Carry on Konya: the powerful medium of experience by Kylie Malinowska

At the end of the CTS we talk to our trainees about continuous professional development. I feel passionate about advocating CPD and never want to be one of those educators that reaches a point and decides ‘I’m good enough let’s just stop here’. I like to keep myself on my toes and try out all sorts of ways to develop both as a trainer and teacher. Courses, webinars, conferences, observations, DELTA, Masters, reading journals, action research…You name it, I’ve been there done that, worn the t-shirt. However, anytime I’m asked what has been the most influential, my answer is always the same. Learning another language myself. I tend to forget many of the things I read or even see and hear but experiences, at least for me, tend to bring about more self-reflection and real change. I’ve learnt so much by attending Czech class. I’m ashamed to say I haven’t learnt a great deal of Czech, but I have learnt a lot about myself as a learner and about teaching.

• It was in Czech class I really learnt the value of a smile and a pause from the teacher. I remember being told many times during CELTA all those years ago to pause and give students time to reply, to reduce TT, to do everything you can to induce student talk etc. but I didn’t really understand until I was the student not being given enough time. Prior to that, as a teacher, I’d underestimated how much time a student might need to process the questions and formulate the answer. I suspect I was also a little afraid of too much silence or what might be seen as ‘dead time’. My favourite Czech teachers were the ones who smiled, nodded and paused. Gave me time to show I could do it. Or at least try.

• It was in Czech class that I got really annoyed and lost my motivation to learn because one of my teachers always had her back to my side of the room.

• It was in Czech class I realised, to my surprise, that actually gap fill activities aren’t boring if they are relevant, the right level of challenge and not too long.

• It was in Czech class I learnt that a fun game doesn’t have to be fancy or complicated and really can lighten the mood and motivate language use if done right, but it was also in Czech class that I learnt that the fun soon wears off if it’s too easy or it’s not clear what the point is.

It helped that I did my DELTA around the same time I was learning Czech, so I made a conscious effort to reflect on my feelings as a student and how my teacher, the teaching style, the material, the classroom environment etc. may have contributed to them. Because of course, real development takes place when there is a conscious effort to reflect, adapt, accommodate, process what we’ve experienced.

If you’ve read this far, I’m sure it comes as no surprise to you that I’m a big fan of Tessa Woodward and an even bigger fan of Loop Input. That cycle of experiencing and reflecting always feels right for me both when I’m the learner, and the trainer. I also love getting trainees to try out practical ideas from the perspective of the learner, whether that be an activity, or a classroom management technique. I love seeing the ‘aha moment’ on the trainees faces during the reflection stage. I equally love it when something goes wrong, therefore giving us the opportunity to analyse and discuss why a problem occurred with real live examples and experiences.

I really appreciated that the CTS course materials supported a balanced approach. It included my beloved Loop Input and there were plenty of opportunities to try out practical ideas from the perspective of the student, but there was also plenty of reflection and focus on information and ideas without too many frills to distract away from what is important. I’m a big fan of the practical, but a firm believer that a box of tricks is far more valuable and generative when a trainee really understands the whys as well as the hows.

Some examples to share….

One of the activities demonstrated during the CTS Primary course in Konya, was getting two teams to line up, showing the person at the back of the line a letter of the alphabet, then each member of the team writing the letter on the next persons back without saying a word until finally, the person at the front of the line writes what they think it is on the board. That person then goes to the back of the line with the process continuing until it spells a word for the team to guess. For this activity I focussed on giving clear instructions and setting up the activity well etc., but I intentionally drew really ambiguous looking capital letters on cards that I then used for the activity. I was really pleased when I saw that both teams struggled at times to get all the letters correct. Following the activity I told trainees that I’d intentionally done something badly and that they had to guess what it was. It was great as it helped them analyse the activity, the stages etc. and work out for themselves if it was a big problem or not and how important or otherwise clear lettering is. We also discussed whether they felt comfortable writing on each other’s back, whether they would have felt more uncomfortable if it were a member of the opposite sex, somebody they didn’t like, somebody they didn’t trust etc.

