From Teacher

to Trainer

Matthew T Ellman
and Peter Lucantoni
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Contents

 

Acknowledgements iv
Thanks v
Foreword vi
Introduction 1
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning 7
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline 25
3 Training sessions: Activities and materials 45
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session 67
5 Mentoring practices 91
6 Observing teaching and learning 109
7 Assessing teaching 135
8 Giving feedback on teaching 151
9 Training courses and programmes 173
10 Trainer development 189
Notes on tasks 211
Appendices 238
References 243
Index 250
iii
 Acknowledgements
The authors and publishers acknowledge the following sources of copyright material
and are grateful for the permissions granted. While every effort has been made, it has
not always been possible to identify the sources of all the material used, or to trace
all copyright holders. If any omissions are brought to our notice, we will be happy to
include the appropriate acknowledgements on reprinting and in the next update to the
digital edition, as applicable.
Key: Int = Introduction, U = Unit
Text:
Int: Quote reproduced by kind permission of Donya Estafanous; U3: Extract taken
from ‘Metaphors we work by: EFL and its metaphors’ by Scott Thornbury, ELT
Journal, Volume 45, Issue 3, July 1991, Page 200, https://doi.org/10.1093/elt/45.3.193,
by permission of Oxford University Press via Copyright Clearance Center; U6: Jim
Scrivener for the text adapted from ‘16- Next Steps’ by Jim Scrivener, Learning Teaching.
Text Copyright © 2011 Jim Scrivener. Reproduced by kind permission of Jim Scrivener;
U9: Quote reproduced by kind permission of Bahar Gün; Design variables taken from
‘Teacher education: Factors relating to programme design’, by Martin Parrott, Applied
linguistics and English language teaching. Copyright © 1991 Modern English Publication
and The British Council. Published by Macmillan Publishers Limited. Reproduced by
kind permission of The British Council; U10: Quote reproduced by kind permission
of Allen Davenport; Text taken from ‘British Council Continuing Professional
Development (CPD) Framework for Teacher Educators’. Copyright © 2021 British
Council. Reproduced by kind permission; Association of Teacher Educators for the text
taken from ‘Association of Teacher Educators standards’. Copyright © 2021 Association
of Teacher Educators. Used with permission. All rights reserved; Quote reproduced
by kind permission of Walid Shawky; Notes: Text taken from Evaluating professional
development by Thomas R Guskey. Copyright © 2000 Corwin Press. Reproduced by
permission of Corwin Press.
Photography:
U1: skynesher/E+/Getty Images; U2: Westend61/Getty Images; U3: Reproduced
by kind permission of Sandy Millin; U4: d3sign/Moment/Getty Images; Images of
book cover and inside page from Meanings into Words Upper-intermediate Workbook
captured by Peter Lucantoni, Professional Learning and Development Manager,
Cambridge University Press and Assessment.
Cover Photography by Jon Feingersh Photography Inc/DigitalVision/Getty Images.
Video:
Pre-lesson observation: Theresa Dyer (teacher) and Peter Lucantoni (trainer); Lesson
observation: Theresa Dyer (teacher), Peter Lucantoni (trainer), Anna, Dunia, Gaia,
Jessica, Óscar, Francesca (students) and Globally Speaking; Post-lesson observation:
Theresa Dyer (teacher) and Peter Lucantoni (trainer).
Trainer Voices: Allen Davenport; Andrea Tolve; Anil Bayir; Bahar Gün; Chris Thorn;
Claire Ross; Fabio Galvanini; Nahla Al Malki; Olha Madylus; Rawya Zakzouk; Ricardo
Morales; Scott Thornbury; Zhenya Polosatova.
Typesetting:
QBS Learning
URL:
The publisher has used its best endeavours to ensure that the URLs for external
websites referred to in this book are correct and active at the time of going to press.
However, the publisher has no responsibility for the websites and can make no
guarantee that a site will remain live or that the content is or will remain appropriate.
iv
Thanks
Heartfelt thanks to our friends and colleagues at Cambridge University
Press, particularly Jo Timerick and Karen Momber, without whom this
book would not exist. Tremendous thanks also to Alex Tilbury for his
insightful comments and ideas, and to Greg Sibley for his splendid editing.
We are indebted to our trainer friends who contributed their voices and
wisdom on video and in print, as well as to those who helped create our
lesson videos: Nicole and Michelle at Globally Speaking in Rome, Sarah
Ellis, and especially Theresa Dyer for volunteering to be our teacher.
Matt: I was very lucky to have outstanding trainers when I was learning
to teach, and I'm pleased to have this chance to thank Andy Cox, Dave
Rea, Steven McGuire and Kate Leigh for all they taught me. Thank you to
Olha Madylus, Chris Thorn and Sangeeta Sathe for reading drafts and for
being brilliant co-trainers and friends. Big thanks to Peter for inviting me
to join this project and for being a pleasure to work with. Finally, thank
you and much love to Donya for all her support, encouragement, ideas and
endless patience.
Peter: A huge thank-you to my co-author, colleague and friend, Matt,
who helped make the idea of this book become a reality. Without his
enthusiasm and input the journey would have been far more difficult and
the result far less impressive.

v
 Foreword
In our many encounters with teachers, we – Peter and Matthew – have
often been asked for advice on how to get into teacher training. It’s
not unusual for the question to be asked with a sense of frustration,
and sometimes there even seems to be an underlying assumption that
becoming a trainer is more like joining a secret society than making a
perfectly logical career move.
The advice we give is quite straightforward (if there is a secret society for
teacher trainers, we haven’t been invited!) – to become a teacher trainer
you need two things: opportunities to work with teachers, and the skills
to perform well when you get those opportunities. We can’t provide you
with the opportunities (although we show you where to look for them,
in Chapter 10), but what we can do is help you develop the skills, so that
you’re ready to seize whatever chances you come across.
We have written this book to support and guide your journey towards
becoming a teacher trainer. There are plenty of methodology books for
teachers available, as there are coursebooks for students; there is also a
number of resource books for more experienced trainers. But this book
is intended to bridge the gap between teacher and trainer, and to provide
a comprehensive foundation for your training career, whether you are
aspiring to it or already supporting teachers as part of your work. Many of
the skills involved in effective teaching are also part of effective teacher
training. We try to build on your experience as a teacher and help you to
use your existing skills as fully as possible, while also providing you with
the techniques and know-how that are more specific to teacher training.
Our goal is not only to help you transition from the classroom to the
training room. Crucially, we aim to help you become a trainer whose
interventions have a lasting, positive impact on what teachers think and
do when they teach. Being effective as a teacher trainer means effecting
change in your trainees’ teaching practice, ultimately to achieve better
student learning outcomes. We hope, therefore, that the importance of
achieving this kind of impact through your training runs through the
whole book.
Between us we have more than 50 years of experience in teaching,
training, writing and academic management, in countries across the world.
Both of us work with and support teachers in different contexts, face-to-
face and online, on a daily basis. We have designed and delivered training
programmes to large institutions and ministries of education, and we also
train trainers, often working side-by-side on the same course.

vi
We hope you enjoy and benefit from using this book, and that the teachers
you work with will benefit as well. Training teachers is challenging, but it’s
also varied, fun, fascinating and richly rewarding. We wish you good luck
as you take your first steps from teacher to trainer!

vii
Introduction
When you become a teacher you get training, and if you go on
into management there are training courses for that, but no one
ever tells you how to do teacher training because it’s just seen
as another kind of teaching, just telling people what you know
because you’re a good teacher.
Donya, teacher trainer, UK

Many experienced teachers will find themselves in the situation Donya

describes at some point in their careers. In management roles or simply
respected by their students and by their peers, they may be asked to
deliver workshops, observe colleagues or act as a mentor. But they’re often
expected to do that on the basis of their teaching skills alone, and while
teacher training can certainly be considered ‘teaching of teachers’, there
is more to being a successful trainer than simply knowing how to teach,
in the same way that there is more to being a good language teacher than
simply knowing how to speak the language.

Why we wrote this book

Like Donya, we see that there is a lack of practical help available to
experienced teachers who hope to take on more of a training role – in
other words, to move from teacher to trainer. The problem is that even
if opportunities to start training are available, opportunities for learning
how to become a trainer are often very limited, and in certain contexts
may be non-existent. Even the teachers who are lucky enough to have
access to guidance as they begin their careers as trainers may find the task
more daunting than anticipated, or feel that the guidance they receive
is inadequate.
This lack of support inevitably makes life difficult for new trainers, who have
to find their way through trial and error, but it also increases the risk that
the training they deliver will have limited impact, or even the wrong impact:
one teacher describes how, tired of attending training sessions that didn’t
meet his needs, he has ‘on more than one occasion, . . . skipped an offered
session, opting for elopement over development’ (Kirkham, 2015, p. 4)! It’s
understandable that the transition into teacher education isn’t easy. Moving
from teaching to training doesn’t just entail doing things differently, or even
doing entirely new things; it involves ‘a transformation of perspective on the
educational process’ (Wright, 2009, p. 104), and that is a challenge. But at the
same time, experienced teachers have a wealth of classroom know-how that
they can tap in to when they begin training, and right through their training
careers – if the right support is provided.

1
 Who can benefit from this book
Introduction

Anyone who is moving from teacher to trainer, even in an unofficial manner,

should be able to take something from this book. It does not assume that
you have had any experience of delivering training, nor do we believe
 

that ‘one size fits all’. We are very aware that every educational context is
different, and that different solutions are needed for different challenges.
However, we do believe that there are certain universal principles that all
trainers can benefit from, and we will address these in the initial chapters.
So this book is for you if you are, for example:

• an experienced teacher who is called upon to support colleagues, either

one-to-one, or by delivering workshops
• a trainer-in-training on a course such as Cambridge English Train
the Trainer, or as a tutor-in-training to deliver the Cambridge CELTA
or equivalent
• a co-ordinator or manager who is required to guide, observe or train staff
• a practising teacher trainer who wishes to review or develop their
knowledge and skills
• a supervisor or inspector, required to observe teaching and
deliver feedback
• a teacher receiving a trainee in their class as part of an initial teacher
training programme

We expect that you will be an experienced language teacher, and that you
will broadly place your skills at either Proficient or Expert level on the
Cambridge English Teaching Framework (see Appendix 1). In addition we
expect that you will have been through a certain amount of formal teacher
training yourself during your career, which you will be able to draw
upon as you read through the book. Although our focus is principally the
training of English language teachers and the examples we use will reflect
that, there is no reason why trainers of teachers of other languages can’t
benefit from the book too, or even those training teachers of other subjects
– the principles of teacher learning that we present are drawn from
research undertaken in a wide range of educational contexts.

Our approach
A key part of our approach is the belief that new trainers can and should
draw extensively on their teaching experience as they make the transition
into teacher training. There are many skills and habits that can be
transferred from the classroom to the training room, and our experience

2
suggests it is very much the case that ‘experienced teachers make effective

 
Introduction
teacher educators if their experience is acknowledged and built upon’
(Vilches, 2015, p. 286).
At regular points, therefore, you will see tasks that require you to look
back at your teaching career and draw out memories and insights that can
inform your work as a trainer. You’ll see these labelled as From
teacher . . . tasks. In addition to these, you’ll also want to check your
understanding of the concepts that you encounter, to gauge your progress
and to help you absorb and retain new ideas. To do that we have also
created . . . To trainer tasks. We have provided suggestions and responses
to most of the tasks in the Notes on tasks section in the back of the book
(where we haven’t, the response is either unique to you or covered in
the text that follows the task), but these should not be seen as ‘answers’.
Instead, we hope they will serve as prompts that encourage you to reflect
on your context and draw your own conclusions.
One of the best ways to develop your training skills is to learn from
skilled trainers. We are extremely lucky to have been able to draw on the
experience of colleagues around the world who have kindly provided their
insights through case studies, helping to demonstrate how principles are
put into practice. Their input has meant that this book includes a wide
range of examples and contexts, and we have been able to highlight the
differences (but also the similarities!) that exist between training contexts
around the globe.
We feel that there’s tremendous value in hearing directly from some of
these trainers, in order for you to develop an understanding of how widely
training contexts can differ, of how trainers solve some of the problems
that their contexts present and of how the trainers moved from the
classroom to the training room. So at certain points in the book you will
see that there are video resources to supplement the text. Some of these
appear as part of a task, while others serve to elaborate on what we have
described, and are referred to in the Trainer voices sections at the end of
each chapter. The videos are indicated by the icon and can be accessed
by scanning the QR Code in each section. This is followed by To find out
more sections with recommendations for further reading.
Lastly, we strongly believe that teacher trainers have a responsibility to
build bridges between educational research and classroom practice by
ensuring that the concepts and practices they foster in trainees are evidence-
based. Where possible we do that in the book by providing references in
the text to (1) show that there is a theoretical basis or research evidence for
our claims and (2) guide you towards further reading. There is a growing
body of research literature on teacher training and how teachers learn, and
we feel that it is important that new trainers are introduced to it.

3
 How to use this book
Introduction

The book is loosely divided into four parts. The first is Chapter 1, which
introduces the theoretical background to teacher training and many of
the concepts that are referred to in discussions of training practice later
 

in the book. Chapters 2–4 deal with planning and delivering training
sessions, Chapters 5–8 deal with mentoring and observing teachers and
giving them feedback on teaching, and finally Chapters 9–10 focus on
bringing it all together when planning programmes of training and your
own development as a trainer.
This book can be read cover-to-cover for a comprehensive introduction
to language teacher training, but just as effectively you can jump to the
part that is most relevant to your immediate needs. Where possible we
encourage you to read Chapter 1 first, to get a sense of the ideas that
underpin the rest of the book and to help re-orient your perspective
towards that of a trainer.
What we don’t cover in this book is the content of a teacher training
course. In other words, we are not going to tell you what to teach your
trainees. Our concern here is with the processes of teacher training, which
include making decisions about what trainees need to learn, and we hope
to provide you with the tools to make those decisions yourself. As an
experienced teacher you will already be familiar with many principles of
effective language teaching, and there are many other excellent resources
available that outline foundational skills and knowledge, such as Penny
Ur’s Course in English Language Teaching (Ur, 2012).
From Teacher to Trainer is standalone: in other words, you can use it as a
self-study guide as there are suggested responses and solutions to the tasks
we set. However, if you are in a situation where others are also moving
into the role of trainer, most of the tasks in the book can be shared and
discussed, and it will be helpful to work through them with others who are
also on the journey from teacher to trainer.

Terminology
We use teacher education as the umbrella term for teacher training
and teacher development (Freeman, 1989). Broadly speaking, we see
teacher training as any learning process led by a trainer, while teacher
development is a learning process led by the teacher. For any teacher, at
any career stage, both are necessary for effective, sustained professional
learning, and they should be seen as complementary. Our main concern
in this book is teacher training, and our definition of it means that we
see it as a diverse activity. Being a trainer also means being a coach,
mentor, counsellor, and tutor (to name just a few of the different hats
trainers wear).

4
We use trainer to refer to those who plan and/or deliver workshops or

 
Introduction
teacher education programmes, provide feedback on teaching, or mentor
teachers. If you are doing these things then consider yourself a trainer,
whatever your formal job title! In certain contexts, such as online or on
CELTA courses, the term tutor is used to mean the same thing.
We use teacher, trainee or participant to refer to those who learn from,
or are guided by, the trainer. For some, trainee refers to teachers at the
beginning of their careers, or on preservice courses. Here we have chosen
to use it to refer to teachers of all levels of experience who are learning
with the help of a trainer.
We refer to the people learning language in teachers’ classrooms as students
or learners.
A session is the broad term we use for a teacher training workshop,
and we use training rooms to refer to the places where those take place,
whether physical or virtual. When we talk about what teachers do in
their classrooms, we use the term lesson, and when we talk about what
teachers do as part of their professional lives in general, in and out of the
classroom, we use teaching practice, or just practice.
The verb to train often carries connotations of repetitive activity, and of
having habits ‘drilled in’. It’s common to hear people talk, for example,
about training in the gym or of having a personal trainer. Sometimes training
means learning how to operate machinery, as in being a trained pilot. And
animals are often the objects of training: you might train a dog to sit, or
make sure that it’s toilet trained. Training in this sense – of being taught
to act a certain way in particular situations, or to respond a certain way
to particular cues – sometimes carries over into discussions of teacher
training, and it is associated with the idea of training as a process of
instilling practical techniques or routines for use in the classroom. Helping
teachers form good habits is indeed a part of what trainers do, but it is far
from the complete picture, as we hope to show you. The classroom is not
a piece of machinery that functions in predictable ways, and our goals as
trainers go beyond showing trainees ‘which buttons to press’; trainers want
teachers to understand what they’re doing and why they’re doing it:
Teachers need to be trained in practical techniques, but
must also be educated to see those techniques as exemplars
of certain theoretical principles and therefore subject to
continual reappraisal and change. This is necessary in the
interests of the learner. If teachers are not educated in this
sense then they cannot derive expertise from experience.
(Widdowson, 1984, p. 88)
Ultimately, we all want our training to lead to better outcomes for our
trainees’ learners, and we also want our trainees to be able to continue to
grow and develop once they leave the training room. So, our use of the
verb to train indicates much more than the formation of good habits in

5
 teachers: we want them to understand the rationale for the techniques
Introduction

we train them in, when to use them, and why. While we could probably
identify other terms that reflect these goals better (such as teacher educator,
facilitator, or teacher of teachers), we’ve found that by far the most widely
understood title for what we do is trainer, so that is what we’ve used in
 

this book.

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Starting out’
and ‘Trainer profiles’ to hear trainers talk about how they
got started and where they work now.

TO FIND OUT MORE

Woodward, T. (1991). Models and metaphors in language teacher
training: Loop input and other strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. (At the very beginning of this book Tessa Woodward
considers the roles of trainer, teacher, student, etc. and how the
relationships between them are important to teacher training.)

6
1 From teaching learners
to teacher learning
Here we consider:
• Different teaching and learning contexts and how they affect
teaching
• What effective teachers do
• What effective teachers know
• How expert teachers acquire that knowledge and skill
• The implications of teacher learning for trainers

I think we’re always learning as teachers and trying to do better,

and we should be.
Claire, teacher trainer, Cyprus

Teaching and learning contexts

It’s not uncommon for professionals in several fields to perform their roles
in a variety of different situations. Footballers, for instance, have to play
home and away, and will play in dozens of different stadiums in the course
of a season, each with its own characteristics. The demands of a league
game differ to those of a cup game, and a match in the early stages of a
cup competition may have a very different feel to a match in the knockout
stages, when it’s a case of ‘winner takes all’. But despite these variations,
the rules of the sport are always the same, and so is the objective: score
more goals than your opponent.
Language teachers sadly don’t enjoy professional footballers’ wages,
but we need to be similarly adaptable. You probably teach in several
different classrooms in an academic year, and each one will differ in
terms of size, layout, resources and ambience. You may have a weekly
timetable that includes classes of young children, teenagers, university
students and working professionals, particularly if you work for a private
language school. Learners in those groups will have different motivations
for attending classes, and even when the same group meets, the group
dynamic can vary. But like footballers, teachers can rely on the ‘rules’
remaining constant – all learners, for example, need extensive exposure to
the target language, and benefit from opportunities to practise sustained,
meaningful speaking (Ellis, 2005) – and improved proficiency is an
objective for all students, even if it is not always the principal objective.
7
 All teachers, then, share similar goals but need to be able to work within a
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning

variety of teaching contexts on the way to achieving those goals. Probably

we immediately think of a typical classroom as the most obvious context,
but teaching and learning can take place almost anywhere, particularly
when digital technology is involved. We should also include here as part
of the context not only where teaching and learning take place, but also
what will be learned and any materials used to facilitate the process (the
curriculum, materials and the resources), as well as who is involved (the
number of participants, their background and motivation, knowledge
and skills, etc.) and how this is done (the teaching approach, interaction
patterns and techniques).
Two characteristics of teaching and learning contexts are particularly
important, because they shape what teachers do when they teach. The
first is that every teaching and learning context is different. This is true
even if you teach the same students, in the same room, using the same
coursebook, every day of the week. People will respond differently at
different times to the same things, and in many ways this is what makes
our profession so interesting and, at the same time, so challenging. The
second is the fact that many aspects of context are usually outside the
control of a teacher. For instance, we – Peter and Matthew – have visited
schools and universities where students’ desks are bolted to the floor,
and students sit four or more on a shared bench; others where learners’
parents sit at the back of the classroom during lessons and complain if
they don’t like what they see; and others where all books were replaced
by tablet computers that later proved to be faulty. Such factors are the
result of decisions made outside the walls of the classroom, attributable to
individuals, to school culture, or to the wider social culture surrounding
the institution. So the limitations on a teaching context often originate
from beyond the walls of the classroom, but affect what goes on inside it.

CASE STUDY 1.1: MATTHEW

I remember my first teaching context quite clearly, a small private language
school in London. Classrooms were small, with 12–16 adult students of
various nationalities, who came for daily three-hour lessons. There was a
coursebook that I had to use, but also a lot of freedom to select other
materials and take advantage of being in London. Having a multilingual
class of mixed nationalities presented fantastic opportunities for students
to talk about their home countries and cultures, and because there was
no shared first language, English was the natural way of doing that. So in
several ways it was quite a gentle introduction to teaching! But there were
challenges, too: each week new students joined the group while others left,
resources were very limited, and I had 30 teaching hours a week, so there
was very little time for professional development.

8
 1
TASK 1.1

From teaching learners to teacher learning

From teacher . . .
Think about your current teaching context and answer these questions:

• What does the context look like?

• Where are the teacher(s) and the student(s) located?
• What materials and resources are available? Are any mandatory?
• What materials and resources are not available?
• How much space and time is there for learning?
• What goals are there? Who set them?

If possible, share and compare your answers with another teacher’s.

For notes see page 211

All this means that teachers constantly need to make choices as part of
their work, and these choices should be based on their intentions for a
particular lesson. In other words, teachers work within local limitations
to select the what and how in order to achieve particular goals, while
recognising that they may have little control over the where and who.
Some of these choices can be made before the lesson starts, but others
will be made during the lesson itself, in response to what unfolds in the
classroom. As Jim Scrivener points out, ‘all effective teaching requires
an active moment-by-moment processing of the current situation and a
flexible ever-changing reflection as to what might be the best thing to do
next’ (Scrivener, 2012, p. 2). So one view of teaching is as improvisation;
an ongoing balancing act between the intended learning outcomes of the
teacher and the opportunities and limitations presented by the teaching
context. Unsurprisingly, then, a significant part of learning to teach
‘involves understanding what the characteristics of the teaching context
are and how they shape the nature of teaching and learning’ (Richards &
Farrell, 2011, p. 32).
Therefore it is essential that, as a trainer, you ensure your trainees are
mindful of context as they develop their ideas about teaching. Even when
training and subsequent teaching occur in much the same context, it isn’t
unusual for trainees to find that the reality of day-to-day teaching doesn’t
quite equate to what they experienced in the training room. Most of us
have probably experienced this ‘gap of applicability’ (Freeman, 2009, p. 15)
in our own training at some point, sitting in a workshop thinking ‘nice
idea, but it won’t work in my classroom!’ That’s not to say that trainees
shouldn’t be encouraged to give new ideas due consideration, but it is also
true that one size does not fit all, and all educators need to be aware of
this. That applies to teachers as much as it does to trainers – Sharon Childs
writes that:

9
 While teacher education cannot prepare . . . [trainees] to
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning

be ready to teach in every context, it can prepare them to

understand that context is a powerful mediator that can
shape or be shaped by how they conceptualize teaching. It is
incumbent on teacher professional development programs to
ensure that teachers leave with this understanding. (Childs,
2011, p. 85)
In practice, this means encouraging trainees to consider how they can
apply or adapt ideas, approaches, activities and techniques to their own
specific context, usually through guided reflection (see Chapter 3).
One of the problems trainers face is that they may never see the precise
contexts their trainees go on to work in, particularly if most of their work
is with preservice trainees. As a trainer you may work with teachers in
their own classrooms, you may work with them in a dedicated training
venue, or you may deliver training online. Whatever your training
situation, you will need to be mindful of your trainees’ teaching contexts
(or likely future teaching contexts) when you plan, deliver and give
feedback as part of training activity. What may be highly effective in one
context may be counterproductive in another. Adrian Doff suggests that
‘most people involved in teacher education are aware of the existence
of two separate worlds’ (1996, p. 8), comparing well-resourced private
teaching contexts with small class sizes to ‘the world of most other
teachers’: those who work with large groups of students in state schools
or universities, often with limited and out-of-date resources. This latter
world is much larger, meaning that the teaching profession is primarily
made up of teachers working in mainstream schools and universities, with
relatively large groups of students. Globally, most teachers work in these
more restricted environments, where syllabuses and materials are decided
by committees, teachers’ views are often not considered, and there is little
opportunity for teachers (and their learners) to experiment. Evidently,
approaches to training teachers for work in these diverse contexts must
take such differences into account.
In addition to considering the trainees’ teaching contexts, trainers have
their own teaching and learning context to manage: the training room.
This will have its own affordances and limitations to be aware of, but
as a trainer you will need to consider how to best explore and exploit
not only your training context, but your trainees’ teaching contexts too.
The vast differences that exist between Doff’s ‘two separate worlds’
impact significantly on what teachers and students can and cannot do
in the classroom. There is an equally significant impact on how teacher
development might be structured, and on how appropriate and applicable
ideas and methods are in one context versus another. As trainers of
teachers, we need to be familiar with a wide range of teaching contexts in
order to be confident and effective in our role.

10
 1
TASK 1.2

From teaching learners to teacher learning

. . . To trainer
Consider the different teaching contexts in photos A and B, and then answer the
questions.

A B

What might be the main opportunities and limitations of each context?

What could the teacher in A do that the teacher in B could not?
What could the teacher in B do that the teacher in A could not?
For notes see page 211

What effective teachers do

As we’ve seen, teaching and learning contexts provide the where and the
who, but what happens in those contexts – the what and the how – is of
more interest to us, because that’s the part our trainees have some control
over. Why is it important to start by thinking about what language teachers
do and how they do it? Because if we can understand what is required of
teachers in the classroom, and what it is that highly-skilled teachers do to
meet those demands, we can begin to think clearly about what our trainees
need to learn in order to be effective. As Donald Freeman points out,
‘how we define language teaching will influence, to a large extent, how we
educate people as language teachers’ (1989, p. 28).
Defining ‘language teaching’, and particularly ‘effective language teaching’
is actually very difficult, because what is effective will differ from context to
context. Different cultures also have different ideas about what good teaching
entails. So this is an area that is difficult to research: ‘to date, there are no
precise benchmarks of what constitutes effective second language teaching
in all settings, nor are there agreed effective strategies that teachers should
implement in their classes’ (Farrell, 2015, p. 81). But what we can do instead
is look at expert teachers, those we know to be highly effective, and examine
their practice for clues about the kinds of expertise that non-expert colleagues
should aim to develop. Expert teachers are often those with many years of
experience, although experience alone doesn’t guarantee expertise. Studies
into teacher expertise usually rely on several additional indicators to identify
expert teachers, such as recommendations from managers, colleagues and
students, teaching awards, and student exam results.

11
 One way of seeing what makes teachers experts is to look at ‘snapshots’
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning

of them at work. As we see what expert teachers do while planning,

teaching and after lessons, we can compare their activities to those of
novice colleagues. Table 1.1 gives some examples of how expert and
novice teachers work differently before, during and after they teach. In
general, the contrast between the actions of novices and experts indicates
that expert teachers are able to draw on patterns of student behaviour
they recognise from experience, along with tried-and-tested classroom
routines, to give themselves time to focus more on student learning and
on the bigger picture of the learning journey. This is not unlike learning to
drive (Weston & Clay, 2018; Woodward, 1991): new drivers are initially so
overwhelmed with the need to juggle steering, changing gear, controlling
speed, and checking mirrors that paying attention to the road is the least of
their priorities, but they eventually learn to handle many of those demands
automatically and concentrate on driving safely. There is just as much,
if not more, for teachers to manage in a classroom, but similarly, with
time and experience most teachers develop routines that allow them to
deal with certain aspects of teaching with a degree of automaticity so that
they can prioritise student learning over managing behaviour, resources,
administration and so on.
Snapshots, however, don’t give us the full picture. They don’t tell us how
the skills on display were developed, which is what distinguishes teachers
who are genuine experts from those who have simply been doing the job
for a long time. To return to our driver analogy, what is it that makes the
difference between a motor racing champion (an expert driver, in other
words) and someone who passed their driving test 20 years ago and
drives to work every day? Both are experienced drivers, but only one is
an expert. Clearly there is more to expertise than experience, and just
looking at snapshots of how experts operate doesn’t tell us what makes
the difference. So we can look at expert teachers in another way, with
a ‘behind the scenes’ view of expertise that focuses on the process of
becoming an expert.
Looking at expert teachers in this way reveals that it is what you do with
experience that determines whether you become an expert. Gaining
experience as a teacher means building a repertoire of classroom activities
and routines, knowing how students will react to them, developing
language awareness and so on, over time. Novice teachers need to devote
time and attention to all of these areas, but more experienced colleagues
can draw on their experience to carry out the same tasks with less effort.
That alone doesn’t make them experts, though. Instead of resting on
their laurels, experienced teachers become experts when they are able
to recognise where they need to learn more, and ‘reinvest the resources
freed up by the use of routines to tackle more advanced problems and to
problematise what appears to be the unproblematic and routine’ (Tsui,
2009, p. 194). In other words, expert teachers are always working behind
the scenes to improve their teaching, hence the old adage that there’s a big

12
Table 1.1: Expert versus novice teacher behaviours, as reported in Tsui, 2009

1
From teaching learners to teacher learning
Experts Novices

Before º Can make decisions about º Follow procedures, rules and

lessons what to exclude/add/adapt to curriculum guidelines
lesson procedure
º Anticipate problems and plan º Are much less able to
solutions for them anticipate potential problems
º Plan more efficiently, º Spend a long time planning
incorporating insights from and plans are more detailed.
similar lessons in the past, and This leaves less time for longer-
plans are shorter. Make long- term planning
term plans for objectives and
content
º Demonstrate an integrated º Tend to view each lesson in
knowledge base, linking each isolation
lesson to others in the course
º Start their lesson planning with º Focus on their teaching
knowledge of the students and objectives with relatively little
their needs, as a group and as attention to how students might
individuals respond

During º Recognise patterns in º Can easily be overwhelmed by

lessons classroom events very classroom events and struggle
quickly, and interpret them in to interpret them in relation to
meaningful ways each other
º Are selective about what needs º Attend more to classroom
their attention in the classroom, events relating to behaviour,
whether immediately, or and less to those related to
later on learning goals
º Have better improvisational º Have difficulty addressing
skills: they can draw on questions without losing track
established routines to give of the lesson, and tend to cope
examples and explanations by ignoring student needs and
effortlessly, addressing focusing on the immediate task
emergent needs without the
lesson derailing
º Can justify their practices in a º Are not able to justify practices
principled manner with reference to principles
º Focus more on language (the º Focus on classroom
subject) management

After º Focus on what students º Reflect on their own

lessons learned and what they can do performance in the classroom
to enhance learning rather than on the students’

difference between 20 years’ experience and one year’s experience

repeated 20 times. This process of continual adaptation to the demands of
the teaching context, even after many years of experience, is the defining
feature of ‘adaptive experts’, and distinguishes them from experienced
non-experts, or ‘routine experts’ (Hatano & Inagaki, 1986).

13
 As trainers, we need to recognise how the practices our trainees
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning

demonstrate relate to their levels of experience, and help them use the
experience they gain to develop the habits that will make them adaptive
experts, not just routine experts. That means developing teachers who
are ‘evaluative practitioners’ (Weston & Clay, 2018, p. 3), who are able
to continually assess how effective their teaching is and direct their own
learning and development towards the skills and knowledge that will have
the most impact in their specific teaching and learning context.

CASE STUDY 1.2: MATTHEW

Reflecting now on what I was doing in my lessons during my first year of
teaching, I think my main preoccupation was with making my classes
interesting and enjoyable. I wanted my students to learn, of course,
but I had the idea that learning had to be fun, which I think was a
misunderstanding of the student-centred approach that I had learned
on my initial training course. I also tended to plan lessons alongside my
colleagues, and borrow ideas from them, particularly if they sounded
dynamic and exciting! So taking my students and their needs as the
starting point for planning wasn’t something I was doing then, partly
because I was a novice but also partly because the context made that
difficult, with students coming and going each week.

TASK 1.3
From teacher . . .
Think back to different periods of your teaching career. Do you recognise the
traits of novice and expert teachers in your own development as a teacher?
For notes see page 212

What effective teachers know

Several of the actions of expert teachers mentioned above involve specialist
knowledge that sets skilled teachers apart from novices. Some of this
knowledge is highly contextualised, such as understanding of the learners
and their needs, but other elements are transferable across contexts,
such as language awareness or techniques for checking comprehension.
Understanding the knowledge that underpins effective teaching is
important for teacher trainers, because developing that knowledge will
form a key part of successful training.

Knowing about, Knowing how, Knowing to

Angi Malderez and Martin Wedell (2007, p. 18) discuss three different
types of teacher knowledge: Knowing about (things), Knowing how (to do
things) and Knowing to (use appropriate aspects of the other kinds of
knowledge when teaching). More specifically, Knowing about includes

14
things that teachers have knowledge of and use in their profession, such as

1
knowledge about language, of how learning takes place, information about

From teaching learners to teacher learning

students and their backgrounds and needs, and even things such as school
policies. Knowing about also includes an understanding of how a teacher
might manage their own professional development and obtain access to
resources or support – knowing where to go for help. Malderez and Wedell
point out that ‘concept development’ is an important aspect of Knowing
about. What this means is that even if you learn a new idea and it becomes
part of your Knowing about, there is probably still room to develop that
knowledge, as even apparently simple ideas can hide complexity and
require a deeper professional understanding over time. For most teachers
this will mean revisiting concepts and refining their grasp of them in a
cyclical process of ‘iterative development’ (Weston & Clay, 2018, p. 6).
Encountering an idea once is not enough to really understand it and
apply it.
Knowing how refers to the development of skills – knowledge of how
to do things – such as selecting an appropriate lesson aim, getting the
attention of a noisy class, or correcting a student’s pronunciation. These
skills will be underpinned by appropriate Knowing about – creating a
lesson aim, for example, involves knowing what the students are currently
capable of, judging (from experience) what can be achieved in the allotted
lesson time, and so on. There is an element of conscious intent in the
development of Knowing how. Developing any skill takes time and effort,
so Knowing how requires the awareness of a skill and the inclination to
learn it. After making some progress there may be then a point at which
the teacher decides to prioritise the development of a different skill,
at least for the time being. Such decisions will depend on the teaching
context. As a case in point, one of the authors of this book, having tried
somewhat unsuccessfully to use drama activities in the classroom, made a
conscious decision that this was not a skill area that he needed to develop
and improve. This decision has not changed over the years, mostly due
to contexts in which the author has found himself. On the other hand,
conscious decisions have been made to seek out expert help to develop
other skills, for instance to become more literate in the use of digital
technology in teaching and learning.
Finally, Knowing to is the skill of classroom improvisation mentioned
above; the expertise that a teacher has to know when to use what they
know, ‘intuitively and instantaneously’ (Malderez & Wedell, 2007, p. 25), to
support learning in the classroom. This automaticity is not something that
can happen without the existence of the expertise described in Knowing
about and Knowing how. Knowing to is demonstrated when a teacher notices
something in the classroom (for example, students’ body language, or a
particular response or question from a student) and through evaluation and
interpretation makes a decision about what to do next in order to progress
students towards whatever goals have been identified. The jazz musician
Charles Mingus famously said ‘you can’t improvise on nothing’, and it is

15
 only with carefully considered experience and professional knowledge
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning

that a teacher can be expected to make such important on-the-spot

decisions about student learning. Improvisation in this sense is not about
‘winging it’; it is about exercising adaptive expertise, or what David Tripp
calls ‘”professional judgement”: those expert guesses which result from
combining experience with specialist theoretical knowledge’ (Tripp, 1993,
p. 7). But for an expert teacher it might feel like working on intuition or
just doing what feels right.
What does this mean for us as trainers? In the words of Julian Edge, it
means ‘training is more than training’ (Edge, 1985, p. 115). That is to say
that we are aiming to develop not just teachers’ knowledge and skills,
but also awareness and sensitivity to their individual teaching contexts.
Knowing how and Knowing to perhaps stretch the meaning of the verb
‘to know’ outside its standard definition and into the realm of skills and
actions, such as those outlined in Table 1.1 on page 13. But the distinction
between the three types of knowledge is useful, because the development
of each one happens in different (albeit overlapping) ways.

CASE STUDY 1.3: MATTHEW

If I compare my knowledge then to knowledge now . . . I certainly had a
much weaker understanding of language, which meant that a lot of my
planning time involved reading up on the language points I was teaching.
It also made me less discriminating, in that I simply taught whatever was
in the coursebook, whereas now I might adapt things, or skip certain items
altogether if I don’t feel they will be useful.
I also had very little understanding of how students would react to the
tasks I planned. I remember one of my very first lessons involved a simple
grammar gap-fill exercise from the coursebook, for which I allowed 15
minutes. When it came to the lesson, the students completed it in what
seemed like seconds! It seems obvious in hindsight, but at the time I had
no way to gauge how long that kind of task would take my students to
complete, because I didn’t have enough classroom experience.

How teachers learn

Expert teachers exhibit all the skills and knowledge described above, but,
crucially, they all had to learn those skills; no one is born with them. So
how did they do it?

Beginnings and scope

It is worth thinking about where we all began our training as teachers: not
on a preservice training course, but as children, in school. All of us spent
thousands of hours in classrooms as students before we began to learn
how to teach – sometimes referred to as the ‘apprenticeship of observation’
(Lortie, 1975) – which creates a very powerful sense of what it means
to behave as a teacher that can be hard to change. Of course, as a child
16
you are not interested in teaching methodology, but children do become

1
aware of routines and patterns, and of similarities between different

From teaching learners to teacher learning

classrooms and different teachers. Some of these ‘ghosts of teachers past’
(Weintraub, 1989) can then reappear involuntarily when trainees step in
front of students for the first time, and often persist beyond that time,
whether they are effective or not. In the ever-changing, complex world of
the classroom it is easy to revert to instinct, to the type of teaching we are
most familiar with: the way that we were taught ourselves as children,
whether it is helpful or not. You may even be able to think of times when
you’ve found yourself doing this.
For trainers, this means two things: firstly, that not all teacher education
revolves around us! Besides the apprenticeship of observation, teachers
can learn things that impact their practice while they are planning or
aching, while chatting with colleagues in the staffroom, from educators
they encounter in other walks of life and even from things they read or
watch that may appear to have nothing to do with language teaching. But
the training we are involved in should aim to help trainees draw coherent
insights from this bigger picture as much as possible: if trainees are
presented with ideas and practices that are consistent across the different
teacher education experiences they take part in (including those that do not
involve a trainer), then their paths towards expertise will be more direct
(Childs, 2011).
Secondly, we need to be aware that no trainee, even those on preservice
courses, comes to the training room as a ‘blank slate’. They all have notions
of what good teaching is, of the sorts of activities that take place in a
classroom, of what it means to act as a teacher and as a student, and more.
Some of these preconceptions will prove to be useful, while others will
need to be reformulated or discarded. Trainees’ beliefs and assumptions
about teaching play a crucial role not just in determining what decisions
they make as teachers, but in how they react to new ideas we present to
them in our training. A good example of this is provided by Zoltán Dörnyei
and Maggie Kubanyiova (2014), who describe how two trainee teachers
conducted the same activity, with the same materials, to very similar
groups of students, but with starkly contrasting results. The main reason
for the difference was most probably the trainees’ differing beliefs, which
‘shaped their vision of themselves as classroom practitioners – determining
how they related to the learners and how they acted out the teacher’s
role’ (Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014, p. 24). For one of the trainees, beliefs
and practices were aligned, which led to a successful class, whereas for
the other, the practices the teacher was expected to demonstrate did
not align with their beliefs, leading to a lack of student engagement and
learning. It is absolutely essential, therefore, that teacher trainers are
able to elicit teacher beliefs and encourage trainees to reflect on how well
they align with teaching theory and research, as well as with their own
classroom practice.

17
 The right conditions
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning

Earlier in this chapter we quoted Adrian Doff: ‘most people involved in

teacher education are aware of the existence of two separate worlds’, and
we believe the variation in contexts he describes affects not just teaching,
but also teacher learning. Successful teacher learning at any level requires
certain essential conditions, many of them the same as the conditions we
would hope to create in our own language classes, such as:

• Time, both in the sense of (1) time out of a busy schedule to attend
training, and (2) repeated opportunities over a longer period of time to
work on developing an area of knowledge or skills
• Clear objectives, with a degree of trainee autonomy in setting
those objectives
• Access to relevant resources and expertise
• A supportive, collaborative environment

This last point should not be underestimated. We all need to feel

comfortable in our surroundings in order to learn, whether we’re students
in a classroom or teachers in training. Activities for building group
cohesion are therefore an important means of creating the right conditions
for teacher learning. We feel it is important to make sure that the teachers
we are working with are familiar with each other and with who we are,
not only to highlight how we can all help each other, but also to build up a
relationship of mutual trust.

TASK 1.4
. . . To trainer
Imagine that you and a group of trainees are all meeting for the first time.
Think of two ‘getting to know you’ (GTKY) activities that you could do: one for
the teachers to get to know you, and one for them to get to know each other.
In what ways do your activities differ from GTKY activities in a language
lesson?
For notes see page 213

Unfortunately, not all teachers are in a context that offers them all of these
conditions, although the reality is perhaps not two separate worlds but a
spectrum of teacher learning conditions, some more nurturing than others.
The role of trainer includes fostering all of the conditions above, although
time is almost always in short supply!

18
How teachers move from novice to expert

1
From teaching learners to teacher learning
We’ve seen that teaching knowledge and skills can be viewed in three
categories: Knowing about, Knowing how, and Knowing to. How is each of
these types of knowledge developed?
Knowing about in teacher education often means knowing the terms we use
to talk about teaching practice, and understanding the ideas those terms
refer to. Training sessions are well-suited for introducing these. Some
concepts you present to trainees might be entirely new (particularly if they
are preservice trainees), for example the elicitation of target language. In
those cases, it makes sense to demonstrate – or model – the concept for
trainees, so that they experience it and reflect on it before putting a name
to it, but the resulting knowledge is still Knowing about. In other cases,
your training may focus on an area that trainees have some experience
of, but which they still need to develop, such as error correction. In those
situations, it makes sense to begin by discussing what the trainees do to
correct their students’ errors, and from that discussion draw out concepts
and terms for them (e.g., reformulation).
Attention is a pre-requisite for learning: trainees won’t learn what they
don’t notice. So creating a need to name and explain or discuss elements of
teaching is a good way of encouraging trainees to attend to new concepts,
and you can do that by (1) inviting them to talk about what happens in
their classrooms, or their beliefs and assumptions about what should
happen, or (2) having trainees experience concepts and practices in the role
of ‘students’. Either way, the subsequent learning process then becomes
one of aligning teachers’ beliefs and personal experience with ELT
knowledge and theory, rather than simply presenting theory in isolation.
Knowing how has to build on first knowing about, because to be able to
perform a skill it is usually necessary to have seen or experienced it
being performed first. The next step towards developing that skill comes
from trying it out and evaluating the results. In learning how to correct
students’ errors, for example, knowing how might develop through practice
in the training room with fellow trainees (who offer feedback), trying new
techniques in teaching practice (with feedback from students and/or an
observer), or trying new techniques in front of real students (and self-
evaluating). In all these situations there is someone to say what you did
well and what you could improve, and on the basis of these comments you
go and try again. That person needs to help you understand what the goals
are, because you may be judging your actions against different criteria
to the ones they’re using. In many cases, developing teaching skills is a
process of raising trainees’ awareness of an aspect of teaching that may
have been automatic, providing or eliciting principles for more informed
action (knowing about) and then helping the teacher consciously apply
those more informed actions in practice (knowing how).

19
 Knowing to requires drawing on knowing about and knowing how as required
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning

by the teaching and learning context, so true development of knowing to

needs to take place in that context. Often this means that the onus is on
teachers to apply what they have learned in the training room once they
return to their classrooms, but it may be possible for you to work with
trainees in context too. What is most important here is trainee reflection
during or after the lessons they teach, considering which teaching
decisions and actions were effective (in terms of student learning), which
were not, and why – and based on that reflection, trying to improve
over subsequent lessons. These are the same sorts of actions that expert
teachers take in order to continually improve and refine their teaching, and
the result is effective professional judgement, or adaptive expertise.
You’ll see that learning each type of knowledge involves repetition and,
for certain teaching concepts, the process of moving from knowing about,
to knowing how, through to knowing to will need to be repeated too, in
order to understand concepts at a deeper level. Teachers who are more
experienced and further along the path to expertise may find that process
more difficult, because revisiting knowing about for any given concept
involves noticing new elements of it, and experienced teachers have
developed particular ways of looking at classroom activity that might
make that harder. Similarly, many teaching routines developed as part
of knowing how may have to be ‘unlearned’ in order to refine techniques
that may have become automatic. That is not easy to do: ‘try to keep a
lesson running smoothly while trying to consciously override an existing
habit or pattern of thought – that’s extremely difficult’ (Weston & Clay,
2018, p. 28). One solution is the ‘intentional destabilisation’ (Lubelska &
Robbins, 1999, p. 8) of teachers who might be resistant to change, along
with well-supported reflection on teaching, but that kind of work is more
suited to mentoring or observation situations. So there are some additional
challenges for experienced teachers who are trying to develop their skills,
because instead of learning new skills they’re trying to change existing
skills that have already developed to the point of automaticity.

CASE STUDY 1.4: MATTHEW

That first school in London offered me no formal professional development;
there was no opportunity for it in the timetables we were given. But I
learned a huge amount in that first year of teaching from discussions with
colleagues in the staffroom: activities and techniques they used, their
approach to planning lessons, useful supplementary resources (both on
the staffroom bookshelf and online) and how I could have managed some
of the many classroom situations that didn’t go according to plan. Schools
I worked at later on gave me access to methodology books and regular
training sessions and observations, but never with quite the same collegiate
atmosphere in the staffroom. I’m sure that a lot of my passion for teaching
emerged from those discussions, which was important, because it’s a
difficult job when you are a new teacher.

20
Very broadly then, getting trainees from Knowing about to Knowing how

1
and Knowing to involves two changes: firstly, a move from working in the

From teaching learners to teacher learning

training room with a group of teachers towards working in the classroom
with an individual teacher, and secondly, a move from trainees being very
reliant on you, the trainer, for information and guidance on a given topic to
a situation where trainees can work on that topic more autonomously.

TASK 1.5
From teacher . . .
Looking back at your learning experiences in teaching, can you identify any
‘lightbulb moments’? These are times when you clearly remember learning
something that had a significant impact on your teaching. Did that moment
involve unlearning anything, or a sense of destabilisation?
For notes see page 215

We’ve covered quite a lot in this chapter, but we can encapsulate much
of what we’ve discussed here in the relatively simple model that follows,
which is applicable to every area of training activity.

Balancing the three Ps

One way of looking at the trainer’s role is through what we might call the
three Ps of training: the Personal, the Professional and the Practical. We use
these terms here in specific ways, and we return to them in future chapters.
The Practical relates to what teachers do in their teaching contexts, and our
ultimate goal is to make these actions and decisions as effective as possible
in order to maximise student learning. But to do that we need to work not
only with what we see teachers doing in the classroom or the staffroom,
but also with the Personal: the existing knowledge, experience, beliefs,
assumptions, feelings and personalities that they bring to the training
room, because those are the foundation for the decisions and actions
teachers take. In addition, a large part of our role is to demonstrate how
the Professional – the body of knowledge provided by research, theory
and other practitioners – can inform or alter the Personal so that teachers
can make practical decisions that are as effective as possible in their own
contexts. For our training to be successful and have an impact on what
teachers do in their classrooms, all three of these Ps need to be present. We
discuss how you can ensure that they are as we go through the book.
For now, let us emphasise that the trainer’s job is not to simply pass on
theories, nor to just demonstrate activities. Those alone will not lead to
lasting changes in classroom practice that will stimulate better learning.
What we should aim for is ‘an approach that considers teacher learning
as theorizing of and from practice’ (Farrell T. S., 2018, p. 5), which
might include:
21
 1. Talking about an aspect of teaching through the beliefs and experiences
1 From teaching learners to teacher learning

of the trainees, and providing them with experience of teaching

techniques if necessary.
2. Helping trainees develop ‘a professional language of teaching drawn
from relevant conceptual tools (theories) . . . to talk and think about
these experiences’ (Malderez & Wedell, 2007, p. 22).
3. Supporting trainees as they weigh up their current practices in
relation to the chosen aspect of teaching, and possible (more effective)
alternatives.
4. Providing trainees with opportunities to try out those alternatives in the
training room, and then in the classroom.
5. Guiding trainees as they reflect on the results in terms of student
learning, and perhaps try again.

Obviously, this kind of approach takes time, and it is important to

remember that changes in teaching won’t happen overnight. To do all this,
trainers must be able to:

• Help teachers develop an appropriate knowledge base for teaching,

incorporating Knowing about, Knowing how, and Knowing to.
• Build on trainees’ prior knowledge and beliefs where appropriate, and
challenge beliefs that stand in the way of effective professional learning.
• Act as mediators of research and teaching literature, selecting and
interpreting relevant insights to ensure that the knowledge that trainees
develop is current, evidence-based and effective.
• Help trainees to tailor their professional learning to the teaching
contexts they find themselves in, so they can be effective in a wide
variety of teaching situations.
• Support trainees to notice classroom events and the connections
between them, balancing the perspectives of teacher and student.
• Nurture trainees to become effective evaluators of their own impact on
student learning, so that they can continue to learn and develop once
they have left a training or mentoring programme.

This might seem like a tall order now, but remember how you felt as a
new teacher and how far you have come since that time. By the end of
this book you should feel much more confident in your ability to do all
these things!

22
Summary

1
From teaching learners to teacher learning
We have seen that teaching and learning takes place in a range of contexts,
and that the work of the teacher is both limited and enabled by context.
We have also considered what constitutes effective teaching, and looked
at what teachers need to know in order to be able to get the best learning
outcomes from their students. Finally, we have seen how these three areas
– teaching context, teaching expertise, and teacher knowledge – impact on
how teachers learn and what that learning process involves. Our takeaway
from all this is the three Ps model, which we can apply to training
sessions, work with individual teachers and the design of courses and
programmes. We explore the three Ps in more depth as we look at each of
these areas in subsequent chapters.

TASK 1.6
. . . To trainer
Think about your move from the role of teacher to the role of trainer. What
have you read in this chapter which you believe will be the most useful as you
transition from one role to the other? Is there anything that you found surprising
in this chapter? If so, what and why?

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Becoming an
expert teacher’ and ‘Learning to teach’ to hear trainers
discuss how they developed their teaching skills. How do
their experiences affect their training now? Then watch
‘Preservice vs. in-service training’ to hear the trainers’
thoughts on how these differ.

TO FIND OUT MORE

Lubelska, D., & Robbins, L. (1999, November). Moving from teaching to
training. IATEFL Teacher Trainers’ SIG Newsletter, 7–9. (This short article is an
excellent comparison of how teacher training differs from teaching, aimed
at new trainers.)
Malderez, A., & Wedell, M. (2007). Teaching teachers: Processes and
practices. London: Continuum. (The first part of this book gives a thorough
description of the Knowing about, Knowing how, Knowing to model and
useful discussion of teacher learning.)
Weston, D., & Clay, B. (2018). Unleashing great teaching: The secrets to the
most effective teacher development. Abingdon: Routledge. (The early
chapters of this book give a neat overview of how teachers learn.)

23
2 Training sessions:
Designing an outline
Here we consider:
• How trainers think about context when designing sessions
• How context helps determine session aims
• The ingredients of a good session outline
• The principles of session design

My starting point is always to try and make sure I understand the

training context and its needs in the first place.
Chris, teacher trainer, UK

In the first of three chapters on designing and delivering training sessions,

we begin by looking at how to plan an outline for your session. Taking a
bird’s-eye view in this way before dealing with activities and tasks in detail
ensures that the session meets the needs of your trainees, and that it fulfils
the principles of effective professional learning.

Your starting point

You’re going to design a teacher training session. Where do you begin? In
this chapter we use case studies that describe the situations and thought
processes of three trainers each designing a session. They begin by
describing their training circumstances.

TASK 2.1
From teacher . . .
Think back to some of the training sessions you have attended as a
participant. Why did the trainer choose to focus on the area covered by the
session?
If you have already delivered one or more sessions, how did you decide what
to focus on?

25
 CASE STUDY 2.1: EMAD, THE TRAINING CO-ORDINATOR
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

I teach English for Academic Purposes (EAP) to students on a foundation

year, but part of my job is to provide training for my colleagues here at the
English Language Centre in the university in Saudi Arabia where we work.
There is a training day once a month, and there are a lot of English teachers
working here, so I am part of a team of 4–6 trainers. Unfortunately, we do not
have a lot of time for planning because we have teaching responsibilities,
so trainers take it in turns to plan the sessions each month and share the
materials. This month it is my turn, and the topic is ‘giving feedback on
academic writing’. This is something that the teachers have asked for help
with because the students here find academic writing in English particularly
challenging, so I want to make sure it’s really useful for them.

