Training to Train: the index
This is a free course in converting yourself from a master English
Language Teacher into a professionally competent and engaging Teacher Trainer.
Unlike most courses of this nature, it is completely free
and you are invited to do the sections in any order that you choose.
The units are mostly self-standing and independent but where
familiarity with another unit would be helpful, you will be alerted
to the fact.
What you do then is up to you.
Linkage between units is quite frequent and the links will not open
in new tabs so be prepared to use the back button.
There is a short guide to some frequently asked questions about this
course which you can access
here.
 |
The six-unit course |
The units are numbered for ease of reference but that does not
imply that they should be studied in any particular order. The
following links you to the units and explains briefly what the content is for each one.
At the foot of every page, and on the left, this menu is repeated so you can choose
where to go at the end of each unit.
The last link
to the lagniappe takes you a set of extra resources and links.
| Unit 1 | Be(com)ing a teacher trainer | Differences
between language teaching and language teacher training Skills you have and skills need Teacher training or teacher education? The role of a teacher trainer / educator |
Knowledge you need Beliefs, attitudes and prejudices Trickle-down training Paddling your own canoe |
| Unit 2 | Training course content |
Rationales Subject knowledge Methodological knowledge Psychological knowledge |
Procedural knowledge Mythology avoidance Other skills Making decisions about content |
| Unit 3 | Types of training | Initial, in-service and in-house
training Patterns of training Course design for initial training |
Course design for in-service training Design of in-house development programmes |
| Unit 4 | Running group teacher training sessions | Crossovers from language teaching Alternatives to consider Lecturing skills Group work: pros and cons |
Classifying tasks by cognitive challenge Planning constructing, visualising and amending a training session Evaluation of training sessions |
| Unit 5 | Tutorials, seminars and one-to-one sessions |
Open-door policies The functions of tutorials / seminars Pre-meeting agendas |
Conduct of meetings Post-meetings tasks Evaluation of meetings |
| Unit 6 | Observing and assessing teaching and teaching knowledge |
Purposes and audiences Criteria for observation and assessment Assessing planning (or not) Observation tasks: charts and forms Best practice for whom? |
Giving principled, accurate, sensitive and useful feedback Spoken and written feedback Feedback on reading, research and written tasks |
| Plus | The lagniappe | Teacher development programmes In-house observation programmes Ideas and worksheets for teacher training |
Other training courses Resources for trainers Support |
Copyright
You may not use this material for commercial purposes. Small excerpts from materials, conventionally attributed, may be used on such courses but wholesale lifting of materials is explicitly forbidden. There is, of course, no objection at all to providing fee-paying course participants with annotated links to materials anywhere on this site. Indeed, that is welcomed.
We hope you enjoy the course and benefit from it.
If you have any suggestions, comments or feedback, please get in
touch via the contact page.