For me personally, I rarely do role plays in my classes, so I really enjoyed seeing the suggested set up in the CTS notes and wish I’d spent more time on this (we had to rush the end) as I feel it’s a great way to demonstrate how a different approach can result in more language and cooperation and just generally a more successful and worthwhile activity all round. When demonstrating the role play, I started by mentioning role plays, then asked a trainee to come to the front and boom! Do one. I could tell from the expression on her face she was about to and no one in the room indicated with their face or body language that this was anything less than normal, but before she could start I stopped her and said ‘actually, let’s try this a different way’. At the end of the session we compared which approach would get the most out of the students. I think if I had just told them instead of showed them. Let them be the students. They wouldn’t have really ‘got it’ in the same way.

My trainees didn’t really get the chance to sit quietly and take notes. I’m not that kind of trainer. But…we had a lot of fun with jazz hands and enormous elephants walking to New York. During the final feedback for the course trainees told me one of the things they loved the most and gained the most from was ‘feeling like the students’. This made me really happy, as it was my intention to focus on this. I knew from the moment I met the trainees they were knowledgeable, intelligent, competent teachers. I knew they would be able to recite the theory to me, but I wasn’t convinced they really understood the practical implications or even if I could help them reach those aha moments. I also wanted to show them, as opposed to telling them that one of the most important things in a YL classroom is to create an environment that’s not only conducive to learning, but also one where the students really want to use the language.  I’m so happy that my trainees reached that point. They saw it for themselves. And I love that they can relive it every time they look back on photos and videos of themselves, fully grown adults, reciting the elephant TPR story in the park. On a weekend. By choice!  

I will miss both my wonderful colleagues and inspiring Algerian trainees from my time in Konya. With any luck they will create that same lovely atmosphere in each of their classes around Turkey and keep our special time in Konya alive. Thank you Kristina for inviting me to be a part of this experience for a second year. I look forward to 2015!

In their students´ shoes by Soňa Pazderová

In August I had an opportunity to be a trainer on a CTS-Primary course in Ankara. It was the second time I had participated in this programme, but it was the first time I had been there on my own.  I spent two weeks exchanging ideas and sharing experience with a wonderful group of eleven teachers. 

Microteaching

Microteaching represented the practical part of the course.  It was a series of mini-lessons focused on presenting vocabulary, grammar and skills which gave everybody a chance to teach a 10-minute lesson.  The trainees were divided into several groups and each group was assigned a topic which they had to prepare.  This system helped a lot with the theoretical input on presenting and practicing because it illustrated the need to exploit a task very clearly.  As if by magic, pre-task and post-task activities, which were a bit of a mystery at the beginning of the course, had to become real.  

Since some of the trainees worked with 1^st and 2^nd graders and some with 6^th graders, they could see and compare a variety approaches and task types according to the age group of their students. 

But microteaching was not only about teaching.  There was also space for peer observations, and above all, we needed students to be taught.  So suddenly, the trainees found themselves in completely different roles – they became 6-year-olds and teenagers again.

What challenges did we come across?

Not everything was easy.  The first thing that had to be done before every lesson was also one of the most dreaded one – writing a lesson plan with aims and anticipated problems.  It helped a little when I showed my group my 6-page detailed lesson plan I had compiled for an observed lesson at a summer school and assured them they didn´t have to write anything 'that long'.  

Another issue, this time a practical one, was classroom management.  Although the students were in fact teachers who knew how various activities should work, we could still see how important it was to formulate clear instructions and check them.  The mini-lessons also helped to discover why every student needed to be involved in a task.  The trainees who were observing could see what happened if the teacher chose one or two students to work in front of the board but left the rest without anything to do.  Those participating as students had first-hand experience with that situation.

Memorable moments

I think if the trainees in my group decided not to be teachers they could easily become famous as actresses.  They emulated their real students´ behaviour and favourite lines perfectly (“Teacher, teacher, she pinched me!” “But she took my sunglasses!” “Teacherrrr, fiiiniiished!”) so we had a lot of fun.  They could also pursue successful careers as artists because their resources and prompts for games were just beautiful. 

However, what made the deepest impression, was the spirit of cooperation.  Everyone tried to help the others as much as they could and contributed with useful tips.

What did we learn?