CASE STUDY 2.2: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

I work as a CELTA tutor at a small private language school in Ireland, as one
of two full-time trainers. Most of the CELTA courses we deliver are intensive
four-week courses, so there really isn’t very much time to think about the
sessions once the course has started – we have a bank of session plans
and materials that are ready to use, and every course has more or less the
same structure, so I’ve delivered all the sessions many times now. Nearly all
of our trainees are native speakers of English with no teaching experience,
and that makes it quite easy for us to know what they will need to learn.
Something we’ve been meaning to do for a while is to add more sessions
on teaching young learners (YLs), because many of our trainees seem to
be going on to jobs in private language schools where they need to teach
children. So I’m in the process of planning a session to introduce some
ideas and techniques for doing that.

CASE STUDY 2.3: SOFIA, THE ONLINE TUTOR

I’ve had a range of teacher training jobs but at the moment I’m working
as an online trainer on a country-wide high school teacher training
programme for a ministry of education. The teachers have a mixture of
face-to-face and online training over a 12-month period, and my role
involves running online discussions and virtual seminars (webinars), and
liaising with the face-to-face trainers to make sure the programme runs as
a coherent whole. Many of the teachers have only had limited training in
language teaching so the content of the course is pitched quite low. Right
now, we’re beginning a new section on developing reading skills, so I need
to plan and deliver a webinar that will kick off this part, focusing on the
staging of reading lessons.

The trainers in these three case studies have a range of different starting
points. Marie has identified a training need based on feedback from former
trainees, Emad is fortunate to have had direct requests for training on a
particular area, while the driving force behind Sofia’s choice of session
topic is the course she is delivering. None of the trainers, then, has had to
conjure up the focus of the session they are designing from thin air, and

26
you will often find that as a novice trainer, the what of a training session is

2
chosen for you, or chooses itself to some extent. Your answers to Task 2.1

Training sessions: Designing an outline

may have identified any of the following, all of which point the trainer
towards a particular topic area: a request (from teachers, management, or
even students), a training course curriculum, a change faced by teachers
(e.g., a new course, coursebook or exam) or a programme mandated by an
educational authority or ministry of education. Even if a trainer delivers
a session based on practices they have recently been experimenting with
or learning about, the scope of that session is usually fairly clear from the
outset of the design process. The process itself involves narrowing the
focus and deciding how to present it in a way that will help trainees teach
better, and to start doing that you will need to consider two things: your
aims for the session and what we call the training habitat.

TASK 2.2
From teacher . . .
What factors do you take into consideration when planning a language
lesson for your students? Think about:

• your institution
• the course
• the students

Which of the factors would apply to designing a training session for trainees?
For notes see page 216

Session aims
All sessions should aim to lead to changes in teaching practice amongst
trainees, whether those sessions take place as standalone events, or as
part of a series or course. Ideally those changes in teaching practice then
lead to improved student learning outcomes. A change in practice may
not necessarily be classroom-based: modifications to lesson or curriculum
planning, to assessment practices or to reflective practice, for instance,
are equally valid outcomes, but they would be put into practice outside
lessons. At the most modest level, some trainees may leave a session more
secure in the knowledge that their current practice is effective, so that they
keep doing what they’re doing. That is also a valid outcome, but it’s far
from the best outcome. We’re sure you’ve been a trainee in sessions that
were fun and interesting but which had no impact on your teaching – we
certainly have. But if teaching and student learning remain completely
unaffected following a session, what was the point of it? Most teachers are
too short of time to sit in training sessions that don’t teach them anything,
as David Weston and Bridget Clay point out: ‘teaching is a demanding job;
it is imperative that professional learning has impact’ (2018, p. 25).

27
 Given, then, that the main aim of teacher training is ‘to effect changes in
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

teaching so that it results in enhanced students’ learning’ (Richardson &

Díaz Maggioli, 2018, p. 7), session aims must aspire to change behaviour,
not simply transfer knowledge. This principle should be familiar to you as
a language teacher, especially if you have written aims starting with the
words ‘by the end of the lesson, students will be able to . . . ‘. There is an
expectation that the lesson will lead to demonstrable changes in learners’
skills, and the same expectation applies to training sessions with teachers.
There are two differences when it comes to trainees: firstly, unlike students
in the language classroom, the change in skills can’t be implemented until
after the session is over and the trainees go back to teaching. Secondly,
the precise nature of lasting changes to teaching practice will take time to
establish: trainees will probably need to experiment to see what works and
what doesn’t within their context, and developing teacher knowledge from
Knowing about to Knowing how and Knowing to takes time, trial and error,
and reflection. For that reason, we suggest that you write two aims for
your training sessions, one relating to what trainees will know as a result
of the session, and one describing what they will do in their lessons when
they go back to them. You could use the following prompts for this:
As a result of the session, trainees will know . . .
Following the session, trainees will . . . in their classrooms/
staffrooms
It can be difficult, of course, to know how or whether a session has
affected trainees’ knowledge and classroom practice, and this has
implications for evaluation (Chapter 4) and training course planning
(Chapter 9).

The training habitat

What do the trainers mention when they explain their what, where,
why and who in Case studies 2.1, 2.2 and 2.3? We can break down their
descriptions into three main areas:

• the trainees’ teaching context, e.g., EAP courses (Emad), or YL classes

in private language schools (Marie)
• the training context, e.g., online in-service training (Sofia), or an
intensive preservice course (Marie)
• the trainees themselves, both individually and as a group, e.g.,
inexperienced native speakers (Marie), a large group of teachers under a
single ministry of education (Sofia)

28
As we saw in Chapter 1, your training context and your trainees’ teaching

2
contexts will play a big role in how you design your session, and now we

Training sessions: Designing an outline

see a third element entering the picture: the trainees themselves. Together
we think of these three areas as the training habitat. In the natural world,
the amount of sun, rainfall and the type of soil all have an effect on
which plants will be most successful in a particular habitat. Similarly, the
trainees’ teaching context, the training context and the trainees themselves
should all have an influence on how your session design grows and
develops from the initial choice of topic, and on how successful it will be.
There are other ways of thinking about the training situation too; for
example, Woodward (1991) breaks it down into tangible factors, intangible
factors, people factors and course factors, and you might be able to think
of other ways of chopping it up. The key thing, though, is to be aware that
these ‘parameters’ (Woodward, 1991) exist and that they should shape your
design decisions, in the same way that teaching context affects teachers’
lesson planning decisions. Some parameters can be frustrating – we often
wish that we have a bit more space or slightly smaller groups of trainees –
but they should also be seen in positive terms too: as ‘an interesting design
problem rather than a restriction or obligation’ (Woodward, 1991, p. 176).
To think about ways your session design might adapt to the training
habitat you first need to map out that habitat, and Table 2.1 below lays
out the questions that might help you do so. The profile of the trainees,
and their needs, are obviously major factors in deciding on the content of
a training session. As we saw in Chapter 1, even preservice trainees have
firmly established views on teaching, and these need to be considered even
when introducing fairly elementary teaching concepts. It is also true that
experienced teachers may be very familiar with a particular context but
need training to adapt to a new one in which they may have no experience
at all, so a considered approach to assessing participants’ knowledge and
experience is essential. Whatever their level of experience, the approach of
the trainer ‘should be that it avoids a deficit view of learning, and goes out
to meet the learner and accepts what the learner brings to the classroom as
being of value’ (Edge, 1985, p. 115) – an approach that treats participants
as ‘blank slates’ will almost never be appropriate.
Insights into the trainees and their needs can come from various places.
If possible, speak to the trainees themselves to answer the questions in
Table 2.1. If that isn’t possible, conversations with the academic manager
(in in-service training scenarios), with other trainers who are familiar with
the training context, or with former trainees, can help to give you an idea
of what to expect.

29
 Table 2.1: Initial questions for understanding the training habitat
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

Teaching º How many students are in a typical class? These questions

context º How are classrooms laid out, and what should help you
resources are available? to work out the
º How many hours of teaching do students parameters of the
get each week? trainees’ contexts, and
º What materials are available? Which to think about what
materials are mandatory? solutions will be most
º What exams are students expected to sit? appropriate to them.

Training º How many trainees will be present? These questions will

context º How will the training room be laid out? help you with the
º How long will the training session(s) last? practicalities of your
º What materials and resources will be session design; to
available? think about what is
º Is the session standalone or part of possible during the
a course? session.
º Are other trainers involved?
Trainees º What qualifications and experience do These questions will
the trainees have? help you understand
º What is the trainees’ level of English? the needs and
º What needs have been identified on motivations of the
behalf of the trainees? trainees, and to think
º What needs and wants have the about how the session
trainees identified? might fit into the
º How much time do the trainees have for bigger picture of their
teacher development activity beyond the development.
training session(s)? How do they spend
it? Is it paid?

Writing your aims

Creating your aims for the session and understanding the training habitat
go hand in hand. You may begin with the questions in Table 2.1 and then
move on to writing your aims, but you will probably flick between the two
tasks as you refine your thoughts about each one. Clarifying the training
habitat allows you to identify the gap in trainees’ practice that the session
will seek to fill, so it makes sense to start with the questions in Table 2.1.
When you’ve considered those, you should be able to formulate your aims
by answering these questions:

1. What is it that trainees should be able to do differently as a result of

the session?
2. What do the trainees currently do in or out of their classes (if anything)
to meet the same need?
3. What do the trainees need to know in order to make the desired
change(s) to their practice? What Knowing about is essential for the
Knowing how that you hope trainees will go away with?

30
4. How will the session provide opportunities for the trainees to

2
experience new practices, and to try them out?

Training sessions: Designing an outline

This approach requires you to keep in mind two objectives, one for the end
of the session and one for when the teachers return to their classrooms.
It’s a bit like walking: you watch where you’re putting your feet while also
keeping an eye on the path ahead. If you can maintain both viewpoints
while designing and delivering your session, you will have a good chance of
helping teachers improve not just their knowledge, but their practice too.
You may need to return to your analysis of the training habitat after
writing your aims to confirm that they are realistic and achievable. For
instance, you will need to adapt expected outcomes to the time available in
order to be able to deal with the session topic in adequate depth. It is often
a good idea to limit the scope of a session and examine a relatively specific
area in more detail than to try and squeeze in too much and provide only
superficial treatment of a topic.

TASK 2.3
. . . To trainer
Based on the case studies you read earlier, what aims do you think each of
the trainers might set for their sessions? What will each one hope to achieve
by the end of the session?

CASE STUDY 2.4: EMAD, THE TRAINING CO-ORDINATOR

As a result of the session, trainees will know a range of evidence-based
techniques for giving feedback on academic writing and the principles
behind them.
Following the session, trainees will use a range of contextually appropriate
evidence-based techniques in their teaching for giving feedback to
students on writing.
My goal is to present the teachers who attend the session with a range of
techniques that they can use for giving feedback on academic writing. I
want them to understand the ideas behind these techniques so that they
can decide which ones will work best for them, and how they can adapt
them if necessary.

CASE STUDY 2.5: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

As a result of the session, trainees will know how teaching YLs differs from
teaching adults, some routines and activities for YL classes, and how to plan
a lesson from YL coursebook materials.
Following the session, trainees will use YL-appropriate routines and
resources when teaching YL classes, and will seek to develop further if
required to teach YLs.

31
 I have tried to be realistic about what is possible in a single session: the
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

trainees should be able to survive a YL lesson after this session, but teaching
a course will need a lot more training. They will probably have access
to a coursebook or other published materials in their future contexts, so
I have included some planning work with a representative coursebook.
This session is a way in to the topic – no one expects them to be proficient
YL teachers after 90 minutes. But it also indicates what teaching skills are
transferable to YL classes and what might need to be learned, which is also
a door to further development in this area.

CASE STUDY 2.6: SOFIA, THE ONLINE TUTOR

As a result of the session, trainees will know the stages of a typical reading
lesson, the rationale behind each stage, and how these stages are typically
represented in course materials.
Following the session, trainees will plan reading lessons that are
appropriately staged, and adapt course materials where necessary to
ensure appropriate staging of reading lessons in their classrooms.
To be honest, one of my main aims is to keep the trainees motivated and
engaged with the whole training programme, so one thing I really wanted
to do was make the session as relevant as possible, but also as practical
and useful as possible. I had to think carefully about how to manage some
of the activities because there are things I can’t do online that we could do
if the session was taking place face-to-face.

Session shapes and the three Ps

Understanding the training habitat makes it possible to start designing
ways of maximising the opportunities it presents and overcoming any
limitations. For instance, the number of participants in a session plays a
part in the types of activities that will work best: smaller numbers allow
for more attention to be paid to individuals’ contexts, beliefs and needs,
and are more suited to interactive, participant-led work. That doesn’t mean
that such activities can’t be used with larger groups – it is a myth that the
only suitable format for a large audience is a one-way lecture – but they
may need to be set up and managed differently (for suggestions as to how,
see Chapter 3).
Before thinking about individual activities and tasks in more detail,
however, you will need to sketch out a basic outline of your session. As a
teacher you are probably familiar with the concept of lesson shapes, which
provide a template for lessons that can be used when planning. Common
lesson shapes are Presentation-Practice-Production (PPP), Test-Teach-Test
(TTT), or Jason Anderson’s Context-Analysis-Practice (CAP) (Anderson,
2017). From a lesson planning perspective, these are useful outlines that
help teachers to start thinking about how they can plan and sequence
classroom activities in order to achieve their lesson aims. Essentially, each
lesson shape involves dividing lesson time into separate building blocks,

32
each with its own aim. The same principle can be applied to the process

2
of designing a training session, but different building blocks are needed

Training sessions: Designing an outline

because we are teaching teachers, not language students.
We saw in Chapter 1 that successful teacher learning requires trainers to
deal with three building blocks of teacher training – the three Ps – for any
given topic: the Personal, which concerns teachers’ beliefs, assumptions,
prior experience and knowledge; the Professional, which involves theories,
research and terminology; and the Practical, which consists of the teaching
practices that trainees need to adopt or change. To make sure that all these
are dealt with as part of a session, we can use each one as building blocks
for a session outline. Then we can construct our session shapes from them
in various sequences. Let’s first see how the trainers in our case studies did
this, before thinking about what each building block means in more detail:

CASE STUDY 2.7: EMAD, THE TRAINING CO-ORDINATOR

i. Trainees evaluate a teacher’s feedback on a student essay
(PRACTICAL / PERSONAL)
ii. Trainer presents key principles from research into feedback techniques
on writing (PROFESSIONAL)
iii. Based on that, trainees mark a sample of student texts (PRACTICAL)
iv. Trainees compare results and reflect (PERSONAL)

I am using some real student writing as the basis for this session. We only
have an hour but I thought it was important to spend time discussing what
the teachers’ main problems and concerns are and some research findings,
and then some time actually giving feedback on the examples I have. The
scope of the session is quite narrow so that we can do something useful in
only sixty minutes that the teachers will be able to implement straight away.

CASE STUDY 2.8: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

i. Trainer delivers a model lesson to trainees based on a story (PRACTICAL)
ii. Trainees reflect on how language was presented and practised, and
how the classroom was managed (PERSONAL)
iii. Trainees examine differences between teaching adults and YLs
(PROFESSIONAL)
iv. Trainees complete a partial lesson plan based around a YL coursebook
(PRACTICAL)

I start by treating the trainees as learners, running through a short lesson

sequence, starting with a vocab warmer (using ELT terms as the vocab; the
wider context for this session is an intensive preservice course, so I felt it was
important to revise some of the concepts we’ve been working on), then
presenting and practising simple language from a story. Then I’m going to
get them to reflect on what happened in three separate groups, before an
activity to focus on the differences between teaching adults and YLs. The
last part is a guided planning activity, so that by the end of the session they
will have covered both teaching and planning for YL classes.

33
 CASE STUDY 2.9: SOFIA, THE ONLINE TUTOR
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

i. Trainer delivers a looped reading demonstration lesson (reading about

the stages of a reading lesson) (PRACTICAL / PROFESSIONAL)
ii. Trainees reflect and discuss the lesson and the text (PERSONAL)
iii. Trainees comment on some texts from their coursebook and suggest
how they could adapt them in the light of the principles they’ve seen
(PRACTICAL)

I’ve tried to use loop input for this session because I thought it would be
motivating for the trainees and an effective use of the time we have. What
that means is that the topic of the session is how to stage a reading lesson,
and I am going to open with a mini reading lesson using a text on how to
stage reading lessons! There’s quite a lot to unpack from all that so we’ll
spend some time discussing it, and then finish by looking at the teachers’
coursebooks to see how they might be able to adapt them based on what
they’ve learned.

Practical
Practical session content has two possible aims: either to present teaching
practices (and perhaps provide a window into a particular teaching
context, as Marie plans to do), or to provide opportunities for trainees
to gain hands-on experience of particular teaching practices. So it’s not
surprising to see Practical stages both at the beginning and at the end of
the trainers’ sessions because they serve slightly different purposes. For
example, Emad has his trainees assessing writing during the opening and
closing stages of his session, before and after they consider how they could
do so differently. Similarly, Marie’s opening stage involves modelling YL
teaching practices by treating the trainees as ‘students’. At the end of her
session, she incorporates another Practical stage, but this time with the
trainees in the role of ‘teacher’, as they try to use what they’ve learned to
plan a lesson.
This all seems quite straightforward, but there are a few considerations
for trainers that apply to any Practical stage. Firstly, switching between
‘teacher’ and ‘student’ roles like this can be quite a challenge for trainees.
It’s a change that should be signposted quite clearly, and it takes a moment
to sink in. In particular, acting as ‘students’ requires trainees to participate
in the tasks the trainer is modelling but also to pay attention to what is
happening so that they can emulate some of the same practices in their
own teaching. So a lot of attention is required and the cognitive demands
on trainees are high. Nevertheless, the value of modelling good teaching
practice in this way cannot be understated, and is a key principle of
training (Bailey, 1996; Edge, 1985; Wallace, 1991; Woodward, 2003).
Secondly, an essential element of Practical session stages is reflection.
More specifically, trainees should be encouraged to discuss what took
place during Practical stages, especially if they were in the role of

34
‘students’ during those stages, when cognitive demand is highest. Then

2
they should be guided towards consideration of the aims of the practices

Training sessions: Designing an outline

they’ve experienced, whether those practices would support those aims in
their own classrooms, and if not, how they could adapt them in order to
do so. We can see that all three trainers have done this in their sessions.
This reflection incorporates elements of the Personal, and is an important
catalyst for bringing Knowing about closer to Knowing how, so it’s not an
optional extra. In fact, when activities are demonstrated in the training
room it is usually sufficient to demonstrate only part of the activity, and
call a halt to it midway through in order to move onto reflective discussion.
It’s counterintuitive, but the most vital part of Practical stages isn’t the
practical content, it’s the time spent critically evaluating and reflecting on
that content!
Thirdly, there is a school of thought which argues that what teachers
want from training sessions is practical ideas they can take and use in
the very next lesson. Practical applicability is undoubtedly an essential
quality of training sessions, but changes in practice need to be sustained
if they are to have an impact on student learning. So practical ideas –
teaching techniques and activities – need to be presented in a way that
means they can be absorbed and then applied as part of a principled
approach to teaching. Presenting trainees with a succession of activities is
indeed practical, and may affect their classes over the subsequent week,
but is unlikely to foster lasting change in their teaching. That’s where
Professional stages come in.

TASK 2.4
From teacher . . .
Think back to some of the training sessions you’ve attended. How many of
them:

• put you in the role of student to experience activities and techniques?

• encouraged you to reflect on how you could apply new practices to your
own classroom?

How much do you feel the inclusion of modelling and reflection affected the
effectiveness of those sessions?
For notes see page 217

Professional
Professional stages provide teachers with the concepts, language and
research insights that inform the teaching practices that are covered during
the session. In doing so, these stages don’t just develop teacher knowledge
but also the ability to take part in conversations about teaching, whether
in the training room, the staffroom, at teacher conferences, or through
the pages of a methodology book. Professional stages therefore provide a
35
 platform for further learning once trainees leave the session, in addition
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

to developing trainees’ understanding of the teaching practices they are

led towards.
All the trainers have included Professional elements in their sessions,
either as standalone stages (Emad and Marie) or incorporated into a
Practical stage (Sofia). They follow these with further Practical work,
in order to give trainees a chance to try applying principles or theories
in their own teaching. For many trainees, it’s not really clear how
Professional content relates to their work until they can ‘feel’ it in action
in this way.
We believe that one of the most important roles of second language teacher
trainers is to provide a connection between the teaching profession and
research into language and education; to act as mediators between theory
and practice by making research and theory intelligible and meaningful to
teachers. There are several reasons for this:

1. First of all, we have a responsibility as educators to strive for the best

learning outcomes amongst students, and our trainees want those too.
That means continuing to evaluate theories of teaching and learning,
and updating our training accordingly. The concept of learning styles,
for example, and particularly the idea that students are primarily visual,
auditory or kinaesthetic learners, has now been disproved, and should
no longer be advocated as a basis for teaching practice (Kirschner, 2017;
Willingham, Hughes, & Dobolyi, 2015). Many teachers remain unaware
of this change or other recent developments, and generally don’t have
the time to read research papers, or don’t have access to them (Borg,
2009), but as a trainer it is part of your role to keep in touch with new
findings and pass them on to teachers so that they can take advantage
of educational research.
2. Another reason for mediating between research and teaching is that
understanding the theoretical foundations for teaching practices enables
teachers to apply them flexibly, and to find what will work best in their
unique teaching context. As trainers, we are not aiming to prescribe
what teachers should do based on the results of studies, but to help
them understand what might work and why. As Woodward states,
‘trainers are perhaps in the business, not of changing people but of
adding choices and options to their trainees’ repertoire’ (Woodward,
1991, p. 134). Of course, this means that effective trainers need both
breadth and depth of knowledge.
3. Teacher training that does not include a commitment to the Professional
begins to look more like folklore – practices and ideas are passed down from
one generation of teachers to the next without the principles underpinning
them, and as that happens they can become diluted, misunderstood and

36
 ineffective, a phenomenon termed ‘lethal mutation’ (Leahy & Wiliam,

2
2012, p. 55). A good example of this is the concept of active learning: one

Training sessions: Designing an outline

of us once attended an online session in which colouring in pictures was
recommended as a strategy for active learning because it ‘keeps students
busy for ages’. Not only was this a misrepresentation of the concept (for an
accurate portrayal of active learning, see www.cambridgeinternational.org/
Images/271174-active-learning.pdf), it gave validity to a teaching practice
that is more likely to impede language learning than to promote it. Trainers
who are familiar with the research that underpins teaching practices are
able to avoid this pitfall.
4. Finally, the inclusion of research insights can help to ensure that
sessions include meaningful takeaways for more experienced trainees.
It’s not uncommon for new trainers to worry that they won’t have
anything new to offer trainees with many years of experience, and
although that is not often the case, including recent research findings
can help to shed new light on almost any technique or activity. They
also provide a signpost towards further information, if trainees want to
learn more.

An example of the last point comes from our own professional learning. At
the very end of a preservice training course one of us attended, the trainer
took a few minutes to ‘sum up’, and mentioned, quite informally, some
books that the trainees might like to explore once they had gained some
teaching experience. One of these books was Uncovering Grammar, by Scott
Thornbury, and for one of us this led to a fundamentally different way of
viewing language and language learning, and to further reading on subjects
as diverse as chimpanzees, child language acquisition and chaos theory
(perhaps not that diverse if you are a parent!) So even minimal Professional
input can have far-reaching effects on teaching practice, because it opens
the door to much more than can be covered in a single session.
Reliable references on language teaching are widely available from
leading academic publishers such as Cambridge University Press, and are
on reading lists for courses such as the Cambridge Delta or MA TESOL
programmes. But you may be wondering where to get hold of more
specific or more recent research findings to support your sessions. The
most trustworthy sources are likely to be academic journal articles and
books, but there are some excellent resources that are more accessible
online too. We discuss how you can develop this side of your training in
Chapter 10.

Personal
All the trainers in our case studies aim to find out what their trainees
currently do as part of their teaching, and why they do it – what
knowledge, experience, beliefs and assumptions underlie the decisions

37
 they take. Inevitably, the responses from each trainee will be different,
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

hence the description of these stages as Personal. There are a few

complementary aims in doing this:

• For less experienced teachers (and perhaps for some more experienced
ones too), who might still be guided by the ghosts of teachers past we
saw in Chapter 1, Personal stages are a way of unpicking those habits
and beliefs that may be appearing unconsciously. The rationale here is
that ‘improvement in teaching comes when teachers can turn actions
that are automatic and routine into ones that are considered’ (Freeman,
2016, p. 221).
• For experienced teachers, Personal stages are an opportunity to draw
out and share the expertise they’ve gained from experience, and to
integrate new learning into that experience.
• Finally, all teachers need to take charge of their own development and
also assimilate insights from teacher training into that development.
So Personal stages in training sessions help trainees to ‘systematically
explore their beliefs and classroom practices so that they take
responsibility for their own development throughout their careers’
(Farrell, 2018, p. 4).

We have already seen that Personal content forms a part of Practical

stages, in the form of reflection on practice. In those stages, the subject of
reflection is teaching practices that trainees have just experienced, such
as Marie’s initial lesson demonstration. In Personal stages, the subject of
reflection is more likely to be trainees’ past experience of teaching or their
current classroom practice, or material presented by the trainer designed
to elicit trainee beliefs and assumptions. So there’s a subtle difference
involved: in Practical stages trainees are reflecting on experiences in the
same session, in which they were in the role of students. Whereas in
Personal stages they are reflecting on time they have spent and will spend
in real classrooms, both as teachers and as learners.
One of the key elements in Personal stages is support for trainee reflection.
It can be difficult to delve into your thoughts and uncover beliefs and
assumptions about teaching, and even more difficult to then share them
with peers. The process can feel threatening because there’s no single
correct answer, confusing because it is new, and frustrating because it is
always a challenge to make tacitly held ideas explicit. But we want our
trainees to develop skills in reflective practice so that they can become
the evaluative practitioners we discussed in Chapter 1. It is therefore
important during these stages that trainers provide plenty of support to
trainees during Personal stages, by modelling what is expected, providing
clearly staged tasks to work from, and offering plenty of encouragement
(activities for doing this appear in Chapter 3).

38
Staging your session

2
Training sessions: Designing an outline
The main questions behind the content of each type of stage – Personal,
Professional or Practical – are given in Table 2.2. The answers to these
questions should emerge in the session itself.

Table 2.2: Questions for deciding on content

Practical º What relevant techniques or activities might teachers use in

the classroom? How do they relate to Professional content?
º What relevant procedures might teachers use before or after
teaching? How do they relate to Professional content?

Professional º What theories and frameworks of language, language

learning, or language teaching are relevant to the topic?
º What is the evidence underpinning these?
º What are the key terms used by teachers to discuss the topic?
Personal º What do trainees already know about this topic?
º How do they use that knowledge as part of their teaching
practice?
º What beliefs and assumptions around the topic do trainees
hold, and how do these influence their teaching practice?
º What opportunities and constraints are presented by the
trainees’ teaching contexts in relation to this topic?
º How might the trainees adapt practices they see in the
session for their own specific context and teaching style?

In designing your session outline, you’ll need to decide on the order of

Practical, Professional and Personal stages, and on the balance between
them. Below are the three trainers’ outline session designs. The details of
each session procedure have been omitted for now (activities and training
practices are given in Chapter 3) so that we are able to focus on the
broader aims and shape of each session. As you read these, bear in mind
that the session plan format is there to help guide your thought processes
as you design your own sessions – once you become more familiar with
designing and delivering sessions you won’t need to write them out in full,
or perhaps at all (novice teachers go through a similar process in relation
to lesson plans).

TASK 2.5
From teacher . . .
All the trainers have used the same template to write out their session designs.
What elements of the template do you recognise from a typical language
teaching lesson plan?
Based on those similarities, what principles of language teaching can be
applied to training language teachers (for example, set learning outcomes)?
Is there anything that you don’t recognise, or that you feel is missing?
For notes see page 217

39
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

Emad’s EAP session

Title Giving feedback on academic writing
Profile Multiple groups of up to 20 in-service teachers of EAP in a
university context
Time 60 minutes
Resources Student texts on handouts, projector
What trainees As a result of the session, trainees will know a range of evidence-
will know based techniques for giving feedback on academic writing and
the principles behind them.
What trainees Following the session, trainees will use a range of contextually
will do appropriate evidence-based techniques for giving feedback to
students on writing.
Procedure Here’s a text. What do you think of the teacher’s feedback?
(PRACTICAL)
What feedback would you give, how and why? (PERSONAL)
Theories of feedback on writing (PROFESSIONAL)
Based on that, mark this text. Compare and discuss. (PRACTICAL)
Reflect on main takeaways. (PERSONAL)

Figure 2.1: Emad’s session outline

Marie’s YL session
Title Introduction to teaching young learners
Profile 12 preservice trainees, all native speakers of English. They are
nearing the end of an intensive 4-week course on the basics
of communicative language teaching to adults. This is the first
session dealing with YLs.
Time 90 minutes
Resources Storybook and flashcards for the lesson demo
Pre-prepared cards for the sorting activity
Selection of YL coursebooks
What trainees As a result of the session, trainees will know how teaching YLs
will know differs from teaching adults, some routines and activities for YL
classes, and how to plan a lesson from YL coursebook materials.
What trainees Following the session, trainees will use YL-appropriate routines
will do and resources when teaching YL classes, and will seek to develop
further if required to teach YLs.
Procedure Model lesson (PRACTICAL)
Reflection in small groups on: Presenting language, Practising
language and Managing the classroom (PERSONAL)
Differences between teaching adults and YLs (card sorter)
(PROFESSIONAL)
Using YL materials to plan a lesson (PRACTICAL)
Trainees share their plans and reflect on the planning process.
(PERSONAL)

Figure 2.2: Marie’s session outline

40
 2
Sofia’s online session

Training sessions: Designing an outline

Title Staging reading lessons

Profile Up to 200 in-service trainees attending through individual webinar

connections. They can see and hear the trainer but the trainer
can only see text messages from trainees in a chat box as part of
the webinar.

Time 60 minutes

Resources Slideshow, downloadable reading text

What trainees As a result of the session, trainees will know the stages of a typical
will know reading lesson, the rationale behind each stage, and how these
stages are typically represented in course materials.

What trainees Following the session, trainees will plan reading lessons that
will do are appropriately staged, and adapt course materials where
necessary to ensure appropriate staging of reading lessons in
their classrooms.

Procedure Looped reading demonstration lesson (reading about stages of a

reading lesson) (PRACTICAL / PROFESSIONAL)
Reflective discussion about the lesson using teacher quotations
as prompts (PERSONAL)
Trainees to comment on some texts from their coursebook and
suggest how they could adapt them in the light of the principles
given (PRACTICAL)
Reflective task – what can you implement in your next lesson?

Figure 2.3: Sofia’s session outline

What do we learn about session shapes from the three outlines? All of
them include Practical, Professional and Personal elements, and they all
‘sandwich’ Professional and Personal content within Practical stages. In
general, the opening Practical stage is expository – trainees are allowed
to experience the teaching practices that are the focus of the session. The
closing Practical stages, on the other hand, are there to allow trainees
to put into practice what they have learned, and to set them up for
applying appropriate changes in their professional contexts. Despite these
similarities, there is flexibility, too: Sofia incorporates the Professional
element in her opening Practical stage, and of course other options are
possible: Emad, for instance, could start his session by providing the
evidence-based feedback techniques to trainees before they look at the
example feedback.
His reason for not doing that is probably to do with engaging and
motivating the trainees. All the session outlines engage trainees from the
very beginning of the session by involving them in practical activity. Edge
highlights the value of this: ‘at each level of training, most units should
begin with a practical classroom event, usually based on a piece of current
teaching material. This establishes immediate relevance in the mind of

41
 the trainee’ (Edge, 1985, p. 115). Starting with an activity also means that
2 Training sessions: Designing an outline

within the first few minutes trainees have a tangible ‘takeaway’ from the
session – as long as the activity is new to them!
The other similarity between all the session outlines above is that each one
ends with reflection. This is slightly different to the reflective activities
that appear earlier in the sessions because it is principally forward-looking
– for that reason it might be better described as ‘preflection’. Trainees
consider what they have learned during the session and its relevance to
their upcoming classes. The aim is for the trainees to make a specific plan
to implement new practices and see how well they work in their own
teaching contexts.

Summary
Let’s try and distil what we’ve seen in this chapter into a handful of key
principles of session design.
Principle 1: Sessions are shaped by the training habitat
As we have seen, trainers consider the trainees’ teaching contexts, the
training context and the characteristics of the trainees themselves when
designing sessions. This means the needs of participants (both as teachers
in their classrooms and as learners in the context of a programme) and the
resources available have an impact on design decisions. A good trainer will
take these parameters into account in order to ensure that the session is as
relevant and useful to trainees as possible.
Principle 2: Sessions aim to have an impact on classroom practice
We are aiming to improve student learning outcomes by developing our
trainees’ teaching practice. This means that there is a behavioural change on
the part of trainees, and this should be captured in the aims we aspire to in
designing sessions. Trainers need to think about what they want to achieve
by the end of the session, but also remember that trainees don’t have a
chance to demonstrate meaningful learning until they’ve got back into the
classroom.
Principle 3: Sessions balance the three Ps
Various session shapes can be described in terms of the Practical–
Professional–Personal model introduced in Chapter 1. Each element has its
own internal principles:

• Practical – practices are modelled, not described, and followed by

critical reflection. Where possible trainees are given opportunities to try
things out.
• Professional – training is evidence-based, bridging theory, research
and practice, and develops trainees’ ability to engage in professional
discourse.
42
• Personal – guided exploration of trainees’ prior experience, beliefs and

2
assumptions about teaching is a central part of sessions.

Training sessions: Designing an outline

All the trainers here have chosen a ‘sandwich’ session shape, with
Practical stages as the ‘bread’ and Professional and Personal stages as the
‘filling’. This is not the only possible design, but we find that it works well.
Principle 4: Start with a bang, end with reflection
A practical start to the session engages participants and can set out the
topic area. ‘Preflection’ at the end ensures that learning doesn’t stop when
people leave the training room, and that it is carried into subsequent
teaching. This principle gives you a useful place to start outlining the
session procedure, because you can immediately allocate ten minutes at
the end of the session for reflection tasks, and start thinking about how to
open the session in a practical way.
Once you have an outline for your session, it’s time to start thinking in
more detail about what you and the trainees will do at each stage. That’s
the focus of the next chapter.

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Planning a
training session’ and ‘Adapting to the training context’
to hear how trainers put the principles we’ve looked at
into practice.

TO FIND OUT MORE

Holmes, A. (2017). Training is teaching. ET Professional, 111, 49–51. (This
article suggests an alternative shape for training sessions: a Purposeful
introduction>Experiential phase>Reflection phase model.)
Hughes, J. (2015). A practical introduction to teacher training in ELT. Hove:
Pavilion. (In this book John Hughes proposes a What?>Why?>How? model
for planning training sessions.)
Woodward, T. (1991). Models and metaphors in language teacher training:
Loop input and other strategies. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
(Includes a useful discussion of training context in Chapter 19.)

43
3 Training sessions:
Activities and materials
Here we consider:
• Activities and materials for Practical stages
• Activities and materials for Personal stages
• Activities and materials for Professional stages
• Activities to end a session
• How to decide what to include in the session

When training teachers, we need to practise what we teach.

Rawya, teacher trainer, Egypt

In this chapter we build on the three Ps model of Chapter 2 to outline

what materials and tasks can be used at each stage of a training session.
If you need to design your own sessions, you should have a much clearer
idea of how to develop new tasks by the end of this chapter. If you mostly
deliver sessions designed by someone else, you’ll be able to critically
evaluate them and make changes if necessary.

Practical
Practical stages aim to demonstrate teaching practices or have trainees
experience practices in order to then reflect on them. If possible, they also
aim to provide opportunities for trainees to implement those practices and
get feedback on them. Here’s how the trainers we met in Chapter 2 chose
to realise the Practical stages in their sessions:

CASE STUDY 3.1: EMAD, THE TRAINING CO-ORDINATOR

My session has two Practical stages which are at the beginning and at the
end. In both of those the trainees will look at a piece of student work and
they will have to give feedback on it. So the session shape is like Test-Teach-
Test in a teacher’s lesson plan.
For the first Practical stage I will give the trainees two pieces of material:
the student writing, and some sample feedback. Then they have to discuss
if they believe the feedback is effective or not, and why. I was going to just
give them the student writing and ask them what feedback they would
give, but I decided that it was too intimidating. Some of the teachers are
very experienced but others are very new, and I thought that the new ones
would be afraid to explain their ideas. If they only have to comment on the
feedback of someone else then it is easier and faster.
45
 In the second Practical stage the trainees will give feedback on a different
Training sessions: Activities and materials

piece of writing. They will compare their comments and opinions, so I hope
that they will all feel more confident then.

CASE STUDY 3.2: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

I’m starting my session with a mini-lesson, because I want the trainees to
feel how different a young learner class is from what they’ve been studying
up to now. The content isn’t totally authentic because I’m using a vocab
game – backs to the board – as a warmer to recycle some of what we’ve
already covered on the training course, and you wouldn’t teach words like
realia to young learners! I feel that I have to do this though because there
is so much to get through on the course. For the rest of the demonstration
the trainees will be in the shoes of YL students, so they’ll see how I use
a story to present language and then some activities for practising it.
3

Obviously, there’s not time to run through a whole lesson so I will cut most
of the activities short – the important thing is that they get a sense of how
it all works, and there is enough for me to demonstrate some classroom
management techniques too.
I’ve also designed a Practical stage to finish the session, but this time the
trainees are doing the work: they need to plan a young learner lesson using
some coursebooks that I’ve collected. I think it’ll be challenging, but I plan
to have them doing this in groups so that they can support each other, and
I’ll be there as they’re doing it to help, too.

Staffroom practices
Not all teaching practices take place in the classroom. Some of what
teachers do, such as planning lessons or marking student work, happens
elsewhere. Both Emad and Marie have incorporated these ‘staffroom
practices’ into their training sessions: Emad is focusing on assessment of
writing, and Marie is dealing with planning. In both cases the trainees are
doing teaching tasks with teacher materials, so these activities are directly
applicable to their professional lives. The difference in the training room is
that they have more support with these tasks as they complete them.
Emad provides support to his trainees by presenting a model of writing
assessment, and then later in the session inviting teachers to mark a piece
of writing based on the techniques he presents. They have the chance
to compare their opinions and discuss them at the end. Marie provides
support to her trainees with their planning task by selecting suitable
materials for them, having them plan in groups, and making herself
available during the planning stage to answer questions and provide
guidance. Supporting teachers in these ways means that routine teaching
tasks become training tasks because the trainees have access to alternative
approaches and ways of thinking, as well as feedback on their efforts.
Table 3.1 lists some of the materials and tasks that could be used as part of
training on staffroom practices. Combining these in various ways creates a
wide range of task options for trainers.

46
Table 3.1: Materials and tasks for training staffroom practices

3
Training sessions: Activities and materials
Planning Materials: Possible tasks:
practices Sample lesson plans Analyse a lesson plan
º º
º Coursebook material º Evaluate a lesson plan
º Supplementary material º Improve a lesson plan
º Authentic texts (video, º Complete a lesson plan
images, etc.) º Adapt a lesson plan for
different contexts
º Create a lesson plan
Assessment Materials: Possible tasks:
and feedback
º Samples of student work º Evaluate feedback on
practices (marked or unmarked) marked work
º Lesson transcripts º Mark student work and
º Recordings of student talk give feedback on it
º Give feedback on
students’ performance in a
speaking task

TASK 3.1
. . . To trainer
What are the advantages and disadvantages of using staffroom practices in
your session instead of classroom practices?
For notes see page 218

Classroom practices
Trainees can occupy various roles as part of Practical stages. They might be
acting as students, as trainee teachers, or as teachers putting learning into
practice. Similarly, the content that trainees work with might be student
content (i.e., the same materials that students would use in the classroom),
trainee content (focused on learning to teach), or teacher content (e.g., a
lesson plan or teacher’s book). If we plot these various possibilities on a
spectrum as in Figure 3.1 below, we get a good overview of the activities
and tasks that might go into a Practical stage (this is an extension of ideas
outlined by Woodward (1991)).

47
 3 Training sessions: Activities and materials

48
LX lesson English Borrowed Adapted Loop Live/video Peer/Micro
demo lesson activity activity input observation teaching
demo

Student Student Student Trainee Trainee Trainee Teacher roles

roles roles roles roles roles roles (but rotating)

Student Student Student Trainee Trainee Trainee Trainee

content content content content content content content

In a In the Other
Fits the Frame not
language language Content = trainees
training related to Real lessons
new to the trainees frame acting as
course content
trainees will teach students

STUDENT TRAINEE TEACHER

ROLE OF TRAINEES

Figure 3.1: Possibilities for presenting classroom practices

Presenting teaching practices

3
Training sessions: Activities and materials
Procedures that involve trainees in the role of student or trainee are ideal
for presenting teaching practices:
LX lesson demonstrations are a relatively common feature of preservice
courses. The group of trainees is given a lesson in a language unknown
to all of them (‘LX’ is used here as a value-neutral alternative to ‘L2’ or
‘foreign language’ (Dewaele, 2018)), and the lesson is usually followed
by trainer-led discussion. These demonstrations can be a useful way of
helping trainees to empathise with their students and they tend to be well
received, but they are somewhat artificial: the trainees probably have no
particular desire to learn the chosen language, they may not expect to
teach complete beginners, and – perhaps most importantly – they may
already have plenty of experience as language learners.
An English lesson demonstration (assuming that the trainees are
teachers of English) is perhaps the most common approach we see to
presenting practice. In fact, many teachers take their first steps into
teacher training because they have activities to share that they’ve found
to be particularly effective, and they do that by demonstrating them with
trainees in the role of students – this approach needn’t be used with a
complete lesson. Two things are important from the trainer’s point of
view: managing the shift from ‘trainee’ to ‘student’ and back again, and
managing the reflective discussion that follows the demonstration. We
have found the following procedure helpful:

• Tell the trainees they’re now ‘students’. They need to wear two hats:
They’re going to participate in language learning activities, but they will
discuss them with their teacher hats on afterwards.
• The trainer carries out the activity/lesson exactly as they would in the
classroom. The only difference is that it may not be necessary to let it
run to its conclusion. If the trainees have experienced enough of each
activity to have a clear idea of how it works (two to three minutes), the
session can move on.
• Tell trainees to put their teacher hats back on. They should work in
pairs or groups to discuss these questions:
What happened? What did the teacher do? What did trainees do?
Why?
What is the aim of the activity? When would it be useful?
What preparation did the teacher need to do for the activity?
What would be an effective way of following up on the activity?

49
 Would the activity work in the trainees’ contexts?
Training sessions: Activities and materials

If not, how could it be adapted so as to be useful?

• Trainees will need a record of the activity/lesson and the discussion –
this might be a handout or they may need time to make notes.

This routine can be used whenever teaching practices are demonstrated

with trainees in the role of students. The initial questions about what
happened are important, because it is very difficult to participate as a
student in the demonstration and at the same time take note of what is
happening in the room. Once trainees are clear about what took place,
they can begin to reflect on it with the help of the remaining questions.
Along the same lines, a negative model can sometimes be quite effective.
3

This follows the procedure above but instead of carrying out the lesson as
they would in the classroom, the trainer deliberately models ineffective
teaching. In the subsequent discussions the task for trainees is to consider
how the techniques they saw could be improved upon. This kind of
demonstration can be an effective way of encouraging trainees to think
more critically about what they see in classrooms, including their own.
A borrowed activity is simply the appropriation of a classroom activity
for the training room, when chosen learning outcomes coincide. The most
common examples are icebreaker or getting-to-know-you activities at the
start of a course – these can be transplanted directly into the training room
because the goals are the same. Other examples might be activities for
raising trainees’ language awareness, which may be the same as those used
in class with learners. Although trainees will benefit from the activity as
it is (e.g., by bonding with peers or with increased language knowledge),
borrowed activities are also an opportunity to develop teaching skills if the
reflective discussion procedure above is followed.
An adapted activity is the use of an activity format from the language
classroom, but with content relevant to trainees. Marie does this in her
session (Case study 3.2) when she demonstrates a vocabulary revision
game that is relevant to teaching young learners (the focus of her session),
but uses it to revise terminology that her trainees have learned at other
points during the course. Again, the reflective discussion procedure should
be followed afterwards, perhaps with emphasis on how trainees could
adapt the activity to their own contexts.
Loop input is the term coined by Woodward (1991) for practical activities
in which the content of the activity mirrors the process that trainees go
through. Sofia has chosen this approach for her online session:

50
 CASE STUDY 3.3: SOFIA, THE ONLINE TUTOR

3
Training sessions: Activities and materials
I want the trainees to leave the session with an understanding of the
stages of a reading lesson. So I am going to begin the session by actually
teaching a short reading lesson, and the text I’m using is about the stages
of a reading lesson. Before reading, the trainees have to predict which
activities will be mentioned in the text. Then they read to find out if they
were correct. Then there are some True/False questions they have to answer
about the text, and finally there is a group discussion task, although sadly
that will be very brief because we are limited to discussion that is typed into
the chat box. So the trainees learn about staging reading lessons in two
ways: from the text that they read, and from the stages of the demo lesson
that they actually take part in.

TASK 3.2
. . . To trainer
What do you think the pros and cons of using loop input for teacher training
might be?
For notes see page 218

Loop input can be used for a wide range of session topics (for examples,
see Woodward, 1991). Although trainees don’t have to deal with a change
in role, the reflective discussion is important for teasing apart content and
process, and for helping trainees consider how student content would
work as part of the same process.
Live observation can be an excellent way of presenting practices, but in
our experience is often underused. It has one significant advantage over
the techniques above, which is that trainees are not in the role of students,
so they are able to observe real student behaviour. That’s important for all
trainees, but particularly for novice teachers, who naturally focus more
on teacher actions than on evidence of student learning. The challenge
with observation is the extraordinary amount of information it presents
to trainees; focusing on one student during one activity offers plenty of
food for thought, let alone a whole class of students for an entire lesson.
Trainers, therefore, need to support trainees by directing their attention to
particular features of the lesson through tasks.
If you are observing the lesson alongside the trainee(s), instant messaging
(e.g., Skype, Slack) is a good way of doing this, because tasks can be given
in response to events in the room, and the resulting text can provide useful
feedback to the teacher afterwards. If you are not in the classroom then a
pre-prepared task will be necessary – for an excellent range of examples
see Wajnryb (1992).
Video observation is of course very similar but has the additional benefit
of providing much more focused ‘bursts’ of observation because specific
clips can be chosen to exemplify particular classroom behaviours. These
51
 clips can be re-watched multiple times, and tasks can be prepared that
Training sessions: Activities and materials

are closely tailored to what takes place. When the focus is on classroom
interaction, audio ‘observation’ may be just as useful, with the benefit
of focusing attention more strongly on classroom talk because there are no
visual distractions. Transcripts of lesson activity can also work for this,
although with no visuals or paralinguistic cues so much is lost that they
are rarely the first-choice resource.
With all these forms of observation for presenting practice, trainee
reflection is really taking place throughout (guided by the tasks set by the
trainer), so although there will be some post-observation discussion, it may
be shorter than similar phases that follow some of the techniques above. It
may also be more trainee-driven, as there are often points of interest raised
by trainees that fall outside the topic chosen by you.
3

Trying out teaching practices

Providing hands-on experience in the training room is more difficult than
just presenting practices. Staffroom practices can be tried out easily, as
Emad and Marie show, but classroom practices need students. Of course,
one way that trainees can apply new classroom routines is in teaching
practice (see Chapter 6), but there will be times when you want to offer
more immediate opportunities for trainees to ‘get stuck in’.
Microteaching is perhaps the most familiar technique for doing that. As
the name suggests, it is small-scale teaching: groups of no more than five
or six (most often other trainees acting as the students), and ‘lessons’ of no
more than ten minutes or so, with an appropriately scaled-down learning
outcome. In most contexts nowadays trainees will take turns to microteach
each other during the session. In its original form, they taught volunteer
students, microteaching sessions were videotaped to allow trainers to give
immediate feedback to trainees, and students also provided feedback.
The microlesson would then be delivered again (Fortune, Cooper, &
Allen, 1967).
The important thing is to consider what roles trainees will play (will they
all act as students when not teaching, or will some observe?), who will
give feedback to those teaching and how (video-supported, or student-
supported), and what the intended outcome is in terms of teaching
practice. We have found microteaching works best when trainees are able
to work in groups of four or five, rotating the role of the teacher with
other group members as students. In this way, all trainees in a fairly large
group can gain practical familiarity with a technique in only an hour. What
is especially important is that there is a particular teaching skill being
focused on (e.g., teaching three or four vocabulary items; managing a
choral drill; monitoring pair discussion in order to give language feedback)
– the format is far less effective when the instruction to trainees is simply
‘teach for ten minutes’.

52
In certain situations, particularly online or with large groups of trainees,

3
the training context is such that it is very difficult, or even impossible,

Training sessions: Activities and materials

to provide trainees with hands-on experience of new teaching practices
during the session, there in the training room. One solution is to simply
describe activities and techniques, or to invite the trainees to brainstorm
and share practices that they are familiar with, perhaps through peer
presentations. Another possibility is to use lesson plans as a form
of ‘observation through text’, relying on trainees’ imaginations and
knowledge of the classroom to bring them to life. Rod Ellis asks if, with
these various substitutes for hands-on practice, we can ‘really influence
what teachers do in the classroom by making them think about the
principles and practice of teaching in sessions remote from the classroom?’
(Ellis, 1990, p. 27). The answer, in our experience, is yes. But in order for
that to happen it is vital that teachers carry out the hands-on practice of
new teaching ideas in their own classrooms. The final reflection stage (see
below) of the session is essential to make sure that that happens.

Personal
The activities that support the Personal aspects of teacher education all
share one thing in common: discussion. As an experienced teacher, you
might feel quite comfortable with these stages of your sessions – they can
seem very similar to language lessons, with the satisfying sound of people
working energetically together in pairs or groups. But it’s important to
remember that discussions in the training room have quite different aims,
because in most situations we’re not trying to teach language. Instead,
training room discussions are an opportunity:

• for trainees to share and reflect on how they do what they do

• to elicit teacher beliefs and assumptions, and challenge them if
necessary
• for trainees to consider how they could apply concepts to their own
teaching contexts
• to build trainees’ identities as teachers, and to help them develop
autonomy over their professional learning and development
• to model ways of setting up and managing speaking tasks

Let’s see how the trainers in our case studies set up Personal stages and
exploit these opportunities in their sessions:

53
 CASE STUDY 3.4: EMAD, THE TRAINING CO-ORDINATOR
Training sessions: Activities and materials

I am going to elicit what the teachers do and their beliefs with one
question that follows their evaluation of the marked writing sample.
Do you give feedback in the same way? Why / why not?
I will do this as a Think-Pair-Share: the teachers can consider their answers
individually first, then discuss them in pairs, and finally share them in
plenary. By the end of the discussion we should see what the teachers do
to give feedback on writing, and the beliefs and aspects of context that
lead them to take those actions.

CASE STUDY 3.5: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

My trainees are going to discuss the YL lesson that I model for them, and
3

there’s quite a lot for them to talk about. So to focus the discussion, and to
allow them to explore topics fully, I’m dividing the class into three groups.
Each group has a different topic, and what I want the discussion to focus
on is a comparison of what they saw in the model lesson and what they
have learned so far on this course – basically similarities and differences
between teaching adults and teaching kids.
Every group has a flipchart, and I’m going to ask them to put their ideas
onto the flipcharts and use that to report back to the whole class when
the discussions are over. I’ll be moving around the room listening as they
talk, and if I hear any misunderstandings I’ll probably intervene to help
unpick them. Then after the session I’ll share photos of each of the flipcharts
and some comments with the trainees so that they’ve got a record of
the discussion.

CASE STUDY 3.6: SOFIA, THE ONLINE TUTOR

In my face-to-face training, I really enjoy discussing the teachers’ reactions
and feelings to what they are learning. So this part of the session was very
hard for me to design, because we cannot talk, we can only type into the
chat box during the online session. And if teachers are confused, or if they
disagree with the approach I’m showing them, it’s really easy for them to
withdraw and stop participating during this stage, and I don’t want that.
I know that for many of the teachers, a reading lesson means reading
the text aloud with the class, and then translating it word by word. What
I decided in the end was to anticipate their concerns about adopting a
more communicative approach and represent those concerns with quotes
from teachers that they can rate according to how much they agree. I’ve
made up the quotes, of course, but I think the teachers will still feel that it
makes their concerns valid and be more open to discussing them.

