In April, I was lucky enough to go to IATEFL for the first time, which was held in Brighton in the UK. It was a fantastic experience, and I was especially pleased with all of the sessions geared toward teacher training and development. I got a chance to meet lots of CELTA trainers and other folks working in CPD (Continuing Professional Development). If you are interested in seeing some of the sessions, they are available for free (!) at the following British Council website: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/events/IATEFL-Online/2018 One of the things that struck me the most while at IATEFL is how little people knew of SIT or our certificate programs. They were interested to talk to me, but simply had never heard of it. For this reason, I was especially pleased to see that Kevin Giddens and Susan Barduhn recently published an extensive article in the Teacher Trainer magazine about our TOT process. I'm attaching the article below for your perusal. Thank you, Susan and Kevin! What ideas does the article bring up for you? What are other ways of letting people around the world know about the good work we do on SIT Courses? It'd be great to hear your comments/ideas below. Hope you are doing well! Josh
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By Jeff Puccini
In “The Observational Practicum: A Stepping-Stone to Praxis in TESOL,” Ayaka Ihara describes her practicum experience as an MA student at San Francisco State and makes a case to “practice seeing teaching before intensively doing teaching.” One of her main arguments is that people new to teaching often feel a lot of anxiety about getting in front of a group of students. I agree that this fear can be a big hurdle for many who consider trying to teach. However, I wonder if observation is the most effective way to deal with it. One of the distinguishing features of the most respected TESOL Certificate Courses in the world (CELTA and SIT, for instance) is that participants have a chance to do real practice teaching and get feedback from skilled trainers. I believe that part of what Ihara is arguing against in her article is the fact that student teachers can feel like they are being thrown to the wolves by being expected to “teach” without proper scaffolding. This sink or swim approach may be what alienates many rookie teachers. In addition, it can be unfair to paying students who get substandard lessons. What is the relationship between observation and practice? How can practice teaching be scaffolded in ways that set participants up for success? On the SIT TESOL Course in Berkeley we have scaffolded the practice teaching process in a way that I believe does set participants up for success. There are five distinctive features of how we scaffold the process. The Teaching Game First, we begin with the 10-minuteTeaching Game. I understand that some SIT courses have abandoned this activity, but there are several reasons why we have kept it. Primarily, it helps Ps (participants) encounter and wrestle with the idea of student learning objectives. For instance, Ss (students) can follow the student teacher’s fifteen step instructions for folding an origami crane, but have they “learned” it? Can they do it on their own without following the teacher? By the same token, the Teaching Game impresses upon Ps the fact that they cannot just talk for the entire time. Meeting Students for the First Time From the Teaching Game, the next step is the initial meeting with the real ESL students, and this has been a real innovation. Our ESL students come for two-hours, and trainers take control of the logistics on this first night. In the first hour, Ps sit and survey Ss (Ex. How long have you been studying English? What are your hobbies? I.e. needs analysis). This one-on-one interaction is important because Ps are immediately introduced to the idea of considering Ss as individuals, as opposed to the classroom as a “monolithic entity,” which is how new teachers often first experience Ss. Also, Ps get a feel for what the Ss can say/understand (i.e. some diagnostic assessment). Working with Small Groups of Students: Bag of Questions After interviewing the ESL Ss, Ps are responsible for facilitating a Bag of Questions activity (see link for instructions and examples). During this time, Ps work in small groups with 2—4 ESL students, facilitating conversations. Trainers monitor and control the time. One highlight for me as the trainer with this activity is that after the first round, we ask the Ss to stay in their groups and pull the Ps out in the hallway for a quick debrief. We ask them to share how they set up the turn taking (Ex. did Ss pull the questions out of the bag, did you read the question aloud, etc.). Then we tell them to experiment. For instance, if they were the one reading the question, for the next round, get the Ss to read the question. The point being that there isn’t necessarily one “right” way to facilitate this activity, and we want Ps to experience some of the ways different approaches can help/hinder. In addition, Ps engage with factors that can affect communication (Ex. modeling, arrangement, structure of interaction, teacher talk, freedom/control). The main objective is to get the Ss speaking, and Ps are always (to some degree) successful. In short, this first meeting with the ESL students is always an energetic, positive, and fun introduction. Furthermore, by sleight of hand, we have given the Ps their first experience of “practicing teaching” with real students for an hour, in a safe, controlled environment. Communicative Task “lesson” The third step Ps take in practice teaching is to facilitate a 20-minute communicative task, for instance Two Truths and a Lie, 20 Questions, etc. (see sample list of Communicative tasks). During this practice teaching, each of the Ps run their communicative task for either the upper or lower level ESL Ss. The main things for Ps to focus on with this step include setting up pair/group work, thinking about arrangement, giving clear instructions, grading language, handling materials, and providing a motivating communicative task that gets Ss talking. Obviously, with all practice teaching, feedback afterwards is a crucial component for identifying and synthesizing key learnings. In sum, communicative tasks are a foundational part of both productive and receptive lessons. If Ps can work on these skills first, they can later on have more bandwidth for thinking about language-focused activities, receptive tasks, etc. The issue of cognitive overload is a key one for teachers who are thrust into teaching a 50-minute language lesson right away. Through this scaffolding of practice teaching on our course, we aim to reduce that load while providing deliberate, focused practice on essential skills for student-centered teaching. The First Full Lesson The