Throughout the microteaching and feedback sessions the trainees were encouraged to reflect on their work.  They put a lot of effort into their preparation to make the following lessons better and smoother.  The different roles which they played in the microteaching helped them see their lessons from more perspectives, especially through their students´ eyes. They realised their students needed good scaffolding to carry out a task well and this became more and more visible in the later in the course. 

But not only the trainees learned.  For me it was a great experience to work with people who love their work and who are so open to try out new ideas. 

My culture and your culture by Eva Szabo

Role-playing family matters in Baku

A truly memorable session which I love to think back to (since I enjoyed it so much and I learnt so much from it) was the one about effective speaking activities. The idea came from Krzysztof when one evening we were discussing news from home, and a Skype chat with my daughter seemed to be a good starting point for next day’s speaking activity.

At the beginning of the session I told my group about Skyping with my family the night before, and explained how difficult it was to see my teenage children going out more and more and coming home late at night, to pick them up after parties, to organize lifts among families to make sure that our children are safe after dark, and to accept that after a while they simply refuse to be picked up by parents and want to return home on their own. I could see that my story engaged the teachers some of whom were also parents or were planning to have a family. Another thing which I already noticed at the very beginning of the course and which made all my stories interesting was their curiosity towards anything related to my country, my culture, and my life in general. 

Slide 2 

And then it was over to them: I asked them how teenagers in Azerbaijan would behave in a similar situation and what sort of decisions they can make as they are growing up. To make it even more specific I used a situation of a 15-year old boy who starts coming home late, and I asked the teachers how conflicts like this are handled in the families (slide 2, above). The question and the situation triggered a really heated discussion – the teachers were eager to tell me about how their culture is different from mine, sometimes all speaking at the same time, disagreeing with each other over some details and trying to convince the others about their point. I was just sitting there listening to them, asking back or trying to clarify issues, and I have to say that it was one of the best cultural learning situations I have ever been part of.

I would have liked to continue it much longer, but we needed to come back to our point, so we stepped out from the discussion and looked at it from a methodological perspective. We identified some important features that made it a good activity, such as there was a real information gap and a desire to exchange information thanks to the genuine interest in the topic on both sides, and that the situation was realistic, and everyone spoke a lot.

Slide 3

The next task was to turn the topic of our discussion into a role-play activity. I showed the teachers a role card of a similar situation (slide 3, above), 

Slide 4

they listed some useful phrases to use in the role-play and compared with the ones on slide 4, and they acted out the situation. It was so much fun to listen to them! Finally, they designed their own role-play, prepared the role-cards and displayed them on a poster (slides 5 and 6). 

                                                                                                                             Slide 5

Slide 6

I would say that the whole session went really well, but the most rewarding for me was to experience the teachers’ interest in my story and their enthusiasm for sharing theirs with me. I felt like someone who is given a warm welcome in a new world, is shown around by really friendly hosts and makes plenty of new discoveries.  Many thanks again for the experience! I look forward to having more of these in the future.


[Here are some photos of the work that participants created.]  

Tired? Let’s do some drawing! by Eva Szabo

For me one of the most enjoyable activities of this summer’s CTS 2 course in Baku was the drawing activity I did with a group of teachers when we discussed grammar presentations, time lines and CCQs.  

I was not new to CTS – last summer I had group of wonderful ladies in Bursa who were eager to do anything a trainer (or their students) might dream about – drawing, colouring, sticking post-its, decorating posters, and it goes without saying that their portfolios were visually very attractive. This year in Baku I had a completely new challenge: I was working with a group of male teachers, all ‘old’ course participants, arriving well-prepared on the first day with the usual equipment - paper, pens and folders – and with good memories from CTS 1 which they had all taken the year before.  When I first met them it quickly turned out that many of them had been using lots of the teaching ideas from CTS 1 in their own classrooms and were looking forward to learning new ones.  Drawing, however, did not seem to be their cup of tea.

I was working together with Krzysztof and we planned some of the activities together.  Mr Stick Figure and Mr Bellman was an activity we used for clarifying the use of timelines and CCQs which seemed to be unclear to many of the participants even after CTS 1. Our point was to show that anyone is good at drawing timelines and that it is fun to do.