54
 3
TASK 3.3

Training sessions: Activities and materials

From teacher . . .
Thinking about training sessions you have attended, what role did discussion
play? How did you feel about being asked to discuss things with other trainees?
For notes see page 219

Formats for discussion

Setting up discussions is a routine task for experienced teachers, and the
same formats that you use in your language lessons can be used in the
training room too (Table 3.2).
Table 3.2: Classroom discussion formats that can be used in the training room

Format How it works What it’s good for

Jigsaw Trainees in initial groups (AAA, Covering several different

BBB, CCC) each discuss related topics in a relatively
different topics, then regroup short space of time (e.g.,
(ABC, ABC, ABC) to exchange discussion of several different
findings. methods in a session on
methodology).

Mingle Trainees stand and mingle, Sharing a wide range of

speaking to as many peers as viewpoints and experiences.
possible.

Think-Pair-Share Trainees spend one to two More in-depth questions that

minutes thinking about the require reflection and careful
task, then share their thoughts thought.
with a partner. Finally, they
share the main points of their
discussion with the class.

Plenary A whole-class discussion, Questions about the topic

chaired by the trainer. shared by many trainees in the
group; insights that the whole
group should know to achieve
the learning outcomes for the
session.

Groups Discussion in groups of four Tasks that require trainees

to six trainees. It is helpful to to reach a consensus, or to
nominate a note-taker. brainstorm ideas.

Debate Debate with class divided into Questions of practice with

‘for’ and ‘against’ the motion. no clear answer (e.g., should
teachers write their aims on
the board at the start of the
lesson?)

55
 Uncovering beliefs
Training sessions: Activities and materials

As part of Personal stages, trainers want to elicit teacher beliefs about

teaching in order to work with them in the training room. To do that, you
can ask people what they believe, but this is usually not a very helpful
strategy. Quite often respondents are not sure what their beliefs are, or
they tell you what they think you want to hear, which is of no use if you
want to understand what is underpinning their decisions in class. Or they
may simply not want to answer. After all, there is plenty of potential for
embarrassment, particularly if colleagues are in the room.
So a more useful way of approaching teacher beliefs is with a prompt of
some kind that trainees can react to. Usually their reactions reveal far more
than a direct question would, and offer an easier route to more in-depth
3

discussion. Sofia’s lesson is the best example of this – the online context
means she is more removed from her trainees, and the large number of
attendees makes it easy for more reticent teachers to hide away, but she
has planned a task that makes it as easy as possible for trainees to discuss
their beliefs, without necessarily revealing that they are their beliefs.
Emad takes actual teaching practice – an example of marking – as his
prompt, but brings the trainees’ own practice into the discussion. Marie
also prompts her trainees with actual teaching practice – her demo lesson
– but is also interested in encouraging the trainees to contrast it with the
practices they’ve seen on her course so far (remember that they have very
limited practice of their own to explore). So the pattern with all these
examples of Personal stages is:

Provide/clarify Compare
Explore why
prompt for Rank
in plenary
discussion Agree/disagree

Figure 3.2: The process of eliciting beliefs

Prompts for discussion

Teacher or student opinions are excellent prompts because they present
varying perspectives on teaching clearly and without requiring trainees to
put their own beliefs or practice to the group for judgement. Like Sofia,
you can make them up yourself, but you might find that as you work more
with teachers you collect some quite useful real quotations. There are also
plenty of good quotations online, too, of course. Here are some examples
(quoted in Mayne, 2019):
‘Listen and repeat’ is no good for practising pron. You have to
get physical.
Textbooks are a good idea. Somebody took the time to plan
a course not just so that you don’t need to but because you
couldn’t do a better job AND teach at the same time.

56
 The ‘subject knowledge’ that English teachers are supposed to

3
be experts in is LANGUAGE.

Training sessions: Activities and materials

Get creative with how you present these opinions, and try to model
the principle of presenting language in context. For example, you could
provide trainees with a dialogue overheard in a staffroom, a letter to a
newspaper, a text message between students, a teacher’s email to parents,
a cartoon strip, and so on.
Images can be excellent sources of discussion, particularly images of
teaching and learning situations or artefacts. They can often be so thought-
provoking that trainees will begin discussing what they see without having
been set a specific task. Figure 3.3 is an example of an image to prompt
discussion on the topic of boardwork:

Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/eltj/article/45/3/193/3113712 by University of Cambridge user o

Figure 3.3: An example of boardwork for discussion

Metaphors are rather like images painted by (or revealed by) words, so
they work very similarly as discussion prompts. Thornbury argues that ‘to
teachers in their classrooms . . . it is the image of teaching that has potency,
not the theory of teaching‘ (Thornbury, 1991, p. 196), and highlights that when
trainees’ images of teaching clash with those underlying the practices they are
expected to adopt, the result is likely to be frustration (and ineffective teaching
– recall the study we described on page 17). Working with metaphors can
help to bring trainees’ mental images of teaching to the fore so that they can
examine them and consider what practices align with them.

Figure 3.4: Examples of awareness-raising tasks using metaphors (Thornbury, 1991)

57
 Critical incidents work by using events from teachers’ professional lives
Training sessions: Activities and materials

as prompts for discussion. The idea, outlined as a teacher education tool

by David Tripp, is to consider a small snippet of school activity in detail, a
situation chosen by a teacher either because it stood out in some way for
them at the time, or because it is indicative of something more meaningful
despite appearing to be quite mundane. As we saw in Chapter 1, classroom
practice can often be guided by instinct rather than conscious reasoning,
so the aim of thinking critically and systematically about routine events is
to uncover the relationship between teaching beliefs and teaching practice,
and between specific biographical incidents and broader pedagogical
principles. In this way, trainees become more aware of how their beliefs
and assumptions affect their practice and become more able to make
lasting changes to them, turning ‘an incident that was not particularly
3

important at the time it occurred into one which is important to [trainees]

for all time’ (Tripp, 1994, p. 71).
This process begins with a simple description. Tripp gives an example of
an incident in which a student, Mary, raises her hand and asks to sharpen
her pencil. Turning this into a critical incident involves first explaining
Mary’s actions within the immediate context (she is following a class
rule that students must ask the teacher before they can get up from their
desks), and then ‘zooming out’ from that context to find what the incident
means more generally. In this case the incident is an example of how
student decision making is limited in many schools, and we can then
decide if we agree with this position or not, and how our teaching might
change as a result.
As you can see, the incident itself – Mary asking to sharpen her pencil – is
fairly unremarkable. Nevertheless, it can be challenging for trainees to
identify events like this. Tripp suggests a range of strategies for helping
teachers notice incidents, such as using a particular adjective (interesting,
funny, trivial, etc.) to ‘prime’ teachers before they enter the classroom, or
selecting from events that are either quintessentially typical and routine,
or the opposite: those which are atypical. They then need to be described,
and although there’s no particular format that should be used, the critical
incident should go beyond description of the event itself and include an
element of explanation of the values it reveals, both about the immediate
context, as well as about the broader educational context.
When it comes to analysing critical incidents, Tripp (1993) suggests several
thinking strategies to get students started, including:

• Plus, minus, interesting – what was positive, negative, or interesting

(not necessarily good or bad, but perhaps raising further questions or
sparking new ideas) about the situation? This strategy involves thinking
about the incident as described; thinking about what did happen. (This
strategy alone can prompt extensive discussion if trainees disagree
about what is good and bad!)

58
• Alternatives, possibilities, choices – what other courses of action were

3
open to the teacher? This strategy involves somewhat more imagination

Training sessions: Activities and materials

and creativity, because it’s an analysis of what didn’t happen, but
could have.
• The Why? Challenge – encourages trainees to delve into the choices
made during the incident, but also the reasons the incident stood out in
the first place. Trainees start with the question ‘why does this matter?’
and give their answer, which is then followed by a further ‘why?’ again
and again until an unavoidable conclusion is reached. This usually
ends with one of two answers: either ‘because that’s the way it is’ or
‘because that’s the way it should be’. Both of these can be explored
further. ‘The way it is’ may be more malleable than trainees believe, or
it may reveal an aspect of the teaching context that is fundamental to
practice in that context. ‘The way it should be’ suggests a deep-seated
belief about the nature and purpose of teaching and learning. Once out
in the open, it can be explored, discussed and challenged.

The critical incident analysis can be done ‘live’ in the training room, but
once the process has been explained to trainees, they can be asked to
select their own incidents in advance of sessions and bring their analyses
to the training room for subsequent discussion, which tends to be more
fruitful. One reason for that is that preparing critical incidents for other
people requires them to be described fully and with consideration of other
perspectives, which means that trainees do plenty of thinking even before
they come to the training room and discuss their incidents with others.

TASK 3.4
. . . To trainer
Read Matthew’s incident below, and then:
i. Use the Plus, Minus, Interesting strategy to make some notes about it.
ii. What explanations can you think of for the events in the incident? What
significance do they have for Matthew’s teaching in general?

Matthew: Taking the register

I was teaching a small class of beginner-level teenagers and taking the
register at the start of the lesson. Each time I called a name I said ‘Hello’ and
‘How are you?’ and the student replied. This was our normal routine.
About halfway through the register I called a girl’s name – let’s call her Lin –
and said hello to her, but she didn’t reply. I continued to calmly say ‘Hello Lin’
until eventually she replied – I probably said it at least ten times.
For notes see page 219

59
 Coursebook material is a useful basis for Personal discussions because
Training sessions: Activities and materials

comparison and analysis of coursebooks can help to reveal not only

trainees’ beliefs and assumptions, but also those of the coursebook
producers. Coursebooks also provide a clear link between beliefs and
practice, and are readily available in most training contexts (trainees can
always be asked to bring their course materials to the training room).

Professional
Professional session content aims to present information: theories,
frameworks, research insights and the language to talk about them all.
For many of the techniques below it is worth remembering that teaching
practices can still be modelled, so there are opportunities to include a
3

Practical element while conveying Professional content (Sofia, for example,

models the stages of a reading lesson and includes Professional content
within the reading text). More often, though, you will introduce teaching
practice with Practical content, and use Professional activities to provide
the rationale for that practice and the terminology to talk about it.
Quizzes are a useful way of introducing input to a group that may already
have some knowledge of the subject, or to groups that include trainees of
varying experience. Here is the example from Emad’s session, which he
has based on a research paper (Chandler, 2003):

1. Students like it when teachers provide True / False

corrections on their writing
2. Students believe they learn better when True / False
they have to correct their own mistakes
3. Underlining errors is more effective than True / False
using a correction code
4. Students prefer underlining to correction True / False
codes

CASE STUDY 3.7: EMAD, THE TRAINING CO-ORDINATOR

We don’t have a lot of time so I will introduce the teachers to some
principles with a quiz, which is fast and engaging. They have to choose
true or false (the answers are all true!). I would like to use an online quiz
tool to make this more dynamic, but I have also prepared the quiz on my
presentation in case there are problems with the internet connection, which
can occasionally happen here. After the quiz I will allow a few minutes for
the teachers to discuss anything that was surprising or new to them, and I
will answer any questions they might have.
The quiz is based on a research paper that I used to prepare the session,
so I have included a reference to the paper and I will send it to the
teachers afterwards.

60
Card sorting / matching activities can be a good way of contrasting

3
ideas with those that trainees are already familiar with. Marie does

Training sessions: Activities and materials

this in order to highlight the differences between teaching adults and
young learners:

CASE STUDY 3.8: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

I want to keep the session light on theory because it’s already quite a lot
to take in. So I’ve created my own card sorting activity to introduce some
of the main ideas: basically the trainees have to compare and contrast
teaching adults and kids by putting cards that describe various aspects of
teaching into one category or the other. There’s a range of sources for this,
and some of it is simply my own teaching experience. Once the trainees
have matched the cards, I’ll give them a handout with the answers on so
they have a record of this part of the session, and some links to further
reading where they can learn more.

Card sorting is also very effective for helping students to make sense of
classroom practices they have been presented with in Practical stages. For
example, after taking part in a demonstration the trainees might be asked
to work out the stages of the lesson by sorting cards into the right order.
Key terms lend themselves to modelling techniques for teaching
vocabulary, such as matching terms to definitions (an example of an
adapted activity, mentioned above). If you’re introducing terms that you
expect trainees to know already, simple techniques for eliciting them, such
as showing only the first letter, or introducing them as anagrams, can help
trainees to stay engaged.

CASE STUDY 3.9: SOFIA, THE ONLINE TUTOR

In this case, including some theory was easy for me because I needed a
text to model the stages of a reading lesson with, and what better text than
one about the stages of a reading lesson! It was an easy choice because
the book I took the extract from is quite new, the text is a good length, and
it’s written in an accessible way. There have been times in the past where
I’ve have had to edit some articles to make them more readable, but this
one was perfect. All I had to do after that was create some comprehension
questions around it.

Articles or book extracts are an obvious source of unfiltered Professional

content, but as Sofia suggests, some texts are more appropriate than others
for an audience of trainees. Shorter is usually better, and that might mean
extracting quotes or key paragraphs and presenting them separately. The
register of the text is also important: texts written in dense academic
prose can be confusing or intimidating, especially if the trainees’ English
language level is not high. Good sources of texts are English Teaching
Professional, Modern English Teacher, the ELT Journal, or the Cambridge
University Press ELT blog (www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/).

61
 One clear advantage of using articles or extracts from books is that they
Training sessions: Activities and materials

can be presented to trainees using the same activity frames used in the
language classroom, such as jigsaw reading, gap fills, dictation, gallery
walks, etc. If you have the time and resources, you can even adapt written
texts for audio presentation – conveying the findings of an otherwise dry
research article by recording a dialogue between a teacher and researcher,
for instance.

TASK 3.5
. . . To trainer
Go to page 221 to see the text that Sofia plans to use in her session (Case
study 3.9). What comprehension questions would you write if you were Sofia?
3

Is there anything that she could do to make the text more accessible?
For notes see page 221

Flipped learning in the context of teacher training involves providing

trainees with Professional content before they come to the session.
Melissa Lamb (2019) describes this approach on an intensive preservice
training course, in which Professional input in the form of ‘bitesize’ texts
was provided through a dedicated website. Trainees were responsible
for accessing relevant content online before attending face-to-face
sessions focusing on guided planning, teaching skills workshops and
teaching practice.
Although you may not be able to create your own website, the principle of
providing trainees with material in advance of a session is easily applied.
You might provide trainees with an article or extract from a book, or a
link to an online resource such as a blog post or video. The key to making
this approach work is in allowing trainees to discover the relevance
of the input to their own teaching through practical experimentation
(e.g., microteaching), when they come to the session, so the role of the
ainer is much less prominent. Lamb argues that flipping training in
this way ‘moves the trainees away from trying to master teaching skills
simply because they are a requirement of the course, towards having the
confidence to use those skills in practice’ (Lamb, 2019, p. 48).
Lecturing trainees in order to convey Professional content tends to be
considered bad practice, probably because it presents a model of education
that communicative language teachers are advised to steer clear of in
their classrooms – many of us will have been trained to keep our ‘teacher
talking time’ to a minimum. But as Tessa Woodward points out, lectures
can be a useful part of a trainer’s toolkit if used judiciously:
Trainers nowadays seem to favour discovery group work
and are often slightly embarrassed when caught lecturing.
I feel that discovery group work is simply another tool,

62
 equally varied in type, underutilised in practice and just as

3
inappropriate in some contexts as the lecture is in others.

Training sessions: Activities and materials

(Woodward, 1991, p. 10)
There’s no doubt that lecturing can be a time-efficient way of conveying
ideas, that it probably requires less preparation than other forms of
Professional input (for trainers familiar with their subject matter), and
that many trainees appreciate an opportunity to learn directly from the
trainer (without the mediation of peers, as in jigsaw reading or discussion,
for example). But to promote active learning a traditional ‘chalk and talk’
approach will be insufficient. Gabriel Diaz Maggioli (2012, p. 47) suggests a
number of ways to both make lectures more engaging and provide trainers
with a better sense of how well trainees are following than traditional
lecturing:

• Provide trainees with a handout with gaps to fill in as they listen.

• Trainees discuss questions on the topic, then listen to the lecture to
check their ideas.
• Trainees summarise the lecture after hearing it, adding examples from
their own teaching.
• Individual trainees are asked for examples in advance and they are
asked to contribute them during the lecture.

These techniques help to ensure that trainees are engaged throughout

the lecture, provide them with a framework for understanding and
absorbing what they hear, and help the trainer check that ideas have been
communicated as intended. Ideally all lectures should end with a brief
discussion of trainees’ thoughts, comments and questions – again, one of
the aims of these is for you to evaluate how successfully the content of the
lecture has been conveyed.
A central principle of Professional input, and one modelled by Emad and
Marie in their sessions, is that participants should be able to take away some
kind of record of the main ideas, or have access to them after the session,
and that this resource should include suggestions for further learning
opportunities. This is an important way of helping teachers to develop
more agency over their professional development and provides a valuable
connection to the knowledge base of the language teaching profession.

Reflection and planning next steps

The final stage of the session allows teachers to (1) look back at the
session and consider what they have learned from it, and (2) look ahead
to forthcoming lessons and plan how to apply their learning to teaching
practice (what we described as ‘preflection’ in Chapter 2). Providing
support for this kind of thinking is key: when teachers are supported in
63
 experimenting with new ideas in the classroom they are more likely to
Training sessions: Activities and materials

make lasting, meaningful changes to their teaching practice (Ingvarson,

Meiers, & Beavis, 2005, p. 15).
Sentence stems are a useful way of guiding teacher reflection. For example,
teachers might be encouraged to think about what they learned from a
session by completing the following:

• Today’s session covered the topic(s) of . . .

• The most useful thing I learned today was . . .
• What surprised me was . . .
• I would like to learn more about . . .
3

• I realised that my teaching . . .

• A question I (still) have is . . .

When it comes to making plans for applying new learning in the

classroom, trainees can usually benefit from taking a collaborative
approach. Discussing future plans with other trainees generates a sense
of accountability, encourages trainees to look for solutions to potential
barriers, and enables sharing of creative strategies for classroom
experimentation. Trainees could begin this kind of collaborative dialogue
with questions like:

• What are you planning to do differently in your next lesson?

• How do you think it will affect your students’ learning?
• What will you need to do to make it work?
• How will you know if it has worked?

Summary
The tasks and materials suggested in this chapter represent only some
of the possibilities open to trainers. As you become more familiar with
them, be creative: mix and match activity frames, the materials you use as
prompts, and the tasks you ask trainees to complete with them to create
new ways of exploring Practical, Personal and Professional content.
How do you choose between one training activity and another?

• Use your session outline (Chapter 2), particularly the learning

outcome and the details of the training habitat, to decide what is
most appropriate.

64
• Consider the teachers’ level of experience: expert teachers are better

3
able to take on board new activities and put them into practice without

Training sessions: Activities and materials

experiencing them; novice teachers need to see how they work.
• How much time is there? It may be worth demonstrating practice of
more activities and not providing time to try them out if time is short.
• How similar is the training room to the teachers’ contexts? If it is very
different then there may be limited value in something like peer teaching.
• How much do you expect the trainees to know about the topic already?
If they have some prior knowledge then Professional activities that
allow them to share it will be most fruitful.

These and other questions will help to guide your decisions about the
activities that you slot into your outline, and you will find that your
experience of planning lessons helps you to reach those decisions. Emad’s
completed session plan (Figure 3.5) gives a sense of the level of detail you
might aim for when you prepare your own session plans:

Session title Giving feedback on academic writing

Multiple groups of up to 20 in-service teachers of English for
Profile of trainees
academic purposes in a university context
Time available 60 minutes
Resources Student texts on handouts, projector
needed
What trainees As a result of the session, trainees will know a range
will know of evidence-based techniques for giving feedback on
academic writing and the principles behind them.
What trainees Following the session, trainees will use a range of contextually
will do appropriate evidence-based techniques in their teaching for
giving feedback to students on writing.

Session outline

Stage aim Procedure Interaction Time

To set the context Ts work in pairs to examine a piece of T–T 10

for the session, to student writing and feedback on it, to
introduce the idea decide how effective the feedback is.
that feedback is They have a profile of the student and
teaching too the task.
Plenary discussion to share ideas. TR Plenary 5
to elicit the idea that the main aim of
feedback is writing skill development.

To find out how Ask Ts Do you give feedback in the

Ts approach same way? Why / why not?
feedback on Ts think, pair, share. T>T–T>plenary 5
writing and why

65
Training sessions: Activities and materials

To introduce some True/false quiz on principles of Plenary 10

principles of giving feedback on writing, based on
feedback on research paper by Chandler. Ts have
writing the chance to ask questions after
each answer is revealed.

To practise Ts are given a piece of student writing T 10

applying the to mark, individually. TR monitors in
principles just preparation for plenary discussion.
learned Ts discuss their feedback in groups. T–T 5
Plenary discussion of the task, Plenary 5
questions.

For Ts to reflect on Ts reflect individually, completing T 5

what they can sentence stems.
take away, and to
3

Ts share plans for future action, T–T 5

plan how collaborating where possible.

Figure 3.5: Emad’s completed session plan (TR = trainer; T = trainee; T–T = trainees work
with each other)

When you have a plan like this, all that remains is to put it into action!
How to do that is the focus of Chapter 4.

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Effective
modelling’ and ‘Changing beliefs’ to hear how trainers
put the principles we’ve looked at into practice. Do you
recognise any of their techniques from training sessions
you’ve attended?

TO FIND OUT MORE

Ellis, R. (1990). Activities and procedures for teacher education. In J. C.
Richards, & D. Nunan, Second language teacher education (pp. 26–36).
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (A useful chapter on how to
generate workshop tasks from different types of input.)
Thaine, C. (2010). Teacher Training Essentials: Workshops for Professional
Development. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (This is a collection
of materials – session plans and handouts – ready for trainers to deliver, so
it’s a useful set of examples to take inspiration from as you start designing
your own sessions.)

66
4 Training sessions:
Delivering your session
Here we consider:
• How to prepare yourself
• Dealing with practicalities
• Managing resources in the training room
• Trainer talk in the training room
• How to follow up on your sessions with trainees
• How to evaluate your sessions

It's about sharing what you know, not setting yourself above the
people that you're working with.
Olha, teacher trainer, UK

You may have planned your own session, or you may be starting off with
a session design prepared by someone else. Either way, it’s now time
to deliver it! In this chapter we look at how to take your session from
design to delivery, thinking about how to best manage the resources and
the people in the training room to maximise teacher learning. Finally, we
think about how to follow up with the trainees, as well as why and how to
evaluate your training session.
It sounds obvious, but it’s worth remembering that the session design is
not the session itself. Having spent so much time preparing, it would be
understandable to feel that the only thing left to do is work through the
stages you’ve put together, or take the session design you’ve been provided
with and head straight for the training room. But of course, the reality is
not so simple, just as teaching a good lesson involves more than purely
realising the plan. Trainers must be as alert to the ‘planning paradox’
(Harmer, 2007, p. 364) as teachers: we have a professional responsibility
to prepare for training sessions, but we must also remember that sticking
rigidly to the session design might mean that we miss impromptu
opportunities for teacher learning. Bringing the session to life means being
flexible and alert to the possibilities in the training room and recognising
that the lightbulb moments in the session may not be obvious from the
session design.
Besides being alive to learning and opportunities for learning during
the session, we need to consider how to manage what is available in the
training room – resources and people – to achieve our goals. And since our

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 ultimate goal is improved teaching and learning in the classroom, ensuring
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

that the session really does translate into better learning outcomes for
students will mean looking ahead to what will happen after the session has
ended, both for the trainees and for ourselves.
To exemplify the ideas in this chapter let’s use a session plan (Figure 4.2)
designed by a trainer named Lydia, that she’s delivering on a preservice
course. She begins by teaching a short demo lesson using the coursebook
page in Figure 4.1.

4.3
LESSON OBJECTIVE

LOOK AWAY! ■ discuss problems caused by

staring at screens

1 LISTENING
A PAIR WORK What types of screens do you look at for work or school?
For pleasure? About how many hours a day do you spend looking at
a screen? What effect might this be having on your eyes?

B 1.33 LISTEN FOR MAIN IDEA Listen to an ophthalmologist

(eye doctor) discussing the effect of screens on our eyes.
Which statement best summarizes her position?
a Screen viewing causes serious and lasting damage to our eyes.
b There is no need to cut back on the amount of time we spend
looking at screens.
c We can take a number of practical steps to help protect our eyesight.

C 1.33 LISTEN FOR DETAILS Listen again and pay attention to the structure of the presentation. Use the chart
to take notes.

How and why this affects eyesight Proposed solution(s)

Blinking

Glare and
reflections

Blue light

D PAIR WORK Compare your notes. Did you capture

all the same information? Was it presented in an INSIDER ENGLISH
organized way? Do you think the ophthalmologist
offers good advice? Do you do any of these things? Easier said than done. = It’s not as easy as it seems.
Will you do any of them now?

2 PRONUNCIATION: Listening for /t/ between vowels

A 1.34 Listen to the two sets of phrases. In which set are the underlined /t/ sounds pronounced more like /d/?
a But the truth of the matter is … b … there are lots of practical things …
It’s a vital function for healthy eyes … … special yellow-tinted glasses …

B 1.35 PAIR WORK Underline the /t/ sounds that might sound more like /d/ sounds. Listen and check.
Then practice saying the sentences with a partner.
1 We’ve invited ophthalmologist Kit Bradley to the studio today …
2 This constant fatigue leads to eyestrain with all its related problems.
3 Blue light is emitted by digital screens.

C Circle the correct words to complete the sentence.

The /t/ sound is often pronounced more like /d/ when it comes after 1a stressed / an unstressed vowel and before
2
a stressed / an unstressed vowel.

38

Figure 4.1: B. Goldstein and C. Jones, Evolve Student’s Book 6 (Cambridge University
Press, 2020), p. 38

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 4
Session title Introduction to teaching listening

Training sessions: Delivering your session

Profile of trainees 12 trainees on an intensive preservice teaching course.

Time available 60 minutes

Resources used Projector and computer Coursebook: Evolve Student’s

Handout Book 6 (see Figure 4.1)

What teachers will Following this session, trainees will have a better
know understanding of how listening lessons are structured, and
how to teach listening using published materials

What teachers Plan an appropriately staged listening lesson from a coursebook

will do Use appropriate techniques to support student listening
comprehension (e.g., peer checking, pre-teaching vocabulary)

Session outline

Stage aim Procedure Interaction Time

1. Demo lesson Tell CPs [course participants] that they Plenary 25’
To introduce the will take part in a demo lesson from
teaching practices Evolve 6. They are a C1 (advanced) class.
for a listening º Discussion (1A) in pairs. Plenary
lesson feedback.
º Pre-teach blink, eyesight, eyestrain,
ophthalmologist with example
sentences on board. Use CCQs
[concept checking questions]
to check understanding. Drill
pronunciation and elicit word stress.
º CPs read task 1B. Which position
do they think the ophthalmologist
will promote?
º CPs listen and peer check their answers.
º Point out task 1C. Explain that
in a lesson we’d listen again to
complete this.
º Discussion 1D in pairs for 2 mins. Plenary
feedback. Explain that in a lesson the ss
would have more time to talk.
º Elicit CPs’ reactions to the lesson –
what did they enjoy? Was anything
surprising? Do they have any
questions?

2. Understanding º Give groups cards with stages of the Group work 15’
listening lesson lesson and cards with the stage aims.
stages Groups work to order the stages and
To highlight the match the correct aims to each one.
structure of a º Give handout with correct order when
listening lesson, each group has finished.
the rationale for º Early finishers can turn to a different
each stage, and listening lesson in the coursebook
how they look in and identify the stages.
coursebooks º Answer any questions in plenary

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4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

3. Reviewing key º Give CPs one minute to review their Plenary 10’
terms handouts then ask them to put them
To ensure that away.
trainees can recall º Play ‘backs to the board’ in two teams
and understand with these terms: gist,
key concepts pre-teach, detail, peer check, context,
prediction, transcript

4. Closing reflection º Opportunity for questions/comments Plenary 10’

º Teachers reflect and write key Individual
takeaways from the session in their
journals.

Figure 4.2: Lydia’s session plan

TASK 4.1
. . . To trainer
Where do you see Professional, Personal and Practical elements in Lydia’s
session design? Can you guess the rationale for her choices?
For notes see page 223

Preparing yourself
Let’s begin by thinking about how you might prepare yourself, particularly
if you have never delivered a training session before.

CASE STUDY 4.1: PETER

My first ‘formal’ teacher training session took place during the early 1990s
in Muscat, Oman, at a language school where I was working. The school
offered Cambridge CELTA, which in those days was called CTEFLA. One of
the school’s full-time trainers was off work and I had to step in to deliver a
language awareness session. The regulations were far less strict and there
was no check on my suitability or my ability to talk to trainee teachers about
different types of conditionals. I remember worrying about the session the
night before, without very much guidance from anyone, and not really
knowing where to start. Also, as I had never met the CTEFLA group, I had
no idea about their knowledge and experience, nor their backgrounds.
My experience as a trainer was
also extremely limited, and I had
never been involved in anything
as high-stakes as the situation
I found myself in. But I decided
that if I had a detailed plan with
plenty of activities, and drew on
my own classroom experience, I
would survive. Furthermore, I had
taken the CTEFLA course myself
some seven years previously,

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 and I would be able to review the notes and materials I had collected from

4
that experience.

Training sessions: Delivering your session

The trainees were using a book called Meanings into Words (Doff, Jones,
& Mitchell, 1984) for their teaching practice (I still have my copy), which I
had taught from in a previous job. Luckily for me, Unit 7, Deductions and
explanations, included some exercises using conditionals. That book and
the materials from my own CTEFLA course saved my life!
You can see how the book has survived with plenty of sticky tape, as well as
the notes I made and which I fixed to the page as a reminder.

Just like Peter (Case study 4.1) every teacher trainer had to deliver their
first session; we were all beginners once. Inevitably, it can be a nerve-
wracking experience, especially if you’ve designed it on your own. (If you
have someone to support your transition to teacher training, you might be
asked to deliver a session that has been designed by a more experienced
trainer, which can be helpful – if it has been well designed!) As the time
to deliver your session approaches, you might feel a twinge of impostor
syndrome, asking yourself questions like: What if there are teachers in
the room who have been teaching longer than me? What if they already know
everything that I’ve planned to show them? What if someone asks me a tricky
question? What if one of the teachers used to teach me?!
These questions aren’t unique to first-time trainers. It’s perfectly normal
to feel nervous, especially if you are training your own colleagues.
And nerves may well be a sign that you simply want the session to be
successful, for the trainees and for yourself, which of course is what
everyone wants. If you recognise yourself as an adaptive expert (see
Chapter 1) in the area covered by the session, then you will almost
certainly have something to offer the trainees. Ultimately, the key to
managing any doubts is to prepare thoroughly, so that during the session
you are able to focus on what you do best: helping people learn.
One idea that you might find useful in dealing with nerves is the concept
of ‘vision’ (Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014). The motivating power of vision
lies in picturing yourself in the future after achieving, or at the moment of
achieving, a personal goal. The more vivid and multifaceted the vision, the
more effective it is likely to be in spurring you to do what’s necessary to
achieve it, so the aim is not just to evoke mental images, but also sounds,
smells, sensations, and emotions, so that you can really feel yourself in the
imagined moment. It’s a technique commonly used by sportspeople, but
it translates well to teaching and training. Expert teachers, for example,
describe a similar process in relation to lesson planning that you may
recognise: ‘I have a vision. I sort of know exactly how it’s going to go. I’ve
imagined what will happen’, and ‘when I plan a new activity, I can picture
it in my mind and predict how it will go, and I plan for that’ (Westerman,
1991, p. 298).

71
 In Chapter 1 we discussed how teacher beliefs, attitudes and experience
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

all influence the way that trainees respond to trainer interventions. Vision
is part of the same family of teacher cognition, and it too can have a
profound impact on the effectiveness of training activities. Dörnyei and
Kubanyiova explain that ‘teachers’ vision of themselves in the future plays
a central role in how they engage with new ideas and, consequently, how
they grow as professionals’ (Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014, p. 24). So if
trainees are asked to apply practices that do not mesh with their visions
of themselves as teachers, whether because (1) they see themselves as a
different kind of teacher, (2) they feel they have already mastered those
practices, or (3) their visions feel threatened by the imposition of those
practices, they will not embed those practices into their everyday teaching.
On the other hand, if trainees are encouraged to articulate a vision of their
future selves that resonates with the practices and ideas they are being
trained to apply, there is a good chance that those visions may prove to be
valuable sources of inspiration and motivation when professional learning
becomes more challenging.
You can practise this technique for yourself, either in relation to the
session you are about to deliver, or to your journey towards becoming a
teacher trainer more generally. For example, you might choose to:

• Visualise yourself delivering the session in the training room, taking

note of what you and the trainees are doing, and what you notice – see,
hear, smell, etc.
• Picture yourself successfully demonstrating target teaching practices in
your classroom so that you know what trainees should be aiming to do
as a result of the session.
• Write a letter from your future self – an experienced, confident teacher
trainer – to your present self, describing the journey you took to
mastering second language teacher education, and your challenges and
successes along the way.

Creating these mental images is not always easy, and it is a skill that needs
practice and time to develop (Dörnyei & Kubanyiova, 2014). Once you
have created your vision, take time to check in on it every now and again,
and enjoy a confidence boost!

Logistics
In addition to preparing yourself mentally, there’s a good chance that you
will need to navigate some practicalities on the way to delivering your
session. These tasks aren’t flashy or glamorous but they are, nonetheless,
essential.

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Organising the session

4
Training sessions: Delivering your session
Obviously the session needs a venue, which may or may not be
determined in advance. If you’re delivering a session to your colleagues
you might need to book a classroom in which to hold the session. If you’re
delivering it online, you’ll need to set up an event on your chosen web
conferencing platform and distribute joining instructions to participants. In
both cases, you will need to choose a date and time, and of course you’ll
have to make sure that it suits your target audience. If someone else is
organising the session then be clear when it will take place, and gather as
much information as you can about the participants, the venue itself and
what resources will be available (see below).

Getting people to come

There’s nothing worse than delivering a training session to an empty room!
So don’t neglect the task of publicising your training session and letting
people know where and when it will take place. Whether the trainees are
your colleagues, course participants, or conference attendees, they will
want to know what they can expect in return for giving up their time, so
provide a clear title and short abstract that summarises what you hope
to achieve through the session. Our experience is that session titles that
are both catchy and specific attract a good audience; a good example is
Alan Marsh’s ‘Making your toenails twinkle: Creativity in the language
classroom’, whereas something like ‘Teaching Reading’ is not likely to
draw much of a crowd if your potential audience has other options to
choose from.
The other thing to consider here is your target audience. What level of
expertise is the session aimed at, and what is the level of knowledge that
participants can hope to leave with? It can be very frustrating to attend a
session that has been misleadingly promoted and find that your time could
have been better spent elsewhere, so define the target audience clearly in
describing the session, and your attendees will thank you.
Even if your trainees are attending as part of a longer programme of training,
clear titles are important because they will help trainees to make sense of
the session in the context of the rest of their learning on the course. One
important difference from delivering standalone sessions may be that you
choose to be more explicit about the links to other sessions, or to preparatory
work that you expect the trainees to have done before they attend.

Being ready when the session starts

As a teacher you will know that your materials need to be prepared and
any printing, photocopying or cutting (or creating polls and quizzes, if
online) needs to be done in good time ahead of your lesson. The same is
true of delivering training sessions, with the potential added complication
of using an unfamiliar space – be prepared to spend extra time setting up

73
 any digital resources and rearranging furniture to suit your needs. For her
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

session plan (Figure 4.2) on page 69, Lydia will have to bring her handouts
to the training room, as well as copies of the coursebook that she’ll be
using. She may also want to cue up the listening text or just test that the
audio system in her classroom is working so that she can arrange a plan B
if necessary.
Being organised is always a good thing, but it is particularly important if
you plan to go on to deliver sessions as part of an intensive course such as
CELTA – you will find that the unforgiving pace of the course demands it.
On such courses, being ready for the session may not simply mean having
your materials and resources prepared, but also having an awareness of
other sessions the trainees have attended or will attend that day, which
trainees will be teaching next and need to hand in lesson plans or other
assignments, and so on (see Chapter 9). The more organised you can be,
the easier you will make it on your trainees, and on yourself.

Managing the training room

Managing the classroom and the physical resources within it should be
part of your skillset as an experienced teacher, but it merits attention
here because in many cases you are likely to find yourself ‘borrowing’ a
room in which to deliver your training, rather than having the benefit of
a dedicated training room. Both of us delivered our first training sessions
to colleagues in the schools where we worked, and those sessions took
place in a classroom ordinarily used for language teaching. There are some
clear advantages to delivering your session in a classroom: the physical
context is an accurate representation of where your trainees will be
applying whatever they’ve learned, and that makes the process of mentally
translating practices from the session to teachers’ own classrooms much
easier. Classrooms are also spaces that are set up for learning, which
means that you shouldn’t have to bring too many resources with you from
outside, as you might if you have to train in more makeshift surroundings.
When we refer here to resources, we mean items that make up the
physical ‘landscape’ of the classroom or training room, such as the space
available, a board and other furniture, as well as consumable classroom
items in that landscape, like pens, paper, and so on.
Of course, classrooms have their downsides too. They can be small and
cramped, and in primary teaching contexts the furniture may not be
designed for adults. So you will probably be aware from your training
experiences as a teacher that it is reasonably common for training
sessions to be held in school auditoriums or in entirely non-academic
environments. The obvious example is sessions at teachers’ conferences,
which usually take place in conference centres, but in our years training
we have had to give sessions in all sorts of locations: in bookshops, in an
outdoor play area, online through a range of different platforms, in office

74
meeting rooms, and even in a cinema! These different training contexts all

4
have their own idiosyncrasies, and while the training rooms you work in

Training sessions: Delivering your session

will hopefully be more conventional, it’s a good idea to be ready to adapt
to whatever situation you find yourself training in, while still keeping
your trainees and their learning at the front of your mind. We suggest that
there are four key considerations that can help guide the use of physical
resources in any training room:

1. Modelling good practice

This is as important in relation to the use of physical resources as it is
in regard to other teaching techniques.
2. Engaging trainees
Skilful resource management is part of the trainer’s toolkit when it
comes to engaging teachers in the session.
3. Communicating the message clearly
This may be a message making up the content of a Professional stage in
the session, or it may simply be about making task requirements clear
and signposting the session effectively. Trainees should be clear about
what’s happening in the session and why.
4. Staying in control
A useful rule of thumb for using any training room resource is to keep
an eye on the bigger picture of the intended learning outcomes for the
session, so that the resource doesn’t become the focus.

The first of these considerations requires some additional explanation.

Classrooms vary in the resources they offer, and so do training rooms. In
an ideal world we would ensure two things: that trainees are well prepared
for the teaching contexts they are, or will be, working in, and also that
they are able to adapt to contextual changes and teach well in alternative
contexts too. But training time is often limited, and that can create tension
between the desire to model teaching in the trainees’ target context, and
the goal of preparing trainees to be adaptable and resourceful in a range
of classroom environments. Case study 4.2 offers an example of how
trainers might adopt contrasting perspectives on the use of resources when
the teaching context and training context differ, and in this case it is very
difficult to say who is right without going on to ask the trainees some
months after the course (judging the value of such decisions is part of
session evaluation; see below). Encouraging the trainees to notice features
of the training context, and to reflect on how and why you choose to
exploit them, is therefore a good idea.

75
 CASE STUDY 4.2: MARTHA, TEACHER TRAINER
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

I once worked alongside a senior trainer who insisted that our trainees on a
preservice course should not be allowed to use the interactive whiteboard
(IWB) in the classroom when teaching, nor any other form of digital
technology. His rationale for this was that trainees would probably go on
to teach in poorly-resourced schools, since well-resourced schools rarely
employ newly-certified teachers. They should therefore use only the wipe-
clean whiteboard and marker pens. He encouraged me not to use the IWB
when training for the same reason, and instead there was a single session
on the course that covered the topic of teaching with technology as a sort
of concession to the presence of this ‘machine’ that we had staring out at
us from the front of the class.
I did not agree with this approach. I really felt that the trainees would have
gained more if we had modelled a range of approaches, and encouraged
the trainees to reflect on the merits of each one. What I really wanted them
to take away from the course was the ability to think critically about the
resources that would be available wherever they ended up working (without
seeing digital resources as somehow separate or special), and the ability to
use resources creatively and flexibly. I still tried to achieve that by prompting
reflection, but it was frustrating to have to work with an artificially restricted set
of resources for the whole course, and I think the trainees felt that too. But that
was a little while ago and I’m now the senior trainer, so things have changed!

Let’s take a look at four types of resources that are common to nearly
every training room.

Training room space and furniture

Find out what furniture there will be in the training room, how it will be
arranged, and whether you can move it. Make conscious decisions about the
layout of the room, don’t just go with what’s already there. Do you want to
replicate the trainees’ classroom environments? Perhaps there is a way of
rearranging the furniture to maximise opportunities for interaction, or perhaps
you expect the trainees to be working on paper for a large part of the session
and table space will therefore be important. Allow time for moving furniture
before and after the session so that it doesn’t eat into your session time.
Consider also what opportunities there will be to invite the trainees to stand
up and move, and where in the room that standing work should happen.
If furniture in the room is not moveable, and space for standing up
and moving is limited, then try to provide a variety of opportunities for
interaction by asking trainees to work with peers sitting in front or behind
them as well as those to either side.

Presentation apparatus
Most training rooms will include some form of presentation apparatus,
such as a chalkboard or whiteboard, a screen and projector or an
interactive whiteboard (IWB). Boardwork is an important component

76
of good teaching, so if you are modelling teaching practices take the

4
opportunity to model effective use of the board by dividing it into sections

Training sessions: Delivering your session

and ensuring that you write clearly, using colours systematically. If you
are using a projector or IWB and have the option of preparing presentation
slides, consider your reasons for doing so – it’s a good idea to make these
the last element of the session that you prepare, so that you already have a
clear vision for the session that is driven by teacher learning rather than by
presenting information, and so that the slides are fulfilling a purpose that
other resources cannot. Ensure that if you quote texts or use images on
your slides, you pay attention to how they are sourced and attributed, as
attention to copyright requirements is an assessment criterion for trainees
on courses such as CELTA.
If you do use an IWB or projector, turn it off whenever it is not needed
(e.g., when trainees are engaged in discussion). Be prepared with adapters
if you need to connect to presentation hardware and keep backups of your
slides both on your device and in the cloud so that you have a plan B when
technical issues arise – as one day they inevitably will!

TASK 4.2
From teacher . . .
Think about a training session you have attended that used PowerPoint or similar.
What (if anything) did the PowerPoint presentation add to the session, and how?
For notes see page 223

Paper
Paper, whether blank (e.g., participants’ notepads, flipchart paper) or pre-
printed (your handouts, coursebooks), usually appears in some form during
training sessions. It can be extremely helpful, particularly as a means of
varying training room tasks, but as the number of trainees increases it
becomes harder to manage in terms of preparation, distribution and task
set-up. The key consideration is time: in Lydia’s session on page 69 she
has only one handout, and a small number of trainees, so she has kept
things simple. Allow time for trainees to write and make notes where
necessary, and think about how you (or others) will prepare and distribute
paper resources. A neat but time-intensive solution to distributing a
session handout is to stick it on the underside of each participant’s chair.
This takes a long time before the session starts but saves time during the
session, while ensuring that trainees aren’t distracted by handouts before
they are needed. Similarly, if you want to put things on the wall, be sure to
allow time for doing that in advance of the session. For sessions that form
part of a course, the most elegant solution may be to print and bind the
handouts for all sessions in a single booklet, but obviously this requires
preparation even further in advance of the session date. Whether you opt
to do that or distribute handouts in each session, add the session title to
77
 the bottom of each page and number each sheet. This will help both you
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

and your trainees to stay organised during the session and when reviewing
handouts afterwards.
The other thing to consider is what paper resources really are necessary:
perhaps there are reasonable substitutes, such as resources the trainees
may have brought with them, or that they could create for themselves
during the session. In the past, one of the principal benefits of paper
resources was that they provided trainees with a record that they could
take away from the session and refer to later. Providing that kind of record
is as important as it ever was, but there are other options available now,
such as emailing a summary of the session to participants afterwards, or
allowing trainees to take photos of slides as the session progresses.
You might find that the techniques and activities you model (in other
words, how you run the session) are what trainees are frantically scribbling
down. One of the most helpful paper-based takeaways from a session is
often a list of the activities you presented and how to run them, and of
course this can be made available electronically very easily. Alternatively,
you could give trainees a standard template to use for this in each session:
Tessa Woodward calls this a ‘record and review’ sheet, explaining that
‘it can be used for review purposes later, for reminding trainees of
administrative details, or simply as a way of making overt and conscious
the processes of the session’ (Woodward, 1991, p. 55).

Figure 4.3: Tessa Woodward’s record and review sheet

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Participants’ devices

4
Training sessions: Delivering your session
It is now almost unheard of for teachers attending training sessions to
be without a mobile phone. Many will use these as part of their training
without being prompted, to take photos of the board or of other materials,
or to look up unfamiliar terms. But you may wish to make explicit use of
them in certain circumstances. Perhaps the most obvious use is as a way
of modelling how trainees could use their students’ devices for language
learning in their own classrooms. One of the most productive purposes
of mobile devices in the training room is to use polling tools such as
Mentimeter to better understand your audience: their teaching contexts,
their needs and interests and their understanding of the material presented
in the session. Such tools involve trainees using their devices to answer
mini questionnaires, with collated responses appearing on the trainer’s
screen at the front of the training room in real time. This can be a neat
way of gaining a general picture of the beliefs and practices of a large
audience, as long as the trainees have internet access.
Trainees can make good use of their devices in a session in two other
ways. The first is by video recording their microteaching efforts, and if
teachers agree to do this you can provide them with criteria (or elicit
suitable criteria) for evaluating their technique. The second trainee-driven
use of mobile devices is in producing digital content that allows them to
capture their understandings of ideas and practices in text, photos, audio
or video form. For example, lesson plans or materials that are produced as
part of a session could be photographed or presented, acting as a record
that trainees can share. Such activities also provide a good opportunity to
model how to effectively manage digital resources in the classroom, and to
discuss issues of digital citizenship and digital welfare so that your trainees
are able to have similar discussions with their students.

Managing trainees
A lot of the work that happens in the training room is invisible, in the
sense that it can’t really be seen in the session design (at least, not in
proportion to the time it takes or the impact it has) or on session materials
such as handouts and presentation slides. That’s because it is spoken.
A great deal of teacher learning during your session will be prompted
through dialogue or will involve dialogue, so it is worth thinking about
how this particular resource – the trainees’ voices and our own teacher
trainer voices – is used during the session. To be valuable to teacher
learning, interaction in the training room needs to be skilfully managed
by the trainer, so let’s look at how you might create the right atmosphere
in the training room, how to signpost and manage collaborative learning
activity, how to respond to trainee contributions and how to follow up on
the session.

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4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

TASK 4.3
. . . To trainer
In the language classroom, encouraging spoken interaction between the
students is very important. What do you think the benefits of interaction in the
training room might be?
For notes see page 224

Opening the session

According to Jim Scrivener, a teacher’s most important task ‘is perhaps to
create the conditions in which learning can take place’ (Scrivener, 2011,
p. 54). Similarly, as a trainer, one of your main goals when you begin the
session will be to establish the right atmosphere in the training room. This
can feel like a challenge, because your teacher ‘persona’ won’t translate
directly into training – you are facing your peers, not students, and the
relationship is different. The type of learning environment is very similar,
however. For the best chance of teacher learning the training room should
be a welcoming, supportive place, trainees will be clear about what they
should be doing at each stage in the session, and there will be agreed
expectations about how to participate (Williams & Burden, 1997).
The following techniques are tried-and-tested ways of kicking off a
session when you begin to speak, and are a first step towards creating
the right environment. They allow you to demonstrate some authority as
an experienced educator, reassure the trainees that they’re in safe hands,
prepare them for what the session will entail, and rely on a familiar
routine while any nerves settle down. The order below flows well, but not
all the techniques will be relevant to every session so treat it flexibly and
make it your own, depending on your individual training context:

Greet the º Say hello, thank teachers for attending and introduce
teachers yourself. Smile!
Get a general º If the group is unfamiliar to you, it can be useful to get a
picture of the sense of the teachers’ contexts: who has been teaching
audience a long time vs who is less experienced, who teaches
children vs who teaches adults, who teaches large
classes vs who works with smaller groups, and so on. You
can do this by show of hands, or through polls if online.
Explain the º In general terms, explain what the session is about and
intended what teachers should leave with (e.g., ‘I hope that by
outcome of the end of the session you’ll have a clearer idea of
the session what differentiation is, why it’s important, and a range of
strategies for differentiating your classes.’)

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 4
Explain that º It can sometimes be useful to highlight that teachers

Training sessions: Delivering your session

teachers are the experts when it comes to their own classrooms
will need to and their own students, and to encourage them to think
consider their about how the ideas they encounter during the session
own context could be applied in their own contexts. Not everything will
fit perfectly, so what adaptations or adjustments might
they need to make?
Explain that º Prepare teachers for discussions and other tasks by
teachers will explaining that you will call on them during the session
be involved to speak to those around them and actively participate.
This can be a particularly helpful primer when the
participants don’t know each other.
Ask teachers º If the training room is larger than necessary, invite
to move if teachers to move so that they are not so spread out that
necessary they can’t engage in discussion.
º Allow some time for people to move.
º When teachers have found new seats, ask the whole
group to introduce themselves to the people around them.
Learn trainee º If you have 20 trainees or less, jot down names on a
names seating plan if you can so that you can use them during
the session.
Introduce º If the group is larger than ten or so, it’s usually helpful to
some basic show trainees a gesture that you will use to indicate that
expectations you want them to stop talking.
º You might explain that trainees can say ‘pass’ if they are
called upon to say something to the group and would
prefer not to answer (they can use this only once).
º It’s a good idea to ask trainees to keep devices on silent
and out of sight unless they are being used as part of
the session.

In the case of Lydia and her session on teaching listening, many of these
stages wouldn’t be necessary because she’s working on a course and will
be familiar with the trainees after delivering several sessions to them. But
all of these steps would be appropriate on the first day of a course, when
you first meet the trainees.

Signposting the session and managing tasks

Most trainees will arrive at your session without a real sense of how the
session time will be divided up; all they know is that it will occupy them
for a given time. So it is important to signpost transitions between one
stage of the session and another, and to ensure that trainees are following
the developments and connections between concepts and practices as the
session progresses. Managing interaction during the session is largely a
question of setting up tasks clearly, and monitoring those tasks as they
take place, to make sure that the trainees are working in the intended
way. Many of these techniques will be familiar to you from your language
teaching experience.

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4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

TASK 4.4
. . . To trainer
In the list below are some of the ways in which a trainer may need to signpost
a session or manage learning in the training room. What would you say to a
group of trainees to accomplish each one?

• Introduce or explain the aims of a session.

• Say why the topic might be useful to this group of teachers.
• Link the session to other sessions on the course / at the event.
• Signpost a transition between group work and plenary work.
• Summarise and close the session.
• Break down instructions, and set a time limit for the next task.
• Speak to a pair or group who are off task.
• Set an extra task for fast finishers.
• Give a reminder about time.
• Prepare for next stage (e.g., prepare group for next task, by allocating tasks
to different groups before the plenary begins).
• Prepare participants for plenary work, by giving them a time limit within
which to finish their task.
For notes see page 225

These are all familiar teaching skills, but it is precisely for that reason that
they should be modelled effectively and, if you’re working with preservice
teachers, made explicit to trainees from time to time. Highlighting these
aspects of training room management is important because one of the
problems faced by novice teachers trying to learn from observing others
is that the better a teacher is at managing the classroom, the less they
actually say (Johnson, 1990)! Having to repeat instructions, for example,
suggests that they weren’t given very effectively the first time, so if you’re
watching a teacher manage the classroom very effectively (e.g., giving
instructions only once and seeing them successfully carried out) it’s easy to
miss subtle but powerful classroom management cues.
It’s also worth noting here that modelling teacher behaviour is as
important in the ‘in between’ moments of the session as it is when you are
working through the tasks you’ve designed: arriving and finishing on time,
using people’s names, paying attention to where you stand – practices
like these are all things you want your trainees to develop so you need to
model them too.
Pay attention to this type of talk in your session, particularly if your
trainees are experienced teachers. Are you managing the learning, or
are the teachers managing the learning for you because they know what
to expect?

