A big thank you to Heather @ThoseSharpWords ThoseSharpWords.com for volunteering to write the summary for our March #CELTAchat - very much appreciated!
The March #CELTAChat was inspired by the ELT Mythbusting talk given by Tim Hazell, and @TeresaBestwick’s notes on it. Participating in the chat were @fionaljp @TeresaBestwick @krohn_devon @GioLic1976 @bellinguist @Cathyofnusle @ELTKaty and @ThoseSharpWords
The myths under discussion in the webinar were:
- No L1 in the classroom
- There is A receptive skills procedure
- Whenever possible learner’s should work in pairs
- Understanding should be checked by teacher questions
- Error correction: during controlled practice, after freer practice
- Eliciting is a learner-centred technique
- Teacher Talk is bad
Naturally we looked at it through the lens of ‘is this really what we teach on the CELTA? Trinity Cert TESOL?’
Using L1
The issue of L1 may hark back to the context the origins of the initial teacher training courses – for native speakers who were not expected to know the students’ L1s. But at the same tome, the certificates can be used by people seeking to teach anywhere in the world, so techniques not involving L1 are another reason why it can be discouraged. Some of us also teach on courses with a high proportion of NNES who already know how to use L1 and come to the course seeking to add to their skill set beyond that too.
There should definitely be room on CELTA and similar courses to explore L1 use in the classroom, however, especially as much actual teaching takes place in monolingial contexts. In particular, why waste time teaching a word like ‘trout’ when a quick translation will do? Idioms also benefit from comparison with learners’ L1. Trainer’s modelling this sort of positive use is helpful. Encouraging trainees to research key translations for emergency use might also be a good idea.
There was a possible issue expressed about whether knowing and being allowed to use the L1 put some trainees at an advantage over others. One solution is to make this a feature of collaborative planning – where L1 speakers help out the non-L1 speakers. That said, nobody has yet experienced negativity from trainees on this point yet.
The issue of whether the trainer not knowing the learner’s L1 might mean that it can get out of control, but this may be something solvable by better classroom management.
Questioning techniques
Regarding concept checking questions – concept checking questions themselves are not the problem, but BAD concept checking questions are, and the examples given in the talk are definitely bad CCQs.
The topic of ICQs (instruction checking questions) came up. These can come across as pationising, and we discussed if ‘do you understand?’ is such a bad question. We agreed that it’s often more valuable, and something we stress on the course, to use examples or demonstrations to help set of tasks. ICQs might be more beneficial to check instructions for complex tasks which have taken time to set up and so some aspects may have been forgotten. They can also be useful when checking odder aspects of a task, or things which go against students’ instincts.
Overuse of pairwork
It seems the trainers in the chat value individual work in addition to pairwork, and encourage individual reflection time for a variety of tasks, even if this is followed up by pairchecking. We are also happy to see that this is something which has to be explored more in an online context – the time constraint issues of using breakout rooms mean that sometimes alternatives need to be used.
Error correction
When it came to errors, the problem suggested was that trainees don;t have enough experience to know which errors to correct or focus on in feedback, and so error correction can be a mixed bag of rather random points. One advantage of using synchronous observation techniques such as WhatsApp chats is that you can set this as a task for all observing trainees (what errors would you focus on from what you are hearing) and the trainer can give feedback on the choices. An advantage of the online teaching context is that this is made easier because it is easier to hear students.
We agreed that error correction in general is a higher order teaching skill, and one which there are many questions over in the profession as a whole, which was perhaps reflected by the fact that a solution to the problem was not suggested in the initial Mythbusting talk.
TTT
Teacher Talking Time was also viewed positively in some cases by trainers – for exposure, for building rapport, for modelling, for the ability to modify to the learners’ needs/ evel (unlike a recording). There has, in fact, been a previous CELTAChat on good TTT.
We ran out of time to cover receptive skills work!
Mythbusting Teacher Training
Some other points that came up about the issue of mythbusting teacher training in general:
- ‘Always do X’ or ‘never do X’ is generally the wrong approach to all teaching and training issues.
- Sometimes the goal on initial training courses is to introduce the idea of something and get teachers into the habit of doing it at all, and refinement of that technique (is supposed to) come(s) later – as the course progresses, or beyond.
- What works for one teacher (or circumstance) does not always work for another, so giving teachers a range of possible tools and letting them experiment with picking the one that works best on different occasions is important.
- An initial teacher training course of four weeks length can only hope to cover some basic ideas, frameworks and techniques, and that further professional development is expected, but not perhaps always sought/ provided.
- This is how some of these Myths become embedded, rather than because teacher trainers are encouraging them.
Notes provided by Heather of Those Sharp Words.
