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. 

CTS Portfolios by Nina Shandetskaya

Keeping a portfolio is one of the essential components of the CTS course. Participants must maintain a portfolio of all their lesson plans, handouts, session notes and other work. This should be neat and tidy. As portfolios are a relatively new concept for our course participants, we use the word loosely to mean a collection of all their course work, rather than narrowing the purpose of the portfolio down. My group in Erzurum found keeping a portfolio a very enjoyable activity.

How did we manage?

Well, what we really needed was one enthusiastic member of the group who turned up the second day with a nice folder containing 5 A-4 pages of different colours with all the activities from Day 1 on them to get started. Everything was creatively organized on the paper with stars, smiling faces, hands and pictures. 

A good start, isn’t it? Moreover, it was a kind of inspiration to other participants. This way we had had four teachers out of 11 with great portfolios by the end of week 1.

What about the others?

I could hear some trainees complain, "We are not students. Why should we prepare it? It’s time-consuming. I’m not good at keeping things in order." However, at the end of week two I could see 10 folders with all the course materials nicely organized. It was also the participants’ attitude to the idea of having all the materials in the portfolio that changed completely, probably because they began to see some of the benefits.

Trainees’ feedback on keeping a portfolio

“After this course, I know that my portfolio is my basic resource. It is simple and easy-to-use. I can quickly find a game and use it in my class.” 

“Keeping a portfolio is a really good way. When I need to do something differently in my teaching practice, I can always turn to my portfolio and find information easily. It saves time while planning a lesson.” 

“At the beginning of the course I didn’t want to prepare a portfolio. Now I am sure that I will always use my portfolio and it will be a good resource for the development of all skills. There are lots of activities and games that will help me during my lessons.”

“I’m impressed by the work we’ve done over the two weeks. Now I have a guide book for my teaching career!”

The teachers didn’t only compile different items, but also reflected on their own work and the performance of other participants. We decided to have a special section called “Bank of Ideas”, in which the trainees gathered activities from other teachers in the group.

I can say it for sure now that the course portfolio helps to increase motivation, develop teacher’s reflective capacities and encourage teacher growth.

These are 5 easy steps to create an impressive portfolio

• Start as early as possible! The first day of the course is just the right time;)
• Plan well and systematically collect data.
• Update information regularly.
• Involve other trainees as contributors. You can benefit from teamwork.
• Be creative and reflective.

Here are some more lovely examples from my group: 

Note from Kristina: Nina's group was all female and a male group would probably have kept their portfolios quite differently. However, even without all the colour and sweet drawings, a portfolio is a useful tool. You may like to explore the links below and share them with participants if they balk at keeping a portfolio. Please add you favorite links and ideas in the comments. 

1. Why use portfolios in assessment? 

2. Using a portfolio to reflect. (Scroll down for some useful questions.)

3. Detailed explanations of reflection, artefacts and portfolios. It's for art teachers but the basic principles are the same.   

In fact we should consider how to make better use of the portfolios in the 'advanced' CTS courses. I shall have a little think about this over the next few months. Thanks for setting the standard for portfolios, Nina :)