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Responding to trainees

4
Training sessions: Delivering your session
Feedback to teachers is crucial to their professional learning, as we’ll see
in Chapter 8. The interventions most valuable to teacher learning are often
in the form of feedback to what trainees have said or done in the training
room, or in their classrooms.
In a training session, you might find yourself responding to trainee
contributions in any of the following ways, amongst others:

• providing feedback on teachers’ work as part of a task (either

individually, to a small group, or to the whole group)
• responding to trainees who have answered a question you posed
• summarising the main points of a discussion
• answering a question from a trainee
• dealing with trainees whose actions or comments threaten to derail
the session

Many of these situations will take place in plenary interactions, so

there is a need to respond sensitively and, where possible, to use such
moments as opportunities for further input and as opportunities to model
the management of interaction in classrooms. Of course, a prerequisite
for responding to trainees is the ability to listen, and we trust that as an
experienced teacher you will be able to do this well.
We have found that there are three things that help when responding to
trainees: firstly, to acknowledge the question or comment in a positive
way; secondly, to invite a response from other trainees who might be able
to give an answer; and thirdly, to add some brief insights of your own. If
the group is relatively inexperienced you might first give your own answer
before checking whether anyone else has something to add.
For disruptive trainees, it’s been our experience that they tend to want
acknowledgement of their skills and experience more than anything, and
fall largely into the category of routine experts (see Chapter 1). Sometimes
questions are well-meaning but not relevant to the whole group, in which
case it is fine to say that you can come back to it at the end of the session
or answer it privately.

Following up
When your session is over, take a moment to congratulate yourself – you
just took a step towards being a more effective teacher trainer! Bear in
mind, though, that for the teachers the session was only a small step
towards better student learning. There is still plenty of work to be done
to translate the content and activity of the session into routine teaching
practice. Thomas Guskey advises that ‘training sessions must . . . be

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 extended, appropriately spaced, or supplemented with additional follow-
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

up activities to provide the feedback and coaching necessary for the

successful implementation of new ideas‘ (Guskey, 2000, p. 23). A trainer
like Lydia, working on a course, will be able to review session content later
on and refer back to sessions in teaching practice feedback, for example.
Your training context will determine what you can do to provide additional
follow-up activities, but at the very least aim to provide a summary
handout or follow-up email that trainees can use as a reference to guide
their next steps. If you’re helping to deliver a training course, the next step
for trainees might be preparing a lesson for teaching practice and aiming
to incorporate some of the ideas and techniques you presented. Options
in other contexts might be a discussion group that meets once the trainees
have had a chance to try out new practices in their classrooms, perhaps
based around critical incidents, video snippets, or samples of student work.
Remember that, for the most part, trainees will be applying what they’ve
learned in your absence, so resources that will support them through that
potentially rather lonely endeavour will be very useful. Encourage trainees
to work together in the period following a session to provide support and
peer feedback as they try to implement new teaching practices – perhaps
through an instant messaging group or online platform. Collaborative
teacher development can be a very powerful way of extending the learning
that begins in a training session.

Evaluating your session

What evaluation is and why it matters
Evaluation is the process of working out how effective your session (or
your training course or programme – see Chapter 9) was, and why. When
you teach a lesson, you probably leave the classroom with an intuitive
sense of how well it went, perhaps picked up from students’ contributions,
their body language or work they handed in. It is possible to develop a
similar sense of how successful your training sessions have been, but
effective evaluation should be carried out in a systematic way, and be
based on the analysis of specific evidence (Guskey, 2000).
If you are new to training, or aiming to develop your skills as a trainer,
this is an essential part of your development. Successfully evaluating
sessions will show you what you are doing well and where you might want
to focus your development efforts (see Chapter 10), as well as providing
clear evidence that you are helping teachers to improve what they do.
Evaluation also proves useful if the session is part of a course, when it
can help to inform the planning of future sessions in order to make them
as supportive of trainee learning as possible. But the main reason for
getting evaluation right is that it is exactly the same process that we want
our trainees to adopt as part of their everyday teaching practice. You may

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remember from Chapter 1 that our ultimate goal is for our trainees to be

4
evaluative practitioners who can establish which aspects of their teaching

Training sessions: Delivering your session

are working well, as well as what they need to work on to improve those
aspects that aren’t. As with the other aspects of professional practice
that we deal with in the training room, modelling good practice when it
comes to evaluation is important. If we can’t be evaluative practitioners as
trainers, how will trainees learn to evaluate their teaching?
We are introducing it now at the tail end of our discussion of training
sessions, but evaluation really begins at the very start of the session design
process. That’s because in order to know if the session had any impact, we
need to know what the starting point for the trainees was, and, on that basis,
what the session aimed to achieve. Weston and Clay talk about a ‘golden
thread’ (2018, p. 18) connecting three things: the session design process, what
happens in the session itself and what happens in teachers’ classrooms to
improve student learning. The aims determined at the very beginning should
form the basis for action at each point on the thread.

Principles of evaluation
Session evaluation often tends to take the form of feedback questionnaires
completed by the trainees once the session is over, and is often an
afterthought, ‘left until the last minute and done rather hastily‘
(Woodward, 1991, p. 211). There are two problems with this sort of
evaluation: firstly, that it is a relatively shallow estimation of the impact
the session had, telling us more about how much the participants enjoyed
themselves than about what they learned; and secondly, that it ends too
soon – the questionnaires handed out at the end of the session usually
mark the end of the evaluation process, even though teachers won’t yet
have been able to apply any new learning to their teaching practice. This is
a bit like rating a film after only seeing the opening scene.
Guskey warns that evaluation ‘cannot be something we simply tack on
at the end [of teacher training], hoping for good results. Systematically
gathering and analysing evidence to inform our actions must become a
central component in professional development‘ (Guskey, 2000, p. 92).
So here are three principles that can help you to make evaluation a core
component of your training practice:

1. Attend to evaluation at various points on the golden thread

In Chapter 2 we recommended setting the aim(s) for your session by
having a clear picture of what teaching practices you want the trainees
to change as a result of attending, and of what knowledge they will gain
in order to support that change. This is the start of the golden thread,
and it’s here that the foundations for successful evaluation are laid,
because those aims will form some of the criteria by which you judge
the success of your session. The next checkpoint is the session itself,

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 after which you should review whether trainees found it useful and
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

if they left with the intended professional knowledge, and a further

check is needed some time after that, when trainees will hopefully be
applying what they have learned in their classrooms.
2. Use a range of evaluation tools
There’s no denying that gathering evidence to show your session has
had the intended impact is a very tricky business. Classrooms are such
complex places that you really ought to gather several different types of
evidence, at different times, to be able to ‘prove’ that your training had
an effect on student learning. The tools you use will depend on what
sort of impact you are evaluating, but could include:

• things participants said or did during the session

• products of participants’ work in the session (e.g., posters,
lesson plans)
• a trainer journal that you keep, including ‘hot’ (written immediately
after the session) and ‘cold’ (written sometime later) entries
• comments from session participants
• comments from a co-trainer (formal or informal)
• questionnaires
• assessments of trainees (e.g., portfolios of work or assignments)
• trainees’ reflections on their own teaching after the session
• structured interviews with trainees
• focus groups with trainees
• observation of trainees

3. Understand what it is you are evaluating

We’ve mentioned that evaluation traditionally focuses mainly on
whether trainees enjoyed the session, and that can be a useful thing to
find out – people seldom learn very efficiently if they are uncomfortable
or unhappy. But in addition to the reactions of trainees, there are four
further levels of evaluation, outlined by Guskey (2000):

• Trainee reactions – did they enjoy the session, was it useful?

• Trainee learning – did they learn what they were meant to learn?
• Organisation support and change – did the conditions in trainees’
teaching contexts develop to support changes to their practice?
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 • Trainees’ use of new knowledge and skills – did trainees go on to

4
apply new skills and knowledge in their professional practice?

Training sessions: Delivering your session

• Student learning outcomes – did the changes to teaching have an
impact on student learning? Was there any other impact on students?

TASK 4.5
. . . To trainer
Looking at the evaluation tools listed under principle 2 ‘Use a range of
evaluation tools’ above and Guskey’s five levels of evaluation listed under
principle 3, what tools do you think might be most appropriate at each level,
and why?
For notes see page 226

Getting started
In reality, you will probably have limited opportunities to evaluate your
session in great depth, but you should aim to gather data on trainee
reactions and on your intended learning outcomes: the ‘what teachers will
know’ and ‘what teachers will do’ sections of your session design. In most
cases, a short questionnaire is the best option for the first two of these – if
it is administered digitally (an online search will show many free survey
tools), the results are easily collated and shared or saved. We suggest three
questions to gauge trainee reactions: first, a simple ‘would you recommend
this session to your colleagues?’ with responses on a five-point scale, and
then two additional open questions: ‘what was done well?’ and ‘what could
have been done better?’ The first question is a familiar idea and produces
a numerical value which is a crude but easily comparable measure of
success. Questions two and three allow respondents to elaborate on their
answer to question one and add some detail to the numerical data. To
evaluate trainee learning, the fourth and final question is ‘What new
knowledge do you feel you will take away from this session?’ This allows
for reporting of unintended outcomes as well as those specified in the
session design. These four questions make for a survey that is easy for you
to administer and for trainees to complete.
Trainees’ use of new knowledge can’t be evaluated until much later, when
they’ve had a chance to implement new ideas and techniques in their
classrooms. That’s a process that should involve experimentation over
many lessons in order to find out what works in the trainee’s particular
context. It’s also a very personal process and teachers are unlikely to adopt
new practices in the same way. If you can observe trainees, which may be
possible on intensive courses or if your trainees are also your colleagues,
that is likely to be the most accurate measure of how they are putting new
knowledge into practice. If observation is not possible then interviews with

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 trainees or trainees’ reflections (written or spoken) on new practices they
4 Training sessions: Delivering your session

have developed can also be helpful.

When you’ve gathered all these questionnaires or other data, you will need
to analyse them, but this doesn’t need to be a complex process. Remember
that you are simply trying to find out the extent to which you achieved
your aims, and what, if anything, you could do better next time. The only
time this is ever really problematic is when you embark on the session
design process without a clear idea of what you are trying to achieve, so
the value of clear learning outcomes – specifically what you expect
teachers to know and to do as a result of the session – cannot be overstated.
More important than producing flashy charts or statistics as a result of
your analysis is keeping a record of the overall messages coming from your
session evaluations, and using those to guide your development. We will
look in more detail at how you can do that in Chapter 10, and the topic of
evaluation will arise again in Chapter 9, in the context of evaluating whole
programmes of training.

Summary
It should be reasonably clear that running a successful session will involve
a lot of the skills you already have as a teacher. In this chapter we’ve
tried to highlight those elements that are different as a result of having
trainees in front of you rather than students. When you deliver a training
session you will need to manage the room and the people in it, just as
you do when you teach. But you will be doing so in different ways and
to achieve different outcomes. In addition, we’ve seen that there is often
some logistical planning to be done before delivering a session, and an
evaluation process to follow once it is over.
Chapters 2, 3 and 4 have focused on working with groups of teachers to
improve their practice. This is a very common training format, but as we
saw in Chapter 1, group training sessions are more suited to developing
awareness – Knowing about – rather than adaptive expertise. So developing
teaching skills to the point where they can be performed automatically or
effortlessly requires working with teachers individually, or in very small
groups. It is this kind of training that we now turn to in Chapter 5.

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Delivering my first
training session’ and ‘Dealing with challenges’. Do you feel
more confident after hearing some of the trainers’ stories?

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TO FIND OUT MORE

4
Training sessions: Delivering your session
Dörnyei, Z., & Kubanyiova, M. (2014). Motivating learners, motivating
teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Includes tasks to help
trainees develop vision.)
Guskey, T. R. (2000). Evaluating professional development. Thousand Oaks,
CA: Corwin Press. (This is the most comprehensive text on evaluating
training, but Weston and Clay (2018, Chapter 3) and Malderez and Wedell
(2007, Chapter 12) also give useful overviews.)

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5 Mentoring practices

Here we consider:
• What mentors and mentoring practices are
• How mentoring practices fit alongside other training skills
• How to implement mentoring practices
• Mentoring practices on training courses
• Mentoring practices in schools

Of course there is a formal part [of working individually with

trainees] . . . but there’s also a part which is informal and is as
simple as conversations with trainees and checking in about
how they feel during the course.
Zhenya, teacher trainer, Ukraine

In Chapters 2–4 we looked in detail at how teacher trainers can work

with groups of teachers. Now we turn to the skills needed to work with
individuals or very small groups of trainees. This chapter looks at how we
can adopt mentoring practices to give ourselves options when working
with individual trainees, whether that’s in a formal mentoring situation or
as part of other training.

Defining mentors and mentoring practices

Hollywood loves mentors. The very best stories are stories of learning: of
characters who go on a journey and change their beliefs, behaviours and
perhaps also the circles in which they can belong as a result of what they
learn. On film, the main character on that journey is often helped along by a
mentor, like Obi Wan Kenobi in Star Wars, or Professor Dumbledore in Harry
Potter. A particularly good example appears in the 1996 comedy film Happy
Gilmore, in which the eponymous protagonist is a failed ice hockey player in
need of cash to pay his grandma’s sky-high tax bill. Gilmore discovers that
his hockey swing translates well to the golf course, and embarks on a career
as a golfer in order to earn the money his grandma needs. But he needs to
overcome multiple hurdles along the way. To begin with, Gilmore knows
nothing about golf other than how to hit the ball hard. He’s also an outsider
from a completely different sport, unaware of the traditions and etiquette
that govern the game of golf. And he needs emotional support in the face of
provocation from his bitter rival, superstar golfer Shooter McGavin.
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 Gilmore’s mentor figure in the film is Chubbs Peterson, a former golf star
5 Mentoring practices

who was forced to retire when an alligator bit off his right hand. Peterson
helps Gilmore improve his golfing technique, but he also inducts him into
the golf ‘scene’ while allowing Gilmore to retain elements of his identity
as a hockey player. He provides an outlet for Gilmore’s frustration as he
struggles to adapt to golf, and crucially, asks questions that force Gilmore
to evaluate his approach to the game and to his rivals, thereby prompting
him to confront his weaknesses as a golfer and find solutions to them.
The film may be far-fetched, and it certainly portrays a world that is very
different to the lived experience of most teachers and learners. The typical
mentor in education is an experienced teacher who provides one-to-one
support to a less experienced teacher (or ‘mentee’), usually in the teaching
environment where they both work. But in fact, one-handed Chubbs
Peterson exemplifies many of the ways in which trainers might need to
support individual trainees as part of their work, in that he:

• develops trainees’ practical skills through demonstration, focused

practice and feedback
• provides emotional support and motivation when things aren’t
going well
• leads trainees towards autonomy and towards their own
professional identity
• acts as a guide in the unfamiliar world of a new profession (for
beginning teachers) or new teaching environment

We can see these traits in the following stories of three trainers providing
individual support.

CASE STUDY 5.1: JASON, MENTOR

The school where I work has a mentoring programme for new teachers, and
I’m one of the mentors. We run initial training courses here, and sometimes
the best trainees are taken on once their course has ended. Even though
they’ve done well on the course, they still need a lot of support, and that’s
where I come in!
Generally, the mentoring period lasts for three months, but it can be
reduced or extended if myself and the teacher agree that that’s ok. The
way it works is that we meet once a week and talk through any issues that
came up in lessons over the past seven days. We also spend some time
talking through plans for lessons coming up, but some teachers need more
support with planning than others so it really just depends on the teachers
themselves. Right now, I’m mentoring a fairly young teacher who did well
on the course but is struggling to manage her classes – I suspect it’s more
an issue with her confidence than anything else so I’m going to observe
a lesson to get a better idea of how I can help her, and we might also
arrange for her to observe me.

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CASE STUDY 5.2: KAVITHA, MENTOR

5
Mentoring practices
At the moment I’m mentoring a colleague, and that is because she asked
to be mentored so that she can prepare to take a diploma course next
year. I think she felt that she needed some guidance about what her
strengths and weaknesses were and what to work on, but actually she’s
been quite proactive in her professional development and I think she’s
shown that she’s quite a good judge of her own teaching.
The format we’ve settled on (I’ve been mentoring her almost three months)
is that Anita (that’s the teacher) reads a key text from the diploma reading
list, plans how she is going to incorporate what she’s learned into her
teaching, and then teaches those lessons and discusses it with me. We
meet every week and she spends 4–5 weeks working through each book,
so we have several opportunities to talk about what she’s read, discuss her
plans, and then also to talk about how the lessons have gone. My role is to
make her accountable for doing the reading but also to explain some of
the parts that she finds difficult to understand, and I think I have helped her
to reflect more thoroughly on her lessons, too. Because we work together we
have plenty of chances to talk about her teaching outside of our weekly
meetings, but it’s good to have them as a focal point, I think.
It’s been very interesting for me, and Anita is very happy with how her
teaching has improved too, so I would say that we have been successful!
I think we will continue this right up to the end of the year, and who knows,
maybe next year when she starts the diploma as well.

CASE STUDY 5.3: PETER

I remember one particular trainer during my Cambridge CTEFLA (now
CELTA) course whose particular techniques were and continue to be an
inspiration for me. As part of her tutor role she welcomed me and made
the first steps in introducing me to the world of the teaching profession
(which was quite scary for a novice like me). While she was never officially
my mentor, and we never actually worked together, as my course tutor she
encouraged me at every step by being there for me and by listening to
my concerns about my abilities. This capacity to listen without immediately
offering solutions encouraged me to self-reflect and to develop my own
thoughts about teaching.
To this day, nearly 40 years on, I can still picture her demonstrating a
vocabulary elicitation technique while kneeling on the classroom floor in
front of me and my fellow CTEFLA trainees, sitting in a semi-circle. After the
CTEFLA course we kept in touch for some years, and initially she was able
to provide me with some important contacts and employment possibilities,
but in those days communication was by handwritten letter and I’m sorry
to say that neither of us was very good at it. I lost my role model, my mentor,
but what I learned from her will always be with me.

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5 Mentoring practices

TASK 5.1
From teacher . . .
What similarities can you identify between the situations in the case studies
above? In what ways do they differ?

In each of the three case studies above, a teacher is learning from a

more experienced peer, and referring to that person as a mentor. That’s
only a formal role title in Jason’s case, though – Kavitha’s situation is an
informal mentoring arrangement, and Peter’s mentor was the trainer on
his preservice course. So mentoring is defined more by the relationship
between an inexperienced teacher and an experienced one than it is by the
institution where it takes place.
The emphasis in each case is slightly different, but in all the case
studies the teachers in the role of mentee need a combination of help
with their training skills and support on a more personal level, whether
that’s to overcome a lack of confidence or to help provide continuing
motivation. Nevertheless, the arrangements between the mentor and
mentee look different in each case (frequency of meetings, the duration
of the relationship, whether the mentor observes the mentee’s lessons),
depending on the mentee’s level of experience and their needs, and on
the practical restrictions of each context. Two of the three mentees in the
case studies are inexperienced teachers, and that is usually the case where
mentoring is concerned, but not always, as Kavitha proves.
Peter highlights how his mentor enabled him to develop his own thinking
and way of being a teacher. Rather than aiming to create teachers in their
own image, mentors will offer support in a way that allows teachers to
develop their own unique professional identities in their own unique
teaching contexts. In the words of Angi Malderez, mentoring ‘deals with
the realities of the particular – the particular school, class, child, and
teacher, within particular contexts’ (Malderez, 2009, p. 260). There’s a
clear contrast there to training sessions, which have to deal with issues at a
more general level because they are aimed at a larger number of teachers.
Despite the importance of mentoring to teacher learning, relatively few
people in the world of teacher education have the title of mentor. So we
find it more helpful to separate mentoring skills from the role title itself and
refer to mentoring practices – the roles, functions, techniques and overall
orientation of mentoring – which can be learned and adopted as part of a
teacher trainer’s toolkit. There are many times in the life of a trainer when
these practices are needed, and they are often required from teachers, too.

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 5
TASK 5.2

Mentoring practices
From teacher . . .
Can you think of any times when you have performed a mentoring role
(formally or informally) for a teaching colleague?

Most experienced teachers will have provided support to a colleague

in some form – sharing materials, giving advice on a challenging class,
recommending a useful resource or answering a grammar question. In
thinking about the times that you have taken on one or more of the roles
of mentor, hopefully you felt that your interventions had positive results
for the teacher(s) in the role of mentee. But you might also be able to
identify ways in which you benefitted as part of the process too. Mentoring
relationships are now recognised as reciprocal and collaborative, with
both parties benefitting, not just the mentee. For mentors, the advantages
include improved professional competency and reflective skills, enhanced
self-esteem and a feeling of being re-energised professionally (Hobson,
Ashby, Malderez, & Tomlinson, 2009; Huling & Resta, 2001). For us
personally, mentoring has provided chances to examine individual
teachers’ practice and its development in detail, which is vital for trainers.
Because mentoring practices are part of the broader trainer toolkit, the
same conditions for success that we saw in Chapter 1 need to be in place
(Hobson, Ashby, Malderez, & Tomlinson, 2009; Malderez, 2009). The
institution, or the course provider, needs to allow time for mentoring to
take place, both for the trainer and the teacher. All parties involved need
to be clear about the objectives and roles of the relationship, especially
the teacher whose learning and development is the main objective, and
in school-based mentoring, teacher managers. And both trainer and
trainee will benefit from a supportive environment in which colleagues
are encouraging (e.g., willing to be observed by the trainee) and in which
resources for self-directed trainee learning are available.

Mentoring practices and the trainer toolkit

Delivering training sessions to groups and training one-to-one are
both teacher education processes. What that means is that mentoring
conversations will retain the same basic elements that training sessions
include; they still need to deal with the Practical, the Personal and
the Professional (see Chapter 3) because the underlying principles of
teacher learning are the same. But mentoring conversations will deal
with those elements with respect to the individual characteristics of the
person acting as mentee, because that person can be the sole focus of the
trainer’s attention.
Mentoring practices, then, sit alongside the practices we have already
looked at for designing, delivering and evaluating training sessions; they
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 are part of the same ‘trainer toolkit’ and based on the same principles
5 Mentoring practices

of teacher learning. Working with individual teachers in the classroom

inevitably makes it easier to focus on developing the Practical domain of
their work – improving the way that individual teaching techniques, such
as questioning, or monitoring, are carried out. But the real advantage of
mentoring practices is in the development of skills that are less easily
observed, but crucial to the development of adaptive expertise: noticing
what is happening in the classroom in terms of student learning, reflecting
on teaching and linking theory to practice.
Mentors also play an important part in helping teachers to develop
the Personal – their beliefs, assumptions and professional identity –
particularly newly qualified teachers who may still be learning their craft.
In these cases, mentors help not just with practical teaching skills but
by ‘showing the ropes’. Mentors help new teachers to talk and act like
teachers amongst their peers and in front of students. For all these reasons,
there is good evidence that mentoring leads to enhanced confidence in
mentees, greater teacher retention, better teaching and better learning
(Hobson, Ashby, Malderez, & Tomlinson, 2009; Ingersoll & Strong, 2011).

Heron’s six categories of intervention

Mentoring interactions are too diverse to be able to offer a one-size-fits-all
model for approaching them. But a useful way of thinking about possible
routes to take in a one-to-one conversation with a teacher is John Heron’s
six categories of intervention, defined in Table 5.1 (Randall & Thornton,
2001, p. 78).

Table 5.1: Heron’s six categories of intervention

The mentor gives specific instructions about what to do or

Prescriptive
Authoritative

what to change.
The mentor provides the teacher with information or
Informative
demonstrates a technique.
The mentor challenges the teacher on areas felt to be
Confronting
problematic.
The mentor creates opportunities for the teacher to express
Cathartic
their feelings.
Facilitative

The mentor prompts the teacher to reflect or to recall

Catalytic
previous learning.
The mentor offers positive affirmation of what the teacher
Supportive
is doing.

Heron’s six categories offer a very basic menu of options for trainers
who find themselves in a mentoring situation. No conversation will be
simple enough for the trainer to stick to one category throughout the
conversation, so they will always need to be combined. There’s also
no given ‘recipe’ for combing the categories in any particular situation;
it’s a question of careful listening, sensitivity and tact on the part of the

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trainer. But despite these limitations, Heron’s categories can help us to

5
reflect on how we might respond to trainees in one-to-one interactions,

Mentoring practices
and to explore what kinds of interventions will prove most effective in the
training contexts we find ourselves in.

CASE STUDY 5.4: KAVITHA, MENTOR

I start every mentoring meeting with Anita by asking about the action
point from the previous meeting, which is either to have read part of the
book she’s currently working through, or to have tried something in the
classroom. When she’s done some reading, she’ll often have questions for
me about things that she hasn’t fully understood, and then we talk about
what she could take from the reading and experiment with in her teaching.
If she’s coming to the meeting after trying something in the classroom
then she’ll talk me through what happened and we discuss anything that
was problematic and might need to be tweaked, as well as what she has
learned from the experiment.
On just a couple of occasions we’ve had our meeting and Anita hasn’t
done what she was meant to do. In these situations I just try to be
supportive and encourage her – I know that on the whole she’s really trying
hard to make progress, and that there will be some weeks when work or
life gets in the way. But she’s quite self-motivated in general, so I know I can
rely on her to maintain the momentum, and that’s not been the case with
all the teachers I’ve mentored. Some need a more rigid approach, which is
fine; I find that it’s helpful to discuss these things explicitly at the beginning
so that we can find a way of working together that works for both of us.

CASE STUDY 5.5: JASON, MENTOR

There are three factors that influence my approach to mentoring. Firstly,
the teachers often find it a shock to go from their preservice course, where
they’ve always been observed teaching, to working in the classroom
alone. They’re really not used to having to work out for themselves if
lessons are going well or not. Secondly, they tend to be very focused on
themselves and whether the students like them, and thirdly, they are often
just completely overwhelmed – the lessons are so much longer than the
teaching practice they did on their course, they’re spending hours and
hours planning so they’re tired, and sometimes they’re beginning to wonder
if teaching is for them.
So I try and start every meeting by asking how they’re doing, and try to go
beyond the ‘fine thanks’ that usually comes back and probe a bit deeper
as to whether they really are coping or not. Then we talk about their recent
lessons and they get a chance to ask me any questions they’ve got. I try
and prompt them to think about whether they’re achieving their lesson
aims and what the students are taking away from the lessons. Finally, we
run through some of their plans for upcoming lessons and I’ll often point
to resources they can use to supplement the coursebook – obviously as
they’re new to teaching there’s a lot they’re not aware of yet.
This is how I structure the meetings but to be honest any of these things
could also happen more informally in the staffroom – we’re colleagues so
we’re also interacting in and around the school.

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5 Mentoring practices

TASK 5.3
. . . To trainer
Which of Heron’s categories are being used by Kavitha and Jason in their
mentoring meetings, and for what purpose?
For notes see page 226

It should be reasonably clear by now that mentoring practices have less

in common with teaching than training sessions do. Of course, there will
be times as a teacher when you offer more tailored support to individual
students, but the examples we’ve seen represent quite a departure from
conversations with students, or even from the times when you may
have supported teaching colleagues. So for most new trainers mentoring
practices will involve a steeper learning curve and will take longer to
master. The good news is that there is some overlap between mentoring
practices and giving feedback on teaching, and some of the ideas covered
in this chapter, such as Heron’s categories, are also relevant to what we
discuss in Chapter 8.
Let’s now look at specific examples of the situations in which you might
turn to mentoring practices as a trainer. Some of these will arise as part
of longer training courses; others are more likely to arise within your
institution. You may come across other opportunities for mentoring, but
we hope that the examples here will give you a sense of how to dig into
your trainer toolkit and turn to mentoring practices as and when they can
bring something to a teacher learning situation.

Mentoring practices on training courses

Training courses combine a mixture of teacher learning activity: there
are usually training sessions, but there may also be practice teaching,
observation, guided lesson planning or assignments to write. This
combination of different course content means that, as a trainer, you will
perform various roles, and some of them will involve mentoring practices.

Lesson planning
Planning lessons often seems to become an all-consuming task for teachers
on training courses, particularly at preservice level. Most of the planning
that trainees will do will happen outside scheduled course hours, but many
courses include timetabled sessions for supervised lesson planning, and if
you are a course tutor you will need to support trainees during this time,
individually or in groups. Depending on how the course is set up they may
be teaching the same day, or the following day, but trainees are likely to be
a little anxious either way.

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Preservice trainees find lesson planning difficult for three reasons. The first

5
is that the possibilities open to them – in terms of aims, materials, activities

Mentoring practices
and resources – often feel overwhelming, and selecting what to do can seem
impossible. In the words of John Hughes, ‘it can feel like someone has asked
them to cook a three-course meal in a giant kitchen with every ingredient
imaginable’ (Hughes, 2015, p. 81). The second reason that planning is
difficult for novice teachers is that they have no mental frameworks to draw
upon for the sequencing of techniques and activities, so everything has
to be imagined from scratch. Experienced teachers don’t need to do this
because they can assemble their lessons from larger ‘chunks’, which are
reusable routines of techniques or activities that are familiar from repeated
use. Tessa Woodward, explaining this idea, describes how
teachers have to think about individual small units of content,
steps, activities and material before being able to work at a
broader level. But I believe that as soon as possible we need
to start thinking about putting steps together, subsuming them
into larger units and thinking about shaping lessons and sets of
lessons. (Woodward, 2001, p. 7)
The third reason that novices often find planning difficult is that they have
no experience of how students will react to lesson content, so estimating
timings and anticipating problems and solutions are extremely difficult.
It is our job as trainers, then, to help trainees overcome these limitations
when they first start planning, by familiarising them with appropriate
resources, and to highlight lesson planning chunks by referring back to
course input. In addition, guided lesson planning has the objectives of:

• fostering an effective thought process for lesson planning, encouraging

trainees to take the lesson aim as the starting point for planning
decisions and to think of the lesson in terms of what students will
learn, not just what they will do
• helping trainees to put into practice the techniques and concepts
they’ve learned in input sessions
• helping trainees prepare plans that will actually support them when
they go into the classroom, for example by scripting some of the
questions they will ask, or the instructions they will give
• ensuring that any documentation required as part of the course is being
prepared in the right way

Here are some suggestions for managing these conversations. Take them
as a point of departure – you may well find that in your training contexts
there are other ways of achieving the goals above. What you will need,
though, is for trainees to bring draft lesson plans to these discussions. If
they haven’t done any thinking about the lesson already it is difficult to
help them develop their thinking further!

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 Ask the trainee to begin by giving the lesson aim. This
5 Mentoring practices

reinforces the aim as the starting point for the lesson planning
process, and means that you can refer back to it during discussion of
lesson stages. It also means that if the lesson is built on a flimsy aim
(i.e., one which doesn’t express how the students will be better able
to communicate in the target language as a result of the lesson), or
no aim at all, you can deal with that from the beginning.
As trainees talk through their plans, ask them to relate each
lesson stage to the lesson aim. If a lesson structure such as Test-
Teach-Test has been used, this is the time to talk through it, as well
as what techniques and materials will be used at each stage. If you
are with a small group of trainees, you could ask those listening to
help identify the links between the overall lesson aim and each stage
of the plan.
In your feedback on aims and lesson stages, link planning to
input. This is a key mentoring skill, particularly in terms of
highlighting chunks of lesson steps (activities, techniques) that have
been presented. Elicit ideas from trainees before providing them
with these connections.
Nudge trainees towards autonomy in planning by asking
them to justify their choices. The key to making this manageable
is to narrow the choices that trainees need to make. At the very
earliest stages, this might mean providing a complete lesson plan
with two options for certain stages. The teacher then needs only to
choose the option they feel is most appropriate and the conversation
will be about the reasons for their choice. Later in the course you
might provide the lesson aim and the material to be used, so that
the teacher needs to make more choices about how the lesson will
unfold – encourage them to link these choices to the aim and to the
characteristics of the learners.
Preservice trainees do not have enough experience with learners to
be able to accurately predict how long activities will take or to
anticipate potential problems. Encourage trainees to talk through
their plans stage by stage and others in the group to guess how long
each stage will need, and what problems students might have.
Start by scaffolding the planning process, and reduce the
amount of support given as the course progresses. This may
mean that at the start of the course the trainees are provided with
lesson materials, aims and a skeleton lesson plan, which is then
reduced to just materials and aims later in the course, and finally
just aims as the course nears its end. This is a form of modelling –
the trainees begin by working from examples of good practice and
eventually have to emulate those models by creating their own
lesson plans.

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Pastoral support

5
Mentoring practices
The word pastoral comes from the Latin term for shepherd, and besides
attending to the trainees’ learning, there is usually a certain amount of
shepherding to do to help trainees get to the end of a teacher training
course! It is here that the support role of the mentor comes into play: there
are times when you will need to ‘be there’ and act as a sounding board for
trainees who are finding things difficult.
If you are someone who has, as a teacher, always enjoyed training
sessions and courses, it may seem odd that so many trainees need this
kind of support. So it is worth considering why training courses might
be experienced as ‘intense, emotional and stressful’ (Davies & Northall,
2019a, p. 49), because understanding these feelings from the trainees’
point of view is essential to our ability to provide the support they need.
First of all, intensive courses are exactly that: intensive. There may be
very little time outside the course for routine activities like exercise or
socialising, and that in itself can be stressful. The effect is arguably greater
for preservice trainees, who are grappling with entirely new concepts
and a completely new identity as a teacher. Teaching practice can be a
particular source of anxiety, because it is uniquely challenging to that new
teacher identity, and because it often takes place off the back of late nights
spent planning – it is very easy to forget how long it takes novice teachers
to plan a lesson once you have developed a certain level of planning
expertise.
Secondly, professional learning involves change, and several writers have
turned to the literature on change management to throw some light on
what teachers experience as part of the process of changing their teaching
practice. What emerges is a roughly ‘u-shaped’ sequence of emotions that
gets worse before it gets better: the lowest point for teachers comes shortly
after trying new practices when the significance of a proposed/needed
change has sunk in – termed ‘informed pessimism’ (Malderez & Wedell,
2007, p. 130) or ‘awareness of incompetence’ (Waters, 2005, p. 221). This
is when teachers need encouragement, motivation and emotional support,
because the only route to subsequent integration of the new practices
is to continue working on them, to ‘”trust the process” and keep going’
(Malderez & Wedell, 2007, p. 131). This may all seem unduly negative,
and it does contrast with the collaborative energy of the training room,
but it is when it comes to applying new ideas in the classroom that the
real challenge begins – there is suddenly much more at stake than there
was in the training room. There is the risk of losing face in front of the
students and in front of peers, and there is a risk to the teacher’s own
professional identity. That’s when the scale of the challenge ahead starts to
become clear, and there will be times for all trainees when it just gets a bit
too much.

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 The other time when emotions can run high is in response to feedback,
5 Mentoring practices

particularly when it involves delivering bad news to trainees. This might

be a ‘below standard’ mark for a practice lesson or an assignment that
needs to be resubmitted, or it could simply be an area for development in
an otherwise well-delivered lesson – sometimes it is more difficult to take
negative feedback on board when the lesson in general has been a success;
poor feedback on a lesson that was truly disastrous, on the other hand,
comes as no surprise.
Providing pastoral support to trainees, then, requires some sensitivity to
the pressures that might be causing emotional strain in the first place.
Nevertheless, there are some general actions you can take to mitigate the
chances of trainee anxiety, and to facilitate helpful conversations if and
when you are needed to talk to:
Put effort into building a trusting relationship with trainees.
Your getting-to-know-you phase at the beginning of the course is
important for this, but ensure also that you learn trainees’ names
quickly, emphasise that they can approach you, and demonstrate
openness in your interactions with them. This is something that
needs to happen throughout your time with the trainees, not just at
the beginning.
Make yourself available at certain times and communicate those
times clearly. Obviously, trainees can’t come to you for help if you’re
not available. This is very difficult on intensive courses but try to
make yourself available during break times by scheduling your own
breaks while trainees are doing something else, perhaps in a session
with a co-trainer. Clarifying times that you are available also means
clarifying when you are not available, and that’s important – trainers
need a break too.
Deal with feedback tactfully and sensitively – we will discuss
feedback in more detail in Chapter 8, but try to remain empathetic
throughout, and allow space for emotional reactions.
Davies and Northall (2019a) suggest giving trainees a ‘candidate
agreement’ to sign that outlines clear policies for absence,
deadlines, and so on. This ensures that trainees know what is
expected of them and can plan ahead to avoid work bottlenecks.
It is also important to be aware of how emotional strain can manifest itself
in trainees. The following are all possible signs of a trainee struggling
to cope:

• absence from the course, perhaps without warning (e.g., not turning up
for teaching practice)
• irritability, or a reluctance to participate in group work / plenary
discussion

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• being overly critical of their own teaching and seemingly unable to

5
identify the positives in their lessons

Mentoring practices
• being overly critical of other trainees’ teaching
• an unwillingness to engage with feedback, particularly after being
receptive initially

You may need to be proactive about supporting trainees exhibiting these

signs, rather than waiting for them to come to you for help. Encourage
them to share how they are feeling by asking ‘How are you coping with
the course?’ rather than closed questions such as ‘Are you OK?’

TASK 5.4
. . . To trainer
You are observing teaching practice with a group of five trainees. It is the first
teaching practice session and three of the five trainees are each teaching
part of the lesson. When trainees are not teaching, they are observing the
lesson.
The lesson has begun and the first trainee is teaching, but the trainee due to
teach next has not turned up. What will you do?
For notes see page 227

Managing workload and deadlines

An expectation on most training courses is a certain level of professionalism
from the trainees. This means attending on time, meeting deadlines for
the submission of work, working effectively with other trainees, and so
on. It’s important to be clear with trainees about what these expectations
are, especially in relation to group work. Working collaboratively can
be a relatively new experience for some trainees, but it is an important
professional skill to develop, and many aspects of a course can be
hampered if trainees are not aware of how they should conduct themselves
in, for example, group feedback sessions or group planning time.
This area involves a combination of implicit and explicit mentoring. You
can support trainees implicitly by acting as a role model – not in the sense
of modelling teaching practices, but in the sense of modelling what it
means to be a language teaching professional, someone who works in an
educational environment. In addition, these are some ways that you can
clarify expectations of your trainees more explicitly:
Provide a course timetable with all deadlines clearly marked.
Ensure trainees understand how they are being assessed – you
might want to devote some time in a session to this at the beginning
of the course.

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 Draw up a class contract at the beginning of the course – you can
5 Mentoring practices

use this as an opportunity to model the same process that teachers

might use with their own (probably young learner) students.
Communicate the policies for illness/absence, late submission of
work and plagiarism.
Smile! Teaching is fun, and teachers need to convey enthusiasm for
their subject, so trainers need to convey enthusiasm for theirs. Show
trainees you enjoy what you do!
Many training centres combine the documents in this list into a course
handbook that is distributed before the course, or on the first day.

Mentoring practices in schools

Mentoring practices in schools can look rather different, because there
isn’t a course timetable governing the frequency of meetings or the
period of professional learning for the trainee involved. This can be a
positive thing, because it generally means a more long-term mentoring
relationship between trainer and teacher, but it also means that mentoring
practices need to be organised around the teaching timetable. In addition,
the teacher and the trainer acting as a mentor will probably need to be
proactive about building the relationship, keeping it going and scheduling
reasonably regular meetings in order to stop it fizzling out.
In most school-based mentoring situations the relationship between the
mentor and mentee will be just one relationship in a broader programme
of mentoring. Often such programmes are set up within the school for one
of the following reasons:

• to help a newly qualified teacher make the transition from training into
day-to-day life as a teacher (possibly during a placement as part of a
preservice training course)
• to induct new teachers to the school, who may arrive with teaching
experience gained elsewhere
• to cater to teachers who require support with a particular need, usually
in response to a change in their teaching life (such as teaching children
for the first time, or dealing with a difficult class)
• to support teachers who have been deemed to be underperforming

The mentor is therefore assigned to the mentee by the administrator of

the school mentoring programme, and there will be certain guidelines
for when and how frequently meetings should take place, as well as
what outcomes are expected from the institution’s point of view. Ideally,
there should be some preparation or training for mentors as part of the
programme too, but that kind of support is often sadly lacking.
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 CASE STUDY 5.6: CAROLINA, MENTOR

5
Mentoring practices
I remember, when I was still ‘just’ a teacher, being asked to act as a mentor
for a new teacher who was joining my school straight from her initial
training course (the school was also a training centre so she had been
recommended by training colleagues). I didn’t really know anything about
mentoring at that time, and I had never been mentored myself, but I was
considered a good teacher and I thought I would be able to help her.
My main point of reference was my own experience – I really just tried to
remember how I had felt as a new teacher and what would have been
helpful to me at that time.

TASK 5.5
. . . To trainer
If you were Carolina in Case study 5.6, how would you approach your first
meeting with the new teacher? What would you want to find out, and how
would you want to structure the meeting?

When you are first assigned to a teacher as a mentor, there are tasks that
will need to be done in order to get the ball rolling, regardless of the
situation the teacher is in. You will want to plan for your first meeting with
the teacher so that you can start off on the right foot. There are various
different aims to that first meeting: you want to get to know each other a
little and build trust, establish how the mentoring relationship will work
in terms of when you will meet and the nature of support that the teacher
can expect from you, what your expectations of the teacher will be and
the goals that each of you will have for the relationship. Before that can
happen, you will need to be clear what the school’s set-up is for mentoring.
Table 5.2 outlines the type of questions to think about for these initial steps.
Table 5.2: Planning for mentoring

Stage Questions/tasks
Clarifying the º Is there a place where you can meet?
school’s policies º Will the school make room in your respective timetables for
the meetings or are you expected to schedule meetings
around your normal teaching timetables?
º What payment is there for mentors? Are mentees also paid
to take part?
º What paperwork are you each required to complete and
submit as part of the programme, and when?
º Who needs to be aware that the mentoring relationship is in
place in order to support it?
First meeting º Break the ice and build trust.
º How often will you meet? When? Where?
º What should happen in between meetings?
º What shape are meetings likely to take?
º What kind of support can the teacher expect from you?
º What channels of communication will you use?
º What are the goals that you are each trying to achieve?

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 This is by no means an exhaustive list – depending on your mentees’
5 Mentoring practices

situations, it might be appropriate to show them around the building,

introduce them to colleagues and point out where they can get a cup of
coffee! Every mentee is different and you will need to think carefully
about how they might be feeling and what kinds of support will help
them to flourish. You may also find yourself in a situation where you need
to advocate for a mentee in the face of unforgiving or inflexible school
decision making. One of us, for example, was assigned a newly qualified
teacher as a mentee at a school that was severely understaffed. Because
of the pressure to keep classes running, she was assigned seven different
classes, encompassing adult and young learners, and a wide range of levels.
That was far too much; a newly qualified teacher really needed support
from the school in the form of a reduced teaching load and the opportunity
to teach the same lessons to different groups. So in such situations be
prepared to ‘stick up’ for your mentees, who may not feel in a position to
know what is reasonable or to speak out themselves.

CASE STUDY 5.7: CAROLINA, MENTOR

I was so relieved that I had planned that first meeting because it quickly
became apparent that the teacher had expected us to have a similar type
of relationship to what she’d had on her course. I explained that this was a
different kind of support, that I wasn’t an observer or assessor, and that our
meetings would be directed much more by her. I also explained the rationale
for this, but she seemed uneasy and wanted clear feedback on what she
was doing. We eventually agreed to meet halfway. This turned out to be very
important: as we went on we both knew what to expect and I think she was
clear about why I was taking the approach I was taking (not observing, not
saying ‘do it this way’) as she felt her own reflective skills developing.

CASE STUDY 5.8: JOHANNA, MENTOR

The school where I teach actively supports a mentorship scheme. The way
it works is that there are three or four teachers in different groups, each
with a different focus, and the members of the group all share the same
mentor. It’s possible to be a member of more than one group, and therefore
to have the benefit of more than one mentor. Each member of a group has
different amounts of experience, knowledge and skills (as do the mentors),
so we all feel that we can contribute something when we get together. I
belong to two groups and the mentors meet us as a group, usually once a
week. Their role is not to train us, but to provide a sympathetic ear, to listen
to us and sometimes to make suggestions. Also, we sometimes take part in
role plays, taking on different roles each time, and talking through various
situations from our classrooms. We can also meet the mentors individually
if we want to, and for one in particular I value this, but for the other one, it
rarely happens. However, both are extremely supportive in different ways for
someone like me, even with nearly 10 years’ teaching experience.

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Summary

5
Mentoring practices
Just about all trainers will, at various points in their careers, have to open
up their trainer toolkit and wield some mentoring practices. Some trainers
will do that more than others, perhaps even taking on the role of mentor in
a formal capacity, but for most of us mentoring practices will be a resource
that we turn to as the training situation demands.
We’ve already seen that mentoring practices are a bigger step from
teaching than delivering sessions, but learning to perform mentor roles
also tends to be more challenging because many of us may not have had
much or any experience of being mentees in the past. The private nature
of mentoring relationships also makes it hard to observe mentoring
conversations in order to learn how to carry them out – those who
are lucky enough to attend mentor training programmes will spend a
significant portion of time on those programmes role-playing mentoring
conversations. So most trainers develop their mentoring skills on the
job, finding their way as they go, and reflection therefore becomes
extremely important. Keeping a journal of mentoring conversations can
be especially useful, because it is almost certain that you will be able to
reflect on it as you gain confidence as a mentor and identify areas for your
own development.
Observing lessons is not necessarily something that mentors need to
do – there are good reasons for not observing, such as providing the
mentee with more autonomy, lowering anxiety and making discussions of
lessons more authentic (Malderez & Wedell, 2007). Nevertheless, the role
of mentor in many contexts might include observing teachers and then
discussing what went on in the classroom, and we will deal with pre- and
post-lesson discussions, and lesson observation itself, in Chapters 6–8.

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Training
individuals’ and ‘Offering pastoral support’ to hear how
trainers put the principles we’ve looked at into practice. Is
there anything that surprises you in what they describe?

TO FIND OUT MORE

Malderez, A., & Bodóczky, C. (1999). Mentor courses. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. (Includes lots of excellent tasks for developing
mentoring skills.)
Randall, M., & Thornton, B. (2001). Advising and supporting teachers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Ostensibly focused on observation
feedback, but also provides an excellent overview of the counselling
approaches and techniques that underpin much mentoring, including
Heron’s Six Categories.)

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6 Observing teaching
and learning
Here we consider:
• The purposes of observation
• What to do before observing
• What to do during the observation
• Challenges of observation and how to deal with them
• How to prepare for feedback

The trick to doing observations, I think, is to make sure the

observees know that it’s coming from a place of caring, a place
that says I’m here because I want to help you.
Allen, teacher trainer, Thailand

Teachers can only learn so much in the training room. Eventually, the
ideas and practices encountered in training sessions, books, staffroom
discussions or mentoring conversations need to be unleashed on real
students in real lessons. That’s where observation comes in.
A recurring theme in twentieth century writing on schools in the US is the
idea of the school as an ‘egg crate’ (e.g., Lortie, 1975), where teachers are kept
separate in their classrooms like eggs in a box. It’s a very compelling metaphor
because there’s a lot of truth to it – teachers do their most important work in
isolation from one another, and this puts great pressure on teachers to decide
for themselves how successful their lessons are and what should be done
to improve their teaching. Observations, at their best, are a chance to break
down the divides between teaching professionals and to allow someone else
to come into the classroom to take on the burden of evaluating what takes
place: they are opportunities for collaboration and sharing of expertise. When
it works well, lesson observation can be transformative for teachers: we have
both benefitted enormously in our careers from observations that provided us
with crucial insights, improving our teaching markedly and permanently.
But not all observations work well. It is almost certain that, as you read
this, hundreds of teachers around the world are being observed teaching.
And unfortunately, it is equally likely that only a tiny proportion of
those observations will have the professional learning of the teacher as
their main aim. Instead, they are largely used to check that teachers are
meeting the expectations of school management. Some of them will be
live observations, with a staff member sitting in the classroom; one of only

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 a handful of times that the teacher will be observed in the year (perhaps
Observing teaching and learning

the only time). Others will be observations via video camera, with CCTV
in schools on the rise globally.1 In these scenarios there is often no formal
process, and the teacher will not know when they are being observed and
when they aren’t. The first indication that someone has been watching
would be a summons to the principal’s office.
For most teachers, these observations offer little. If teachers do well,
they are considered to have met expectations, a box has been ticked, and
they can put the thought of observation aside until the next time it is
imposed upon them. If, on the other hand, a teacher’s performance in the
observation is deemed unsatisfactory, that teacher may well lose their job.
6

Many observers dread these observations, too. They are required to conduct
observations by institutional policies, but rarely have the necessary time in
their schedules and are often untrained in how to observe or how to manage
the process from start to finish, particularly the delivery of feedback. As
a result, observations seem to take on the form of a kind of scheduled
confrontation with teachers, which both parties would prefer to avoid.
This bleak picture isn’t true for everyone – we are both fortunate to have
been part of observations in which professional learning was the goal
(although not in every case!), and we now welcome observations as some
of the richest opportunities for professional learning available to us. But
for many of the teachers that we work with, the situation outlined above
forms the backdrop for discussions about observation, drawing all the bad
experiences and ill feeling of teachers into those discussions. So we need to
be very clear how and why we are using it as a tool for teacher learning.

Why observation matters

TASK 6.1
From teacher . . .
Think about the times you have been observed as a teacher. What was the
purpose of each observation? Who benefitted more each time, the teacher,
the observer, or someone else?

It may seem strange to question the purpose of observation. For both

of us, and most probably for you too, it is a fact of professional life, one
that has been there since our earliest experiences in front of a class. And
when we learn any new skill, seeing others do it is often the very first
step, while being seen and getting feedback are important to further

1 For example, in the state of Delhi, India (https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/delhi/

no-sc-stay-on-cctv-in-govt-schools/articleshow/70198849.cms) and in the UK (www.
independent.co.uk/news/education/education-news/spying-teacher-cctv-classrooms-
rise-9271501.html)

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improvement. Observation, however, ‘does not just mean “seeing”’

6
(Malderez, 2003, p. 179). In fact it is probably more useful to think of it

Observing teaching and learning

as a process of data gathering (Bailey, 2001; Randall & Thornton, 2001),
because the information that an observation yields will probably be used
for a specific purpose. Those different purposes naturally lead to different
ways of collecting data, so understanding exactly why we are observing
is key to knowing how to do it well. But if we think of observation as
data gathering, we can also come to a clearer understanding of what
information it can’t yield, and how it might therefore be complemented by
other forms of data collection. What an observer sees is just a snapshot of
teaching and learning at a particular time, and it should rarely be the sole
basis for further decision making.
To begin to understand why observation takes place, let’s consider some
real-life examples:

CASE STUDY 6.1: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

I work with trainees who are just starting out in teaching, so when I observe
I hope to see them taking new concepts from our input sessions and
applying them, and learning from that what works and what doesn’t.
I find that really satisfying because they can make dramatic progress
very quickly, even with short lessons, and because it makes me feel like
my training sessions are useful! What I am looking at is guided by the
assessment criteria for the course, which is helpful, but it took me a long
time to remember all the criteria and pay attention to all the different areas
they cover. It also took me time to learn how to balance the competing
need to assess trainees – my decisions will affect whether they pass or fail –
and the need to develop their skills. In fact, I still find that difficult.
An added dimension to CELTA observations is that I’m not the only observer
– I’m joined by the non-teaching trainees in the group at the back of the
room, and they need to learn something from the observation. For that I
provide an observation task, but there is always something in the lesson
that is worth drawing their attention to in its own right, too. I’ve started using
an online group chat tool for doing that with them, and this can be a really
nice starting point for discussions after the lesson.

CASE STUDY 6.2: MOSES, THE TEACHER

My first lessons as a teacher were on my initial teacher training course,
and they were all observed. It was completely normal for someone to sit
at the back of my lessons, and I actually felt strange when I started my first
teaching job and had to face the students completely alone. I had also
been watching my fellow trainees teach during the course, and I wanted
to keep doing that. So I developed a habit of inviting my colleagues to
observe my lessons to point out things that I didn’t see and to help me
build my confidence, and now we visit each other’s classes once every two
weeks. We found that the best way to do it is to ask whoever is observing for
feedback on a very specific area, such as pronunciation drills, whatever we
have been working on improving. That usually means the observation can

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 be quite short, and it helps to make each observation meaningful. I have
Observing teaching and learning

learned a huge amount from being observed but also from observing. The
only downside is that we have to do the observations in our own time, so
there are some colleagues whose classes I can’t see because they teach
at the same time as me.

CASE STUDY 6.3: CARMEN, THE MANAGER

I regularly observe lessons in my role as Director of Studies, and I have two
‘modes’ of observing. There are times when I’m looking at what teachers
are doing from a perspective of ‘what’s happening in my classrooms?’ and
for that I do learning walks: literally walking round the school and stopping
in classrooms for around ten minutes at a time. From these walks I get a
6

sense of whether teaching meets the standard we expect here, a sense

of professional development needs, and a feel for each classroom. But I’m
really careful to look at other evidence of what’s happening too – I can’t
use the learning walks as my only basis for judgement because they’re
just too brief, and if I stay longer than ten minutes it’s not a learning walk
anymore, it’s a surprise observation, which I don’t do because it’s not fair.
The other mode of observing is what I would call formal observation: I go
and watch a significant portion of a lesson and I discuss the plan with the
teacher before, and feed back after. The aim with those is to get a much
more detailed picture of where each teacher is at, not just in the classroom
but in planning and reflecting too, and to really support their development
on an individual level. I’m always aware that my presence in the room
can create a different atmosphere, and visiting the same class several
times on the learning walks helps teachers and students get used to me
being there, which helps me to see more natural lessons when I do the
formal observations.

