I am lucky enough to be one of those invited to speak at the upcoming IH Barcelona ELT Conference, 8-9 February 2013. The event has already sold out, but if you are going to be there and have no other plans between 12:45 – 1:45pm on Saturday 9 February, then come along to room B at the venue, where I’ll be talking a good fight about how to knock seven bells out of your lessons in future!
This is a summary of an ELTChat for the benefit of the #ELTChat community
What do you get when you pose a question like this to a bunch of committed teachers and teacher trainers? Before anything else happens, you get an argument about definition of terms.
09:01pm @victorhugor: What’s the difference between teacher trainer and teacher educator?
Marisa Constantinides found this link to a discussion of the distinction between Teacher training and teacher education (from his classic Aspects of Language Teaching).
The basic distinction that teacher training tended to occur more in a pre-service setting (hereafter: PRESET) whereas teacher education tended to happen more at in-service (hereafter: INSET) level was queried but not seriously disputed by most participants.
However, as the chat went on, it became clear that this “false dichotomy” (as I called it) led, once accepted, to some fairly radical statements about the nature of teacher training.
This is just a short note to update you all on some new things you can find here now.
BASIC TRAINING is an ongoing series at sharing in straightforward and low-tech ways how to go about teaching, simply. The first instalment is on how to get learners talking and capitalise on what they say and the brand new second instalment is on how to use stories and anecdotes for reading or listening practice.
THE SE7EN DEADLY SINS OF ELT (talk) is an old video version of the talk I gave this year at IATEFL that I know some of you wanted to attend but couldn’t because the room was full. Although the sound quality is not optimal and my hair is a good deal longer, I thought I would share it and I hope you find it useful. You can find it here.
I’ll keep adding to the site as and when I have time, so thank you for your patience and for reading!
Anthony
I am starting a new series of pages with the title Basic Training, where I will be summarising and illustrating some fundamentals of language classroom work (at least, as far as I see it!)
Initially I thought about doing this mainly to support my CELTA trainees but then I thought that it might be generally useful, so I am keeping it public.
The first installment – on how to get learners talking and how to capitalise on what they say – will go online very soon, so keep an eye out for it.
Some months ago, I had sad occasion to write a eulogy of sorts to the best teacher I ever had – Chris Foley.
In it, I wrote how he tempered me to take the edge of thoughtful enquiry (which probably sounds incredibly pompous and conceited, but if I have any intellectual sharpness, I have him to thank for it.)
The image was of the furnace, the blacksmith, the forge – and, at the forge’s heart, in the pit of the furnace, sits the crucible.
Most of us will never see a crucible of this kind in action, but I would like to suggest that we have all spent many years of our lives within a crucible of a very different kind.