fourth step requires Ps to teach a 50-minute speaking lesson, with a focus on vocabulary. However, the anchor of this lesson is the communicative task, which by now they are well acquainted with, having facilitated one of their own in the previous PT, as well as having observed their peers do the same. In addition, we strongly suggest that Ps begin their speaking lessons with an activity that requires some initial burst of fluency from the Ss, which can also be considered a sort of mini-communicative task. Thus, Ps are familiar with what Ss need to be doing at the beginning and the end of their lesson, so the challenge is limited to planning for 20 or 30 minutes of encountering/clarifying some target vocabulary and an opportunity (or two) to practice with it. In addition, Ps are now starting to think about the form, meaning, and use of language while practicing the classroom management skills that they have already started to develop through the earlier communicative task “lessons.” The Remaining Lessons The remaining steps in the process are to teach a listening PDP, grammar (twice), reading PDP, and the final lesson is Ps choice. Teaching grammar is often a big hurdle for Ps, so doing it later in the course makes sense. Also, PDP (Pre, During, Post) seems to be a more intuitive framework for Ps to grasp and implement, so it works well to introduce it after vocabulary and before grammar. Conclusion We know that observation is crucial to learning. “Human brains are wired to learn by observing others. The brain shows similar patterns of activation when people observe others as when acting themselves” (Schwartz, Tsang, and Blair). On the other hand, research from the science of learning has emphasized the importance of practice. Anders Ericsson writes, “the basic blueprint for getting better in any pursuit: get as close to deliberate practice as you can…” and this “involves building on or modifying previously acquired skills by focusing on particular aspects of those skills and working to improve them.” So what is the ideal balance between observation and practice? Is there a place, or an argument, for more observations on the SIT courses? What conditions make lesson observation meaningful? What do you do on your courses to scaffold practice teaching? References Ericsson, Anders and Robert Pool. Peak: Secrets from the New Science of Expertise. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2016. Ihara, Ayaka. The Observational Practicum: A Stepping-Stone to Praxis in TESOL. The CATESOL Journal 29.2. 2017. Schwartz, Daniel L., Jessica M. Tsang, and Kristen P. Blair. The ABCs of How We Learn: 26 Scientifically Proven Approaches, How They Work, and When to Use Them. New York, NY: W.W. Norton &, 2016. by Josh Kurzweil In his book “How We Think,” John Dewey talks about how reflection is a trainable skill. In this blog, I want to offer some of the ways in which we have put Dewey’s idea in practice with the reflective essay writing and feedback sessions on the course. We use the DIGPA (Describe, Interpret, Generalize, Plan Action) framework in our course in Berkeley and have created a thread throughout the course to help participants systematically develop their reflective skills. Over the years, we have developed some sequences and activities that have helped participants develop their skills more quickly and effectively. Tip #1: Use DIGPA Posters Introduce DIGPA on Day 1. We have a DIGPA poster hanging on the wall from the very first day and refer to it when debriefing lessons. Tip #2: Use Lesson Outlines Write up outlines of activities and lessons to help Ps focus on segments. For example on the first day of our course we do an ice-breaker called the ‘Magazine Picture Mingle.’ We list the 5 or 6 steps of that activity and then ask Ps to focus on a step so that they have a clear segment/slice from the lesson. Tip #3: Sequence the reflection tasks. We have found that it is much easier for participants to reflect on themselves as learners rather than leaping into reflecting on their own lessons as teachers. So…
Tip #4: Teach DIGPA Essays as a Writing Genre DIGPA essays have particular characteristics that make them effective. When Ps have a chance to read and analyze samples of effective DIGPA essays, they get a better sense of what they are going for in their own reflections and why. Here are the steps that we follow in our session.
Tip#5: Do DIGPA Outlines and Talks Some Ps can get bogged down with the actual essay writing, so it can be helpful to have them fill out and/or discuss DIGPA charts. This type of a quick reflection can also help Ps realize that we usually don’t think in a linear way, but the DIGPA framework can help Ps sort their thoughts, adding to different parts. Ex. If an action plan pops up, ask yourself, “What happened in the lesson that made me think that would help?” Tip#6: Label Participant Comments in Post-teaching Feedback As part of the active listening in feedback sessions, we try to label comments in terms of DIGPA stages so that Ps can develop their awareness and expand their ideas. Ex. That’s an interesting interpretation. What exactly happened in the lesson that made you think that? Can you offer more description? So… these are some of the ways we have worked on reflective skills in Berkeley. What ideas/reactions do they bring up for you? What are other ways that you support reflective skills among participants?
Welcome! My name is Josh Kurzweil and I have been an SIT TESOL Cert trainer since 2000. I ran the course in Kyoto for 4 years and then started up the site in Berkeley, CA in 2007. I love the SIT Trainer community and am always stunned when I think about the incredible talent that we have in our little community. After talking with the folks in D.C., I decided that it might be nice to have a website where we could share ideas and resources in a way that was more permanent than the list serve and Facebook posts. I have built out this space so that we can organize and share ideas, websites, videos, articles, etc. related to teaching, training, and teacher development. My hope is that this will be a constantly evolving resource for us as we run our courses, teach, and do our various projects.
Have a look through the site, you'll find some little bits and pieces that I have found useful. I'll be adding more, too, and am hoping that you will send me things to add. In addition, I'm planning to do some more blog posts about topics related to teaching & training, and I'd also love to have this be a place where you trainers can post guest blogs about topics that interest you. What are your thoughts about this blog/website? What would you like to see added? Do you have any suggestions about how to organize the pages? Please post your comments below! More to come soon! Josh |
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