In all of the case studies above, observation is being used as a tool

for teacher learning (although not exclusively), and it has a uniquely
significant role in that process. We saw in Chapter 1 that teacher learning
begins with Knowing about, often in the training room. But after that
initial encounter with a technique or concept, each teacher really needs
to apply it to their own teaching context for it to become embedded in
practice, evaluating the results and adapting as necessary. Most of the time
teachers are left to do that on their own, but it is arguably the point during
the learning journey at which expert guidance is most valuable, because
translating theory into successfully contextualised practice is difficult.
Observation offers the opportunity for that kind of guidance. It is an
essential component of learning at the levels of Knowing how and Knowing
to because it promotes the vital connection between the teacher’s teaching
and the teacher’s professional learning, leading to the improvements in
student learning that are our ultimate goal. The case studies in this chapter
illustrate how observation can be used at different stages in a teacher’s
professional learning journey, taking the teacher from novice to adaptive
expert. But they also illustrate that teacher learning isn’t always the only
consideration when observation takes place.

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Purposes of observation

6
Observing teaching and learning
For Marie (Case study 6.1), observing teachers on a CELTA course, there
are multiple purposes to observation. Her main goals are to help the
trainees develop their teaching skills, and assess them against the CELTA
criteria. The need to assess each lesson that she observes means Marie has
to direct her attention to the areas highlighted by the assessment criteria,
and this has its advantages and disadvantages, as she describes. There’s
an additional purpose to observation for Marie to bear in mind, too: the
non-teaching trainees in the group are also observing, and she needs to
manage their learning in addition to assessing and developing whoever is
teaching. Part of that final objective is inducting trainees into the practice
of observation itself – how to behave as an observer in a classroom –
although that may not be made explicit.
From her trainees’ point of view, these observations as part of their CELTA
course help to ‘level up’ their learning in several ways:

• The assessment criteria map out the skills they are expected to
demonstrate and provide a consistent framework for thinking about
what takes place in their lessons.
• Marie’s presence in the classroom provides some reassurance as the
trainees face their first classes (in the way that Moses also describes).
• Marie’s observations and feedback help to link the trainees’ developing
practice to what they have learned in their input sessions.
• Feedback (from both Marie and co-trainees) steers trainees towards
effective practice and away from misunderstandings of key concepts or
unhelpful beliefs and assumptions.

The peer observations Moses describes are developmental in nature – there

is no assessment taking place, and no trainer involved. Peer observations
may be the only way for teachers who are not participating in formal
training to see others teaching, and to have their lessons observed. To some
extent, the learning process is similar to that of Marie’s trainees: Moses
and his colleagues are developing Knowing how and Knowing to by applying
ideas in the classroom, reflecting on them, and making adjustments to
their practice. But as Moses describes, this kind of arrangement works best
when there is a clear focus for the observations, which is usually chosen
by the teacher (although a peer observation task could also provide that
focus). Knowing what to look for helps the observer look beyond all the
other classroom activity that is not of immediate interest, aids in giving
clear feedback (which is important, since peer observers may not have
been trained in giving feedback), and helps the teacher to effectively direct
their efforts at improvement. In developmental peer observations, it also
means that the observer has opportunities to focus on something that they
want to learn from the observation, so both parties are able to benefit.

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 Carmen’s observations are driven by slightly different goals. While she
Observing teaching and learning

wants to help her teachers develop wherever possible, she is observing

to gain knowledge that she can use in running her school: she wants to
know what is happening in classrooms, and she wants to build a profile
of each teacher’s skills so that she can appraise their effectiveness and
meet their training and development needs. Carmen has adopted different
observation routines for each of her goals, which shows that she has
carefully considered what she wants to learn and how best to collect the
classroom data she needs.
Table 6.1 lists the main purposes for observation, based on similar
taxonomies from Kathleen Bailey (2001), Angi Malderez (2003) and
6

Jim Scrivener (2011). In reality these purposes are often found together
in a single observed lesson – a typical CELTA observation, for example,
combines a training observation, assessment of the candidates’ teaching and
peer observation by the non-teaching trainees in the group. Similarly, what
Carmen describes as a ‘formal observation’ is a combination of performance
appraisal and training observation, and when aggregated with other
observations across an institution may also serve as school audit.

Table 6.1: Types of observation

Overarching Observation
Observer Description/purpose
goal type
Teacher Training: Trainer Helps the trainer to determine
learning observation the strengths and weaknesses of
the trainee with a view to giving
feedback. If part of a course, it
may be diagnostic (early in the
course) or formative (mid-course)
in nature.
Training: Trainer Takes place as part of a course,
assessment with reference to detailed criteria
laid out in course documentation.
Results in a grade.
Training: Trainee Trainee(s) in the role of observer
apprenticeship attend the class of an experienced
observation ‘master’ teacher in order to learn
from them. Trainees may be given
a task to guide the observation.
Developmental Trainer Set up and led not by a trainer
observation but by the teacher, who, in order
to develop teaching skills, requests
feedback on a specific area from
the observer.
Peer Colleague / Usually set up between colleagues
observation co-trainee for their mutual benefit, with a
relatively informal approach to
post-lesson discussions. May be
required, or facilitated, by some
institutions (e.g., by providing tasks).

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 6
Academic Performance Manager Usually takes place one to three

Observing teaching and learning

management appraisal times a year, or following a student
complaint. Aims to judge whether
the teacher meets the institution’s
standards for professional
competence. The main beneficiary
is the manager/institution.
School audit / Manager / Undertaken in order to get a
inspection inspector general sense of the quality of
teaching and learning in the
institution, either for internal
purposes, or as part of regulatory
requirements. Inspectors will work
with detailed standardised criteria;
managers may work with school-
wide criteria or none at all.
Research Classroom Researcher Observation in order to gather
research data with a view to answering a
specific research question.

It is important to be clear about the different goals in each situation so that

the observation can be set up and managed in such a way that it fulfills
the objectives of everyone involved. Lack of clarity about the purposes of
observation can reinforce negative feelings about it: for example, it’s not
uncommon for management goals to overshadow the teacher learning side
of observation, creating a sense of ‘box-ticking’ and reinforcing the antipathy
that many teachers already feel towards the process of being observed. In
some cases it may even be preferable to limit the use of observation to a
single purpose to avoid conflicting objectives: ‘there is a good case to be
made for removing teacher observations from the performance appraisal
system altogether, including them as a clearly developmental tool‘ (White,
Hockley, van der Horst Jansen, & Laughner, 2008, p. 69).
With the exception of research, all of the purposes for observation in
Table 6.1 are exemplified in the case studies of Marie, Moses and Carmen,
underlining how most observations encompass a range of objectives. That’s
not surprising when you consider how much time and effort is required to
organise and conduct an observation well.

Before observing
To a large extent, what takes place before the observation itself will depend
on the purpose of the observation. However, there are decisions to make that
don’t, and these relate to your personal preferences as an observer, such as:

• When do you want the teacher to provide any relevant paperwork for
the lesson? At minimum, you will need to see the materials being used,
if there are any. You may also wish to see a lesson plan, seating plan
and/or register. Do you want printouts or will soft copies suffice?

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 • How will you record your observations? Handwrite, type, draw?
Observing teaching and learning

Diagrams? On the materials/plan provided or on separate paper?

• How will you structure your notes? See the While observing section
below (p. 122) for some suggestions.
• Where do you prefer to sit in the classroom? Often the classroom layout
or the teacher’s plans for the lesson dictate this, but if you do have a
choice you may want to consider who you will be looking at more, the
teacher or the students, and which point in the room will enable the
least disruptive entrance and exit.
6

• What will your involvement in the lesson be? In most lessons you will
wish to stand, walk around and see student work, monitor speaking
activities or even sit with groups of students during the lesson to
observe how much they are understanding. It is very difficult to
evaluate learning (and by extension, teaching) without leaving your
chair. That expectation should be clarified with the teacher in advance
of the lesson, though.
• When will you conduct your feedback meeting? This may be scheduled
in advance if you are delivering a training course. If not, you should
consider when you and the teacher are able to meet to discuss the
lesson, and schedule that meeting in advance of the observation itself,
making it clear what will be involved and how long it will take.
• What paperwork do you want the teacher to complete ahead of the
feedback meeting? Give the necessary templates to the teacher before
the lesson so they know what to expect, and explain it if necessary so
that it’s not a source of additional stress.

For most of these questions, you will work out your preferred way of
working as you gain experience of observing, and you’ll develop routines
that you fall back on whenever a new observation comes up. As long as
these are working well for you and the teachers you observe, there’s no
need to change them.
To consider what else ought to happen ahead of an observation let’s
now consider the three different scenarios in our case studies: the
CELTA (preservice course) observations described by Marie, Moses’ peer
observations and Carmen’s formal observations of her teaching staff. We’ll
consider what administrative tasks are required ahead of the observation,
and what should happen if the goals of the observation are to be achieved.
As you read, try to notice the different ways in which the observer handles
the preparation stage for each of these, and make your own decisions
about how best to proceed in your own context, bearing in mind the
purpose of the observations you are conducting or organising.

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Before preservice course observations

6
Observing teaching and learning
As we’ve seen from Case study 6.1, on a course like the CELTA there are
generally three purposes to observation: training, assessment and peer
observation. Each of these necessitates its own preparation.
As with all observations there is an administrative element, although for
a course like CELTA there is significantly more, partly because it is an
assessed qualification but also because many (most, in some contexts)
trainees will have no prior experience of teaching or being observed.
Certain aspects of the process that could be taken for granted with more
experienced teachers must therefore be made explicit. On the other hand,
there are so many observations in quick succession that once expectations
are established they shouldn’t need to be repeated for every observed
lesson. Trainees should be informed early on:

• when they will be expected to teach

• which of those lessons will be observed by the trainer (probably nearly
all of them)
• when they will be expected to observe their peers teaching
• what to teach, at least for the early part of the course, and how to
coordinate their lessons with other trainees who are teaching on the
same day
• when and where they should provide lesson plans and any materials
they plan to use for each observed lesson

Since many or all the trainees will also be new to classroom observation,
we have found that it is a good idea to clarify ‘observation etiquette’ with
trainees, so that peer observation is productive for all concerned, since all
trainees will be observing their co-trainees. One option is to include this
in a course handbook and draw trainees’ attention to it before their first
teaching practice session. Your own course may have its own expectations,
but it is likely that they will include the following, or similar:

• As a general rule, observe as you would like to be observed.

• Pay attention to the class – using a mobile, eating, chatting to other
trainees, planning your own lesson or leaving the room is not appropriate.
• Complete whatever task has been set.
• Be ready to discuss the lesson afterwards.
• Do not distract the tutor.
• Do not get involved in lessons when observing, even if students ask you
for help.

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 CASE STUDY 6.4: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER
Observing teaching and learning

A lot of the organising that you would do with a typical school-based

observation is done in the first day or two of the course – we run a
dedicated input session on teaching practice – so it’s not necessary to
do much of it later on for each and every observation. One thing that we
build into the course schedule is guided lesson planning, when trainees
can discuss their lesson plans with myself and the other trainees in their
teaching practice group, and I suppose that takes the place of a pre-
observation discussion that might happen in other contexts. For me those
sessions are about guiding the trainees and helping them to develop the
right thought process when they plan a lesson, as well as helping them
to feel comfortable with the whole observation process. I make sure the
6

trainees know that they need to hand in their lesson plans first thing on
the day that they’re teaching – that ensures that I get time to take a look
at them before the lesson itself, but I think it’s also good that they’re not
tinkering with them right up to the last minute, because they just wouldn’t
pay any attention to anything else on teaching days.

Trainees should have access to a lesson planning template that they can
use for each observed lesson, and any expectations of how much to write,
layout, font size, and so on should be made clear. It is well worth talking
the group through a completed example to reduce the possibility of
questions or misunderstandings later on, and you may wish to incorporate
this into an input session on lesson planning if time allows. As a general
rule, providing plenty of support is a good idea: trainees are likely to
be nervous, at least for the first few observations they have, and the
aim of using the observation as an opportunity to develop their nascent
teaching skills is probably best served by offering lots of reassurance and
encouragement, and framing the observation as an opportunity to learn,
rather than as a test.
Nevertheless, there is an assessment angle to observations on a
preservice course, and from your point of view as the observer it requires
organisation and preparation. We deal more fully with assessment of
teaching in Chapter 7, but when it comes to being prepared for preservice
course observations the key is to be organised. Observing and assessing
two to three teachers, providing feedback and supporting the peer
observations of non-teaching trainees is demanding, and you will need
to have various documents at your fingertips (bear in mind that you will
go into the classroom with lesson plans, materials, reflection templates,
observation task sheets, etc.). Remember, too, that although you may
be seated in the corner of the room for two hours, you will be working
intensely – be sure to have a proper break beforehand, eat lunch and take
a bottle of water with you!

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Before peer and apprenticeship observations

6
Observing teaching and learning
Peer observations between colleagues, like the ones Moses takes part
in, generally don’t require a great deal of preparation by the observer.
As Moses describes, he and his peers have discarded pre-observation
meetings, often seen as an integral part of the observation process:

CASE STUDY 6.5: MOSES, THE TEACHER

For me and my colleagues, we observe each other to improve our teaching
and if I want to improve my lesson planning I will plan a lesson with them,
I will not ask them to observe. So we do not meet to discuss the observed
lesson before it takes place, we only tell each other what to look for. I can
give you two examples: the last time I was observed I asked my colleagues
to pay attention to the clarity and effectiveness of my instructions. And the
last time I was the observer, my colleague who was teaching asked me
to look at how she dealt with students’ pronunciation, and whether there
were opportunities for teaching pronunciation that she was not exploiting.
We have learned to make these requests very specific. Initially we were not
precise enough and it was difficult for the observer to provide insights that
really gave us the information that we wanted.

The approach that Moses describes is a pragmatic one. He and his

colleagues have limited time to meet outside their teaching schedule, and
they see no real benefit in discussing a lesson plan or describing a group of
students when their professional learning goals are not planning-related,
and when they are already familiar with each other’s class groups.
Apprenticeship observations, which are when peer observations are
arranged with the goal of the observer benefitting from observing a more
experienced colleague, are a common part of certificate and diploma
teaching qualifications. They are an important option for trainers because
it is only the trainee who must commit significant time to them (in most
cases, the teacher being observed is simply teaching their regular classes).
Even then, like Moses, trainees probably won’t meet the teacher before
the observed lesson, and pre-observation preparation for the trainer
may simply be to make sure the observing trainee has a task to focus
their attention during the lesson. As Ruth Wajnryb highlights (her book
on the subject offers a comprehensive selection of observation tasks),
the advantage of such tasks isn’t just that they limit the scope of what
trainees need to look for, but that they also ease the burden of forming an
opinion of what is seen until later: observation tasks are about collecting
data during the lesson itself, and analysing it afterwards (Wajnryb, 1992).
Nevertheless, the value of apprenticeship observations can be much
enhanced by discussions between the teacher and the trainee at the end of
the lesson, if the teacher is willing and available to answer questions and
explain some of the choices made during the observed lesson.

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 Before management observations
Observing teaching and learning

Carmen described different purposes for her observations: her learning

walks are carried out to audit teaching and learning at whole-school level,
while her formal observations have a performance appraisal and training
function. Unsurprisingly then, in Case study 6.6, she explains that her
preparation for these different kinds of observation is not the same.

CASE STUDY 6.6: CARMEN, THE MANAGER

If I’m planning to do one of my learning walks, there isn’t much that can be
done before observing, other than to look at the timetable to check who’s
6

teaching, and when and where. I notify the teachers that I will be visiting
classes during the week, but apart from that they don’t know if or when I
will come in. Of course, I may check who hasn’t recently been observed,
and anyone who is new, or who is teaching a new class, as they will need to
have priority. I’m quite strict with myself about the timing of them though –
by keeping them to no more than ten minutes I don’t intrude on each
lesson for long, and I can see more classes in the time I have available.
Sometimes that means leaving when I would like to see more, but I accept
that as inevitable.
If my observation is going to be more formal, then the questions of when
and for how long need to have been discussed and agreed in advance
with the teacher, so there is more preparatory work involved. I also make
sure to find time to look through the lesson plan together with the teacher
so that I can see and understand things from their perspective, and build
a level of trust with them. I try not to impose myself with suggestions and
changes as I believe it is very important for the teacher to follow through
with their plan and to reflect on its success (or lack of success!) themselves.
Finally, I always try to agree with the teacher on a focus for the observation,
for example if the teacher asks for support in a particular aspect of their
teaching, or if there is a certain student who needs attention.

You will probably know from the times you’ve been observed that the
process for formal observations within institutions will usually be laid
out by the institution itself, so questions of how frequent observations
should be, and how long each one is, are predetermined. However, formal
observation should:

• involve agreed and clear criteria

• be carried out by trained staff
• include preparation and follow-up
• have provision for mentoring and support for teachers needing help
• involve agreed records which are part of a teacher’s personal file and
professional portfolio

(White et al., 2008, p. 226)

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These details should all be made clear to the teacher at the very outset, and

6
any questions answered. Giving the teacher some choices about how the

Observing teaching and learning

observation is carried out means that they have some agency in the process
and may be more likely to view it positively. Such choices might include:

• which class/lesson will be observed (within the limits of the observer’s

schedule)
• at which point in the lesson the observer should arrive and leave
• what areas of development should be the focus of feedback
• where the observer should sit

Pre-observation meetings
Both Marie and Carmen mention pre-observation meetings in their case
studies above. It’s highly likely that if you are conducting observations of
teachers you will also conduct some of these meetings, and understanding
how they fit into the observation cycle (the total process of pre-observation
meeting, observed lesson, and post-observation feedback) is important for
ensuring that they are effective.
Pre-observation meetings in both Marie’s context (preservice) and
Carmen’s context (in-service) have several goals, as Table 6.2 shows:

Table 6.2: Pre-observation meeting goals

Observer’s goals in pre-observation Teacher’s goals in pre-observation

meeting meeting

º To clarify the purpose of the observation º To clarify the aims, content and
structure of the lesson so that the
º To learn about the teaching context
and the learners in the class in order to observer will understand what
understand the teacher’s perspective they observe

º To understand what the teacher aims º To specify what they would like
to achieve in the lesson and the the observer to look for and
rationale for their choices provide help with

º To identify areas of teaching that are of

particular concern to the teacher
º To establish a trusting relationship with
the teacher

TASK 6.2
. . . To trainer
Scan the QR code and watch the pre-observation meeting
between Peter (the trainer) and Theresa (the teacher). What
questions does Peter ask, and why?
For notes see page 228

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 The pre-observation meeting is a necessary preliminary step to ensure that
Observing teaching and learning

the observation itself and the subsequent feedback meeting are successful.
As Randall and Thornton point out, ‘the benefits of effective observation
can be lost if the teacher is unclear about the purposes of the observation
or if the observer misunderstands key aspects of the lesson’ (Randall
& Thornton, 2001, p. 195). So in general, it shouldn’t be seen as an
opportunity for training teachers by intervening and offering advice – the
post-observation feedback meeting is a more appropriate setting for that.
Instead, it’s a chance to listen and understand how the teacher perceives
and thinks about their learners and their lessons. Trainers will rarely agree
with everything they see in a lesson plan, but the goal is not to ‘correct’
6

the teacher’s plans for the lesson. The goal is to understand how the
teacher approaches planning and teaching, and use the post-observation
feedback meeting to help them to do that more effectively.
The exception to this general principle is preservice observations, because
in these situations trainees are still developing their skills and need more
support. As Marie reveals, and as we saw in Chapter 5, pre-observation
meetings on preservice courses often take place in groups, so that trainees
can learn from the conversations they hear between the trainer and their
peers. It is quite common for the scaffolded support for lesson planning
that trainees receive to be reduced as the course progresses (for instance,
by reducing the number of questions trainees can ask, requiring them
to plan and deliver longer lessons, or reducing the detail of outline plans
that they receive as a starting point), so that trainees get more support
at the beginning of the course than at the end, when they are expected
to be able to plan lessons more autonomously. But the nature of the
supportive interventions is often quite predictable, with formulating
aims, understanding the goals and structure of coursebook materials
and predicting student reactions (such as how long students will take to
complete a task, or what problems they will have) all recurring themes.

While observing
If you think back to the people who have observed your lessons, you may
be able to remember a few of them sitting in your classroom, but for most
you may have no recollection at all of the observer’s presence in the lesson
itself. That’s probably a good thing because it suggests that the observer’s
main task is to gather data on teaching and learning that is relevant to the
purpose of the observation, rather than to participate in what is happening
in the classroom.

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 CASE STUDY 6.7: MATTHEW

6
Observing teaching and learning
I worked for a year at a fairly small school of around six teachers where all
observations were carried out by the academic manager, and I remember
one of my colleagues telling me about her observed lesson, in which
her aim had been to teach students how to use the present continuous
tense to talk about actions in progress now. While she was presenting the
grammar point, the manager observing interrupted to say, ‘but you can use
present continuous to talk about actions in the future, too.’ My colleague
was furious because she had been undermined in front of her students,
but on top of that, the manager’s intervention had only served to confuse
the students!

TASK 6.3
. . . To trainer
Put the following observer actions into three categories according to your own
opinions: do, don’t and maybe:

• Walk around the room.

• Speak to students.
• Take over the lesson.
• Make faces to indicate approval or disapproval.
• Take photos of the classroom during the observation.
• Stay longer than you previously agreed with the teacher.
• Give a thumbs up when you leave.
• Discuss what’s taking place with other trainee observers.
For notes see page 228

General principles
Objective vs. subjective observations – one of the most crucial skills
in observing is to be able to describe what you see taking place in the
classroom without applying assumptions or values to those observations.
Values and assumptions may have a place later on, in assessing or giving
feedback on the lesson, but it is vital to be able to distinguish between
those and more objective description of the lesson. So we need to delineate
description (what you see), interpretation (what you assume to be the
reasons for, or connections between events) and evaluation (how successful
you believe those events or actions to be) in our accounts of what goes
on in class (Malderez, 2003). This model of looking at the classroom
(describe, interpret, evaluate) gives us the morbid but memorable acronym
DIE! Elaborating on this, Jon Wendt (1984, p. 397) gives the following
example:

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Observing teaching and learning
Description: Maxine is leaning forward in her chair with her elbows on
her knees.
Interpretation: Maxine is listening intently.
Or:
Maxine has a stomach ache.
Evaluation: I’m impressed with her interest in our discussion; I like that.
Or:
Serves her right for eating up all the chocolate ice cream.

We can see how this might translate into classroom observation:

Description: Two students are yawning.
6

Interpretation: They are bored.

Or:
They are tired.
Evaluation: This teacher needs to work on making his lessons more engaging.
Or:
It’s the afternoon and the students have probably been sitting
all day – maybe opening the windows and having the students
move around would help them stay alert. I wonder if the teacher
has tried this . . .

Evidently, jumping to interpretations and evaluation too soon can lead

to wrongful conclusions being drawn about what’s taking place in the
classroom and about the teacher’s practice more generally. It is appropriate
to interpret and evaluate, but not during the observed lesson itself – it is
far better to develop our descriptions first with input from the teacher, and
then jointly interpret and evaluate the lesson in the feedback discussion
(see Chapter 8).
Note-taking formats – In keeping with our view of observation as a
process of data collection, it is very important that you record effective
descriptions of what takes place during the observed lesson. There are
various ways of doing this, including making audio or video recordings of
the lesson, or taking photographs, but in practice your main form of data
collection will be the written notes that you take while you’re observing.
Your notes should:

• Provide objective descriptions of what you observe during the lesson,

which can later be used as the basis for interpretation or evaluation
if necessary.
• Help you to make initial decisions about what is worth focusing on (you
can’t write down everything that happens in the classroom, so you will
have to make these decisions as you write).
• Form the basis of your written and spoken feedback to the teacher after
the lesson.

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Broadly speaking, there are two possible ways to set out your notes. The

6
first is as a running commentary on what takes place. Figure 6.1 indicates

Observing teaching and learning

how this might look.

Thoughts, questions,
Lesson stage Time Description
and comments

Figure 6.1: Running commentary observation template

Lesson stage – the observer might use the stages outlined in the
lesson plan here, their own labels for the stages (based on what they
would expect to see), or perhaps the task numbers in the lesson
materials the teacher is using.
Time – this might be recorded as the actual time, or as how much
time has elapsed since the beginning of the lesson, depending on
observer preference.
Description – this should include descriptions both of what the
teacher is doing and of what the students are doing.
Thoughts, questions and comments – this is a space to note
down interpretive or evaluative thoughts or questions for further
consideration later on, after the lesson.
The running commentary is probably the most logical way of taking notes
because it is linear and closely reflects the format used for lesson plans.
Some institutions even include columns for observer feedback in lesson
planning templates, so that the planned lesson and the description of the
actual lesson are directly comparable.
The other possible format for taking notes involves grouping your
observations into themes. Figure 6.2 provides an example of this format, but
the themes that are selected will vary depending on the training context.
The advantage of this format is that the themes encourage the observer to
keep paying attention to various aspects of the classroom, and, if necessary,
to consider what is not happening as well as what is taking place. It may
also help with preparing written feedback, if the themes that are used are
required on the feedback form. The drawbacks are that it involves a little
more jumping around (whether on paper or on screen), allows less room
for distinguishing between description and interpretation, and doesn’t
correspond so closely to the format that lesson plans tend to take. For these
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 reasons it is helpful to add the time to each new comment that you write, so
Observing teaching and learning

that you can read your notes chronologically later, if you need to.

Time Lesson planning Time Classroom management

Time Use of learning resources Time Subject knowledge

6

Time Supporting learners Time Thoughts, questions, comments

Figure 6.2: Theme-based observation template

Regardless of the format you decide to use for your notes (and many
institutions will provide their own template), notes are very much a first
draft of your observations, written for your own use. So they will be
written quickly, they may include abbreviations or your own shorthand,
and will need editing and refining before they reach trainees as feedback
(see Chapter 8).
Handwriting vs typing – the volume of notes in some observations,
particularly CELTA-style teaching practice where there are two or three
teachers being observed, can make handwriting notes challenging. Chia
Suan Chong explains that when she’s observing CELTA lessons ‘after two
hours of nonstop frantic scribbling, my hand starts to hurt’ (Chong, 2012,
p. 54), and that’s certainly true for us too. So we prefer to type notes – if
you can touch type then it is faster, if the lesson plan has been submitted
digitally you can annotate that, and typed notes are usually easier for your
trainees and co-trainers to read. Nevertheless, there’s nothing wrong with
writing by hand if that’s what you prefer, and some trainees may be happier
not to hear the sound of your fingers on a keyboard while they teach.
Moving around – it is useful to be able to stand up and move so as to get a
better sense of what students are doing and how much they have understood,
for example during a speaking activity or a written exercise. Many students
are adept at appearing to be on task and/or appearing to be keeping up with
the lesson, even when they are not, and it is often only by actually looking at
their work that the true extent of their understanding (or misunderstanding)
can be assessed. The teacher should be monitoring in this way too, of course,

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and you can only evaluate the effectiveness of a teacher’s monitoring skills

6
if you are also able to monitor student work (teachers may be as adept as

Observing teaching and learning

their students when it comes to appearing to monitor – we’ve seen plenty of
‘pseudo-monitoring’, or ‘cocktail monitoring’ as one colleague described it!).
Try to be as discreet as possible when moving around the room so as not to
distract students or undermine the teacher’s role as ‘the boss’.

Preservice course observations

You will be assessing trainees according to the course assessment criteria,
so you will need to have a good grasp of those before the observation itself,
and some will be more relevant than others depending on which stage of
the course the observation takes place at. Your training centre may have
a template for recording feedback that incorporates the criteria, which
can be helpful. We tend to find, however, that we just glance at these
during the lesson and only make decisions about the achievement of each
criterion once the lesson is over – more on this in Chapter 7.
The trainees observing the lesson alongside you should be completing an
observation task, but there may be times when you want to focus their
attention towards something in the lesson that isn’t related to the task.
Post-it notes, which you can pass to one trainee to pass to the others are
one way of doing this. If your trainees are using laptops you can use
instant messaging software to do this, and they may be able to share ideas
related to their observation tasks, too.
Finally, on rare occasions you may need to intervene to end a lesson
so that the next teacher(s) gets their full-time allocation. On even rarer
occasions you may need to step into the role of teacher yourself if a trainee
doesn’t show up!

CASE STUDY 6.8: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

I do think that you have to be ready for anything when you’re observing!
Our trainees team teach their classes, so in most observed lessons there
will be three trainees teaching, one after the other. I remember once, when
I hadn’t been a trainer very long, the first teacher was coming to the end of
her slot, and the trainee due to teach next still hadn’t appeared. So I had to
borrow a copy of the coursebook from another of the trainees, and step in
to teach that part of the lesson, before returning to my chair to observe the
third part! It has happened again since then; I think that some trainees find
the idea of teaching overwhelming at first and just panic.

During peer and apprenticeship observations

For observations of this kind it may be more difficult to structure an
account of the lesson, or events that seem notable. If a task has been
provided (and it should be if the observation has been organised as part
of a course) it should provide a structured way of recording responses.
Figure 6.3 shows a simple example of an observation task that does this.
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 Classroom observation

Observation task 9: error and correction

Observing teaching and learning

Note down any instances of learner error, the teacher’s response (if any) and the learner’s response, e.g.,
self-correction.

Learner’s error Teacher’s response Learner’s response

................................................................ ................................................................ ................................................................

................................................................ ................................................................ ................................................................

................................................................ ................................................................ ................................................................

Figure 6.3: An observation task (from Thornbury & Watkins, 2007)

Observation task 10: planning and staging
Observe a lesson without knowing in advance how it was planned. As you observe the lesson, note the
Ifmain
thestages.
observation has been arranged more informally, such as in Moses’
6

case, then the following four-column table works well:

Is there a clear division into stages? For example, is there a beginning, middle and end?
•
• How is each new stage signalled?
• What is the aim of each stage?
• If possible, after the lesson compare your impression of the lesson’s
[Observation design with
Standout the teacher’s
thoughts /
TimeWhat
plan. (mins) What’s
differences happening
were there? focus] questions

Observation task 11: boardwork

Note down at what points in the lesson the teacher uses the board.
• Are there clearly differentiated boardwork stages, or is the board used intermittently
throughout the lesson?
• What is written on the board? And where? How legible is it?
• Do the learners copy what is written on the board?
• If possible, ask to look at a learner’s book at the end of the lesson, and see if the learner’s
record of the lesson is an accurate summary of the lesson. To what extent is the learner’s
record of the lesson a reflection of the boardwork?
Figure 6.4: An informal observation task
Observation task 12: time-on-task

During management observations

Draw a pie-chart to show the proportion of time-on-task.
• How much time is spent leading up to tasks (including pre-teaching, giving instructions,
In etc.)?
order for teachers to be judged fairly and transparently there should
• How much time do the learners spend engaged on the tasks?
probably betime
• How much a standard
is spent onobservation template
the post-task phase that clarifies
(e.g. checking, which
reporting areas are
back, etc.)?
being scrutinised. The role of the observer is then to look for evidence of
achievement in each area and complete the template with that evidence,
which ought to be relayed to the teacher as part of the post-observation
feedback process. This is not unlike the assessment that Marie carries out
in her role as a CELTA tutor. As a manager, Carmen will need to justify
her decisions to the teacher very carefully because there is a lot riding
on the observation for the staff members she observes. What she must
avoid is any sense that her evaluations of teaching and learning are based
188 on her personal preferences. Instead, they must be clearly linked to the
effectiveness of the teaching she sees.
Besides the decisions and actions taken by the teacher during the
observed lesson, managers may notice things in the classroom that are of
interest to them in relation to institutional decision making, such as how
students react to course materials. These insights can be valuable, but
it is important that they are kept separate from the notes relating to the
teacher’s performance. A separate document should be used to jot down
points that can be explored later.
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As in other forms of observation, managers should be a discreet presence

6
in the classroom so as not to undermine teachers. They should also model

Observing teaching and learning

the kind of behaviour they would expect from their staff when observing.
On occasions, we have seen managers send text messages and emails
during lessons, and even answer phone calls. Needless to say, this is an
unacceptable distraction – observing effectively requires your full attention.

Managing observation challenges

Observing lessons is fascinating and immensely enjoyable, but it is also
surprisingly hard work and presents a number of challenges. Let’s look at
some of the main ones.

Looking for learning

In television cooking competitions, the contestants are often observed as
they cook, not just by the cameras but by the judges who decide who wins
and who goes home empty-handed. You’ll often see the judges speak to
the contestants about what they’re making and why, and then give their
thoughts to us, the viewers, as we watch the dishes being created – in
fact, that’s usually what makes up most of the show. But the real test for
the contestants, and the point at which the judges make up their minds, is
when the finished dishes are tasted. It is what ends up on the plate – the
food itself – that is the key determinant of success or failure, not what the
judges see in the kitchen. Nevertheless, the judges observe the contestants
at work in order to understand why the food turns out the way it does, and
that means they can recognise mistakes when they happen, as well as high
levels of cooking ability.
In a similar way, there should be an outcome or ‘end product’ to teaching:
better student learning. So an observer is not only looking at the teacher
in the classroom, but at the students and whether or not they are learning
anything. The proof of the pudding, as they say, is in the eating – any
judgement on the effectiveness of the teacher’s practice rests primarily on
the learning outcomes that are observed. Hence the title of this chapter: it
is not enough to observe teaching, we need to observe learning too.
The first problem for observers, then, is that learning, and language
learning in particular, is not easily observed because it is a tacit, complex,
non-linear process – we can’t see what is going on inside the learners’
heads. The solution is to look for more visible signs that learning might be
happening, such as whether learners are:

• engaged and actively participating in the lesson

• completing activities and tasks as instructed by the teacher
• making meaningful, relevant contributions when called upon
• asking questions to clarify their understanding of lesson content
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 • attempting to use target language
Observing teaching and learning

• getting feedback and acting on it to improve their performance

Of course, looking for these means observing learners more than observing
the teacher.

Filtering out classroom ‘noise’

The second challenge for observers is the difficulty of gathering useful,
objective observations from the enormous number of interactions and
micro-events taking place at any given moment in a classroom. Focusing
on the teacher alone could easily lead to pages of notes from an observed
6

lesson, but when you begin to focus on students as well it is impossible

to pay attention to everything or everyone. Classroom events are as much
social and emotional as they are technical or pedagogic. John MacBeath
describes classrooms as ‘a living laboratory of human behaviour . . .
rivalries, collusion, power struggles, strategic task avoidance, subversive
ploys as well as learning moments, flashes of insight, congratulation
and reward‘ (MacBeath, 2013, p. 3). And as we saw in our discussion of
critical incidents in Chapter 3, even the least notable classroom events can
reveal profound insights about the dynamics of teaching and learning. As
an observer, trying to make sense of all this in an unfamiliar classroom
can be a bit like trying to pick up the threads of a soap opera you’ve
never watched before, while also being tasked with evaluating teaching
and learning!
This is one reason why observation tasks are so important for the success
of peer observations. One strategy for trainers (who don’t get to work
from observation tasks!) is to select a handful of students to focus on
when you first enter the room, and try to track their progress through the
lesson. It’s easy to notice the most able students, and the most disruptive
ones, but try also to pay attention to students who seem to be struggling
or not participating and those who are somewhere in the middle. What is
important is to be able to balance your view of the class as a whole with
your observations of individuals, whose performance during the lesson
may or may not be representative of the whole group.

The Hawthorne effect

One of the upsides for teachers of being observed (beyond the professional
learning benefits) can be the reaction from students who, wanting to
ensure the process is as positive as possible for you, are on their ‘best
behaviour’ throughout. Endearing though this is, it doesn’t represent
the way the classroom normally works, which is what observers tend to
be interested in. Similarly, it is sometimes obvious when observing that
a teacher has made changes to their usual way of doing things, again
meaning that the observer isn’t seeing a representative sample of teaching
and learning in that class. These are both examples of the Hawthorne

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effect – the idea that people modify their behaviour when they are being

6
observed (or when they think they are).

Observing teaching and learning

This phenomenon makes life particularly difficult for observers because
classroom observation is often high-stakes, with conclusions about a
teacher’s general practice (dozens of hours of teaching week after week)
made on the basis of relatively little data (one hour of teaching or less).
If what observers see doesn’t correspond to the reality of the day-to-day
classroom, then those conclusions will be inaccurate, and may lead to the
wrong interventions being made. It’s also frustrating as an observer to see
a lesson that you feel has been ‘staged’.
The more you are able to observe a class, therefore, the better, because the
Hawthorne effect should diminish as your presence becomes less novel.
Another way of modifying the effect is to complement in-person observations
with video recordings of lessons, although the presence of a camera can also
have an effect. The most important consequence of the Hawthorne effect is
in your feedback, when you should attempt to find out how representative
the observed lesson was of the teacher’s practice in general (see Chapter 8).

Staying objective
Teachers aren’t the only ones who are susceptible to traps set by the mind
when it finds itself in the observation room. There are various cognitive
biases that can distort an observer’s perception of what’s happening too.
These include:

• The halo effect – when the observer evaluates a teacher favourably

because they made a positive impression in ways not pertinent to the
observation, for example in how they dress, how they speak, what they
look like, and so on. It can work the other way round, too: an observer
under the influence of a negative halo effect will unfairly evaluate a
lesson because they had a negative impression of one or more traits not
relevant to the lesson itself. A similar effect may result from observing
a string of poor (in terms of assessment criteria) lessons in a single
sitting, so that a subsequent lesson in the same sitting appears much
better than it really was (or the other way round).
• Anchoring – the over-dependence of an evaluation or decision on
evidence presented early on. For example, an observer may form a
negative judgement of a teacher’s overall competence very quickly
as the result of an altercation with a student early in the lesson, even
though most other aspects of the lesson are carried out effectively.
• Confirmation bias – the inclination to look for data that confirms
what you already believe. For an observer, this might lead to a skewed
evaluation of a lesson as certain classroom events are highlighted at
the expense of others because they confirm pre-existing ideas about the

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 teacher, perhaps based on previous observations, or reports from other
Observing teaching and learning

observers of previous observations.

Another cognitive phenomenon – though not necessarily a bias – that

can affect classroom observation is inattentional blindness, in which
significant events aren’t perceived because the observer’s attention is
directed elsewhere. This was famously illustrated by an experiment in
which half the participants failed to notice a person in a gorilla costume
walk across the screen in a short video they were asked to watch (Simons
& Chabris, 1999).
The lesson to be drawn from these potential pitfalls is that all observers
6

are fallible and the best way to mitigate against observational errors is
to focus on describing classroom events as thoroughly and objectively
as possible, leaving interpretation and evaluation for after the lesson.
As we’ve mentioned above, a good rule of thumb is to focus most of
your attention on what learners are doing in the lesson, and how they’re
reacting to teaching, rather than focusing on the teacher.

Teacher resistance
As we’ve already described, it is sadly the case that many teachers view
observation very negatively. That may be because the observation is
part of an assessed course and therefore high-stakes, or simply because
the observer is an unfamiliar presence in the classroom, both of which
are understandable sources of anxiety. But a lot of the negativity felt by
teachers towards observation arises because it has been badly conducted.
We have found that for many teachers who feel this way they:

• are often denied a voice in the observation process, e.g., they have no
say over when the observation takes place
• associate observation with being judged (Malderez, 2003), often quite
arbitrarily and without reference to specific criteria
• often get told little, if anything, about the purpose and focus of the
observations they undergo

The result of these shortcomings is that teachers stop engaging in the

observation process. Not to the extent that they refuse to be observed, but
rather by ‘playing safe’ and doing no more than is necessary to complete
the process and emerge unscathed. Clearly, under such circumstances
there is little hope of any professional learning taking place. So it is
essential that observers aim to engender trust in their relations with
teachers. They can do this by being open and transparent about the
observation process, and by giving teachers a meaningful say in how
it operates and in the conclusions that result from it (see Chapter 8).
Unfortunately, institutional requirements of observers (e.g., to rate
teachers as part of appraisal) can severely undermine trust.
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Being aware of all these challenges is the first step towards tackling them,

6
but subsequent steps are really a question of practice. Observation is a

Observing teaching and learning

training skill and it can be learned, but that learning process will benefit
from reflection, both alone and with other observers.

TASK 6.4
. . . To trainer
Theresa is going to teach an online lesson and has asked
Peter to observe her for development purposes (see Task 6.2
for the pre-observation discussion).
Spend some time reading through Theresa’s lesson plan on
page 239. Then, scan the QR Code and watch the video of the
lesson. Make notes on what you observe. When you have finished,
compare your notes with Peter’s in the Notes on tasks section.
For notes see page 229

Preparing for feedback

Having collected your observation data from the classroom, it’s time to put
it to use. You will need to shape your notes and any other data you have
gathered into useful feedback for the teacher, both written and spoken.
That process is detailed in Chapter 8, but one of the most helpful things
you can do for yourself is to try and schedule some free time after any
observations that you conduct. You will need a short break – observing
is tiring – but you can also use that time to go over your notes, recap the
lesson, and begin to decide on the key points for feedback. You may be
unable to make that time (your course timetable may not allow for it, and
sometimes there’s no option but to go and teach a lesson immediately after
observing), but it is much more difficult to remember details from a lesson
you’ve observed even an hour after doing something else.
Observations, as a form of teacher education, can and should be evaluated.
So as you gain experience of observing teachers do reflect on your
practices before, during and after the observed lesson. You should be able
to find ways to improve the speed and efficiency of the notes you make, to
help teachers feel more informed and confident about the process, and to
manage the set-up of observed lessons more effectively.

Summary
In this chapter we’ve seen that observations take place for a range of
different purposes, and that those purposes influence what the observer
will look for, and how the observation cycle will play out. Nevertheless,

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 there are some principles that hold regardless of the purpose of the
Observing teaching and learning

observation. First of all, the onus is on the observer to collect objective

data from the lesson in order to support feedback or teacher reflection.
Secondly, in most cases, that data will relate to student learning, and so the
observer’s attention will tend to be on what students are doing, rather than
on the teacher. Finally, it is essential to conduct the whole observation
cycle on the basis of a trusting relationship between teacher and observer,
acknowledging how difficult it can be to have an observer in the room
while teaching.

TRAINER VOICES
6

Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Observation

habits’ and ‘Structuring observation notes’ to hear how
trainers put the principles we’ve looked at into practice in
their own observations. Which trainer’s practices do you
think would suit you best?

TO FIND OUT MORE

Eken, D. K., Çeltek, S., & Bosson, A. (2015). Observation-related professional
development. ET Professional, 98, 53–56. (Offers practical advice on how to
run various types of developmental observation.)
Wajnryb, R. (1992). Classroom observation tasks. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press. (Provides numerous observation tasks for peer or
apprenticeship observations.)

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7 Assessing teaching

Here we consider:
• What we mean by assessment in teacher training
• The different reasons for assessing teachers
• The assessment process
• Assessing the Professional, the Practical and the Personal
• Challenges posed by assessment for trainers and how to
overcome them

Every teacher is different and so in a sense you're assessing the

teacher to see if they're the best teacher that they can be.
Scott, teacher trainer, Spain

Very often the main way of discovering what teachers know and can
do is through classroom observation, which is why we are discussing
assessment alongside chapters on observation and feedback. However,
there are other ways of assessing teaching beyond lesson observation, and
it’s important to understand when to use them.

Defining assessment in teacher training

The word assessment tends to conjure up images of tests, but teachers are
usually the ones marking test papers, not sitting them. Nevertheless, there
was a time when assessment of teachers looked very similar to the tests
you will have given the students in your classes: for example, the original
Certificate of Proficiency in English (CPE) exam that appeared in 1913
(now C2 Proficiency, the highest of the Cambridge English Qualifications)
was intended for those who planned to go on to teach English (Weir &
Saville, 2015). In many countries to this day, the main qualification for
becoming an English teacher is a degree in philology, so in language
teaching the idea of content knowledge as a proxy for teaching ability
has been hard to shake. It is not entirely without merit – assessment of
teachers can be test-based (as in TKT or the Delta Module One exam) – but
there are other ways of assessing teaching, too. Let’s begin exploring them
by considering how one trainer assesses her trainees.

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 CASE STUDY 7.1: WENDY, CELTA TRAINER
Assessing teaching

On the CELTA course that I help to deliver, we assess the trainees

throughout, and on the basis of those assessments they are awarded a
grade at the end of the course. When I first started as a CELTA tutor I very
much thought of ‘assessment’ as observing lessons, but I now see that
aspect as one part of a bigger picture of assessment. On CELTA, that bigger
picture is represented by the portfolio that trainees have to put together,
7

which includes things like the record of attendance, all the trainee’s lesson
plans and handouts, TP (‘teaching practice’, in other words, observed
lessons) feedback, and all their assignments and feedback comments on
those. So there’s a range of different kinds of evidence being collected and
assessed all through the course – it is a big job! But it needs to be so that
we can get an accurate picture of each trainee’s teaching ability.

Assessment of teaching takes place in many ways and in many different

contexts, but the situation that Wendy describes in relation to her CELTA
courses is a useful example because it embodies many of the main
issues that you will need to consider when you come to assess teachers
and trainees.
The aim of teacher assessment is neatly encapsulated in Wendy’s stated
goal: to get an accurate picture of each trainee’s teaching ability at a point
in time. This is not as straightforward as it sounds, for two reasons. First
of all, because that picture will always have to be built up from limited
evidence – a handful of observations, some lesson plans, lesson reflections,
and so on. It simply isn’t practical to collect and examine data of that kind
in significant quantities. And secondly, teaching ability is a combination
of knowing and doing, as we saw in Chapter 1. Wendy has to assess
what trainees understand and demonstrate at the levels of Knowing about,
Knowing how and Knowing to. As Jo-Ann Delaney explains, ‘in a sense, we
are looking at teachers’ knowing and doing and attempting to assess both
and, as assessors, make decisions about what this tells us in a more holistic
way about the teacher’s ability to teach effectively’ (Delaney, 2019, p. 386).

Purposes of assessment
TASK 7.1
From teacher . . .
Think about the times that you have been assessed in your teaching career.
What was the purpose of each assessment?

There is a small number of very common purposes for assessing teachers.

The first, exemplified by Wendy’s case study, is to decide whether they
have met the standard required to be awarded a particular qualification,
such as CELTA, a Master’s degree, or a teaching licence. Qualifications like
these play a gatekeeping role in the teaching world, in that a successful

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assessment means you are ‘let in’ to the teaching profession. Even for

7
teachers who are already practising, qualifications might act as a way in to

Assessing teaching
more senior roles. So this kind of assessment is very common.
A similar kind of assessment is often carried out by institutions who want
to reassure themselves that teachers are meeting certain standards of
classroom practice – a form of quality assurance. This is very common, as
we saw in Chapter 6. It’s similar because it serves to answer a question
posed by the institution, not the teacher. In the case of the gatekeeping
qualifications mentioned above, the question is ‘Does this person meet the
minimum requirements to work as a teacher?’, while in a quality assurance
setting it becomes ‘Does this person continue to meet the minimum
requirements to work as a teacher here?’ These two purposes intersect
when a teacher applies for a job – to answer the second question before
hiring a teacher, the institution has to rely on the answer to the first one.
Assessment should also be able to answer questions posed by teachers
themselves, however. Those questions are most likely to be ‘What am I
doing well in my teaching?’ and ‘What can I do better?’, both of which can
be used to inform future professional learning. But we also get personal
and professional satisfaction when assessments of our teaching are
positive, whether that’s in the form of encouraging feedback after a lesson
observation, or a certificate that demonstrates we’ve reached a certain
level of professional expertise.
Students make assessments of teaching when they ask questions such as
‘Do I want to continue paying for this course?’ or ‘Would I be better off
in that afternoon class that my friend is in?’ They may also be invited to
assess teaching once their course has ended, with a feedback questionnaire
from the institution – we’ve found that this is particularly common in the
tertiary-level institutions we have worked with.
Finally, we have our own questions as trainers: ‘What impact did my
training have on my trainees’ teaching?’ or ‘What impact did my training
have on student learning?’ and like teachers, we want to know what
teaching practices to focus on with our trainees in the future. We’ve
already considered these questions to some extent when discussing
evaluation in Chapter 4, and there is significant overlap in the processes of
evaluation and assessment. Very often the assessments undertaken for the
purposes above are the only form of evaluation on a programme or course
(Malderez & Wedell, 2007), so these questions that trainers have about the
impact of their work are answered using the results of the other forms of
assessment mentioned above.

The assessment process

An accurate picture of each teacher’s ability is therefore very important,
because it may be used as the basis of very significant decisions by various
parties. Accordingly, ‘the assessment of teaching needs to be done with

137
 care, and must be valid, transparent and fair’ (Rossner, 2013, p. 121). A
Assessing teaching

good way of achieving that benchmark is to assess teachers from multiple

viewpoints, using evidence gathered at different times, in different ways,
by different people. One form of evidence might be a paper-based test, as
we’ve already mentioned, but in itself that would give us a very narrow
perspective of a teacher’s abilities. The solution is to build up a more
complete picture of a teacher’s abilities by combining that test result with
7

evidence gathered in other ways, such as observation, or lesson planning.

In Chapter 6 we presented a view of observation as a process of data
gathering, and assessment, whether through observation or through other
means, is a similar process. There are some important differences, though.
Two definitions of assessment help to highlight how it goes beyond simply
data gathering:
Assessment is a process which involves gathering evidence of
some kind on which to base judgements (Malderez & Wedell,
2007, p. 146).
Our definition of assessment . . . refers to a process of inquiry
that integrates multiple sources of evidence, whether or not
test based, to support an interpretation, decision or action
(Moss, Girard, & Haniford, 2006, p. 152).
So while observation alone might be a process of data gathering, a single
observation is unlikely to provide enough evidence for an assessment.
Even several observations will still leave gaps in our view of what the
teacher is capable of that only other forms of evidence (such as tests or
written assignments) can fill. Lee Shulman described this collection of
different kinds of evidence that we can use for assessment as ‘a union
of insufficiencies’ (Shulman, 1988) because they only provide adequate
coverage of teaching ability when considered jointly. Each piece of the
puzzle reveals something different about the teacher’s abilities, but no
piece gives us the full picture.
The other theme to draw from our two definitions of assessment is the
idea of making a judgement or an interpretation. To make judgements
consistently and fairly, data gathering alone is not enough. We need to
collect the same data for each trainee, and measure or compare our data
against a benchmark in order to make a judgement. For that purpose,
we use assessment criteria, which for a qualification such as CELTA are
produced by the exam board, Cambridge Assessment English. Other
criteria frameworks are publicly available, such as The European Profiling
Grid (https://egrid.epg-project.eu), which describes language teaching
competences at six different levels of expertise. Assessing each teacher
is therefore a process of comparing the evidence that has been collected
with each criterion and deciding if it has been fulfilled. In discussing
assessment, we are referring to evidence instead of data because it is
evidence of a particular skill or area of knowledge that has been deemed
relevant and important by the assessment criteria.
138
 CASE STUDY 7.2: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

7
Assessing teaching
I would say that it took me a little while to see the bigger picture when it
comes to assessment on the CELTA. When I started as a trainer I looked
at observation of teaching practice as one thing I had to do, marking
assignments as a separate thing, tutorials as another, and so on. But they
are all part of how each trainee is assessed, and each one contributes
something different to the overall assessment of a trainee. The problem, I think,
is that each element can be quite challenging to get to grips with initially,
and I certainly found that things got a lot easier once I was familiar with
the criteria – I don’t have to think about them so much now because I have
been through them so often. So I think my advice would be to familiarise
yourself with the assessment criteria as soon as you can, and remember that
they all contribute to the overall goal of assessing each trainee.