When I asked the teachers if they were good at drawing because they would need their drawing skills in the next activity, the answer was unanimous ‘NO’ (at the same time I could see immediate curiosity in their eyes!) Then I drew Mr Stick Figure and Mr Bellman on the board, introduced the two men to them and explained that they would have to choose one and draw him doing one of the actions listed on the slide. 

The very first reaction of a teacher was:

‘Two men? Mr Bellman is wearing a skirt, isn’t she a woman?’

 Fortunately, another teacher came up with the idea that Mr Bellman must be a Scotsman and is probably wearing a kilt (which he later included in his drawing of two men fighting, just to avoid any misunderstandings...)

After we got over the initial confusion over ‘man or woman’, the teachers made their drawings and we all had a look around and guessed who drew which action. The results were remarkable and much fun: everyone could recognize what the others had drawn and the point that anyone can draw well when it comes to Mr Stick Figure or Mr Bellman was proved.

The teachers’ drawing skills were put to use in the next exercise when we modelled a pre-intermediate grammar lesson. We looked at George W. Bush’s photo and the teachers came up with statements about him (e.g.: he was a US president, he lived in the White House, he now lives in Texas on a ranch, he is the son of a former US president, etc.) and I also added some. (I have to admit that the teachers were very well informed about Bush, just like about any other topics that came up, let it be politics, geography, sports or any other world-affairs.  I found it really impressive!) In the next step I introduced ‘used to’ by giving examples such as

‘He used to live in the White House, but now he lives on a ranch’,

and many others based on what the teachers collected before. And then came the drawing part, when the ‘pre-intermediate students’ transformed back into teachers and they all attempted to explain ‘used to’ with the help of a timeline. I was happy to see that the they were imaginative and skilful at time-line drawing: ‘living on a ranch’ was usually represented by Mr Bush riding a horse, the White House looked like the White House, and Mr Bush’s early years when he was not always completely sober (‘like many students’, as one teacher added) were illustrated with his eyes both looking towards his nose (again a source of much fun). And the point was again proved: they were all able to draw really well.

To end the session, the teachers invented and compared CCQs for ‘used to’ (which was slightly less fun than timeline drawing).  

And a last word about the teachers’ drawing and decorating abilities: by the end of the second week they prepared a poster presentation based on an article from Modern English Teacher. Some of the presentations went extremely well and some of the final products were really impressive: not only were the main points highlighted in the clearest way possible, but they were also presented in a most attractive, colourful, and to-the-point manner. I took some photos, but unfortunately some of the posters were displayed on windows and they cannot be seen well in my photos (my camera has a problem handling background light). I felt that all the participants should take away a copy of each poster (which they did by taking pictures and I can only hope that theirs are better than mine) and have it on display somewhere to look at and to think about later, too.  

                 

Notes:

Kristina and Krzysztof were talking about CCQs and timelines and stick figures some time earlier in the year. We'd seen the links embedded in the post above. They inspired Krzysztof to add rounded figures to his demo's of contextualising grammar. These are now a part of the CTS course so thank you to the 'Recipes for the EFL Classroom' blog writer. 

We find that teachers really want to EXPLAIN the grammar, which leads to a lot of unnecessary metalanguage as well as long explanations that students don't understand and then in the end to a translation into L1. Teachers feel justified in translating because they say that the students clearly didn't understand. Well, of course they didn't! There are ways of clarifying meaning and checking understanding without L1, and we show them on the CTS course. 

Part of that is is showing participants how to create a little situation and example sentence with the target language, draw stick figures to illustrate the target language and then if it is helpful, add a timeline. 

More links: Chia's blog post on CCQs and an article on checking meaning/understanding from the British Council's Teaching English website.  

And finally, Kristina's favorite list of 'how to draw' tutorials from The Guardian. 

Thanks, Eva, for writing about this and providing illustrations of what teachers produced! 

Host Leadership session by Michaela Sobotková

This August I worked for the SeltAcademy as a trainer in Istanbul where I taught the Leadership and Management course for Heads of English of the Marmara region. I have to say that I really liked the content of the course which consisted partly of teacher training sessions and partly of management sessions. One of the sessions which really stuck out for me was the one called Host Leadership. I have to admit that it was quite a relief for me to find out that none of the trainers knew what the session was supposed to be about apart from Leah Davcheva who wrote the lesson plans and who also kindly and patiently explained to the rest of us what the concept of host leadership was about. I think that the concept is really powerful and it works really well when transferred to a teaching environment. That’s also the main reason why I decided to share its main ideas with others.

