no difference between the words' and I wonder, isnt that enough for our students 99% of the time?

Isnt getting too bogged down in grammar, and spending too much time learning every single grammar point and exception as a teacher, not seeing the forest for the trees?

[spiral78]

[fluffyhamster]

Picking up on a few of the things that Spiral said (nice post by the way!):

So on the one hand there is quite constrained PPP-style teaching, useful for briskly relaying the nuts and bolts of the grammatical system overall (as contained in limited-finite courses), but sketchy in the finer (i.e. lexicogrammatical) details; on the other there are all the things one could possibly say or write, the "infinite". What IMHO you should be striving for Nick is a middle path - by all means present the students with language (how else are they ever meant to learn more than what they already know or can muster) in the most general sense of the word ('present'), but make sure that it is linguistically richer and more varied input (pointing places, joining up more dots etc) than the usual PPP lesson "plan". As for the exact methodology, well, in a spoken course, a lot of that will be suggested by the language itself (especially the more obviously 'functional' of the examples/exponents).

A lot of ink has been spilt over 'morpheme acquisition order' and the like, but the reality still is that all one can really do is teach a "(course as) consistent and hopefully cohesive whole", that should eventually resolve within itself any questions or doubts (or at least point the way to and accord with wider data sets). This is why it is so important that what students are presented with (which forms essentially a corpus in itself) be as balanced and non-skew-whiffy as possible. And often that wider data will throw up items that are not as straightforward as a more limited course might like (or indeed avoid altogether), and make more rather than less demands on the terminological/taxonomic apparatus. (Not that that need concern the students directly).

It'd be interesting to know what the two similar lexical items were, and what differences or similarities the student or you might have posited between them, Nick. My general feeling is that although a lot of such queries can be spurious (especially if the "examples" one starts with are wrong - 'Please explain why this is wrong, Teacher!' 'Um, because it is? Why don't we look at simply what's right instead?!'), the time spent on the more worthwhile ones will eventually start paying dividends, in that you'll one day get a question that you recall (however hazily) touching on if not answering at some point before. That's not to say however that a lot of student queries aren't again induced by excessive and/or bad explanations and rule-mongering.

[fluffyhamster]

[spiral78]

Ah, you might be surprised at how much insight we can get into a trainee's daily work habits on a 30-day intensive course.

Or, to rephrase that - you might be surprised at how poor some trainees' work habits are even in the space of just one month, on a course they've paid for and are supposed to be hoping to pass

[Glenski]

[fluffyhamster]

(@Spiral) But seriously, these certs could be doing a heck of a lot more to lessen the once-in-the-real-job learning curve for the serious teachers (the ones who will "successfully" complete the cert). I just know that my main feeling whilst sitting through my CTEFLA's interminable input and workshop sessions was of the appreciable amount of time being wasted and barely half-filled. (It would've been rude of course to reach for something to read instead). And there were certain areas - present perfect, tag quesions, and conditionals, to name but three - that I for one would've taught very differently, had I been presented with or had access to the wider range of books and information that I only met later (but that had been around for at least a good few years prior to my contemplating TEFL as a career and deciding to do the course); part of a genuine educator's job should be to summarize "state of the art" thinking and findings, not to just rehash tired old course content. The least I would like to see is e.g. the DELTA "merged" with the CELTA and a more complete certification thus provided. (It obviously isn't in the educational establishment's interest however to not string the process expensively out: cert, check/cheque; DELTA, check/cheque; MA, check/cheque; PhD, check/cheque; ... ). All the powers that be have done though is to talk of certs as now mere "initiations", as the BC does (to be "qualified" you now apparently have to do the DELTA or more), which fails to grasp the nettle, is annoying and patronizing, and ultimately a sort of double-speak - surely a certificate should certify you to do what it says? (Ah, but a more honestly-named IELTA - a mere Initiation in English Language Teaching to Adults - wouldn't have quite the same appeal, would it, except maybe for those wanting to join a cult or something (cue memories of Kevin Bacon getting paddled in Animal House )). If it doesn't, the cert should be the thing that's changed (to ensure that it does), not the previous punter's employment prospects. (That's not to say that I think that the average just-certified cert holder knows enough, but just to say that their not yet knowing enough is not their fault. They pay for an ELT education and do not receive enough of one, IMHO).
( http://forums.eslcafe.com/job/viewtopic.php?p=950221#950221 )

[spiral78]

[fluffyhamster]

The problem with insisting on the need for a division of knowledge is that you have to demonstrate what is so difficult about the things at the "higher" level that they couldn't (with a bit of thought and jiggling) be incorporated at the "lower" level.

One concrete example I gave on the first page was the concept of 'remoteness' (a useful umbrella term) - it would make a lot of sense and could actually help teachers if this were formally mentioned at the cert rather than dip level. (Or would every single person really need to buy and read the whole of Lewis' book rather than rely on a potted synposis or even a mere reference or two to it?).

Anyway, it would as ever be interesting to know just what is so essential (that it deserves to be studied at all) but so very complex and high-flying at MA level. Or we could instead return to your question of 'What basic level courses can/should and cannot/should not aim to do....'. (Me, I'm interested in what certs COULD aim to do).