What remains relevant to teacher assessment is the distinction we made in

earlier chapters between the Personal, the Professional and the Practical.
The evidence that we draw on to assess what teachers are able to do needs
to have a certain level of completeness to be valid, transparent and fair
in the way that Rossner demands. We need to make sure our ‘union of
insufficiencies’ covers everything that it needs to cover to form the basis
of a valid assessment. We can use the three Ps to do that. When assessing
teachers we want to gather evidence of:

• the Practical – what the teacher does, both in the classroom, and in
planning or assessing students
• the Professional – the concepts, terms and research insights that the
teacher knows and is able to put into practice
• the Personal – the teacher’s ability to self-reflect on their teaching and
on their learning in order to make future improvements

TASK 7.2
. . . To trainer
What methods can you think of to gather evidence of teaching ability?
(Some have already been mentioned, such as observation, written test,
written assignment).
Categorise your list according to whether each method of assessment relates
principally to the Personal, the Professional or the Practical.
For notes see page 230

Assessing the Professional

We’ve previously outlined the Professional as the body of concepts,
research insights and terminology that inform effective practice and that
we would expect well-qualified professionals to be familiar with. The

139
 Professional is related to the understanding of terms and concepts, so it
Assessing teaching

can be assessed outside the classroom, which can be helpful in practical

terms because it means that observations don’t need to be arranged, and
assessment methods can be applied to large numbers of teachers at once.
Very broadly the kind of knowledge that is of relevance here involves two
main areas: language awareness and pedagogy.
Language awareness, or knowledge about language (Bartels, 2009) is
7

knowledge of language skills and systems, such as grammar and writing,

how languages are acquired, and how they are used. This is not the
same as being proficient in the language (although that is a prevalent
misconception). Knowledge about language might be described as the
content of language teaching (Freeman, McBee Orzulak, & Morrissey,
2009) or knowing what to teach. Pedagogy, on the other hand, is knowledge
of techniques, methods, approaches – knowing how to teach.
The way that teachers demonstrate this knowledge in their professional
lives is in the act of teaching: in the lessons they design, the decisions
and interactions they have in the classroom, and the feedback they give
their students. Assessment of this knowledge necessarily overlaps with
assessment of the Practical, therefore – ‘the practice elements [in the
assessment of teaching] should evidence an underpinning knowledge
of both language and language pedagogy‘ (Delaney, 2019, p. 389). So
the distinction we are making here, between knowledge of language
and methodology as the Professional, and the ability to implement that
knowledge in the classroom as the Practical, does not fully represent
what teachers know about teaching. This is because successfully enacting
knowledge of content and methodology takes place in context, and so
further knowledge is needed:
If L2 teachers are to successfully use knowledge of the perfect
aspect [for example] for giving students feedback, they need to
possess knowledge of more relevant factors than universal grammar,
acquisition orders, and other linguistic related factors. In addition,
they must also understand how social, emotional, technical, and
local factors in their particular classrooms [emphasis added] aid or
hinder students’ use of such feedback.
(Bartels, 2009, p. 127)
The practical reality, however, is that while a lot of what teachers know
can be observed in the classroom, much teaching knowledge cannot be
observed (Rossner, 2013) and it would be impractical to assess the full
breadth of trainees’ language awareness by observing them, since most
lessons deal with only a limited area of target language.
Certificate and diploma qualifications therefore tend to incorporate
assessment of the Professional in various forms, which include purely
theoretical assessments alongside more practically-oriented tasks. The

140
Delta Module One exam paper, for example, begins with a task in which

7
trainees have to provide terms for given definitions – testing pure content

Assessing teaching
knowledge (Figure 7.1).
2

Task One (6 marks) Task Three

Provide the term for each definition. The extract fo

Write your answers in your answer booklet. Provide only one answer per question.

An int
a the verbal signals given by the listener to indicate interest, attention, surprise etc. world
shoul
e.g. really, uh-huh, yeah
• W
b a test employing tasks which replicate real-life activities e.g. role-playing a job interview, writing a • W
letter of complaint, or reading and completing an application form
Write
c using the medium of English to teach a subject such as geography, natural science or history, to
learners whose first language is not English

d a verb which does not take an object e.g. He arrived early

e a consonant sound in which the air flow is initially stopped, but is then released slowly with friction In order to co
e.g. /tß/ key language

f a word which has the same pronunciation as another word but a different spelling and meaning • report
e.g. see and sea use of
• educa
Figure 7.1: From the Delta Handbook for Tutors and Candidates (answers to the task
are a backchannelling, b direct test, c content and language integrated learning,
d intransitive verb, e affricate, f homophone) Identify a tota
Provide an ex

Tasklater
But Two in(12 themarks)
same exam, trainees are required to complete tasks that
are much
Provide moreand
a definition clearly pedagogical,
an appropriate suchor as
brief example evaluating
illustration a ofpiece
for each of learner
the terms below.
writing or analysing a piece of teaching material. The CELTA also assesses Write your an
Write your answers in your answer booklet.
aspects of the Professional on a spectrum from theoretical to practical.
For example, there is an assignment focusing specifically on language
awareness, again assessing content knowledge, but trainees are also
a compound words
expected to demonstrate their grasp of language in the lesson plans they
b genre
prepare and in the lessons they subsequently teach.
c stative verb

Assessing the Practical

d proficiency test

The extract is
The Practical, for the purposes of assessment, is concerned with what
teachers do as part of their professional lives, mostly teaching lessons. It
tends to be more heavily weighted than the Professional and the Personal,
and Delaney (2019) points out that to earn a grade beyond pass in CELTA,
trainees need to meet criteria that relate solely to planning and teaching.
In accordance with what we have said above, however, assessing the
Practical isn’t just about assessing doing, it’s also a question of seeing
what teachers’ actions reveal about the things they know (and don’t know)
in terms of content and methodology. For example, in order to ‘focus on
language items in the classroom by clarifying relevant aspects of meaning

141
 and form (including phonology) for learners to an appropriate degree of
Assessing teaching

depth’, which is a CELTA criterion, trainees need knowledge of language

and knowledge of how it can be presented in order to successfully practise
this teaching skill. So although assessment of that criterion is practical in
nature (observation), it is assessment of knowledge as well as practice.
Observation is the main tool for assessing the Practical, and the process
of observation usually encompasses lesson planning as well as teaching,
7

so planning is assessed at the same time. Some practical skills can be

assessed in other ways, in the way that the Delta exam requires teachers
to evaluate student output, but the main principle is of validity – to assess
what teachers do, you need to see them doing it – so observation is by far
the most desirable method of assessing the Practical. It is the way that the
following CELTA criteria are assessed, for example (Table 7.1).

Table 7.1: CELTA criteria that are assessed through lesson observation

Demonstrate professional competence as teachers by:

1. a teaching a class with an awareness of the needs and interests of the
learner group
b teaching a class with an awareness of learning styles and cultural
factors that may affect learning
c acknowledging, when necessary, learners’ backgrounds and previous
learning experiences
d establishing good rapport with learners and ensuring they are fully
involved in learning activities

These criteria are phrased in such a way that they would be very difficult
to assess without seeing a trainee teaching, and a skill such as establishing
rapport with learners really can’t be demonstrated in any other way.
The drawback of observation as an assessment tool is that it is time-
consuming and labour-intensive. As a result, there is usually quite limited
assessment of practical teaching skills in most courses – in the CELTA it
is six teaching hours per trainee, and in Delta only around four teaching
hours. The same might be said of other practical skills that are, by their
nature, more elaborate: curriculum development is one example. The
principle of assessing the performance of the skill is still important, but
developing a course curriculum takes a long time, so in Delta Module
Three, in which this skill is assessed, trainees produce only one curriculum
for assessment.
Because there isn’t a great deal of assessed practice on most courses,
what little there is becomes high-stakes, and trainees often become very
nervous. Demystifying the assessment of teaching by explaining to trainees
how they will be assessed is an important way of mitigating nerves – this
is discussed further below.

142
Assessing the Personal

7
Assessing teaching
In Chapters 2 and 3 we described the Personal as a teacher’s beliefs,
assumptions, knowledge and experience. These are relevant to teacher
learning because they influence the decisions that teachers make in the
classroom and when planning or assessing learners, but they also influence
the way in which trainees understand and absorb new ideas. That’s true
of completely new ideas, presented in a training session (Knowing about),
but it’s also true of insights that might arise during teaching, as a teacher
works out how to put prior learning into practice (Knowing how / Knowing
to). So assessing the Personal is a question of assessing teachers’ ability
to understand and evaluate their own decision making and learning
processes – it’s not about assessing their experience or beliefs per se, since
these are unique to each teacher and only indirectly relevant to their
effectiveness as practitioners.
Generally, we refer to this ability as ‘reflection’, or ‘reflective practice’,
and we alluded to it in Chapter 1 when we discussed the unending
curiosity that teachers need to have if they are to reach adaptive expertise.
Reflection is the principal way in which teachers make sense of Knowing
about and translate it into more practical knowledge, so it is a prerequisite
for professional learning (Mann, 2005) and an important skill to assess. In
assessing the Personal we are trying to assess ‘the heart of teaching, the
capacity for intelligent and adaptive action’ (Shulman & Shulman, 2004,
p. 263).
The relevant assessment criteria from CELTA and Delta, shown in
Table 7.2, reflect this and show how reflective practice can be split into
component skills. Typically, some of these component skills focus on
evaluating past actions, while others are centred on the developmental
measures needed to improve teaching outcomes in the future.
Table 7.2: Assessment of the Personal on CELTA and Delta

CELTA Planning and Trainees should show convincingly that they can:
teaching
º prepare and plan for the effective teaching
of adult ESOL learners by reflecting on and
evaluating their plans in light of the learning
process and suggesting improvements for
future plans
º demonstrate professional competence as
teachers by noting their own teaching strengths
and weaknesses in different teaching situations
in light of feedback from learners, teachers and
teacher educators
º demonstrate professional competence as
teachers by participating in and responding
to feedback

143
Assessing teaching
Classroom- Trainees can demonstrate their learning by:
related written
º noting their own teaching strengths and
assignments weaknesses in different situations in light of
feedback from learners, teachers and teacher
educators
º identifying which ELT areas of knowledge and
skills they need further development in
º describing in a specific way how they might
7

develop their ELT knowledge and skills beyond

the course
Delta 5a Language Trainees demonstrate that they can effectively:
(Module Systems
º reflect on and evaluate their own planning,
Two) and Skills teaching and the learners’ progress as
Assignments evidenced in this lesson
º identify key strengths and weaknesses in
planning and execution
º explain how they will consolidate/follow on from
the learning achieved in the lesson
5b Professional Successful trainees can focus on their professional
Development development by:
Assignment:
º selecting some key strengths and weaknesses
Reflection and in their teaching practices and providing a
Action rationale for their selection (2a)
º selecting approaches/procedures/techniques/
materials to use to address the issues identified
in 2a above (2b)
º critically evaluating the effectiveness of the
selected approaches/procedures/techniques/
materials (2c)
º critically evaluating the effectiveness of
methods and/or documents they have selected
to gather data to allow them to focus on their
teaching practices (2d)
º providing an appropriate action plan to
promote their professional development (2e)
º critically reflecting on their teaching practices and
beliefs during the course of this assignment (2f)
5b Professional Successful trainees can focus on the topic by:
Development
º justifying the selected approaches/procedures/
Assignment: techniques/materials with reference to the
Experimental teaching context, the specific group of learners
Practice and their own professional development
º evaluating the success or otherwise of the
experiment with reference to the planned aims
and outcomes for both the learners and the
teacher

144
 7
TASK 7.3

Assessing teaching
. . . To trainer
The most common way of recording teachers’ reflections is to have them write
them down, but many trainees find this challenging.
1. Can you think why written reflection might present a challenge for some
trainees?
2. Can you think of any other ways in which teachers might be able to reflect
that might help to stimulate more ideas?
For notes see page 231

Teachers tend to demonstrate this kind of professional self-awareness in

their day-to-day work in fairly informal ways. We may think about what
happened in our lessons during the journey home from school, or discuss
events from the classroom with colleagues or friends in the staffroom
or at home. And although these are informal ways of demonstrating an
understanding of our own teaching and professional development, they
can have profound consequences for future practice and the development
of teaching knowledge.
An informal understanding of how to reflect is a necessary precursor
to more structured, systematic approaches to reflection (Farrell, 2013),
and in order to actually assess the Personal a more formal approach is
needed. That usually means some form of written task, designed to allow
trainees to demonstrate an ability to self-reflect. Almost all the CELTA
and Delta criteria in Table 7.2 have to be met in writing (the exception
is ‘participating and responding to feedback’ which is assessed orally),
so even though teachers can and do reflect on their decisions and their
learning during lessons (what Donald Schön (1983) called ‘reflection-in-
action‘), it is ‘reflection-on-action’ that is assessed, for practical reasons.
The assessment criteria in Table 7.2 relate to the following three examples
of how teachers might be able to demonstrate their reflection skills in
order for the Personal to be assessed. These are taken from the CELTA and
Delta syllabuses, but similar tasks are often set as part of other courses and
qualifications.

1. CELTA and Delta post-lesson reflection – trainees on both courses

are asked to complete written reflections, guided by a template, after
each of their observed lessons. In CELTA (and occasionally on Delta)
these are complemented by group feedback discussions involving the
observed teacher(s), the tutor and other trainees.

145
 2. CELTA assignment 4 and Delta Reflection and Action – in these
Assessing teaching

pieces of work trainees are required to reflect in broad terms on

their strengths and weaknesses as teachers (based on observation
feedback and their own reflections), and to plan development activity
for themselves that will help to remedy some of their weaknesses.
At CELTA (preservice) level this assignment is generally done once,
towards the end of the course, and is relatively brief. At Delta level the
7

assignment spans the length of the course and is made up of three to

four separate entries.
3. Delta Experimental Practice – this is an assignment which involves
each trainee investigating a new area of practice through reading,
practical experimentation in the classroom and reflection on the success
of the experiment(s).

In each of these tasks, trainees’ written reflections are assessed against the
criteria. An honest appraisal of strengths and areas for development will
be expected, and this can be challenging for some trainees who are not
accustomed to describing what they have not done well (although other
trainees find it equally difficult to evaluate themselves positively). There
may also be a linguistic hurdle to overcome for trainees who must write
their reflections in a second language, and this may need to be taken into
consideration as part of assessment. Increasingly, there is a view that trainees
should be allowed to submit written reflection tasks in their first language
in order to enable the most accurate assessment of their skills in this area
(Beaumont, 2019). At the same time, trainers need to be clear that the ability
to talk or write about teaching is not the same as the ability to teach (Delaney,
2019). This is sometimes strikingly evident on in-service courses that involve
several hours of training sessions before trainees are observed – just because
trainees can ‘talk the talk’ does not mean they can ‘walk the walk’!

Managing assessment challenges

If assessing teachers seems difficult, that’s because it is! And that
is particularly true when you are still new to a particular course or
qualification, because part of the challenge is to become familiar with the
standard of teaching represented by the assessment criteria, which can
cover many different areas. Assessment also tends to be time-consuming,
especially when it involves observation, which is a lengthy process,
or when it involves marking individual assignments which have to be
understood in their own terms (rather than, say, test answers which can
be marked much faster). Inevitably, there is usually a lot of paperwork to
deal with too, which adds to the burden on time. But at the heart of the
issue is the fact that teaching is a complex, context-dependent activity that
doesn’t lend itself to simple description. If assessment of teaching is easy,
the results probably aren’t very meaningful.

146
Understanding how the complexity of the classroom relates to the

7
expectations represented by assessment criteria is challenging, but it

Assessing teaching
comes with time and increasing familiarity with applying criteria (and
through standardisation; see below). It is useful to remember that in many
assessment situations you will be able to run your thoughts past a co-
trainer, who can also help to indicate how grade boundaries translate to
classroom action. But technology – specifically video recording – can also
be a help, particularly when it comes to dealing with the issue of filtering
out classroom ‘noise’ that we highlighted in Chapter 6. The demands on a
trainer’s attention during an assessed observation are very high, and so it
is only natural that having the chance to review and recap certain parts of
the lesson on video makes life easier, and thereby increases the reliability
of the assessment (by making more evidence available).

Overcoming inherent limitations of assessment criteria

Inevitably, written criteria are limited in their ability to capture and
describe ‘good teaching’ across the many contexts in which they will be
used. This leads to two problems. First of all, there is a need to make sure
that trainers interpret and apply criteria in the same way, particularly
where a course is delivered by more than one trainer (which is usually
the case). This is because trainees are entitled to know that they will
be assessed in the same way regardless of which trainer is assessing.
Secondly, it is difficult as a trainer working with a set of criteria for the
first time to know precisely what is expected from each trainee in order to
consider that each criterion has been met. A criterion such as ‘monitoring
learners appropriately in relation to the task or activity’ (from CELTA)
can be met to varying degrees and in different ways in different contexts.
Therefore, standardisation is needed so that trainers themselves know
what is considered satisfactory and what is not.
The exact procedures for standardisation can vary, but an approach
used by many institutions is to ask new trainers to mark a lesson
plan or a recording of a lesson that has been kept for the purposes of
standardisation. The marks are then compared with the ‘correct’ marks
that have been agreed by existing trainers, and any discrepancies can
be discussed and explained. The new trainer would then shadow mark
real assessments (whether Practical, Professional or Personal) and
compare their marks to the marks given by the main trainer to ensure the
interpretations of different trainers are as consistent as possible.

Offering guidance for trainees on assessment

We have often observed that trainees don’t seem to have a clear
understanding of the criteria they are being assessed on. This is a pity
because it suggests that they might be able to perform better if they knew
what was expected of them, and because when trainees understand
how they’re being assessed they are better able to evaluate their own

147
 practice once they leave the course. Some trainees also react negatively to
Assessing teaching

assessment, and demystifying it can help them to feel more positive about
observations, exams or assignments.
One of the simplest measures that trainers can take is to set aside time to
share and discuss assessment criteria with trainees at various points in the
course. That is not to say that you should take them through each criterion
one by one, but rather that you should explain the expectations of each
7

assessed part of the course (e.g., assignments, teaching practice, lesson

plans) in terms that the trainees will understand. The criteria themselves
may not always be particularly transparent, especially to preservice
teachers, so it’s important to convey expectations in ways that are more
meaningful, such as during input sessions or in feedback conversations.
The kinds of practices you may have used with your students to develop
learner autonomy are also relevant here: making learning objectives
explicit, encouraging trainees to self-assess using selected criteria, and
referring to criteria explicitly when giving feedback.

Managing tension between assessment and support roles

We’ve discussed the supportive role that trainers need to play in Chapter 5
on mentoring practices, but the role of assessor is quite different, and yet
trainers are generally expected to carry out tasks that encompass both. In
practice, this means giving encouragement, help and advice at some times,
and grades and feedback at other times. This may, unfortunately, create
rather than resolve tension between assessment and teacher development,
and foster feelings of negativity in trainees, particularly about observation.
We feel that it is important to acknowledge both roles and to perform both,
rather than (as often happens) downplaying the role of assessor in order
to engender trust and encourage contributions from participants. Trainees
should know that the tutor’s interpretations of the assessment criteria are
what will underpin assessment decisions, and so those interpretations
should be made explicit, whether that’s during group feedback or at other
points in a course, such as input sessions.
The same tension can arise when trainees are asked to evaluate or
comment on their peers. For many trainees it feels uncomfortable to do
this, because there is an understandable desire to avoid delivering negative
feedback, but also because many trainees believe that the tutor, as the
expert in the room, should be the only one to pass judgement. The result
is that peer feedback is often quite bland (what one of us calls ‘the trainee
appreciation society’), and the sessions themselves can feel awkward, as
trainees guess what the trainer wants to hear.
There are several steps that can be taken to improve this situation,
starting, as mentioned above, with ensuring that trainees have a clear
understanding of the relevant assessment criteria and how they are being
applied. We feel that carefully structured group feedback discussions are
essential, and that the trainer’s questions need careful thought in order
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to encourage a focus on evidence from the classroom and observations of

7
what was effective or not. We discuss this further in Chapter 8. A useful

Assessing teaching
way of circumventing the guessing game nature of some group feedback is
suggested by Delaney (2019): have trainees discuss their feedback without
the trainer present and come to some (anonymous) conclusions, before the
trainer returns to discuss them.

Summary
Assessment processes can seem very familiar, which raises the danger that
we don’t give them the attention they deserve. We’ve all taken dozens of
tests as students, and most of us will have been observed many times in
our teaching careers, so it’s easy to accept these practices and get on with
administering them without thinking very carefully about what they are
meant to achieve. But as with all other areas of teaching, trainers should
understand the principles behind the practices they model, and assessment
is no exception. A rigorous approach is essential to ensure that trainees and
other stakeholders have faith in assessment processes.
Assessing students goes beyond isolated practices or instances of
assessment; the way that assessment is practised and discussed has a
profound impact on the culture of teaching and learning in an institution.
Ideally, it should be seen not as a judgement that is set in stone for
all time, but as a valuable signpost on the road to further learning. In
addition, the process of assessment should help to set teachers up to
self-assess as part of their own development, so that they can continue
to improve their teaching once they leave training: ‘encouraging teachers
to regularly assess their own teaching competences and reflect on these
self-assessments should be an integral part of teacher development‘
(Rossner, 2013, p. 121).

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Assessment
challenges’ and ‘Standardising assessment’ to hear how
trainers ensure that assessment is carried out effectively in
their contexts.

TO FIND OUT MORE

Delaney, J.-A. (2019). Assessment and feedback. In S. Walsh, & S. Mann, The
Routledge Handbook of English Language Teacher Education (pp. 385–401).
Abingdon: Routledge. (This chapter provides a useful summary of the main
issues in assessing language teacher skills and knowledge.)
Wilson, R., & Poulter, M. (2015). Studies in language testing 42: Assessing
language teachers’ professional skills and knowledge. Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press. (This collection of papers deals with language
teacher assessment in detail.)

149
8 Giving feedback on
teaching
Here we consider:
• What we mean by feedback when training teachers
• How to set up and prepare for a feedback meeting
• How to give spoken feedback on teaching
• How to give written feedback on teaching

It’s really important that you allow the teacher time to think and
allow the teacher time to talk.
Peter, teacher trainer, Cyprus

Teacher educator John Fanselow wrote that ‘to teach is to give feedback’
(Fanselow, 1987, p. 267) and there’s an argument that his maxim is just as
applicable to training: feedback is absolutely essential to teacher learning
at the levels of Knowing how and Knowing to, where it leads to sustained
changes in classroom practice.
It can be helpful to think of teachers’ professional learning in terms of
adding effective practices to their teaching, while subtracting habits that
are ineffective or even counterproductive. Teachers can do a great deal
to add effective practices on their own, and you can probably think of
techniques or activities that you were able to include in your own lessons
after hearing about them from a colleague, or in a training session, or
reading about them in a book. But ineffective practices, or ideas bluntly
applied, can be harder for teachers to notice on their own, and feedback
from you, the trainer, then becomes an important factor in improving
teaching. Feedback is a critical part of helping teachers attain adaptive
expertise, developing their professional knowledge from the level of
Knowing about to the levels of Knowing how and Knowing to. Trainers are
not the only potential source of feedback – colleagues and even students
may also be in a position to offer useful insights – but it is an indispensable
part of the trainer’s role and it therefore needs to be carried out effectively.
But of all the skills involved in training teachers, we would argue that
delivering feedback is the most challenging. There’s often a lot at stake,
particularly for practising teachers, and it takes careful preparation and
sensitivity to manage feedback in a way that leads to professional learning
and increased confidence. It’s also an area, unlike delivering sessions
or observing lessons, that benefits less from overlap or analogy with

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 teaching (although there is still some benefit), and so it requires specialist
Giving feedback on teaching

preparation – you need to know what you’re doing when you deliver
feedback. Our experiences of receiving feedback as teachers mean that
we all have ideas about what it usually involves. However, many of those
experiences are not positive, and even for those that are, attempting to
replicate the way that someone else has delivered feedback without an
understanding of how it relates to roles and context may have minimal
impact, or even negative results: ‘to borrow only certain outward features
of the approach without understanding what its real power is would be
like using an airplane only as a car or a sophisticated computer only as a
8

typewriter’ (Blair 1982, p. 103, cited in Gebhard, 1990, p. 161).

So it’s essential to understand the rationale behind each of your options
for delivering feedback, and to choose the most appropriate options
depending on the individual characteristics of each situation. Many of
these characteristics relate to the training habitat (see Chapter 2), and in
this chapter we’ll revisit this idea to examine what elements of the training
habitat are relevant to delivering feedback, and how you can weigh them
up to make the best decisions for your situation.

Defining feedback
We define feedback as the things that we say or write to teachers to
help them develop their knowledge, skills, beliefs and attitudes. It can
be positive, reinforcing existing knowledge and skills, or it can focus on
areas for improvement, and in most cases it should balance both of these.
Sometimes feedback will be quite direct (‘try not to talk to students while
you’re writing on the board with your back to them’) and at other times
it involves helping teachers to reach deeper understandings on their own,
through questioning and elicitation. Sometimes it is given immediately, for
example during a training session, and at other times it is delayed, as is
usually the case when it relates to the observation of real classes.
Feedback on lesson planning and teaching is our focus here, so although
trainers can and do give feedback to trainees on other areas, such as
assignments, or in tutorials, these tend to mirror much more closely the
kinds of feedback that you give to students as a teacher. Feedback on
teaching is rather different because it tends to happen quite infrequently
and therefore takes on considerable significance when it does happen. Any
of the following can involve feedback on teaching:
• meeting before and after a CELTA or Delta-style assessed lesson
• when a manager or director of studies gives feedback after observing a
teacher as part of appraisal
• when teachers observing each other informally meet to discuss a lesson
one of them taught and the other observed

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• a school-based mentor giving feedback to a teacher after being invited

8
to observe a lesson, either for troubleshooting or for more general

Giving feedback on teaching

developmental purposes

Aims of feedback
The ultimate goal of feedback, like all teacher training activity, is improved
classroom practice and, as a result, better learning outcomes for students.
Feedback on teaching, given after an observed lesson, will aim to develop
what the teacher is doing in the classroom, at the levels of Knowing how
and Knowing to.
In many cases feedback aims to improve not just teaching skills, but also
reflection skills (see Chapter 7). That’s because feedback conversations
are an important opportunity to invite teachers to reflect in the presence
of a trainer so that they can be supported in reflecting effectively. Most
teaching takes place without an observer in the room, so it is important
that teachers are able to evaluate their own effectiveness, and feedback
conversations are one of the best ways we can model that evaluation
process. Following evaluation, we want teachers to be able to take
responsibility for decision making upon themselves, whether those
decisions relate to their students’ learning, or to their own. The ideal
endpoint is for teachers to reach a stage where they don’t need an observer
in the room, because they can already perceive what students are doing
and identify the most effective ways to respond:
Teachers should be more than programmed automata
delivering pre-selected material; they should be actively
engaged in critically examining what they do in classrooms.
Thus, the ultimate aim of providing advice is to produce a
teacher or trainee capable of such independence of thought
and action. (Randall & Thornton, 2001, p. 2)
Feedback conversations are therefore critical stepping stones towards
developing adaptive expertise in trainees, and making them evaluative
practitioners.
You may be starting to see the three Ps (see Chapter 2) re-emerge here.
The observed lesson itself, and subsequent discussions of how effective
particular practices were, or which ones might be more effective, are in
the domain of the Practical. The aspects of the feedback conversation
that are designed to support trainees’ noticing and reflection skills cover
the Personal. And although it may not immediately appear relevant, the
Professional also has a role in feedback on teaching. It is through feedback
conversations that teachers learn how we label and talk about classroom
events, and this provides them with the ability to notice and describe what
goes on in the classroom in terms that will enable them to explore external
resources and seek help or inspiration. Dan Lortie explains why this is
so important:

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 [When a beginner teacher] identifies a difficulty, he may
Giving feedback on teaching

request help. But there is a secondhand quality to such

assistance: if the advisor is not someone who regularly visits
the classroom, the teacher must describe the situation. . . .
The beginner’s perceptions and interpersonal skills mediate
between external advice and classroom events; his learning
is limited by his personal resources – the acuity of his
observation and his capacity to take effective action. (Lortie,
1975, p. 73)
Feedback conversations, then, are a way of connecting the Professional
8

elements – the concepts and terms – that teachers have gathered from
elsewhere (training sessions, reading, discussion) to their physical
manifestations in the classroom. And they are a way of adding to those
concepts and terms where necessary, so that teachers are able to better
perceive what’s happening in their classrooms in the future, and do further
research or ask the right questions when a problem arises.

When and how to give feedback

Two very simple options for when and how feedback might be given are
‘hot’ or ‘cold’ (Scrivener, 2011) and either written or spoken. Hot feedback
is given immediately or very soon after teaching (e.g., after a 15-minute
break), when the memory of the class is still very fresh. That means that
details of what happened in the lesson, or of what the teacher was thinking
or feeling, will probably be recalled more accurately, which can be
helpful. The downside is that it can be hard for teachers to step back and
reflect on the lesson with a sense of perspective so soon, and perceived
triumphs or failures can seem much more significant than they really
were. Cold feedback takes place later, perhaps the day after the lesson,
when trainees can look back on it a little more objectively, but when it is
still possible to remember what went on. Jim Scrivener (2011) suggests
that it can be useful for teachers to note down their thoughts both hot and
cold, and then compare them side-by-side to see which perspective seems
more realistic, or a better guide to development. Whether the feedback
discussion is hot or cold, it is good practice to have the teacher reflect
‘hot’ in writing beforehand and then pass those reflections to the observer
ahead of the meeting. This allows the teacher to get their thoughts on the
lesson somewhat clear and gives the observer an early indication of how
much their views align.
A feedback meeting between teacher and observer might be hot or cold,
but it is unlikely that there would be both. In contrast, we believe that
when it comes to how feedback is delivered, teachers should always
receive both written and spoken feedback after an observation. The
written feedback is an important record and future reference point for the
teacher, and we will discuss this further later in the chapter. We suggest
that spoken feedback, on the other hand, should be treated as the principal

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form of feedback, and delivered before written feedback in most cases

8
(the exception being when feedback is almost entirely positive). This

Giving feedback on teaching

is because:

• It is easier to ensure that feedback has been understood in a face-to-face

conversation.
• A conversation provides the opportunity for questions and elicitation,
meaning that teachers can be guided towards uncovering insights for
themselves, rather than simply being told in writing.
• Having reached those conclusions themselves, teachers are more likely
to remember them.
• Teachers are arguably more likely to take steps to improve their practice
if they identify for themselves the necessary action.
• A conversation allows the teacher to explain their thought process
during the lesson, which means that you can target recommendations
in written feedback on the right area(s).
• There is some evidence that trainees consider spoken feedback to have
a bigger impact on their teaching (Delaney, 2019).

Despite all these advantages, there is ‘the central conundrum of all teacher
observation and feedback‘ (Randall & Thornton, 2001, p. 20) to contend
with as part of spoken feedback: the possibility of upsetting or prompting
defensiveness in a teacher with criticisms of their teaching. This possibility
is often associated with assessment, even relatively informal kinds of
assessment, because it is more likely than not that shortcomings in
teaching will be identified. Nevertheless, this is an unavoidable reality of
providing feedback on teaching: in order to be useful, feedback must deal
with elements of the lesson that were not successful as well as with those
that were, and broaching these is difficult.
Any observation of a lesson is going to involve, by its very
nature, judgments about what has been seen. . . . Unless the
feedback is to become so bland as to be of no use in moving a
teacher on, the observer will need to make judgments about
what went on in the lesson. These need to be expressed to
the one being observed, and any criticism will at least have
the capacity, if not the actuality, of causing pain. (Randall &
Thornton, 2001, p. 20)
Of course, criticism, properly expressed, will also have the capacity of
enabling improvement in teaching, which is our primary goal. The best
approach observers can take is to be honest with teachers about the
judgements they are likely to be making during an observation: what
standards or criteria will they use to evaluate what they see, and for whose
benefit will those judgements be made?

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 Obviously, there is a lot happening in these conversations, and in order to
Giving feedback on teaching

strike the right tone and get the outcomes we want, some understanding
of the social context of each feedback conversation is very important. To
a large extent this is a question of putting ourselves in the shoes of the
teacher and understanding what feelings and preconceptions they are
bringing to the feedback conversation, so that we can approach it in the
most effective way. We can think about the social context for feedback
conversations in terms of three interrelated factors – Interpersonal,
Institutional, and Intentional, as detailed in Table 8.1.
8

Table 8.1: The social context of feedback conversations (based on Randall &
Thornton, 2001)

Interpersonal Concerning the level of º Age gap

factors formality in the relationship º Level of experience (of teacher
between the teacher and and of observer)
observer, the degree of º How well teacher and observer
trust between them, and know each other, both
their perceived status personally and professionally
Institutional To do with the professional º Observer’s role title and
factors setting of the feedback connotations it carries
conversation, institutionally, º Whether the observation is
or in terms of the wider part of preservice or in-service
educational system training activity
º Administrative requirements
set by the institution, the
training/awarding body, or the
education system
º Cultural expectations of the
education system and the
specific sector (e.g., primary/
secondary/tertiary; state/
private)
Intentional Determining if the intention º Whether ‘good teaching’ is
factors of the observation and specified by clearly-defined
feedback is balanced criteria
towards support and º Whether a grade must be given
development of teaching, º Whether the observed lesson
or towards assessing the is assessed as part of a wider
teacher’s competence programme of study, or is an
unassessed component of it
º Whether the observer will report
details of the observed lesson
to others

There are no hard-and-fast rules we can draw from these contextual

factors. Instead, it is the observer’s responsibility to be aware of them
and to weigh up how they might affect the dynamic of the feedback
conversation by promoting a sense of equality between the teacher and
observer, or a sense of hierarchy. With experience this becomes second
nature, but it is worth doing more deliberately when you start observing.

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To give an example, a colleague of ours in the Middle East found herself

8
in a fairly unusual social context for an observation as a school inspector

Giving feedback on teaching

observing a lesson given by the same teacher who had taught her as a
child some 20 years earlier! In terms of Interpersonal factors there was
a pre-existing relationship (albeit one from many years ago), there was a
considerable age gap, and also a gap in experience, although the inspector
had gained more varied experience in her teaching career than the teacher
she was observing. These factors alone would have tilted the balance of
seniority towards the teacher, but the Institutional and Intentional factors
acted to shift seniority towards the inspector: her title and role for the
Ministry of Education carried significant weight, and was supported with
extensive inspection criteria and associated administrative requirements.
The result was that our colleague, the inspector, was in a position to make
e atmosphere in the feedback meeting one of mutual respect and of
openness, despite circumstances that might otherwise have led either side
to feel quite apprehensive.

TASK 8.1
. . . To trainer
For each of the training contexts in the list below, consider what Interpersonal,
Institutional and Intentional factors the observer ought to take into account
ahead of the feedback conversation. You could review the case studies from
Chapter 6 (Marie, Moses and Carmen) to help with this.

• Intensive preservice training course (e.g., CELTA)

• Peer observation between two colleagues
• Routine observation of a teacher by their academic manager
For notes see page 231

Setting up and preparing feedback

After the observation, you will need to review your notes from the lesson
and decide what to address in feedback. This is almost always a process
of deciding what not to talk about, because the data from the lesson will
be too rich to cover in full. Trying to talk about everything that you saw
would be overwhelming for the teacher, and would take a very long time!
We suggest reviewing your notes and preparing your feedback soon after
the lesson – certainly the same day – so that you are not hampered in
remembering what took place.
Every lesson is different, and sometimes it will be quite easy to prepare
feedback, while at other times it can be difficult to know what to
highlight. In general, we find that feedback on preservice courses is
more straightforward, because the areas for improvement tend to be
more predictable in trainees who are just starting out. Shaping your
notes into feedback to experienced teachers, particularly when they are
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 experimenting with new techniques in the observed lesson, can be more
Giving feedback on teaching

challenging. Our case studies illustrate how observers take different

approaches depending on what works in their contexts:

CASE STUDY 8.1: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER

On most of the courses I work on at the moment we conduct group
feedback after teaching practice, so there’s a 15-minute break after the
lesson ends and we stay in the classroom for our feedback discussion,
moving the chairs into a circle. I type my notes and shape them into written
feedback while I’m observing, so the 15 minutes is just enough time to
8

get myself ready for the discussion. I make sure that I read the teachers’
reflection sheets – I used to forget to do this – so that I can refer to them
when we talk, and I print out the written feedback ready to give to the
teachers once our discussion has ended. I’ve worked on courses where we
do feedback the next morning, which is less of a rush for me, but I find the
trainees are better able to recall details of the lesson when the feedback
discussion happens straight away.
What I often do is have the trainees write positives and negatives from all
the lessons we’ve observed that day on the board in the classroom in the
15-minute break, and we take those as the starting point for our discussion. I
try to mix things up so that we’re not doing the same thing every single time,
but I do come back to this technique a lot because I find it so effective.

CASE STUDY 8.2: MOSES, THE TEACHER

My colleagues and I have busy teaching schedules, so it is usually not
possible to talk about feedback immediately after the lesson. We normally
have our feedback meeting in an empty classroom at lunchtime, because
that’s the only place and time that’s available. I confess I don’t do a lot of
preparation for these meetings; I just bring my notes from the lesson and tell
my colleagues what I noticed.

CASE STUDY 8.3: CARMEN, THE MANAGER

I only give feedback after the formal observations, not after my learning
walks – they’re too short and they’re for my benefit, not the teacher’s.
For my formal observations we usually have to arrange the feedback
meeting for a day after the lesson because the teachers and I have busy
schedules. I try to make it as soon as possible afterward, but sometimes
it’s a week later. I don’t like waiting so long, but sometimes there’s no other
choice. It’s often at the end of the day so that there’s not the pressure to
finish by a particular time. When we fix the date and time I make sure the
teacher has a reflection sheet to complete and I ask them to send it to me
the day before the meeting.
For the place where we meet I try not to do it in my office because it feels
kind of like ‘my territory’ and I don’t want it to feel like it’s my meeting. So
oftentimes we have the meeting in a classroom and sit side-by-side to
avoid any sense of confrontation. But again, sometimes there’s no choice.
The priority is somewhere quiet and private. Before the meeting I get all

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 my paperwork ready – lesson plan, materials, the teachers’ reflection, and

8
my written feedback. Sometimes I’ll ask for examples of student work from

Giving feedback on teaching

the lesson too. One thing I’ve started doing is using these documents as a
focal point during the meeting, and this seems to help create a sense of
collaboration and shared problem-solving, as opposed to confrontation. I
think that’s really positive.

What we see in these three descriptions of how Marie, Moses and Carmen
prepare for their feedback meetings is how the atmosphere in the feedback
meeting can be changed with some subtle alterations to the way it is set
up. Carmen, for example, chooses the location for the meeting carefully so
that it takes place in the classroom (the teacher’s ‘domain’) and plans to sit
alongside the teacher so as to minimise any sense of conflict, assessment
or judgement. She even uses the idea of a ‘third point‘ (Grinder, 2006) to
ensure that the focus of the discussion is on teaching practices, not on the
teacher as an individual – by having a document on the table as the focus
of discussion, she is able to direct her comments towards this third point
rather than directly at the teacher. This avoids a sense of confrontation
and allows the teacher to save face (a technique that can also be performed
rhetorically, by focusing the conversation on the behaviour and responses
of learners, rather than on the teacher’s actions). This is arguably very
important in Carmen’s context, because her role as manager means there
is a strong sense of hierarchy in her meetings with teachers, and she needs
to work hard to mitigate the perception that the teachers need to perform
well or risk losing their jobs!
Marie also tries to use seating and a third point to make the dynamic of her
feedback meetings more favourable. Sitting in a circle creates a sense of
equality, and because she can use the trainees’ comments on the board in
the classroom as the focal point for discussions, she also exploits the idea
of three-point communication. In addition, by working from the points
that the trainees have highlighted, she skilfully combines the development
of their reflective skills with a technique that gives them a say in how the
discussion unfolds. All of this combines to foster trust between Marie and
her trainees, and between Carmen and the teachers she observes, and this
is essential to productive feedback conversations: ‘the atmosphere created
in the feedback session must be one in which the teacher feels free to talk
and explore the situation with the [observer]’ (Randall & Thornton, 2001,
p. 95).

TASK 8.2
. . . To trainer
After reading the Case studies 8.1, 8.2 and 8.3, can you list the tasks that
should always be completed in preparation for a feedback conversation?
For notes see page 233

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 Spoken feedback one-to-one
Giving feedback on teaching

On preservice courses it’s quite common for feedback to take place in

groups, and so we’ll cover those situations separately (although many of
the principles of feedback conversations with individuals will still apply).
In other situations, most observation feedback takes place one-to-one, and
we deal with how to manage those conversations first.
It can be useful to have a handful of remarks and questions ready to open
the conversation. Often the teacher will be feeling nervous and you will
want to set a relaxed tone for the meeting and put them at ease. Here are a
8

few examples:

What a lovely group of Sets a positive tone, takes the spotlight off
students! the teacher for a moment, and acts as a
conversational ‘third point’.
So was that a fairly Again, takes the focus off the teacher and onto
typical lesson with that the students, and opens the door for the teacher
group? to highlight anything that wasn’t representative
of their usual teaching.
How do you feel A very common question, but one that we tend
the lesson went? to avoid because it is vague and immediately puts
the burden of evaluation onto the teacher. It can
be useful, however, if you sense that the teacher
is unhappy with the lesson – they may well raise
some of the weaker aspects of the lesson and you
can steer the conversation towards the positives
once they have let off steam.

A five-stage model for feedback discussions

Once the discussion is underway, we use a five-stage model to structure
our feedback conversations, as shown in Table 8.2.

Table 8.2: Five-stage model for feedback discussions

Stage 1 What happened It’s important to begin the discussion by establishing a

in the lesson common understanding of events in the lesson.
Stage 2 Whether aims The question here is ‘How successful was the lesson
were achieved in terms of the objectives set by the teacher?’ The
teacher should be able to answer this.
Stage 3 What the teacher This is a hypothetical discussion, but an opportunity
might do for the teacher to demonstrate that they are aware of
differently the areas they can improve.
Stage 4 How the teacher This part of the conversation is grounded in reality –
will follow up on however successful the lesson was, the teacher needs
this lesson to consolidate the learning that took place and
remedy any gaps.
Stage 5 What the teacher Here we see how well the teacher is able to reflect and
has learned use reflection to guide future professional learning.
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Since one of the aims of feedback is to develop the teacher’s ability to self-

8
evaluate, for each of these stages the teacher should be the one doing most

Giving feedback on teaching

of the talking, guided by you as the observer. Very inexperienced teachers
will need more input from you as part of their feedback discussions, but
teachers who have more experience and knowledge should be guided
as much as possible towards their own conclusions by questions and
elicitation. Unfortunately, the word feedback suggests a different kind
of conversation in which the observer does the talking and delivers a
verdict on the lesson they saw, and so many teachers come to the feedback
discussion with expectations of listening rather than talking.
For this reason, there’s a need to be very explicit about what you’re doing
at each stage and why. For example, when beginning the discussion explain
that you want to start by establishing a common understanding of what
took place in the lesson before evaluating the effectiveness of specific
teaching moments or analysing perceived problems. Stating aims like this
is especially important in cross-cultural interactions – when trainers and
teachers from different cultural backgrounds meet there may be ‘crossed
wires’ if roles, topics and goals are not clearly laid out (Randall & Thornton,
2001, p. 139) – but also because teachers frequently seem to misunderstand
the trainer’s goals in feedback, even when they share the same cultural
background. Our experience is that many teachers expect the observer to
deliver a grade or judgement, and completely miss the observer’s aim: to
use the observed lesson as a vehicle for improving reflective practice in
general terms, and for helping the teacher identify and plan to implement
specific teaching practices that might improve learning outcomes.
Stage 1: What happened in the lesson
In most cases, the feedback discussion relies on the teacher and observer
accurately remembering events from the lesson (the exception being if
there is a video recording, but even then, it won’t show everything). So it is
a good idea to begin by talking through what happened to make sure that
there’s basic agreement about what took place. It’s best if the teacher does
most of the talking because you can learn a lot about how they perceive
the classroom from their descriptions – expert teachers tend to focus more
on student behaviours, while less experienced teachers generally focus
more on their own actions. There are a few different ways that you can
invite the teacher to recount what happened:
• Chronologically – running from the beginning of the lesson until the
end. This is logical, thorough and easy on the teacher, but it can also
result in quite a lengthy, unfocused feedback conversation.
• Flashpoints – ask the teacher to describe the moments in the lesson
that they remember most vividly, or that seem most significant to them.
This can be challenging for inexperienced teachers, who may focus on
moments that they felt were ‘failures’ (but which may have had little
impact on the lesson).

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 • Highs and lows – ask the teacher to pick out moments or things that
Giving feedback on teaching

they feel went well, and those which they are not so happy with. This
can be useful for teachers who struggle to take a balanced view of
their lessons.
• Your selections – you give the teacher a range of moments or
themes (e.g., ‘giving instructions’) and they recall what happened in
relation to each one. This gives the observer the most control over the
conversation and can help keep the discussion on track, but it takes the
onus off the teacher to notice classroom events, and might increase the
8

sense that there are ‘right and wrong’ answers that the observer expects
to hear.
• Pre-selected areas of focus – if the teacher identified specific areas
for which they wanted feedback as part of the pre-observation meeting,
they should of course be included within this part of the discussion.

It often makes sense to combine this first stage in the discussion with
stage 3 – thinking about what could have been done differently. The
alternative to doing that at times when the teacher alights on a part of the
lesson which was not so successful is to talk about what happened in the
lesson in full, and then return to those moments afterwards to think about
how they could be improved. That approach may be more appropriate if
there is a common underlying cause to the problems at each stage (which
may be the case with issues such as poor timing, for example).

TASK 8.3
. . . To trainer
You might find that, in their description of the lesson, the teacher doesn’t
mention some of the moments or issues that you felt were most salient. In that
case you will need to raise those points yourself. How many ways can you think
of to do that? Make a list of useful phrases.
For notes see page 233

Stage 2: Whether aims were achieved

After reviewing what happened during the lesson, the next stage is to
evaluate how effective it was. Doing this by referring to the lesson aims
creates a link to the pre-observation meeting and encourages the teacher to
reflect not just on what happened during the lesson itself but also on the
decisions made during planning. In this way the feedback meeting is an
opportunity for the teacher to improve their planning skills as much as it is
an opportunity to develop their classroom practice.
In addition to discussing aims, however, it is important to prompt the
teacher to reflect on any incidental learning that may have taken place.
If students have benefitted from elements of the lesson that were not
162
pre-planned, there is value for the teacher in reflecting on why and

8
considering how those same elements could be deliberately incorporated

Giving feedback on teaching

in future. This part of the discussion may be especially necessary if the
teacher’s aims were not well formulated – it is very common for novice
teachers to phrase their aims in terms of what they will do in the lesson,
rather than in terms of what students will learn (e.g., ‘By the end of the
lesson we will have practised reading’), and that makes the aims pretty
useless as a benchmark for evaluating the lesson.
Probably the most important skill for the observer in this part of the
discussion is leading the teacher to think about what evidence there is for
student learning. It’s quite common for teachers to point out at this stage
that students were engaged and enjoyed the lesson, which is undoubtedly
positive, but it is not the same as evidence of learning. So a crucial
part of this stage of the discussion will be eliciting from the teacher the
student talk, or written work, or behaviours that point towards successful
achievement of their aims, or towards increases in learners’ capabilities
and understanding. It may be that they didn’t notice these or that they
can’t remember them, and your role will then be to share what you
observed in the lesson and invite the teacher to judge what learning took
place on the basis of that evidence.
Stage 3: What the teacher might do differently
No lesson is perfect, and so there is always something to talk about at
this stage, but the degree of change required can vary greatly. It may be
a question of improving on a lesson that was already quite effective, or
a case of addressing some serious shortcomings in teaching or planning.
Either way, the first step is for the teacher to recognise that there was
indeed room for improvement, and hopefully the previous two stages have
pointed in that direction and brought some of the weaker areas of the
lesson into the discussion. If the teacher has completed a written reflection
then you will also get a sense from that of how many of the weaker aspects
of the lesson they’ve identified themselves.
We suggest using the following four steps to guide the conversation. If
the teacher hasn’t identified the issue(s) you want to deal with, you will
need to begin by raising them yourself, but the steps remain the same for
each issue:

1. Begin by describing what you observed

Often, the teacher will already have described what you want to discuss
and you may simply need to elicit further detail. The aim is to agree on
what happened: what the teacher’s words and actions were, and how
the students responded (or vice versa).

163
 2. Clarify the consequences/implications of the teacher’s decisions
Giving feedback on teaching

When giving negative feedback it is vital that the teacher understands

why different choices may have been more appropriate. In this step, the
focus is on the students and their learning, and (evidence of) how it was
negatively impacted.
3. Understand the reasons for the teacher’s decisions
In order to help the teacher understand what to do differently you need
to know the reason behind their choices in the observed lesson. Was it:
8

• a gap in their teaching knowledge (which could be a complete gap,

with no relevant Knowing about, or a gap between Knowing about and
Knowing how and Knowing to)
• a belief about teaching and learning which meant the teacher did
not apply knowledge that they already possess
• a psychological barrier (e.g. nervousness) which meant the teacher
did not apply knowledge that they already possess
The teacher may indicate this without being prompted, but if not, invite
them to reflect and consider what their thought process was at the time.
4. Advise/explore/support
Depending on the reason(s) identified in the previous step, you will
need to advise, to help the teacher develop their knowledge; to
explore and challenge beliefs by inviting the teacher to unpick what
they believe and why; or to support the teacher in overcoming a
psychological block by offering encouragement.

When the observed lesson includes many potential areas of improvement

one of your main tasks will be prioritising. A long list of things to do
differently is demoralising for teachers and may leave them wondering
where to begin. A useful question to ask yourself is ‘What is the one
thing that will help this teacher improve?’ If it is a significant gap in their
practice, it may be more effective to devote a good chunk of time in the
feedback meeting to working on improving it, rather than trying to tackle
several problems at once.
Stage 4: Following up on the lesson
In this stage the focus shifts from the hypothetical world of discussing
what could or should have been done differently into the real world, and
the question of what the teacher will do in the next lesson. They will
either want to consolidate and build on the learning that took place in
the observed lesson if it was successful, or want to remedy any gaps in
understanding that resulted from the lesson.

164
Your aim as the observer in this stage is to evaluate how well the teacher

8
is able to view the course as a cohesive whole, rather than a series of

Giving feedback on teaching

isolated lessons, and how well the teacher is able to use each lesson to
evaluate the learning that took place and what was revealed about the
students’ ongoing needs. Non-expert teachers tend to find it more difficult
to make these connections between lessons, and may need some help to
see how the observed lesson can inform the planning of the next one, for
example by highlighting earlier parts of the discussion and using them to
elicit appropriate next steps. This is another instance, therefore, of how the
feedback discussion can support lesson planning and not just classroom
practice. Expert teachers, on the other hand, should be able to describe the
links between the observed lesson and their plans for the next one much
more readily.
Stage 5: What the teacher learned
Ted Wragg argues that ‘in order to make an impact, any formal appraisal of
teaching competence must be both retrospective and prospective, looking
back at what has been achieved and forward to what might be done in the
future‘ (Wragg, 1999, p. 101). So the final part of the feedback discussion
should review what the teacher has learned from the whole observation
cycle (the pre-observation meeting, the observed lesson and the feedback
discussion) and look ahead to the actions they can now take to improve
their teaching practice further. At this stage the teacher may need to be
directed towards certain resources, or to be told about specific approaches,
methods or techniques that may be useful and which they are not
currently aware of. Some of this information can be provided afterwards,
perhaps by email, which helps to keep the meeting focused and allows the
teacher to digest it in their own time and refer back to it later as they try to
adapt their teaching.
It is a good idea at the end of the feedback discussion to ask the teacher
to summarise the meeting and reiterate any action points – this acts as a
check that your feedback has been received as you intended, and can help
to highlight anything that might have been forgotten or misunderstood in
time for you to clarify it.

TASK 8.4
. . . To trainer
Watch the feedback meeting between Peter, the trainer,
and Theresa, the teacher. What do you like about Peter’s
approach? What would you do differently, and why?

165
 Spoken feedback with groups
Giving feedback on teaching

Group feedback is more likely to take place on preservice courses, because

trainees starting from scratch will tend to share similar learning needs – for
that reason we focus in this section on preservice trainees. Once teachers
begin to start gaining experience their needs diverge quite significantly
and individual feedback becomes essential. The group setting means
that less time is spent discussing each lesson than in most individual
feedback meetings, but beginning teachers will probably benefit from more
succinct, focused feedback about how to improve. It’s also the case that
8

on a preservice course they will have an opportunity to teach again and

implement that feedback very soon, so it makes sense for group feedback
meetings to offer trainees advice on just one or two areas for improvement.
While there are many similarities in feedback techniques between
individual and group scenarios, the preservice course context in which
group feedback is most likely to take place introduces a number of
distinctive elements:

• Other trainees are observing too, so you need to address what they’ve
seen and bring them into the discussion.
• Running feedback with a group of trainees introduces more possibilities
for demonstrating teaching techniques in the feedback discussion.
• The group situation means that there is the potential for trainees to lose
face in front of their peers.
• The course context means that observed lessons must be graded, with
the grade given as part of the feedback.
• Two or three teachers will be receiving feedback, so the time available
will need to be split fairly evenly between discussion of each lesson.

As with individual feedback, you’ll want to start by setting a positive tone.