The concept of host leadership is based on a relationship between a host and a guest. This relationship is used as a metaphor for a relationship between a leader and people he/she leads. This can easily be transferred into teaching environment because every teacher has to be a leader. Basically, to keep a harmonious relationship a teacher should do all things a host does and a student should behave the same way a guest does. You can see in the pictures below a list of activities written by the participants of our course when they were asked ‘What does a host do?’ and ‘What does a guest do?’. If you look at the lists and think about a teacher as a host and a student as a guest you’ll see that most of the activities overlap. A student as a guest should definitely obey a teacher and be kind to him/her, he should knock on the door, get permission before doing something, be thankful and appreciative and definitely eat what’s offered which in this case can be understood as a metaphor for doing activities which the teacher has prepared. This works the same way for a teacher as a host: he/she should definitely make a good plan and prepare for his/her guests-students, entertain and engage students, welcome students in a kind and warm way, create pleasant atmosphere for students and make them comfortable. The important thing is that seeing the similarity of the relationships can help teachers realize that some problems they have with their students might be caused by malfunction of the relationship.

The concept distinguishes six different roles a host has to perform. A suitable situation which can help us understand the function of the individual roles is organizing a party. 

The first role is called Initiator. A host is in the role of Initiator when he/she decides that he/she wants to throw a party. The decision is usually based on asking people whether they’d be interested in coming to a party, thinking about the theme and other details. In teaching environment, this is the phase when you get an idea that your students might enjoy listening to songs in your lessons and you start thinking about how to make it work.

The second role is called Inviter.  When a host acts as Inviter, he/she starts inviting people and doing steps which are necessary for organizing the party. If we use our example from the previous role, a teacher here would start planning using specific songs in specific lessons, planning stages of activities, getting lyrics and recordings of the songs.

A host as Gatekeeper opens the door for his/her guests and invites them in. He/she also has the right to decide who’s allowed to stay and who should leave the house. A teacher can also decide who’s going to stay and leave the classroom. If a principal interrupts your lesson telling you that he/she needs to talk to you, you can always turn him/her down saying that you first need to finish the activity you’ve just started and then you can talk.

The next role is a role of Space creator. As a space creator a host decides about a position and number of tables and chairs, and all other things in the house. Similarly a teacher can decide to put posters on walls, rearrange a seating plan and bring things he/she wants to have in the classroom. 

A host as Connector introduces people and makes sure that everyone has a suitable person to talk to. Teachers do this when they divide students in pairs or groups and decide how to pair their students up so that they benefit from working with their partners. 

The last role is a host as Co-participator. As a co-participator a host takes part in various activities together with his/her guests. He/she has dinner with the guests, plays games with them, chats with them. A teacher is a co-participator when he/she joins a group of students and works with them. 

This is what the host leadership concept is about in an extremely simplified way. I’m sure that Leah would be able to give much more details and information but I think that this is quite enough to get a grasp of the concept and realize the importance and power of the relationship. 

What makes this concept particularly suitable for Turkish environment is the fact, that in Turkey the host-guest relationship is much stronger than in other European countries and a guest is perceived here as something sacred which makes the comparison even more powerful for the local people. 

The main reason why I decided to write about the host leadership session was that I not only enjoyed teaching the session but I also learned a lot from it myself. In this way I would like to thank Leah again for giving me the opportunity to get acquainted with the concept.

Here are some photos from the session. First the participants brainstormed metaphors for a 'leader': 

Later they explore the roles of guests and hosts. Here are the ideas brainstormed by the group. 

The participants explored the difference facets of the 'host leader': 

Extra reading:

There are some excellent resources on the web about the use of metaphor in professional training, and for teacher training/development programs. 

We would recommend reading Metaphorically Speaking by Steve Darn and Ian White) based in Turkey.) 

This webpage gives a lot of information about metaphors and why they are powerful. 

This article points out the importance of choosing a metaphor for teaching that has "a high degree of resonance" with the learners. 

What are your favorite articles about metaphor in (teacher) education? Please share in the comments.