You may be discussing several lessons in one sitting, so it is a good idea to
begin feedback on each lesson by asking the teacher to remind the group
what their aims were and what the lesson was about. This is a good way to
align everyone’s thinking, ready to contribute to the discussion, and it’s an
easy way for the teacher to start talking.
Once you’ve established aims in this way, the structure in Table 8.2 (see
page 160) is a useful template for managing the discussion of each trainee’s
teaching, and our experience has been that it is generally preferable to
focus on each trainee’s lesson, or part of a lesson, in turn. There are
various ways of approaching these discussions: the group might start
with comments from the trainees who completed peer observation tasks,
you could use the trainees’ written reflections as an initial conversation
starter, or you could use the technique that Marie describes in Case study

166
8.1, using a list of talking points drawn up by the trainees as a point of

8
departure. With each of these, let trainees do the talking – eliciting what

Giving feedback on teaching

they saw, evaluating the positive and negative aspects and suggesting
improvements with the aim of improved student learning in mind.
It is often necessary in these discussions to steer the focus onto the
students and onto what they learned from the lesson. That’s because
trainees will naturally focus more on their own actions, and we want to
encourage them to evaluate lessons in terms of student learning. But it
can also make it easier for you to deliver negative feedback if that’s what’s
required, by pointing towards the consequences of any weaknesses in
teaching. Trainees tend to be reluctant to deliver negative feedback, partly
because they feel that as novices it’s not their place to do so, and partly
because they are more concerned with maintaining positive relations
with their peers (Delaney, 2019). So be prepared to interject to keep the
discussion on track, and to summarise the key feedback for each teacher
before moving on to discussion of the next lesson.
When a lesson is graded ‘not to standard’ the teacher will inevitably be
disappointed. It is important that the reason for the grade is clear to the
teacher, and that means that if they or their peers seem unaware of the
problems with the lesson you will have to communicate them yourself.
The overall message should focus on the bigger picture: the necessary
next steps and the teacher’s path to improvement. If the lesson is not the
first below standard grade that the teacher has received and they are in
danger of failing the course, then it may be appropriate to conduct a short
initial group feedback discussion (perhaps just dealing with aims and peer
observation tasks) before conducting the remaining feedback with each
teacher individually. This means that the teacher who is struggling is able
to get the support and advice they need in a private setting – essentially a
mini tutorial.

Written feedback on teaching

In general, observations should always be followed up with written
feedback (the informal nature of much peer observation makes it the
exception). It provides a record of the observation and of the feedback
meeting, and it acts as a reference for the teacher. That’s important in the
days after the feedback meeting, when the teacher will (ideally) review the
feedback and begin to start thinking about how to act on the suggestions
for improvement that were given. Without written feedback, it’s difficult
to remember those suggestions or the rationale for them, and it’s also more
difficult to ask others, such as colleagues, for help unless you have a clear
idea of what you’re trying to work on.

167
 CASE STUDY 8.4: MARIE, THE CELTA TRAINER
Giving feedback on teaching

I write my feedback to the trainees during their lessons, so I am shaping

my notes into feedback almost as soon as I have written them – I type
everything, and I don’t think I could do this if I was handwriting. The
downside of writing the feedback so soon is that I’m not able to include
any comments acknowledging the trainee’s spoken reflections in feedback,
but I do make sure I look at their written reflection sheets.
We have a one-page template for TP feedback, which makes the job easier
because it forces me to be succinct (I tend to write in bullet points rather
than continuous prose) and because I’ve used it countless times now. It
8

has a box for strengths, then two for areas to develop: those which were
identified in previous lessons and a blank box for those identified in the
current lesson. The final space is for overall comments. So there’s always
a balance of positive and negative. My priorities are to give clear action
points to the trainees and to motivate them to act on them in the next TP,
and if the grade for the lesson is above or below standard, to make it clear
why. I always ask the trainees for feedback on my feedback(!) at the end of
each course and it has been a useful way of understanding how to make
my messages clearer.

CASE STUDY 8.5: MOSES, THE TEACHER

I don’t give written feedback to the colleagues I observe, but sometimes
they ask to see my notes and we see each other every day anyway, so we
are always talking about what we are trying to improve on. But I can tell
you what I prefer when I receive written feedback after an observation! I
want the feedback to match what I have heard in the feedback discussion,
I want the observer to be clear and tell me how I can improve (not only
to point out weaknesses), and for the same reason I do not like it when
supervisors ask many questions in the written feedback. I will not see them
to check my answer, so I do not believe it is a useful technique.

CASE STUDY 8.6: CARMEN, THE MANAGER

Well, for me, writing the feedback takes a long time because I think
about it very carefully. I try to give a lot of details to the teachers and
include examples from what I saw in the lesson because they don’t have
observations frequently, and I want them to feel that the process was
worthwhile. I make time in my schedule to write the feedback because it
should be given promptly after the feedback meeting.
For the action points, I give only a few so that the teachers are not
overwhelmed. The exact number depends on what they are, because some
areas need a lot of work but other weaknesses can be fixed easily. But three
is a good number, I would say.

Together, the approaches to written feedback described by Marie, Moses

and Carmen offer some useful guidelines for how to approach the task
of putting feedback down on paper. These are shown in Table 8.3 below,
grouped according to whether they relate to the process of writing

168
feedback, the content of written feedback, or the style in which it is

8
written. Some of these guidelines may be limited by the training context,

Giving feedback on teaching

particularly when the observation is assessed. For example, in Marie’s
context there is very limited time to write feedback, so the question of
when to write it is largely preordained. In other assessed contexts the
observer may be instructed to write feedback in the third person rather
than address it to the teacher. But we feel these guidelines are applicable
to most observation situations.

Table 8.3 Guidelines for preparing written feedback

Process º Plan when you will write feedback.

º Deliver written feedback promptly.
º Consult trainee’s written reflections (and spoken reflections if
possible) before writing.

Content º Balance positive and negative comments.

º Ensure that written feedback aligns with spoken feedback.
º Refer to feedback / action points from previous observations in
order to comment on progress and development.
º Include specific examples from the lesson to support your
comments.
º Make action points as clear as possible, don’t offer vague advice.
º Give practical advice on exactly how to address teaching
shortcomings and/or links to resources that give such advice.

Style º Address comments to the teacher, using their name.

º Aim to motivate the teacher to act on your feedback.
º Use bullet points if you wish.
º Don’t overuse rhetorical questions.
º Limit action points to a manageable number.

Besides the training context, the other factor that will influence written
feedback is the template that observers are required to use when writing
it. For assessed contexts like Marie’s, or in managerial contexts like
Carmen’s, a template will be provided by the institution, and will shape
what and how much you are able to write (although templates will vary in
how rigidly they must be adhered to).

TASK 8.5
. . . To trainer
Below are examples of written feedback templates from a CELTA course and
an observation by an academic manager.
What similarities and differences do you notice between the format and layout
used for each of these?

169
Giving feedback on teaching

TP: Trainee Name: Date:

Tutor Name:

Area: Tutor’s overall comments Action points

Your TP
preparation
and
planning
8

Your
teaching
practice

Overall Comments

Lesson for this stage of the course was:

BELOW STANDARD AT STANDARD ABOVE STANDARD

Signature of TP Tutor: _________________ Signature of Trainee: _________________

Date: ____________________ Date: ____________________

Figure 8.1: CELTA observation feedback template

170
 8
Teacher Observer

Giving feedback on teaching

Lesson date/time Class name
Classroom No. of students

Course and lesson planning

Classroom management

Use of resources and materials

Subject knowledge

Understanding of learners

Overall

Action points

Figure 8.2: Academic manager observation feedback template

The two templates above share many similarities: nearly all written
feedback begins with the details of the observed lesson (e.g., date, time,
number of students), and it is common for written feedback to end with an
overall comment and action points. The differences between the templates
reflect differences in context. For assessed observations a grade and the
observer’s signature are commonplace, and if the observation is part of a
course then there may be other details given relating to the course and the
stage at which the observation is taking place. For performance appraisals
the feedback template will be used with teachers across the institution,
and it will therefore reflect the priorities of the institution (e.g., the themes
used in Figure 8.2 are set by the institution because they have been
deemed important by management) rather than the developmental needs
of teachers.

171
 Summary
Giving feedback on teaching

Feedback is an essential part of the observation cycle, and can have a

significantly positive impact on teaching outcomes when it goes well. But
it is a challenging and complex part of a trainer’s role, and although that
makes it rewarding it also means that it may take longer to get to grips
with than other aspects of training.

Developing skills as an observer

Now that we’ve looked at the observation cycle from beginning to end,
8

it is worth considering what you can do to develop this area of your

training. Getting as much practice as you can observing other teachers is
probably the most useful thing you can do, but it also helps to be observed
yourself and see how other observers approach the role. When it comes
to feedback, it is enormously helpful to be able to observe a feedback
meeting, but very difficult to arrange in reality. Instead, we recommend
asking trainees for feedback on your feedback, as Marie suggests in Case
study 8.4. The best time to do this is when they have had an opportunity
to act on the feedback by experimenting with changes in their teaching
practice. If those experiments weren’t successful, or didn’t happen at all,
try and find out why, and whether there is something that you can add to
your feedback technique to make it more successful in future.

TASK 8.6
. . . To trainer
Scan the QR Code and watch Theresa’s lesson again. Then,
use the academic manager observation feedback template
(Figure 8.2) to write feedback for the lesson. Compare your
feedback with Peter’s example and commentary in the notes.
What similarities and differences do you notice between the
example and your own feedback?
For notes see page 234

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the videos ‘Opening the
conversation’ and ‘Trainees who don’t take on feedback’
to hear how trainers manage their real-life feedback
conversations. Which techniques would work best with the
trainees you observe?

TO FIND OUT MORE

Randall, M., & Thornton, B. (2001). Advising and supporting teachers.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Gives thorough and detailed
coverage of the issues involved in giving feedback to teachers, and
includes tasks to help develop feedback skills.)

172
9 Training courses and
programmes
Here we consider:
• The difference between a course and a programme
• The benefits of courses and programmes
• What is involved in working on a course: before, during
and after
• What is involved in working on a programme: before, during
and after

In my experience, you can't ask too many questions to try and

find out who you're giving the training to, what kind of limitations
there might be, what opportunities there might be.
Olha, teacher trainer, UK

So far we have considered training activities – sessions, mentoring

practices, observation, and assessment – in isolation. In this chapter we
examine what is involved in planning and delivering sustained training,
and how training activities are combined to form successful courses and
programmes of teacher learning.

Why courses and programmes matter

Training courses and programmes combine different elements of the
trainer’s toolkit to promote teacher learning that has greater impact than
the sum of its parts. One-off professional learning opportunities, such as a
single training session or observation, can have a limited effect, but lasting
and meaningful change to a teacher’s practice needs sustained effort and
a range of activities that guide teachers from input, to implementation,
to reflection on the impact of their learning (Richardson & Díaz Maggioli,
2018; Weston & Clay, 2018). In this way, improving teaching is a bit like
getting fit: going for a jog is likely to do you some good if you aren’t
generally very active, but the impact on your health pales in comparison to
a sustained, well-planned and consistent pattern of regular exercise.

173
 If we enrol on a course or programme, we expect it to have more far-
9 Training courses and programmes

reaching effects than a single training session or observation, and so

we usually expect those outcomes to be certified, while also accepting
that there is probably a cost involved. There is a distinction to be made
here between courses and programmes based on the nature of the work
involved for trainers. Courses are schedules of teacher learning that
are fairly fixed, which are repeated for different cohorts, and which
participants choose to join, usually in the expectation of receiving a
qualification if they perform well enough (examples would be CELTA,
CertTESOL or an MA course). Programmes, on the other hand, are planned
at the request of decision makers in the educational context (so they are
always in-service), with reference to a specific group of participants in
order to address their specific needs in that context. A programme may
include discrete courses as part of the activities that participants do, and
many programmes are open-ended, continuing year after year. Examples
would be an ongoing programme of training for teachers in a particular
institution, planned by the professional development unit there, or a
programme for a national ministry of education that aims to improve
teaching outcomes in primary schools across a whole region.

TASK 9.1
From teacher . . .
When you think about the training that you have been involved in as
a teacher (rather than as a trainer), what is the balance of courses,
programmes, and standalone training events (e.g., a single training session, or
observation)?
For notes see page 236

Courses and programmes offer several things that isolated training events
can’t. For a start, they offer trainees more variety because they can include
group and individual work, and training activities that take place both in
and out of the classroom. That means that trainees can develop knowledge
at different levels, for example Knowing about in training sessions, and
Knowing how in teaching practice. Besides tackling trainee knowledge in a
multifaceted way, the variety that courses and programmes offer creates
opportunities for collaborative, teacher-led professional learning. In other
words, trainers don’t need to be at the forefront of all the activities that
make up a course or programme, and in fact if trainees are able to work
together at times without the trainer being present, they may develop
valuable classroom problem-solving skills. Examples of this kind of
collaborative teacher development are given in Table 9.1 below.

174
Table 9.1: Collaborative teacher development activities

9
Training courses and programmes
Collaborative action Teachers work together to systematically research a
research particular aspect of their teaching context, with the aim
of improving their practice (see Burns, 1999).

Video discussion Teachers record themselves teaching and then meet to

groups / video clubs watch short clips and discuss successes and potential
solutions to classroom problems (see Mann et al., 2019).

Reading group Teachers select an article or book chapter to read

ahead of meeting to discuss it with a view to improving
their teaching (see Richards, 2017).

Team teaching Teachers work in pairs to plan, deliver and reflect on

lessons together (see Richards, 2017).

Another significant benefit of courses and programmes is that they offer

sustained professional learning. While one-off training sessions can be
helpful, particularly if they deal with very specific areas, professional
learning should last at least six months if it is to have lasting impact on
trainees’ teaching practice (Cordingley et al., 2015). That doesn’t mean that
teachers need to attend daily training sessions for months on end. What
it does mean is that incorporating change into day-to-day teaching needs
time, and that time must be used effectively: teachers need to focus their
attention on a particular area of their teaching many times and in many
ways in order to really improve what they do at the level of Knowing to,
and courses and programmes help them to do that in structured ways.

Working on a course
Although courses can be demanding, they are also extremely rewarding.
It is enormously satisfying to see trainees make clear progress in their
teaching practice and in their professional understanding, and to support
their development both in and out of the classroom. When the course
leads to a recognised qualification, it can make an enormous difference
to your trainees’ career prospects. You may even bump into some of
your trainees further down the line and work alongside them as teaching
colleagues, or even co-trainers, which is a great endorsement of the quality
of your training!
Obviously, designing and delivering a course or programme is a major
undertaking, but at this point in the book we’ve already covered many of
the components that go into them. Let’s begin exploring course delivery
with a case study.

175
 CASE STUDY 9.1: YI ZHANG, CELT-S TRAINER
9 Training courses and programmes

I work for a chain of private language schools in China. It is very large,

we have approximately 6,000 teachers working for us. My job is teacher
trainer and I travel to our schools to train teachers on the Cambridge
CELT-S course, which is for teachers of teenagers. It is a blended course,
so teachers learn online for six months before I arrive and then they
attend my workshops. Usually there are 12–16 teachers in the group, but
sometimes I work with another trainer and we make two groups if there are
many teachers. The course that I deliver is one week long but the teachers
have already seen the concepts online and completed some tasks about
them, which I grade. For the workshops I use the course materials that
are provided by Cambridge Assessment. The trainees are observed twice.
The first time I give written feedback but they do not receive a grade, and
the second time is a summative assessment – they receive a grade for
their lesson.

Mon Tue Wed Thu Fri Sat

09:00–09:30 Orientation Module 3: Observation Module 5: Module 7: Observation

Skills Developing Resources
09:30–12:30 Module 1: teaching language for learning
Managing in the use in the in the
the secondary secondary secondary
secondary classroom classroom classroom
classroom

12:30–13:30 Lunch

13:30–16:30 Module 2: Module 4: Observation Module 6: Module 8: Observation

Language Language Planning Assessing
learning awareness language language
and the for teaching learning learning
teenage in the in the
learner secondary secondary
16:30–17:30 context context Closing

Figure 9.1: Yi Zhang’s CELT-S course schedule

TASK 9.2
. . . To trainer
Based on the course schedule and Yi’s description of her training, what do you
think might be the main challenges that she faces, and why do they exist?
For notes see page 236

Before the course

As a new trainer, you should be working alongside an experienced training
colleague when you deliver your first few courses, and the design and
shape of the course will be largely set in stone when you come to work
on it. So the task of preparing is more a case of familiarising yourself with
the existing course timetable, documentation and session materials, rather

176
than a question of designing and planning things from scratch. The main

9
course trainer should be able to offer plenty of guidance as to what you will

Training courses and programmes

need to get ready yourself, and where to find resources that have already
been prepared.
Your main goal should be to thoroughly familiarise yourself with:

• the course aims and objectives

• the course timetable
• the assessment requirements and how assessment will take place
• how the different parts of the course will be divided between you and
any other trainers
• the names of trainees and why they’ve chosen to enrol on the course
(if they’ve given this information during the enrolment process, e.g.,
at interview)

There’s no question that the work of the trainer on a course begins

well before the first meeting with trainees. Besides the work of getting
acquainted with the course material there may be preliminary tasks to
complete such as:

• interviewing and selecting trainees

• sending pre-course tasks to successful applicants
• conveying course information / clarifying expectations of trainees
• arranging students for teaching practice sessions

The lead trainer on the course will probably have responsibility for these
tasks, but you should expect to have to help and learn what to do in
preparation for future iterations of the course, when you might take on
those duties.

During the course

Describing a day in the life of a CELTA tutor, Chia Suan Chong explains
that her day begins at 8:30 am with preparation for her first training
session. At 6:30 pm, ten hours later, she goes home. Even then, she says,
‘the day often does not end here. I tend to prefer to mark assignments
in the comfort of my own home’ (Chong, 2012, p. 54). This is a long day,
but it is not unusual for a teacher trainer working on a full-time course.
The schedule for Yi Zhang’s CELT-S is similarly demanding (bear in mind
that it details only the activities that trainees will be involved in, not Yi’s
preparation and follow-up tasks outside these hours), and it is certainly not
unheard of for trainers to work longer hours than these.

177
 Given this kind of time pressure, being organised when you deliver a
9 Training courses and programmes

course is absolutely essential. Before the course starts, you will want to:

• Have a clear schedule for each day of the course, so that you know
what should happen when. Don’t forget to schedule in breaks for
yourself and time when you are not available to trainees or colleagues;
this is important.
• Have your sessions planned (and materials prepared, ideally).
• Know what paperwork is required of you (e.g., observation feedback,
portfolio entries, marking of assignments) and when you will be
completing it.
• Know what paperwork is required from participants at each stage, so
that you can help them stay on top of it and do well.
• Be in a position to answer questions from trainees about assignments,
deadlines, procedures, the timetable, etc.

The good news is that courses such as CELTA and CELT-S tend to follow
a repeated format and schedule, and the content of input sessions doesn’t
change drastically. So if you find yourself delivering the same course
several times, all these tasks get much easier because you are much more
familiar with what is happening at each stage.
Not all courses are run on a full-time basis like Yi’s. Part-time delivery is
also quite common, with trainees often attending at evenings or weekends
in order to meet other commitments. If you’re working on a part-time
course then all our suggestions above still apply, but you will of course
have more time between sessions with the trainees to prepare yourself,
which can be an enormous help to a new trainer. Trainees can also benefit
from having time to review and reflect on the content of training sessions
and teaching practice feedback. The extra time has its disadvantages too,
though: it can be more of a challenge to maintain focus and motivation
among the trainees over an extended period in which other commitments
are competing for their attention, and the long gaps between trainees’
teaching practice lessons can make it harder for some to make progress.

CASE STUDY 9.2: BAHAR, CELTA TUTOR

.
I work at a university in I zmir, Turkey. I work in the School of Foreign
Languages and I am in charge of teacher education and teacher training
programmes within the school. Our school has been a CELTA centre for
17 years; besides full-time CELTA courses, we also offer part-time courses
depending on the demand.
We spread our part-time courses over three months. Two evenings a week
(around three hours) are allotted for the teaching practice lessons (TPs)
followed by feedback sessions; and the input sessions are presented at
the weekend, usually on Saturdays. Input sessions are followed by lesson

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 planning sessions in preparation for the weekly TPs. The CELTA candidates

9
prefer part-time courses because it is convenient for those who teach

Training courses and programmes

during the day, which is almost all of them (this is common for CELTA
courses in Turkey). Although the course length might be too long for some
teachers, they say they like the part-time programme as it is less intense
and less stressful. Unlike the month-long full-time CELTA courses, which many
candidates may find challenging and highly stressful, part-time courses
give the candidate teachers more time and flexibility for planning and
preparing their lessons and working on their written assignments.
As a CELTA tutor, I love both part-time and full-time courses with the pros
and cons of each type.

Working with other trainers

In many courses, you will work with a co-trainer, perhaps even two or
more. This is especially likely in your early days as a trainer, when you
may have a main course tutor to help support you while you get to grips
with the course. Being able to work closely with your co-trainer is very
important – many hands make light work, and having two trainers on a
course can help to ease the workload, but only if you communicate with
one another. Chong (2012), for instance, explains that the two daily input
sessions on her CELTA course are split between her and the co-trainer;
they take one each. But for this to work she starts the day by checking
with the other trainer what they will be covering in their session, and
her ‘break’, scheduled for the time that the other trainer is with the
group, is spent planning the following day’s session. Even lunch is spent
working: ‘the lunch hour is often used to exchange notes with fellow TP
tutors regarding the progress of the trainees and the best ways to go about
developing them’ (Chong, 2012, p. 54). For courses that involve assessment
of trainees this kind of discussion is very important, as you will need to
work with your co-trainer to build a picture of each trainee’s performance
and agree upon each assessment, ensuring that all trainees are treated
equally – CELTA courses, for instance, require tutors to double-mark a
proportion of candidates’ assignments, meaning that one tutor will check
the grades and comments given by the other tutor. Blind double-marking,
in which both tutors mark some assignments independently, and compare
their grades, is encouraged as a way of agreeing and verifying standards.
As well as being close colleagues on the course, co-trainers are also a
source of support and development. Working on an intensive course can
be draining, and having an encouraging, positive co-trainer can make all
the difference. More experienced co-trainers are also an excellent sounding
board for your reflections or questions, and most will be happy to fulfil
this role and support your professional development. Nevertheless, if you
think you will need a lot of help, or if the co-trainer is acting in a formal
capacity as your training supervisor, it is preferable to agree a schedule for
these conversations (which are a form of mentoring, see Chapter 5) before

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 the course starts – as the main course tutor your co-trainer is likely to have
9 Training courses and programmes

even more on their plate than you, so it is only fair to ensure that they can
plan their time effectively.

After the course

From the trainees’ point of view, the end of the course should mean that
certificates are given, perhaps alongside more detailed feedback. For
most accredited courses the certificate itself doesn’t include qualitative
information about the trainee’s performance, and it is therefore not
unusual for the training centre to provide its own report which does
bear comments of that nature from the trainers, and you may have to
write those. On some courses, particularly preservice ones that form
the launchpad for a teaching career, trainees may ask for references.
Your training centre is likely to have a policy in place and may prefer to
deal with references in a centralised way, rather than having individual
trainers deal with them, but make sure you know what the policy is and
communicate it to trainees so that they know what they can expect.
From the training centre’s point of view, the course should be evaluated,
and there may be administrative tasks associated with evaluation on
the final day of the course, such as having trainees fill in feedback
questionnaires. These should be as anonymous as possible to encourage
frank responses – leave the room and ask one of the trainees to collect
completed forms in an envelope, or provide an online form so that trainees
can’t be identified by their handwriting. Although it is tempting to send
digital questionnaires once the course has ended, we find that invariably
the only way to get all trainees to complete them is to set aside time during
the course itself, before they all go home.
From your own point of view, it will be important to reflect on what the
course meant for you as a trainer. You might want to consider:

• Course outcomes – did the trainees learn what they (and you) had
hoped they would learn?
• What did you do particularly well in helping them achieve those outcomes?
• What could you have done better?
• What would you like to improve on from your own perspective? Are
there ways that you can make the course less stressful or more
rewarding for yourself?
• What developmental goals for your work as a trainer will you take on to
the next course?

You can do this on your own, of course, but we have found it helpful to go
through this process with one another when we work together, or with the
co-trainer on the course. It’s helpful to have a different perspective on the

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same course, these conversations are one of the most valuable resources

9
for trainer learning, and if you work together again in the future you can

Training courses and programmes

be accountable to each other for implementing the improvements that
you discuss. You’ll probably have these reflective conversations to varying
degrees throughout the course, but you might want to document them at
some point, and the end of the course is usually the best time to do that.
Finally, don’t forget to celebrate the completion of the course – for the
trainees and for you. Hopefully it will have been a meaningful learning
experience for everyone, but it is also sure to have been a lot of hard work,
and there’s nothing worse than having the course go out with a whimper.
At the very least it is usually worth marking the occasion with a photo,
and if you’ve built up a good relationship with your students it might be
nice to arrange a social gathering, but you’ll have to discuss plans with the
group before the final day.

Working on a programme
Programmes are unlike courses in that they are prepared for a specific
group of trainees, and may be open-ended. So although they still need
to be well-organised, potentially working alongside other trainers, and
integrating training skills, they also require thorough design, planning
and preparation, and you may be accountable throughout the life of the
programme to the programme sponsor (the person or institution that is
paying for it). Examples of programmes might include:

• A short series of workshops designed and run by an academic manager

at a small private language school who wants to improve teachers’
ability to teach with technology.
• A selection of optional weekly workshops run by a chain of schools
for teachers at every branch in the chain. The programme is ongoing,
running throughout the academic year, and some of the workshops
form courses which are certificated in their own right. All the
workshops take place at the largest school in the chain, so they’re also
an opportunity for teachers from different branches to get together.
• A country-wide training initiative for a ministry of education that wants
to encourage all secondary teachers across the country to adopt a more
communicative methodology.

A programme might, therefore, be as short as an afternoon, or it could

span many years. If you are working on a programme as one of a team of
trainers, the relevant considerations will be more or less the same as they
are for courses. So we will focus here on programmes from the point of
view of the programme designer and lead trainer, and on relatively small-
scale programmes that illustrate the main concerns.

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 CASE STUDY 9.3: KAREN, PROGRAMME DESIGNER
9 Training courses and programmes

I work on designing programmes for all sorts of contexts, but what they
have in common is that they are tailored to the needs of a particular
institution or group of teachers. That means that there are certain
parameters to work within: a fixed budget, a timescale for the whole
programme, a certain number of study hours for participants, and so on.
It’s almost always a process of compromise and of trying to maximise the
impact of the time and money available. But it also tends to be a process
of working out what the sponsor (the institution or ministry) wants, what
the teachers want, and what might have the most impact on student
outcomes, because those things don’t necessarily align.

Before the programme

A programme, once designed and prepared, can potentially be delivered
multiple times if it is not open-ended, particularly if the target audience
is a large group (as in the case of a national ministry of education). If that
happens, those subsequent iterations of the programme look similar to
courses in terms of planning: the main task for trainers is to familiarise
themselves with the programme documentation so that they can deliver it
confidently. But the very first iteration of any programme is quite different
to preparing for a course, because everything needs to be created from
scratch. It is that process that we will consider now.
Since programmes are ‘made to order’, there is a wide spectrum of
possibilities for how any given programme could look, from something
relatively simple at the level of a single department in an institution, to a
complex, large-scale programme at the level of a whole national education
system. The way the programme eventually looks is determined by the
programme designer’s decisions in balancing perceived needs (usually those
identified by the sponsor), the elements of the training habitat (see Chapter 2),
which usually point towards more ‘bottom-up’ choices that reflect the views
of teachers, and the time and resources made available for the programme.
This balancing act nearly always tends to tilt towards the sponsor’s
requirements and the available resources, and away from teacher needs
– it is very common for the voices of trainees to be unheard, ignored, or
deprioritised in programme planning. In our experience that’s usually
not a conscious decision, but a consequence of organising things at short
notice and for participants whose needs and wants may be difficult to
canvass. In some situations, a needs analysis is avoided because it might
spotlight problems that can’t be solved with a training programme, or that
might reflect poorly on the managers sponsoring the programme.
The exceptions to this problem around teacher needs are open-ended
programmes which are run ‘in house’ by institutions for their own teachers.
In these cases, those designing and delivering the programme content
are colleagues of the teachers who are participating, so there are ample

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opportunities for needs analysis and the trainers involved in the programme

9
can easily evaluate as they go, with input from the teachers participating,

Training courses and programmes

and make changes to improve the impact the programme is having.

CASE STUDY 9.4: DIEGO, TRAINING MANAGER

I help to manage professional development activity for my institution
as part of a team. I’m responsible for one part of our CPD [continuing
professional development] programme which is the training days. We have
four training days a year, and in between these days teachers work in
groups on small collaborative projects. The training days are pretty much a
balancing act between what management wants, what teachers want and
what the limited budget will allow. So there is usually some stuff that the
managers want, like announcements to all the teachers at the start, and
whatever training they had been told to cascade (for example, one time
it was Unconscious Bias – great for managers in the room but in the way it
had been planned it had no connection to teachers’ duties, sadly). Then, I
try to make most of the sessions relevant to teachers and because we have
a tiny budget they are pretty much all given by volunteers from the project
groups, but people are generally excited to have a chance to develop
their training skills. The budget allows us to get some guest speakers in
sometimes, but mostly it is spent on lunch and coffee breaks, and those are
important. Hungry teachers don’t learn!
The good thing about my situation is that I am working with the teachers all
year round, so I have a very clear idea of their needs and they are able to
ask me for training on specific topics at any time, which I can then include
in the next training day. I think that for that reason these days have a big
impact on teaching in the institution.

In Chapters 2–4 of this book we presented the process of producing

a training session in three main steps: designing an outline, selecting
appropriate activities and materials, and delivering the session, with
evaluation running through all these. The process of creating and delivering
a programme is not dissimilar. There’s an initial stage at which needs
and aims (of sponsor and participants) are established, the programme is
planned out, and then of course it must be delivered. Evaluation of the
programme might be considered the final stage, but as discussed in Chapter 4
it permeates all design and planning activities, and in programme design
evaluation is really a cyclical process – in its initial stages a programme is
informed by the cumulative learning of previous evaluations, evaluation
data can be gathered throughout, and when the programme is over, the
lessons learned during its delivery will be applied to future programmes.
Where programme design does differ from the process for training sessions
is in the level of complexity involved. There are many more decisions,
course components and variables to be accounted for in programme
design, and that means that there is a logistical side to programme design
in addition to considerations of needs, aims, training activities and delivery.

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 Martin Parrott includes some of these logistical elements in his list of
9 Training courses and programmes

‘design variables’ (Parrott, 1991, pp. 43–45), the headings of which form a
useful checklist:
1. Aims – what are the aims for the sponsor? What are the aims for
participants?
2. Selection – who selects the trainees and on what basis? What’s the
nature and what are the needs of the resulting cohort?
3. Location – will the course be delivered locally or will teachers
travel? What proportion and which elements, if any, will be delivered
online? Will face-to-face training take place in a school setting, or in a
conference centre?
4. Format – is the course part time or intensive, and will it take place in
addition to teachers’ regular timetables or will they be given time to
attend/study?
5. Length – what is the planned study time for each participant, and over
what time period?
6. Staffing – what expertise is needed from the trainers, and is it available
at the time and place currently planned?
7. Content – is there a balance of workshops providing Knowing about,
and more tailored in-class support (e.g., observations, collaborative
activity or mentoring) for Knowing how and Knowing to?
8. Training methodology – what is the balance of the different elements
(workshops, observations, webinars, etc.)? What is most practical in the
circumstances?
9. Assessment – is there an assessed component? Is it formal or informal?

The logistical elements in Parrott’s list are not really separable from
those related to teacher learning – there is no perfect world in which
you have unlimited time and resources to work with. So it makes sense
to establish what time and what resources are available, and then think
about the most appropriate ways to meet the needs of the participants.
There is rarely one best solution. Instead, you will probably have several
possible programmes, each with their advantages and disadvantages.
It’s helpful when deciding between them to remember that the goal is
impact – improved student learning – and to try and select the option that
maximises impact in relation to the resources it requires.
There are certain research-based principles of programme design that can
help to maximise the impact of a programme on teaching and learning.
One way of thinking about these principles is through the acronym
INSPIRE (Richardson & Díaz Maggioli, 2018):

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Table 9.2: Richardson and Díaz Maggioli's principles of programme design: INSPIRE

9
Training courses and programmes
Impactful Programmes should have a positive impact on student
learning, and should be designed around the aim of
achieving impact on learning.
Needs-based Programmes should address the needs of teachers and
learners in context.
Sustained Programmes should span at least six months, with a
regular ‘rhythm‘ (Cordingley et al., 2015) of professional
learning activities.
Peer-collaborative Programmes should incorporate opportunities for teachers
to learn alongside, and from, colleagues.
In-practice Programmes should encourage teachers to experiment with
new teaching practices in their classrooms.
Reflective Programmes should encourage teachers to reflect on the
impact of new practices and on how they might need to
adapt them to their classrooms.
Evaluated Programmes should encourage teachers to become
evaluative practitioners in their classrooms, and the
programme as a whole should be evaluated by trainers and
the institution.

In addition to these principles, Cordingley et al. (2015) stress the value

of creating a sense of shared purpose amongst trainees, who should be
clear about what the programme is aiming to achieve and their role in its
success. They also emphasise the need for the various teacher learning
activities on the programme to align, and to be congruent with the
principles of teaching that the programme aims to convey.
Since all programmes are different there’s really no magic formula for
putting one together. But our model of the three Ps (see Chapter 2) is as
relevant as it has been for other activities: your programme should include
Practical components, Professional components, and Personal ones too.

CASE STUDY 9.5: DIEGO, TRAINING MANAGER

The professional development team that I’m a part of runs a huge
programme for our teachers, and coordinating it all is a pretty big task. The
activities we’re running include:

• the four training days annually

• teachers’ collaborative project groups
• regular developmental observations
• a mentoring programme
• weekly one-to-one lesson planning with less experienced teachers
• group planning sessions for teachers using the same coursebooks
• a structured peer observation programme
• self-contained online courses on our VLE [virtual learning environment],
e.g., language awareness

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 Some of these things are compulsory for the teachers and others are
9 Training courses and programmes

optional (such as the online courses) so teachers can have some

control over their development activity. The principle that we use is that
we try to make it as easy as possible for teachers to access training and
development, so each teacher can build a programme that works for them.
To make that work we try to stick to a predictable routine for the teachers,
so they always know when meetings will be held, where to go for support,
and so on.

During the programme

As with a course, the pace and intensity of the work on the programme
is likely to be significant, and it is important to be well-organised. One
additional task for programmes, which tends not to be an issue on courses,
is reporting on progress to the programme sponsor. As a trainer this can
seem like an irritating distraction from the more important time spent
on teacher learning, but it is understandable that sponsors want to know
that teachers are engaging with the programme and that it is having a
positive effect.
Managing expectations is the key to success when it comes to reporting –
particularly in terms of when reports will be submitted, and what data
they will include. Generally, it is sufficient to include a record of each
trainee’s attendance on the programme, and what assignments they have
completed. What you should aim to avoid is a situation where the sponsor
is demanding detailed feedback on individuals at a point in the programme
when you are busy focusing on other things, so being clear at the early
stages is key.

After the programme

As with courses, participants may expect a certificate, or some form of
formal record, that provides recognition of the time they’ve invested in
the programme and their achievements on it. This is especially important
for programmes that include optional components, such as the one Diego
describes in Case study 9.5 – when teachers have gone the extra mile to
improve their practice, it’s only natural that they expect to be able to show
proof of their efforts. As with courses, evaluation will be necessary, but
even more so for a programme because significant amounts of time, effort
and money may have been spent on it.
The methods of evaluation that we discussed in Chapter 4 are just as
relevant here in thinking about how to evaluate programmes. In fact, there
is a much clearer impetus for evaluation of programmes than there is for
individual training sessions. For programmes, evaluation is an essential
ƒans of demonstrating to the sponsor that the programme has been
successful (or of explaining why it hasn’t). However, the degree of planning
involved is greater because there may be more data to gather, and more
people to gather it from. Analysing that data can take considerable time,

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and it can’t be rushed. So make a realistic schedule for your evaluation

9
activities at the planning stage, even if the bulk of that work is done when

Training courses and programmes

the trainees have left the programme and gone back to their classrooms.
If you’re working on an open-ended programme, consider how you can
build evaluation into the regular cycle of the programme so that it becomes
as routine as everything else, and so that it can inform your reports to the
sponsor.

Summary
From the case studies in this chapter, you should be able to see that
the essential training skills – planning and delivering training sessions,
observing lessons, supporting and assessing teachers – are all skills that we
have covered in this book so far. That means that you can make all of them
part of your trainer toolkit, and delivering a course or programme is often
simply a matter of putting them all together. That’s not to say that courses
or programmes are easy, but by the time your first course has finished
you will feel far more confident as a trainer. Working in the training room
day after day has a far greater effect on your professional development
than conducting the odd training session or observation here and there.
We discuss how you can find your way onto a course or programme as a
trainer in Chapter 10.

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the video ‘Course planning’
to hear how courses are designed in the trainers’ different
contexts.

TO FIND OUT MORE

Malderez, A., & Wedell, M. (2007). Teaching teachers: Processes and
practices. London: Continuum. (Addresses course and programme design
in detail, with a good balance of theoretical and practical advice.)
Parrott, M. (1991). Teacher education: Factors relating to programme design.
In R. Bowers, & C. Brumfit, Applied linguistics and English language teaching
(pp. 36–46). London: Macmillan. (This is an accessible and helpful summary
of the main issues in programme design, presented through some well-
chosen case studies.)

187
10
Here we consider:
Trainer development

• Why trainer development is important

• What the role of trainer entails
• What skills are needed to be an effective trainer
• How those skills can be developed
• Building a career as a trainer

The idea is to keep in constant movement, not to become static,

not to feel that there’s nothing else to learn. There’s always room
for improvement.
Ricardo, teacher trainer, Mexico

Anyone who has taken a flight will have heard the words ‘make sure
your own mask is fitted before helping others’ in the pre-flight safety
presentation. We should adopt the same principle when it comes to
professional development: make sure you are in control of your own
development as an educator before trying to guide the development of
your trainees. That’s where the analogy ends – development should be far
more enjoyable than an in-flight emergency!

Why trainer development matters

The first substantial training course for teachers of English to speakers of
other languages is thought to have taken place in London in 1935 (Howatt
& Widdowson, 2004). It was led by a man named Lawrence Faucett, who
published the Oxford English Course, one of the first ELT coursebook packages,
at around the same time. Faucett had spent several years teaching and training
teachers in China and then Turkey, and after further travels in Africa he was
invited to give a course in ‘teaching English to non-Western peoples’ at the
Institute of Education, part of the University of London (Smith, 2007).
From contemporary accounts Faucett sounds like a good trainer, one
focused on learner outcomes and attending to Personal, Practical and
Professional needs. A participant at one of his sessions in 1931 wrote that
what was especially striking, perhaps, about his method was
the diversity of practical devices at his command. . . . Here
many of us were obliged to sit up and take notice. . . . With
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 Dr. Faucett’s methods it is impossible to conceive of any
10 Trainer development

student, good, bad or indifferent, being neglected. (Thomas,

1931, p. 8, as cited in Smith, 2007)
Of course, Faucett hadn’t completed a course in order to acquire his
training skills, as no such thing existed at that time. He had studied and
researched extensively, but developed his training skills ‘on the job’, upon
a foundation of teaching experience acquired in a wide range of contexts.
Although there is more support for trainers now than in Faucett’s day (in
the form, for example, of the Cambridge Train the Trainer course, or this
book!), the ‘way in’ to teacher training really hasn’t changed very much. It
is still a largely informal process that depends on demonstrating teaching
expertise in order to be given opportunities to deliver training on a more
formal level. An EL Gazette article affirms this, explaining that ‘most
teachers follow an organic path into training – they may start by doing
some training or mentoring at their school, and then gradually begin to do
more and more‘ (Magloff, 2020, p. 34), which is indeed the path that both
of us took.
Unsurprisingly, then, a recent survey of teacher educators found that
a quarter had had no trainer training at all (Dragas, 2019, p. 231).
Undoubtedly many of those respondents deliver effective training
nonetheless, rather like Lawrence Faucett, but the lack of support for
early-career trainers inevitably means that some of the training that is
being provided is not as effective as it could be. No doubt a more rigorous
gateway to training would benefit teachers as well as trainers themselves.
There is another side effect caused by the lack of a clear-cut route to
becoming a trainer, which is that the bewilderment surrounding entry
requirements makes it difficult to know what you should do to get started
in your training career, and what you should do to keep progressing once
it has got off the ground. In order to develop as a trainer, feel confident in
your role and inspire confidence in your trainees, it is clearly important
to have some sense of the different skills you should be thinking about
developing.
e
… principal reason why you should develop as a trainer is, hopefully, at
this point in the book, quite clear: the processes of change and development
that we hope to guide teachers through are processes that we should be
personally familiar with, as teachers and as teacher trainers. In the same
way that we model techniques in the training room, demonstrating the
behaviours associated with successful professional development is an
important part of good training. As Malderez and Wedell put it, if trainers
‘are going to be managing other peoples’ professional learning, they need
to be capable managers of their own‘ (Malderez & Wedell, 2007, p. 103).
Happily, there are significant parallels between the development practices
that teachers and trainers might use, so many of the approaches and
activities we suggest here for your development are equally applicable to the
teachers whose development you will support.

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 CASE STUDY 10.1: ALLEN, TEACHER TRAINER

10 Trainer development
It was never really a plan of mine to become a teacher trainer. I was
managing a branch of a private language school, which did not have
an in-service programme, so I decided to start offering quarterly sessions
for teachers to collaborate and learn with each other. Teachers really
appreciated the school taking an interest in their development, and the
school noticed improved feedback from the students. This evolved into my
designing and delivering sessions for the whole system.
Eventually, I got promoted, and developing a sustained professional
development programme was part of my remit. It became so successful
that we started offering our training services to other institutions. I just
wanted to make sure that our school was providing the best possible
education to our students, and my role as teacher trainer grew from there.

The skills effective trainers need

In Chapter 1 we examined the qualities of effective teachers to build a
picture of what trainee teachers need to know and what skills they need to
learn. Similarly, understanding what trainers do helps to provide a picture
of the skills that we need to develop in order to be effective as trainers. It
might seem odd to be talking about the skills trainers need at this point
in the book, but now that you have a deeper understanding of more
specialised areas of training, it’s a good time to recap some key principles,
and to ‘zoom out’ and look at the bigger teacher education picture with a
better understanding now of what the different parts are and of how they
fit together. This is particularly true when it comes to your development as
a trainer: your development activity will involve focusing on certain areas
in depth, but to decide which of those areas to prioritise you may need to
be able to take a bird’s-eye view of your skillset and how it relates to the
role of trainer.
The trainer’s primary responsibility ‘is to be a facilitator for teacher
learning‘ (Waters, 2005, p. 212), in other words, to help teachers learn,
whether that learning happens in the classroom or outside it, amongst
colleagues or alone. All teachers are different, and teacher learning is
multifaceted, so in order to fulfil this function, trainers have to wear many
different hats. In the pages of this book we’ve seen how trainers must
work as designers of learning experiences, mediators of research, agents
of change, mentors, observers, course planners, and other roles besides.
The range of knowledge and skills required of trainers to be effective
facilitators of teacher learning is therefore quite extensive, and it’s worth
breaking it all down so that we can think about trainer development
more clearly.

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10 Trainer development

TASK 10.1
. . . To trainer
Based on what you’ve learned in previous chapters and on your experiences
of training so far (as trainer or trainee), what do you think the main areas of
expertise required by successful trainers are? Make a note of your ideas, e.g.,
knowledge of the target language.

Four key areas of trainer expertise

What, then, are the main areas of knowledge and skill that trainers
require? Most responses to the task above initially identify the following
four main areas:

1. Knowledge
First and foremost, trainers clearly need to know how to teach
effectively, which is why a robust foundation of teaching experience is
an initial prerequisite for the job. We saw in Chapter 1 that ‘knowing’
in this case refers to Knowing about, Knowing how, and Knowing to, not
just in depth but across a breadth of teaching contexts too. For trainers
this encompasses knowledge of both the target language and of how to
teach it, but beyond that, trainers also need the ability to develop that
teaching knowledge in others. Tony Duff highlights that:

To be a teacher, you must know the technique. To be a trainer,

you must know the technique, know why it is effective, be
able to articulate or convey that understanding to others, and
know how it relates to other aspects of language teaching.
(Duff, 1988, p. 112)

Equally important is the ability to select specific ideas and practices,

knowing what trainees need and will benefit from in their teaching
contexts. Trainers need to have a good sense of what their trainees
need to learn to operate more effectively in those contexts, as well as
an understanding of what their trainees feel is possible in their own
classrooms. So expertise in teaching needs to be complemented by
an awareness of the educational backdrop: knowledge of a range of
methodological approaches, of how the wider education system works,
and so on.
2. Understanding
In addition to a sound knowledge base, trainer expertise needs to
encompass the domain of the Personal: managing trainees’ beliefs,
attitudes, experience and prior knowledge to effect changes in their

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 teaching practice. Again, these skills are integral to all the aspects

10 Trainer development
of training that we have covered in this book, and depend on a deep
understanding of the trainees as people. Working effectively with
trainee beliefs, assumptions and knowledge requires trainers to have a
sense of what teachers feel is relevant to their professional lives, and
to be able to present new ideas or practices in a way that encourages
them to try them out. Expertise in this area isn’t simply a question of
techniques, but also encompasses soft skills: active listening, empathy,
patience, a sense of humour, and so on.
3. Training groups
A third area of expertise relates to planning, running and evaluating
group training activity, which can obviously vary in depth, from the level
of a single session to the scale of a whole programme. Where the latter is
concerned, there are likely to be more general skills involved in addition
to subject-specific knowledge, such as working with a team, budgeting,
scheduling and communicating with various stakeholders. Training
groups, rather than individual teachers, entails considering how and why
trainees might interact and collaborate to enhance their learning.
4. Training individuals
That leaves mentoring, observation, feedback and assessment
practices – skills generally involving a closer training relationship with
individual teachers – as the fourth basic area of trainer expertise. Again,
soft skills are critical to the success of these training practices, but there
is considerable domain-specific expertise involved too, as we discussed
in Chapters 5–8.

If your ideas in response to Task 10.1 covered these four areas (or gave
examples of each) then you are correct, but there are some additional areas
of expertise that you may have identified and which shouldn’t be ignored.
To help make sure that we’re not overlooking other domains of expertise,
it is worth reviewing some of the more prominent frameworks for trainer
development.

Frameworks of trainer expertise

You should be familiar with frameworks for teacher development – for
example, we have already looked at how the Cambridge English Teaching
Framework (see Appendix 1) might be used to help plan training. There
are similar published frameworks relating to trainer development, too.
Some of these are divided into levels and exist to enable trainers to profile
their development, and others are presented as a list of standards that
describe expectations of effective trainers. Trainer expertise is a very under-
researched area (Waters, 2005), and as a result experience plays a more
significant role in the creation of these frameworks than empirical evidence
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 (Cambridge Assessment English, 2016). But frameworks can still provide
10 Trainer development

a valuable ‘map of the terrain’ for trainers interested in developing

their professional practice. That is especially true if they are compared
side-by-side.

Table 10.1: Frameworks of trainer expertise

British Council CPD

Cambridge English Association of Teacher
framework for Teacher
trainer framework Educators standards
educators
Knowledge Understanding of Teaching
º Knowing the individuals and Model teaching that
subject situations demonstrates content and
º Understanding º Analysing teacher professional knowledge, skills,
the educational needs and dispositions reflecting
context º Dealing with research, proficiency with
º Understanding individual differences technology and assessment,
teacher learning and accepted best practices
Knowledge of in teacher education.
Skills teaching, training and
º Planning teacher teacher development Cultural Competence
learning º Knowledge of Apply cultural competence
º Teaching teachers teaching and promote social justice in
º Evaluating teachers º Knowledge of training teacher education.
º Supporting teacher º Knowledge of
professional teacher development Scholarship
development Engage in inquiry and
Planning, conducting contribute to scholarship
º Adopting inclusive and evaluating
practices that expands the knowledge
training activities base related to teacher
º Supporting
teachers remotely º Planning training education.
activities
Development º Conducting training Professional Development
º Taking responsibility activities Inquire systematically into,
for own professional º Evaluating training reflect on, and improve
development activities their own practice and
º Contributing to the Supporting, observing,
demonstrate commitment
profession to continuous professional
feeding back on and
development.
assessing teaching
º Supporting teachers Program Development
º Observing teaching Provide leadership in
º Feeding back on developing, implementing,
teaching
and evaluating teacher
º Assessing teaching education programs that
Professional are rigorous, relevant, and
development and grounded in theory, research
values and best practice
º Professional
Collaboration
development
Collaborate regularly and in
º Professional values
significant ways with relevant
stakeholders to improve
teaching, research, and
student learning.

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 Public Advocacy

10 Trainer development
Serve as informed,
constructive advocates for
high quality education for all
students
Teacher Education
Profession
Contribute to improving the
teacher education profession
Vision
Contribute to creating visions
for teaching, learning, and
teacher education that take
into account such issues as
technology, systemic thinking,
and world views.

Table 10.1 shows summaries of three frameworks of trainer expertise.

You will see that the areas discussed above, of knowledge, understanding,
training practices for groups and training practices for individuals are all
represented. There are additional points of emphasis included in these
frameworks, however, that add significantly to the picture of trainer
expertise.
The first of these additional points to emphasise is the explicit mention of
modelling – demonstrating teacher behaviours to trainees – which is central
to the trainer’s role. It is considered so important by the Association of
Teacher Educators (ATE) that effective modelling is the focus of the very first
ATE standard for trainers. Of course, as we have also seen in earlier chapters,
the real value in modelling is in the trainer’s ability to draw trainees’
attention to the practices being demonstrated and to link them to underlying
principles. So modelling is an important part of trainer expertise but it’s
also an area of greater depth than it may first appear to be, and is perhaps
best thought of as part of trainer knowledge (and indeed, ‘demonstrates . . .
effective teaching principles and practices’ is listed as part of the Knowledge
of Teaching competency in the Cambridge English Trainer Framework).
All three frameworks place importance on the trainer’s professional
development as an essential element of trainer expertise. What is
emphasised by all the frameworks as part of this is actively contributing
to the teacher education profession through the sharing of expertise, for
example, through conference presentations, webinars or journal articles.
But professional development standards for trainers also link to knowledge
that trainers can draw on to guide the development of teachers. As such,
the Cambridge English Trainer Framework states that trainers should
understand teachers’ development needs and be able to direct individual
trainees to resources that will advance their development.
As a critical part of professional development, but also as a recurring
theme in other domains, familiarity with research is a key pillar of

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 expertise in the three frameworks. This includes up-to-date knowledge of
10 Trainer development

relevant research, but also the ability amongst trainers to inquire into their
own practice, experimenting with what works and what doesn’t in order to
improve outcomes for teachers. Again, there’s more depth here than there
might first appear: inquiry into one’s own practice involves well-developed
reflection skills, and the ability to gather evidence from the training room
as the basis for reflection. Absorbing insights from published research, on
the other hand, involves skills in searching for relevant research studies,
critically evaluating them, and applying relevant findings to training in a
way that is contextually appropriate.
Finally, the frameworks underline the need for well-developed people
skills. These are integral to every interaction between trainers and teachers,
and therefore to all the other domains of expertise discussed here. In an
IATEFL conference workshop aimed at distilling advice to new trainers,
participants agreed that ‘there are several qualities essential for a teacher
trainer with the first being good people skills. A trainer needs to be sensitive,
approachable, supportive and firm but fair. Trainers have to show empathy
with the people they are training‘ (Davies & Northall, 2019b, p. 219). Such
skills are especially important for mentoring practices, and a review of
research into mentoring echoes the sentiments from the IATEFL workshop,
arguing that mentors ‘must be supportive, approachable, non-judgemental
and trustworthy, have a positive demeanour, and possess good listening skills
and the ability to empathize, as well as the willingness and ability to take an
interest in beginning teachers’ work and lives‘ (Hobson, Ashby, Malderez,
& Tomlinson, 2009, p. 212). Although these comments referred to teacher
mentors, we would argue that they are equally applicable to teacher trainers
more generally.

TASK 10.2
. . . To trainer
Now that you’ve seen the frameworks above, are you able to identify potential
areas for your development as a trainer that you hadn’t considered before?
For notes see page 237

The essential elements from the three frameworks in Table 10.1 can
usefully be distilled into six domains (see Figure 10.1 below). We show the
domain of Interpersonal skills and professionalism as underlying the other
five main domains because such skills are crucial to success in all of them.
Figure 10.1 presents what is, of course, a broad view of trainer expertise;
we are looking at the wood rather than the trees. There will, therefore,
be training skills that might sit comfortably in more than one of these
domains, but as we suggested earlier, the value in ‘zooming out’ like this is

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in being able to consider where our strengths and weaknesses as trainers

10 Trainer development
lie, and in thinking about what we do to develop our practice.

Training Training Professional

Understanding Knowledge
groups individuals development

Interpersonal skills and professionalism

Figure 10.1: Overarching domains of trainer expertise

Developing yourself as a trainer

It is now possible to start using the domains in Figure 10.1 to consider
potential trainer development activities. The advantage of doing this is that
we use the same domains to both diagnose and resolve areas of development
that need attention. ‘Development’ in this sense refers to activities led by you,
the trainer, for the benefit of your own professional learning. This mirrors the
distinction made in the Introduction between teacher training and teacher
development: in each case, development is a self-directed process.
How can you lead your own development process as a trainer? One
way is to set realistic goals for your development and make a clear plan
for achieving them. Professional development is a little like new year’s
resolutions in this respect – it’s easy to name an aspiration, but to actually
achieve something it’s usually necessary to be realistic and specific about
what you want to accomplish, and to consider what you will need to do to
succeed in the time you have available.
We suggest that you select two of the five main domains in Figure 10.1 to
focus on over a specific and reasonable period of time (e.g., six months).
If you need more detail to guide your thinking, use Table 10.1 or look
at the more detailed frameworks online (they are all freely available).
You may find it helpful to compare your thoughts with a colleague;
your developmental needs and actions will of course be different but
the process of planning for development is the same, and a different
perspective may help you to consider areas of expertise or development
activities that you hadn’t thought of.
Now let’s look at some different ways to address trainer development
needs. We can use the five main domains of trainer expertise (Figure 10.1)
as a way to group the activities. (In reality, of course, many of the activities
develop more than one facet of expertise. For example, presenting at a
conference can develop knowledge and group training skills as well as
your profile as a teacher education professional.)

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 Developing understanding
10 Trainer development

The aim of these activities is to develop an understanding of a diverse

range of teaching and training contexts, from which to better understand
the different needs and perspectives of trainees.
Keep teaching, if possible
There’s nothing wrong with a short break from teaching, but it
can be detrimental to your training to spend a long time out of
the classroom. Teaching contexts evolve, as do students, materials,
resources, exams, and so on, and it’s important to maintain a
connection to the ‘chalkface’ to be able to remain authentic in the
training room. We know some colleagues who take the opportunity
to get back in the classroom at summer courses, and others who
run free classes as volunteers at local community centres – find a
solution that fits into your training, and keep it going.
Explore other contexts: speak to trainers and teachers
It would be impossible to teach or train in every country, but you
can develop your knowledge of other contexts vicariously through
the experiences of peers. Seek out trainers and teachers who have
worked in different contexts to you (for example, through your
personal learning network – see below), and ask them to tell you
about their experiences.
Look for short-term training opportunities in other countries
If you have completed your training as a CELTA or CertTESOL tutor,
you could explore opportunities for working on intensive courses in
different countries. These can be an excellent way of learning about
a new training context and a new culture over four to five weeks
(although don’t expect to have much time for sightseeing!) There’s
no formal site for advertising such opportunities and they usually
come through professional contacts, which is why developing as a
professional (discussed below) is so important.

Developing knowledge
These reading activities aim to develop your knowledge of teaching,
training and teacher learning, in order to improve as a trainer as well
as to enable you to guide your trainees towards relevant resources for
their own needs. As reading activities, they don’t require the cooperation
or participation of anyone else, and many are free (provided you have
an internet connection!), so they are some of the easiest forms of
development activity.

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Target your reading

10 Trainer development
Regular reading is essential for your ongoing development as a
trainer, for the sake of your own professional knowledge but also to
be in a position to direct your trainees towards the most appropriate
resources. Books are not the only option here (see the To find out
more sections at the end of each chapter in this book for further
reading); periodicals such as The Teacher Trainer, Modern English
Teacher or Voices (IATEFL) can all be excellent sources of inspiration
and new ideas. So can blogs, such as the Cambridge ‘World of Better
Learning’ blog (www.cambridge.org/elt/blog/).
Explore mainstream education resources
We feel that looking beyond the world of language teaching for
professional knowledge is a useful thing to do, and there are some
excellent resources aimed at teachers in mainstream education that
language teachers and trainers can take advantage of. Organisations
like the Teacher Development Trust (tdtrust.org), researchED
(researched.org.uk) and the Association for Teacher Education in
Europe (atee.education) provide a range of downloadable resources
and run regular online and face-to-face events.
You may feel that you want to look even further afield for relevant
ideas, and explore fields outside education altogether. Waters (2005),
for example, draws on change management theory to shed light on
the skills that trainers need.
Make reading research a habit
As we discussed in Chapter 2, one of the trainer’s roles is to present
trainees with research findings in a form that they can apply to their
practice, which means it’s essential to be familiar with up-to-date
research and know how to interpret it. Research literacy is a vital
skill for trainers to develop and includes:

• understanding how reliable data is gathered

• recognising well-formulated research questions
• knowing how data can be analysed to answer research questions
• recognising when results have been well-interpreted
• being able to differentiate sound from unsound research
• communicating findings from research effectively
• using research findings to maximise the impact of teaching

(Brown & Coombe, 2015, p. xv)

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 The Cambridge Guide to Research in Second Language Teaching and
10 Trainer development

Learning, a collection of short chapters on core topics in research,

is a comprehensive resource for developing your research literacy,
and the OASIS database (oasis-database.org) is an excellent source of
free research summaries. It’s a good idea to make reading research
a habit; try to set some time aside for reading into a particular topic
every two weeks, based on questions that arise from your own
practice and in preparing training materials. If you can discuss with
colleagues, even better!

Developing group training skills

These activities aim to develop your skills in planning, delivering and
evaluating training sessions (or training courses/programmes).
Invite feedback from trainees
Hopefully, you are collecting feedback from trainees as part of
evaluating your sessions (see Chapter 4), but you can extend that
evaluative approach to other areas of training, such as observation
and feedback, and make a habit of building it into your general
training practice. For example, Tessa Woodward proposes the
idea of ‘lecturers’ diaries’ (1991, p. 215). These are written by the
trainer throughout a course or programme, letting trainees evaluate
trainers’ planning and decision-making processes (including their
understanding of trainee needs) in group discussion. Trainees may
even give the diary a grade (e.g., ‘satisfactory’ or ‘unsatisfactory’) at
certain intervals, based on the outcome of their discussions.
Collaborate with other trainers
There are many ways of collaborating with training colleagues
to develop both your training skills and theirs. Co-preparing and
co-presenting sessions is a particularly helpful way of discovering
different ways of doing things. Observing colleagues conducting
training sessions, or inviting them to observe you, allows you to
pay particular attention to how trainee contributions are responded
to. In all cases, make sure you take time to discuss what was
noticed and why choices were made, as that’s often where the most
meaningful insights arise.
Attend training
Similarly, aim to attend as many training sessions as you can as a
participant, with the twin goals of improving your teaching as well
as your training. Online sessions are especially good for this, because
they are easy to find (there is a large back catalogue of webinars on
the Cambridge University Press ELT YouTube channel, for example).
Pause and re-watch parts to make notes on the content to develop
your teaching and notes on the delivery to develop your training.

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Is there a balance of the Personal, the Professional and the Practical

10 Trainer development
(see Chapters 2 and 3)? How does the trainer manage resources,
tasks, signposting and interaction?
Present at conferences
Conference presentations are not typical training sessions, but they
are group teacher learning events, and they can therefore be a good
way of forcing you out of your comfort zone and re-evaluating how
you do things. In particular, the onus is on you to say something
new, and that means knowing your topic inside out, so there is a
strong incentive to read and research, as well as to reflect on your
own story and how to tell it.
There will be constraints: changing the layout of the room will
be difficult or impossible, the size of the group is unpredictable,
it’s likely to include both novices and experts working in diverse
contexts, and you will usually have less time for your session than in
your usual training context. Changing attendees’ teaching practice is
difficult, therefore, but resist reverting to a ‘chalk and talk’ approach
to get your ideas across. Aim to send participants away with new
insight into a particular area, some examples of the practical
implications, and the tools to look into it in more detail if they wish.
Use video
Video is a hugely under-used resource in both teacher and trainer
development, but it has gained more attention in recent years. There
are various ways of using recordings as a prompt for reflection,
but video clubs – group viewing and discussion of video clips in
peer groups that meet regularly – can be an effective approach. If
you can get together with training colleagues and take it in turns
to share short clips of your practice, there is a good chance that
you will learn to reflect in more depth, and focus more on trainee
contributions and interaction (Borko, Jacobs, Eiteljorg, & Pittman
2008; Sherin & Van Es, 2009; Van Es & Sherin, 2008).
A period of adjustment may be needed initially, as it can feel
uncomfortable seeing yourself on screen, but once that has passed
you will find yourself noticing trainee behaviour much more,
and you can begin to look for evidence of learning and ways to
improve it.
Keep a journal
Reflecting on your training needn’t be done in writing –
discussions with other trainers or with trainees are also a valid
form of reflection. But there are few better ways of recording your
reflections than keeping a journal. There’s no ‘correct’ way to do
this – it’s a personal document and you will work out a format
that is meaningful to you – but your aim is to record briefly what

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 happened in your sessions, what evidence of learning there was,
10 Trainer development

what you feel wasn’t so successful and what you plan to do in future
to improve outcomes. It can be a private document, or you might
choose to publish it as a blog and seek feedback from the wider
ELT community. If writing really isn’t your thing, consider audio
recording your thoughts and reflections., but try to make time not
just to record your ideas, but also to listen to earlier entries from
time to time. This is a good way of measuring your progression and
of understanding which development activities have proven to be
most effective for you.

Developing skills in training individuals

The ability to develop skills in mentoring, observation and assessment of
individual trainees can be more challenging, because the activities to do so
require time and a personalised response to the trainee in each situation.
All the more reason, then, to build in development of these skills early and
to seek regular opportunities to put them into practice.
Ask colleagues to observe you
If you are still teaching (and we recommend that trainers do
continue teaching to some degree at least), look for opportunities
to be observed and get feedback on your classroom practice. It
can feel that as a trainer you’re not expected to need this kind of
intervention, but critical feedback is always a valuable learning
opportunity for any teacher or trainer. If you’re not still teaching,
having a colleague observe and feed back on one of your training
sessions can be just as useful, and can also help to remind you of
what it’s like for trainees when they are ‘in the hotseat’!
Shadow mentoring/feedback conversations
Just as observing colleagues delivering training can be very
instructive, you can learn a lot from observing feedback or
mentoring discussions between colleagues and their trainees. These
are obviously difficult to arrange because you are observing a
private conversation in which trust is key, so both the trainer and
the trainee must agree to your presence. If you can arrange this,
however, discussing the conversation afterwards with both mentor
and trainee can be very illuminating.
Share mentoring stories
If direct observation of a mentor colleague is not possible, an
alternative is to discuss past experiences that a colleague has had
mentoring instead – what challenges have they had and how did
they deal with them? It is essential that the confidentiality of the
mentor-mentee relationship is maintained, but much can be learned
from sharing these kinds of narratives.

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Developing as a teacher training professional

10 Trainer development
Activities here are about connecting with the wider second language
teacher education profession, meeting and learning from colleagues who
may be working in quite different situations, or in similar situations in
faraway places!
Create a personal learning network on social media
Social networking sites can be outstanding ways of connecting
with other ELT professionals, including teacher trainers. Start by
following the pages of reputable ELT organisations such as IATEFL,
TESOL, the British Council and ELT publishers such as Cambridge
University Press, and search for relevant content using the hashtags
#ELT, #ELTchat, #TESOL and #CELTAchat. As your personal learning
network (PLN) grows, you’re likely to find you have access to a
wealth of resources (some more useful than others), and you’ll be
able to ask questions and canvass opinions on your work, as well as
help others who are doing the same thing.
Join a teachers’ association
IATEFL and TESOL are both well-known global organisations for
teachers of English, and have special interest groups (SIGs) for
teacher trainers. Consider joining one of these international teachers’
associations as well as a local association, which may provide more
opportunities for meeting other trainers in person and for delivering
sessions. Don’t just sign up to an association, look to actively get
involved by joining a SIG committee, contributing to a newsletter or
running a webinar – you will get far more from your membership
and make new professional connections and friends as a result.
Start a reading group
Reading groups are a fairly well-established development activity,
and with videoconferencing tools can be carried out with training
colleagues all over the world. We have been a part of several
reading groups as both teachers and trainers, and have found that
they all have their own character, but tend to work best when
they have clear routines, such as a predictable meeting time (e.g.,
the first Wednesday of every month), an agreed source of texts
(perhaps participants take it in turns to provide or suggest a text,
or perhaps there is a ‘leader’ who sources them), and a structure
for discussions.
Some groups we have been part of combined the reading group with
a blog: participants took turns to summarise discussions and post
them to the blog, and others left comments after they had tried out
new teaching or training ideas. Ensuring that discussions lead to
practical experiments is an important part of a successful group.

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 Attend conferences
10 Trainer development

Conferences are an excellent opportunity to expose yourself to

new techniques and approaches, make connections and friends
within the profession, and see how other professionals present
ideas to colleagues in the teaching community. At the annual
IATEFL conference there is always a substantial selection of
talks on the programme aimed at teacher trainers. There is
even an increasing number of conferences aimed specifically at
teacher trainers, such as the Cambridge English Teaching Awards
Symposium, or the IH London Future of Training conference,
both also held annually.
The key to making conferences a productive part of your
professional development is to be selective: choose both the
conferences and the conference sessions that you attend carefully,
and have a clear idea of what you want to gain from them. You
might find it helpful to set goals for each conference (and/or each
session) you attend, which could relate to teaching (e.g., I want to
come away from the conference with five new ideas to add to my training
sessions on pronunciation) or training (e.g., I will make a note of the
different ways that presenters started their sessions), and plan which
talks you will attend accordingly.
‘Go public’
At a certain point you may feel ready to take your ideas to a wider
audience, and ‘go public’, as Tony Wright and Rod Bolitho put it
(2007). For example, if you’ve done plenty of background reading
and practical experimentation for a session, it could well be worth
writing it up for a periodical such as English Teaching Professional
or Modern English Teacher, or, if it is a more theoretically grounded
piece, for the ELT Journal. If your submitted article is rejected
initially, don’t feel downhearted – treat the process as a route to
development and learn valuable lessons about how to present ideas
in writing through the feedback that you receive.
Another way to get published is to write a book review for one of
the publications mentioned. Editors of reviews are often willing to
provide guidance and support to new contributors. Book reviewing
is also of course a good way to keep your knowledge up-to-date.
You can ’go public’ more informally by writing a training blog to
tell your ‘story’ and share challenges and successes with others in
the field. Two particularly good examples are Anthony Gaughan’s
teachertrainingunplugged.com and Matthew Noble’s account of his
journey towards becoming a CELTA tutor, Diary of a newbie CELTA
trainer, at celtatrainer.wordpress.com. A more interactive option is
to join a live discussion online. Twitter is a particularly good forum

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 for these – look for the hashtags #ELTchat, #CELTAchat and #edchat.

10 Trainer development
You will come across like-minded people, learn about a range of
contexts, and build your PLN!
This is by no means an exhaustive list, and perhaps you can think of
other activities, but it should at least be a good starting point to help you
develop your expertise as a trainer. Find what works for you; it shouldn’t
be a chore and the key is to enjoy the process of developing as much as the
outcome.

TASK 10.3
. . . To trainer
Many of the trainer development activities we have seen can also be used
with trainees. We have used our domains of trainer expertise to group the
activities, but how else could you group them in a way that is meaningful to
trainees, so that they can use them to develop as teachers?
For notes see page 237

Pursuing a training career

If you’re relatively new to training – or a newly qualified trainer – you’re
probably keen to get your training career off the ground and build up
enough experience to feel confident referring to yourself as a teacher
trainer as well as a teacher. It’s important to look beyond that, though, and
consider your long-term career path. Let’s take a look at these two stages
in your teacher training story.

Getting off the ground

There is no substitute for teaching experience as a basis for a career as
a trainer. Hours in the classroom are key (we would suggest 5,000 as a
basic minimum, which would equate to around five years for someone
teaching 25 hours per week) but the diversity of contexts (ages, study
purposes, class sizes, nationalities, etc.) making up those hours is just as
important. And as stated in Chapter 1, that experience is a necessary,
but certainly not the only, criterion for a successful training career. Nor
is there any escaping the fact that trainers need to know their subject
well: its terminology, history and development, theories, practices (and
how they relate to theories), controversies, relevant texts and resources.
Nevertheless, one of the most valuable traits of a trainer is a supportive,
collegial attitude towards teachers, and this can be cultivated and
demonstrated early in a teacher’s career, as they work on acquiring
experience and developing their knowledge. As John Hughes (2015) points
out, the clues that someone has potential as a trainer can emerge during
their teaching experience, demonstrated in a willingness to share teaching

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 ideas or lesson plans with colleagues, to engage keenly in training and
10 Trainer development

development opportunities, or to experiment with new activities and

approaches in the classroom.
Assuming you have a suitable basis of experience and knowledge, the
survey run by Teti Dragas (2019) identified three main ways into teacher
training. A quarter of the teachers moving into training roles had no
guidance and had ‘just started doing it’. Of the others, 35% were trained
‘in-house’ and the remaining 40% were trained in preparation for
delivering certificate courses such as the Cambridge CELTA or the Trinity
CertTESOL (Dragas, 2019, p. 231).
Paradoxically, the most common route to teacher training in Dragas’ survey
is probably also the most elusive. That’s because it is a route that is not
openly publicised – those chosen as trainers-in-training (TinTs) on certificate
courses are generally teachers working at institutions that run preservice
courses alongside English language courses for students. The institutions
may have an internal selection process for teachers who are interested in
moving into teacher training, but there is no obligation on them to carry
this out; the opportunity may be offered directly to a teacher instead.
If you’ve been selected as a TinT, congratulations! If you haven’t and
would like to be, you will need to (1) get a teaching job at an institution
running preservice certificate courses, and (2) do enough to get yourself
noticed as a potential TinT by the training manager there. That is every bit
as challenging as it sounds, particularly if you live in Francophone Africa
where there are no CELTA centres, or North America, Africa or Australia,
where there are no Trinity CertTESOL centres. But if it is your goal, it’s
important to be seen to be dedicated and able when opportunity knocks.
Being trained in-house is probably easier, but relies on working at an
institution with a well-organised professional learning scheme in place
that will provide opportunities to deliver training sessions or mentor
teachers. We have been fortunate enough to work at schools that ran
weekly training sessions, and at others that ran dedicated training days
scattered throughout the year – each of these provided ample opportunities
for volunteering to deliver training. The number and the nature of
opportunities for being involved in teacher learning will depend on the
institution. Your training as a trainer in these sorts of scenarios is likely to
be fairly informal in the sense that there will probably be no defined TinT
pathway, but ideally you will be able to work with a more experienced
supervisor who will guide your efforts, provide opportunities for working
with teachers, and give you meaningful feedback.
The time frame for these two pathways – preservice certificate TinT and
in-house TinT – will vary. TinTs on intensive CELTA courses will typically
‘shadow’ one or two full courses before being able to act as assistant
course tutor, which for many signals ‘mission accomplished’. Those who
wish to then go on to become main course tutors may be able to do so after
three or four further courses. We would argue that that is long enough
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to provide a healthy footing for a training career in which continuing

10 Trainer development
professional development plays a part. The danger with intensive courses
is that they are so intensive that professional development becomes
an afterthought, which is why effective development planning is so
important, and why a good TinT supervisor can be the difference between
success and stress!
If you are like one of the 25% from Dragas’ survey who just start doing
it, you may find that you need to be more self-reliant and motivated, as
you will need to take responsibility for creating your own opportunities to
train teachers. If you are successful with these, they can often lead to other
opportunities. Allen’s story in Case study 10.1 (page 191) is a good example,
while one of us started by setting up a teacher reading group and related
blog for colleagues. Initiatives like these require energy, determination and
enthusiasm, but are ultimately very good preparation for full-time teacher
training, which requires all of those qualities in abundance.

CASE STUDY 10.2: WALID, TEACHER TRAINER

After teaching for several years on a pre-degree English language
foundation course at a large university in Saudi Arabia, I was selected
to join the Cambridge Train the Trainer course. This was a fairly intensive
30-hour course run over five days, but luckily I and my fellow course
participants were released from teaching duties for the whole week. The
course was highly practical and gave me plenty of opportunities to reflect
on my teaching career to date, to learn more about training methods and
approaches, and to experiment with new ideas.
Once the course had finished, I was strongly encouraged to seek out
opportunities to put into practice what I’d learned, and part of that was to
present training to my teaching colleagues. Even though it was not part of
the Train the Trainer course, my trainer from the course supported me and
my course peers during the whole process of creating our training sessions
and observed us when we delivered them. This was enormously helpful as
I never once felt that I was alone, nor did I feel unsure about what to do.
Subsequently I presented at the university’s annual ELT conference, in front
of 100s of people, and my trainer also invited me to co-present with him at
another conference. Nowadays I take every opportunity to deliver training
but also to explore my own PD in as many ways as I can.

Staying off the ground

In most situations, teachers don’t need to worry about the logistics of their
lessons. It is someone else’s responsibility to find students, assign them
to a class, create the timetable, and so on. For trainers, the picture tends
to be quite different: you can expect to have far more involvement in the
processes that surround and support the training itself. For example, on a
CELTA course, you may well need to interview prospective trainees, find
students for teaching practice sessions, triple-check that trainee names
have been spelled correctly so their certificates are right, find an assessor,

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 and more. This means that you will need to be willing to demonstrate
10 Trainer development

initiative and take responsibility for ensuring that things get done outside
the training room as well as in it. Unfortunately, this is where some
novice trainers can come unstuck – we have trained candidates on Train
the Trainer courses who completed the course successfully but haven’t
had the opportunities to apply what they learned and develop as trainers
because they weren’t prepared to take the initiative and start creating
opportunities themselves.
Full-time trainer jobs are rare. It is much more common for trainers to
work on a freelance basis, juggling short-term training contracts with other
teaching-related commitments. So again, it is important to be proactive
when it comes to looking for work opportunities. Many of the development
activities detailed in this chapter can serve two useful purposes beyond
simply developing your knowledge and training skills:

• They can provide evidence of your expertise (e.g., conference sessions,

blog posts, articles).
• They can put you in touch with people who may be in a position to
offer you training work (e.g., online discussions, attending conferences).

These two benefits are the key to finding work as a trainer. You need
to be effective when it comes to designing and delivering training, and
supporting teachers. But just as importantly, people need to know who
you are and that you have those skills. Interacting with other trainers –
whether at work or in a developmental capacity – is a useful chance to
learn about how they handle this side of the profession. Find out how they
promote themselves and how they manage the task of finding work. There
are many different ways of doing this, so talking to a range of training
colleagues will help you to decide what might be most effective for your
own circumstances.

Different destinations
Your journey as a teacher trainer may just be getting started, but where
could it take you? There are many possibilities, including:

• Being employed full-time for a training organisation such as

International House, Bell, Pilgrims, NILE, or the British Council, either
delivering training courses to paying trainees or providing in-service
training to teachers at the institution.
• Working as a training consultant, designing large-scale programmes of
training for institutions or even for ministries of education.
• Managing a team of trainers on a large-scale training project, with
responsibility for their ongoing professional learning as well as for the
outcomes of the training they deliver.

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• Working as an assessor for Cambridge Assessment English, evaluating

10 Trainer development
the quality of training on CELTA courses.
• Working as a freelance trainer, combining a range of short-term
training posts with teaching and other ELT-related work.

Wherever your teacher training career takes you, we wish you good
luck, we hope you enjoy the ride, and we look forward to seeing you at a
training event (online or face-to-face) showcasing your new skills!

TRAINER VOICES
Scan the QR Code and watch the video ‘Staying up to
date’ to hear how trainers attend to their own professional
development. Which practices can you adopt for yourself?

TO FIND OUT MORE

Foord, D. (2009). The developing teacher. Peaslake: Delta. (Although this
collection of developmental activities is aimed at teachers, most can be
usefully repurposed for trainer development.)
Wright, T., & Bolitho, R. (2007). Trainer Development. Self published.
(This is the most substantial text on trainer development in language
teaching contexts.)

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Notes on tasks
TASK 1.1
Of course, only you can answer questions about your teaching context. But
it is important for you to have a clear idea of what the parameters there
are, and how they affect your teaching. This is because, as a trainer, you
will need to be sensitive to your trainees’ contexts in order to effectively
support their learning. Understanding how your own teaching is affected
by the context you work in is an essential prerequisite for that.
If you have spent most of your teaching career in the same teaching
context then we would encourage you to explore other contexts in any way
you can. You can do this by:

• exploring coursebooks used in other contexts

• looking at exams used in other contexts
• observing teachers in other contexts (online, if not in person – Sandy
Millin has curated a selection of freely available video lessons at
https://sandymillin.wordpress.com/2017/11/11/lessons-you-can-watch-online/)
• talking with teachers from other contexts – social media is a good way
of doing this, e.g., the #ELTchat group on Twitter

TASK 1.2
A B
º More people for each student to º More comfortable environment
talk to º Ideal for group work and
º More opinions/experiences for discussion
Opportunities

the teacher to work with º Easy for teacher to give individual

º Large board, which can be attention, monitor students and
clearly seen by all students provide feedback
º Marking written work is
manageable because there are
fewer students
º Easier to move the furniture
º Difficult to give attention to º There is no board to present/
individuals in the group (e.g., to record language on (that we
monitor or give feedback) can see!)
Limitations

º Difficult to find out/cater to needs º Few peers for students to speak

of all the students to (e.g., mingling activities
º Limited space/difficult to won’t work)
move around º Fewer experiences or points of
º Difficult to distribute materials view amongst the students to
efficiently discuss or debate

211
 • In classroom A the teacher could use the board at the front to quickly
Notes on tasks

and easily present and check language with the students. For instance,
he might tell a story to elicit examples of third conditional sentences
(e.g., if he hadn’t overslept, he wouldn’t have been late), then put those
examples from students on the board in order to encourage them to
 

explore the meaning and form of that target language. The teacher in
classroom B doesn’t have a board, but she could do something similar
with large sheets of paper and a marker pen.
• In classroom B the teacher could work on presentation skills with the
students, and they would all have the opportunity to present to each
other and get peer and teacher feedback. That would be more difficult
for the teacher in classroom A, given the number of students and the
lack of space, but his students could instead record and upload a digital
presentation that classmates could then comment on.
It was perhaps a bit unfair of us to ask what each of the teachers
couldn’t do – while certain things may not be possible in each context,
the teachers could probably adapt tasks to achieve the same outcomes.
It’s this kind of adaptation that you will need to consider for your
trainees, and help them to consider, too.

TASK 1.3
You will probably be able to see aspects of novice and expert practice at
many different stages of your teaching career. There is a lot to master
in language teaching, and you may, for example, have demonstrated
some expert practices in relation to vocabulary teaching while still
demonstrating novice practices in relation to pronunciation teaching.
Teaching skills develop at different rates, and of course different contexts
influence the development of teaching skills, too.
The precise mix of skills at varying stages of development will differ
between teachers, as no two teachers or teaching contexts are exactly alike.
But there is a clear general trend in novice teachers of focusing on trying
to establish an identity as a teacher – which can be difficult if you’re still
learning how to teach! – and only later attending more to student learning
than to how they are perceived.
You could also take a look at the Cambridge English Teaching Framework
(see Appendix 1) to see other ways in which teacher knowledge and skills
develop with expertise.

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TASK 1.4

 
Notes on tasks
For trainees to get to know their trainer
What’s the question?
The trainer puts five or six numbers, dates, places and names on the board/
screen (e.g., 1958, 3, Australia, pizza, iPhone) and teachers work in pairs to
guess what the information refers to by forming questions.
1958 When were you born?
3 How many children do you have?
Australia Which country would you like to visit?
pizza What’s your favourite food?
iPhone What type of phone do you use?
It does not matter if the teachers get the questions correct. The point is to
start a discussion between the trainer and the group and for the teachers to
get to know their trainer.
Who am I?
The trainer chooses a number of pictures which provide information
about their life, and displays them for everyone to see. Trainees look at the
pictures and try to guess what each one tells them about their trainer. It
does not matter if the trainees guess correctly. At some point, either during
the guessing or at the end, the trainer can reveal the real information about
their life.
Of course, with minimal preparation both of these activities could also be
adapted and used to help trainees get to know each other!

For trainees to get to know each other

Information recall
Version A: Trainees work in small groups (no more than six). Each person
in the group has about 15 seconds to tell the group a few things about
themselves. When everyone has had a chance to speak, each group
member tries to recall something about the other group members.
Version B: Trainees stand in a line or in a circle (depending on the number
of people and room size/arrangement). Each person says TWO things about
themselves. Then teachers make pairs and each pair recalls as much as
they can about each other and the other people in the room.

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 ‘Find someone who . . .’ bingo
Notes on tasks

In our variation of this popular getting-to-know-you activity (see Figure N.1

below), some information that teachers need to find is based on their
knowledge of language, teaching and learning, while other information
is specific to some of the participants (drawn, for example, from course
 

application documents). The aim is for participants to mingle and talk to

each other to complete five boxes in a row, but they should be encouraged
to ask follow-up questions to learn more, too.
You can include information about most or all of the participants on the
handout, but the bingo element means that there is a natural end to the
activity before all the boxes are filled in. The advantage of that is that the
activity doesn’t go on too long, and trainees have an incentive to keep
asking questions to fill in some of the remaining boxes even after the
activity is over (e.g., in breaks).

Differences to language teaching

How do these differ from the same tasks in a language lesson? In many
ways, they don’t. The main aim is the same: for the group to get to know
each other and feel comfortable together. The language used will be
very similar, too, and the trainer needs to manage the interaction and
use of space in the room, as the teacher would. But there are important
differences: teachers might need to provide more linguistic support (e.g.,
sentence stems) to students, and would probably treat these activities as
opportunities for diagnostic testing; trainers need to give trainees a chance
to reflect on how the activities were set up and managed, and consider
how they felt while participating. Trainees should also be prompted to
think carefully about how the activities could work with students in
their own classrooms, considering what might need to be adapted, and
whether or not the outcomes for students would be the same as for them
as trainees.

214
‘Find someone who . . .’ bingo

 
Notes on tasks
Talk to your colleagues to fill the boxes with the names of people who match the
given information. When you get five in a row (the names should all be different!),
shout ‘bingo!’
Find someone who . . .

. . . enjoys . . . can speak . . . has taught . . . knows what . . . used to be

going running Spanish. children under CCQ stands in a jazz band.
with no the age of 6. for.
shoes on.
Matt

. . . has used . . . has worked . . . likes using . . . works in a . . . lives in

task-based in more than technology in university. Poland.
learning in two countries. the classroom.
their classes.

. . . has a cat . . . has been . . . can . . . finds . . . has taught

called Elsie. to an ELT explain what authentic texts exam classes.
conference. an abstract for reading.
noun is.

. . . teaches . . . has shared . . . studied . . . has been . . . can give

one-to-one a lesson plan Art History at on TV in Egypt. an example
classes. online. university. of a third
conditional.

. . . knows what . . . travelled . . . has taught . . . can give . . . plans

an antonym is. more than 10 a multilingual an example to teach in
hours to be class. of a discourse China.
here. marker.

Figure N.1: Example of ‘Find someone who . . .’ bingo

TASK 1.5
It may be that you don’t have any lightbulb moments, which is fine. One
of us was asked this as part of a plenary discussion at the early stages
of a diploma course, and at that time couldn’t think of any lightbulb
moments. It felt disappointing not to be able to point to any times where
understandings of teaching had developed.
It did prove to be a useful discussion, though. The first benefit was that
since then, many lightbulb moments have happened, so perhaps just
being aware that they exist makes you more likely to look for them. The
second benefit was that listening to other trainees’ lightbulb moments was
fascinating, and instructive in itself. In fact, as the discussion moved on to
other trainees, one of them shared her lightbulb moment. She had worked
very hard to prepare a lesson just that week which had been particularly
challenging: no matter what she tried, she couldn’t find a way to make

215
 the plan fun. So when the class finally arrived, she had been surprised to
Notes on tasks

see the students highly engaged, and enjoying the lesson. Her lightbulb
moment then was that the sensation of learning and making progress is fun
in itself.
Hearing this was a lightbulb moment for other trainees in the group too!
 

So consider asking your trainees for their lightbulb moments as a useful

discussion at the beginning of a new course.

TASK 2.2
You probably think (consciously or subconsciously) about some or all of
the following questions when you plan your lessons:

• What kind of institution will host the lesson, and what are the
expectations of that institution? (e.g., is it in a university teaching room,
in a small room in a private language school, online, in company offices,
is it a one-to-one class in a café, etc.)
• What type of class is it? (e.g., adults/YLs, general English/EAP/exam)
• Is there a syllabus, and what does it prescribe?
• What is to be covered from the coursebook?
• What are the goals for the course?
• What’s the goal for this lesson?
• Are there better ways of achieving that goal than using the material I
currently have to work with?
• What do the students need to know/do?
• What do they know and what can they do already?
• What will engage the students?
• How much time is available?
• What have we covered in recent lessons?

More or less the same factors will influence your thinking as you design
a training session, but you may not have a syllabus or coursebook to
work with, and the session may not form part of a course. That can make
it more difficult to decide what your intended outcomes should be, so
planning lessons without the support of coursebooks is good practice for
would-be trainers.
Woodward (2001) has more on how context influences teacher lesson
planning in Planning Lessons and Courses, Chapter 8.

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TASK 2.4

 
Notes on tasks
In our experience, it has been a substantial minority (maybe 30%) of the
sessions we’ve attended as teachers that have included both modelling and
reflection, but these have unquestionably been the most effective sessions.
Modelling of practice is not especially uncommon, but the reflection on it
afterwards is often missing, or rushed.

TASK 2.5
The first obvious similarity is the definition of the parameters for the
session: the description of participants, the resources to be used, and the
time available. For teachers, they all represent elements of the teaching
context that will guide planning. The same is true for trainers: they have
to work within the training context, so it makes sense to sketch out the
boundaries of that context first.
The learning outcomes for the session are a second element that training
plans have in common with lesson plans. There might be two aims for
training sessions, as we’ve discussed in this chapter, but just as an outcome
for students should generally include specific examples of language and
the situations in which they will use that language, outcomes for training
should reference specific examples of new knowledge or skills.
Also very similar to a language teaching lesson plan is the procedure, which
outlines the sequence of stages and their focus. Trainers, like teachers, need
to plan a coherent sequence of activities in order to scaffold and support
participants’ learning. As a result of completing each stage, participants take
steps towards achieving the learning outcomes for the session.
What is different in this training session pro-forma from a lesson template?
It’s the title, which indicates to participants what the focus of the session
is, and will probably be communicated to them prior to the session
itself, particularly if it forms part of a larger programme of training (see
Chapter 9). A well-chosen title will offer a useful shorthand to trainers and
participants when looking through a course schedule or when evaluating
the impact of a training programme.

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 TASK 3.1
Notes on tasks

On the whole, staffroom practices can be easier to set up and manage in

the training room, because no students are needed. For that reason, they
are sometimes used as a proxy for classroom practices, which is partly the
case in Marie’s session – she’s unable to provide trainees with experience
 

teaching young learners so instead she has them thinking about the YL
classroom through a planning activity. Staffroom practices can also be
presented in a less trainer-fronted way, using materials such as samples of
student work, example lesson plans, exam papers and coursebooks, and these
work just as well with very large audiences as they do with smaller groups.
Classroom practices can be difficult to replicate in the training room if it is
very dissimilar to the classroom (e.g., in terms of numbers of participants,
layout or resources). They are often presented through modelling, which
places certain demands on both the trainer and trainees, or through
microteaching, which can be difficult to set up and manage. But they are
nearly always perceived as highly relevant, they provide a crucial stepping
stone towards the application of techniques in trainees’ real classrooms,
and trainees enjoy both the feeling of progression and the change of pace
that a focus on classroom practices can bring.

TASK 3.2
Perhaps the main advantage of loop input is the ‘belt and braces’ effect:
participants learn about a particular aspect of teaching on an intellectual
level, but they also experience how it feels. Woodward argues that for
some trainees this alignment of content and process makes for a deeper
learning experience (Woodward, 2003). Another benefit is that it can
be an efficient method of presenting teaching activities that are fairly
complex to set up (such as dictogloss or running dictation). Finally, it has
the additional advantage of providing, in most circumstances, a record of
the activity for participants to take away from the session. This might be
written and/or in the form of discussions of what’s involved in planning,
setting up and running the activity.
The drawbacks of loop input are that it generally requires a classroom-
like training room (in terms of size and resources) to work well, and
considerable time to unpack the loop into its constituent content and
process through reflective discussion after it has taken place; what
Woodward refers to as ‘decompression time‘ (2003, p. 302). This is
particularly important because even more cognitive load is involved for
trainees than might be expected during a standard lesson demonstration.

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TASK 3.3

 
Notes on tasks
It might be difficult to recall what role discussions have played in the
sessions you’ve attended – it isn’t always obvious if you’re participating as
a trainee. But discussion is often involved in:

• taking part in classroom activities in the role of ‘student’

• the process of exploring concepts or ideas from Practical or
Professional phases
• brainstorming ideas by thinking about your own teaching and
contributing them to the group

When it comes to feelings about discussion, the last of these roles can
often seem aimless or a waste of time. There will be trainees who
think ‘I came here to get some teaching ideas, not to give them out!’
To make certain that discussions are valuable, then, it is often a good
idea to highlight the purpose of the discussion, to respond to trainees’
contributions sensitively and fully (see Chapter 4), and to ensure that you
add to the ideas that are raised in discussions.
The other feelings raised by discussions probably sit at polar ends of
a spectrum. For trainees who attend with friends or close colleagues,
discussions are generally very enjoyable – everyone enjoys talking to
their friends! But for trainees who are not acquainted with anyone in the
group, discussions can be something to dread, because they represent
times in the session when everyone around is talking and they feel left out.
Avoiding this scenario is one reason for ‘getting to know you’ activities
we mentioned in the Introduction, and for starting your sessions with
an interactive activity (Chapter 2). But regardless of whether you have
ticked those boxes, it is a good idea to either group trainees yourself or, in
large groups, tell trainees to invite those sitting alone to join them. If you
include discussion stages in your sessions – and you should – they need to
be for every teacher, not just those who are sitting with friends.

TASK 3.4
There is no single correct way to do this, and the personal perspectives of
the teacher(s) involved will influence the discussion heavily – that’s the
point! – so it is perhaps unfair to ask you to analyse this incident without
being able to speak to Matthew. Here are his thoughts on this incident and
his full analysis of it to compare with your own notes:
I don’t remember how I felt about this incident at the time, but it makes me
uncomfortable to remember it now. This whole analysis was a really interesting
way of unpicking what I was thinking – I’m surprised at what came out of it!

219
 i.
Notes on tasks

Plus
º I feel like greeting the students by name was a good thing to do; it was a
small class.
º I know I got Lin’s name right – that wasn’t the issue here!

Minus
 

º Lin was shy, and I think by not just moving on and calling the next
name I drew attention to her and probably made her feel even more
uncomfortable.
º Insisting on a reply from Lin was a waste of class time that we could have
spent learning.

Interesting
º On some level I still don’t understand why she didn’t just say ‘hello’ – it
makes me wonder what previous classroom experiences she’d had
that made her so nervous to speak out. Sadly, if there was a negative
experience there, all I did was add another one.
º Maybe I should think of other ways to take the register or start the lesson –
I feel that saying ‘hello’ is quite non-threatening, but perhaps there are
better ways to start.

ii. Explanation What values does this reveal? This is quite difficult, but I think it
reveals that:
º I believe students should be expected to speak in class,
from the very beginning of the lesson, and especially when
they’re spoken to. This was the main reason for my insistence,
I think. But I hadn’t laid this out to the class, or negotiated it
with them.
º I think I also had an idea that it was not a good idea to
make an exception for Lin – other students in the class had
replied, and I felt like ignoring my greeting wasn’t something
I wanted to allow from Lin. I guess it felt like a challenge and
I didn’t want to back down.
º I don’t know if this is a value, but I feel bad about the way
I handled this situation. Just on a human level, but also
because I’m pretty sure that it turned Lin off English classes
even more than she already was – it must have had a
negative impact on her learning long term. So as a teaching
decision it was really poor, as well as just being insensitive.
Meaning Why did I do it if I now feel bad about it?
º I think it was a clumsy way of enacting the values I’ve
mentioned above, but I don’t really disagree with those
values now.
º I think it was also maybe a consequence of being
too focused on myself and my own agenda, and not
empathising enough with the students – they were all
teenagers, they were in a beginner class despite having had
English for at least a couple of years at school already, and
this class took place pretty late in the day – I think 5pm or
something like that – at the weekend! So I probably should
have had a lot more understanding for how uncomfortable
and how unmotivated some of them must have felt.

220
  
º Thinking through things from the students’ point of view like

Notes on tasks
that is something I might have done if I’d spent more time
planning, or planned a bit more carefully. I probably was
guilty of planning on autopilot a bit for that class.
º I also think that I should have clarified expectations more
explicitly from the outset rather than just believing they
would pick up what to do.
º I’m also thinking would it have been so bad if I’d just said
‘OK’ and moved on? Of course not, maybe she was having
a bad day. I wonder why I saw it as a challenge from Lin.
She was a shy student but she wasn’t badly behaved.
General What can I take from this?
significance
º If I was in that situation again I’d give Lin the benefit of the
doubt and leave it, and check in with her later when the
whole class wasn’t watching.
º More generally, looking at my teaching from the perspective
of my students is something I could be doing more, and I
need to make time to do that when I’m planning so that I
can adjust my lessons in response.
º Everyone should be able to say ‘pass’ once in a while if they
aren’t feeling able to contribute.
º It’s a good idea to be explicit about what I expect from students.

TASK 3.5
This is the text that Sofia plans to use in her session.

CLT is something of an umbrella term (Hall, 2011) and so it is

not easy to generalize about how teaching takes place in different
contexts. However, a glance at almost any coursebook written for
a global market suggests that, across proficiency levels and across
publishers, a fairly standard approach to reading is adopted
(Cunningham and Moor, 2005; Soars and Soars, 2006; Tilbury,
Hendra, Rea and Clementson, 2010; Dummet, Hughes and
Stephenson, 2013). A norm has emerged which generally involves
a fairly fixed sequence of stages, as listed in the table below:
Pre-reading º The teacher builds interest in the topic of the text.
º The teacher pre-teaches vocabulary that appears in
the text.
While-reading º The teacher sets a task and the learners read to
complete it.
º The teacher checks that this has been done
accurately.
º The teacher sets a second task and the learners read
again to complete it.
º The teacher checks that this has been done accurately.
Post-reading º The teacher sets up an activity that follows on from
the text, such as a discussion or a role play.

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Notes on tasks

Building interest in the text is an opportunity to activate

background knowledge. This is important in building
expectations of the text and enabling top-down processing. It is
also certainly true that learners need to be motivated to read and
so building interest would seem a sensible teaching strategy.
 

Some of the stages outlined above may not be present in every

reading lesson. For example, the pre-teaching of vocabulary,
essentially a strategy for adjusting the level of the text by
providing additional support for bottom-up processing, may be
omitted, particularly where a teacher decides that their learners
will not need such support to process the text successfully. In
addition, after this sequence of stages which focuses on the
meaning of the text, there may be further stages that use the
text as an object of study. For example, a salient grammar point
may be selected and studied, or a lexical set identified. There are
great advantages for learners to see language in context in this
way. Celce-Murcia and Olshtain (2000) amongst others, point out
that language choices frequently depend on contextual demands.
However, in the cases where this type of language study stage
is included in coursebook material, we may question the extent
to which the context is fully explored and exploited. In some
cases it seems that the highlighting of a grammar point in a
text is little more than a neat segue into a traditional sentence-
level analysis and seldom fully considers how the context has
impacted on the linguistic choices made.

Figure N.2: P. Watkins, Teaching and developing reading skills (Cambridge University
Press, 2018), p. 7

Sofia’s objective in choosing this text was to convey the stages of a reading
lesson to her trainees, so it makes sense for comprehension questions to
focus on an understanding of those stages. Here are some possibilities:

1. Why should teachers aim to build students’ interest in the text before
they read?
2. How many tasks are normally set during the ‘while reading’ stage?
3. Are any stages of the process optional? Why?
4. In your experience, are the contexts for the texts you use in class fully
explored and exploited?

Making the text more accessible can be done through utilising techniques
that teachers typically employ in teaching reading skills, such as using
prediction tasks to introduce the text and create a reason for reading, and
opportunities for peer checking understanding after reading, or at certain

222
points in the text. Of course, using these techniques wouldn’t just benefit

 
Notes on tasks
the trainees’ comprehension of the text, it would also model relevant
teaching skills for them.

TASK 4.1
There are four stages in Lydia’s plan. In stage one, which is Practical,
she presents teaching practices. Her trainees don’t have an opportunity to
try out any of the practical ideas she presents in this session, but that’s
because they will be able to do that in the teaching practice sessions on
their course, so Lydia has chosen to maximise the time available to her for
input. At the end of stage one Lydia elicits her trainees’ reactions to the
demo lesson, and this is a Personal stage in the lesson, even though Lydia
hasn’t identified it as a separate stage.
Stages two and three in Lydia’s plan deal with the Professional – she first
ensures they understand the general ideas behind the staging of a listening
lesson, then checks their understanding of specific terms. Finally, stage four is
Personal, and provides a chance for the trainees to think back over the session
and consider what it might mean for their upcoming teaching practice lessons.

TASK 4.2
It’s quite possible you found it easier to think of elements that made the
PowerPoint presentation ineffective, which is fine – it can be as helpful to
know what not to do as it is to know what to do!
An effective digital presentation can bring three things to your session.
First of all, it can allow you to provide visual input, in the form of
video, graphs or diagrams, or photos. As the saying goes, a picture is
worth a thousand words, and sometimes you can convey an idea far
more effectively through visuals than by trying to describe it. Secondly,
presentation slides can provide visual support that helps your audience
to follow what you are saying. Thirdly, well-designed slides can help to
engage trainees, by adding variety and visual interest.
If you do choose to use a digital slideshow, keep it manageable – less is more
when it comes to the number of slides and the amount of content on each one.
Indeed, it is unlikely that you will need slides for the whole of your session,
so feel free to turn off the projector when it is not needed. Ensure, too, that
slides are complementary to your message, and not simply duplicating it.
Slides which are packed full of text are not only unnecessary but are usually
impossible to read because the size of the font is so small. If large quantities of
text are relevant, consider other ways of presenting them (e.g., jigsaw reading)
or providing them electronically before or after the session.
Above all, do not sit down at a computer and plan your session on
PowerPoint, Keynote or any other presentation software. You should have
your session design clear in your own mind before you sit down to create
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 slides. It’s usually easy to spot when the session design and the slides are
Notes on tasks

one and the same – the trainer has their eyes glued to the screen at the
front of the training room and the trainees are all half asleep!

TASK 4.3
 

The primary focus of a training session will be on developing teaching

practice, not language skills, so interaction in the plan is not there for the
benefit of teachers’ language abilities (although some may welcome the
opportunities for language development that the session provides). Instead,
spoken interaction in the training room offers these benefits:
During . . . interaction functions to help build trainees’ identities as
Professional teachers. Part of teachers’ professional identity involves participating
stages . . . in discourse about teaching, and the training room is where trainees
are introduced to such discourse and are encouraged to take
ownership of it. This takes some of the responsibility for professional
development off the trainer and puts it onto the participants, who
need to step into discussions: ‘If teacher-learners [trainees] are not
to be merely passive empty vessels into which knowledge is poured,
then they need to be able to shape the course of the talk . . . As
Danielwicz (2001, p. 168) argues, the course room should be a site
where trainees create and experience different representations of
themselves’ (Singh & Richards, 2009, p. 205).
As Professional stages in a training session involve the presentation
of new concepts and terms, interaction is a valuable tool for trainers
to check understanding among trainees.
During . . . interaction allows the trainer to elicit teacher beliefs and
Personal assumptions as part of a process of trainee reflection, but also
stages . . . to enable the trainer to work with them. ‘Teacher educators need
to know their student teachers’ conceptions of teaching to make
new conceptions of teaching intelligible or create, if necessary,
dissatisfaction with existing conceptions which may conflict with
those taught‘ (Almarza, 1996, p. 74).
During . . . interaction offers a way of bridging the gap between the relatively
Practical ordered world of the training room and the much more idiosyncratic,
stages . . . unpredictable world that each teacher will go on to practise in once
the training session is over. Discussing how they could apply concepts
to their own teaching context is vital for trainees, as is hearing what
adaptations peers plan to make with respect to their contexts.
Interaction also provides an opportunity for trainees to discuss
and reflect on how they do what they do. These discussions
frequently provide trainees with as much practical and theoretical
material as the tasks designed by the trainer and can have far-
reaching effects. With all trainees, then, but particularly with those
who have more than a couple of years’ experience, it is very
important to acknowledge and exploit existing knowledge.
And perhaps most simply, interaction in the training room offers
opportunities for modelling teaching techniques and procedures.
That’s true not just of the interaction itself, which is an integral part
of language teaching, but of how the trainer sets up, manages and
feeds back on interactive tasks.

224
Of course, interaction also makes for a training room that is collegial

 
Notes on tasks
and supportive, which cannot be underestimated, especially if
those relationships continue into subsequent collaborative teacher
development activities.

TASK 4.4
There are of course many ways to realise each of the aims, but here
are some possible examples. You’ll see that they are short and simple,
modelling the way in which we would expect a teacher to deliver similar
instructions in the classroom.

Aim Example
Introduce or explain the ‘Today I hope that you’ll leave the session with a
aims of a session. better understanding of what differentiation is and
how to do it, and I hope that you will go on to do it for
your learners!’
Say why the topic might ‘In all of our classes we have a wide range of abilities,
be useful to this group of and it can be really difficult to meet the needs of all the
teachers. learners. So I hope what we learn today will help.’
Link the session to other ‘We’ve had recent sessions on adapting the
sessions on the course / coursebook and on formative assessment, and in
at the event. many ways this session will build on both of those.’
Signpost a transition [Raises hand until trainees stop talking] ‘Thank you.
between group work Now that you’ve had a chance to discuss your ideas,
and plenary work. I’d like you to share them with the whole group.’
Summarising and ‘So we’ve seen what differentiation is and some ways
closing the session. of starting to do it with your learners. Let’s review our
session aims . . .’
Break down instructions, ‘Now that you’ve completed the handout, please
and set a time limit for join your original group and share your answers. Then
the next task. discuss the three questions you see on the board. You
have five minutes.’
Speak to a pair or group ‘You’ll need to put your ideas onto paper for other
who are off task. groups to read, not just discuss them . . .’
Set an extra task for fast ‘Now that you’ve both finished, can I ask you to
finishers. compare your answers with each other and justify any
differences?’
Give a reminder ‘Two minutes left, please!’
about time.
Prepare for next stage [Privately to group] ‘When we stop and share ideas
(e.g., by allocating as a whole class, would you be happy to start the
tasks to different groups discussion by being the first group to share your
before the plenary thoughts?’
begins).
Prepare participants for [Privately to group] ‘In two minutes I’m going to ask all
plenary work, by giving the groups to share their thoughts with the class, do
them a time limit within you think you’ll be ready to do that?’
which to finish their task.

225
 TASK 4.5
Notes on tasks

Summarised from Guskey (2000).

Trainees’ reactions º Questionnaires
º Focus groups
 

º Interviews
º Personal learning logs
Trainees’ learning º Short test/quiz
º Microteaching session
º Oral or written personal reflections
º Portfolio assessment (of lesson plans, essays, or
other assignments)
º Case study analysis
Organisation support º Analysis of school records/documents
and change º Minutes from school meetings
º Questionnaires around specific issues
º Teacher focus groups
Trainees’ use of new º Teacher lesson plans
knowledge and skills º Structured interviews with teachers
º Teacher reflections, oral or written
º Direct observation of trainees
Student learning º Test results
outcomes º Portfolio evaluations
º Class grades
º Affective and behavioural outcomes too (e.g., self-
esteem, study habits, attendance)

TASK 5.3
Kavitha

º Asking Anita about action points Catalytic

from the previous meeting
º Answering Anita’s questions Informative, but could also be catalytic
if Kavitha prompts Anita to find her own
answers
º Discussing what Anita could Likely to be mostly catalytic; there may be
apply from her reading some prescriptive interventions here but
Anita probably doesn’t need many
º Discussing Anita’s classroom Supportive when Anita describes
experiments successes, and catalytic when the
outcomes of the experiment are less clear;
not confronting, as it is Anita (the mentee)
raising problems, not Kavitha (the mentor)
º Supporting and encouraging Supportive, perhaps cathartic if Anita
needs to talk about the pressures she is
experiencing

226
Kavitha’s interventions with Anita are mostly supportive – this reflects

 
Notes on tasks
their relationship as colleagues and the informal mentoring relationship
they have (it was Anita who asked Kavitha for mentor support). The
balance towards supportive interventions also reflects Anita’s experience –
she still has things to learn but she’s already been teaching for some time
and is clearly able to work on developing her teaching without Kavitha’s
help for much of the time.
Jason

º Asking mentees how they are doing Cathartic

º Discussing recent lessons Likely to be mostly catalytic; Jason is
aiming to help his mentees develop
their reflection and self-evaluation skills
º Answering mentees’ questions Informative or prescriptive
º Considering lesson aims and what Catalytic – again, to develop mentees’
students are learning self-evaluation skills
º Discussing plans for upcoming Supportive where plans seem logical
lessons and well considered, catalytic or even
prescriptive when plans appear more
problematic
º Pointing out useful resources Informative

Jason seems to draw on authoritative interventions more than Kavitha

(this label carries no negative connotations for Heron, it simply indicates
a directive role for the mentor). Jason explains the reasons for this in
Case study 5.5 – his trainees are inexperienced, overwhelmed and not
yet used to thinking about their professional development independently.
Nevertheless, it’s interesting that Jason is very keen to start his meetings
with cathartic interventions, retaining a balance between authoritative and
facilitative mentor talk (and perhaps thereby creating the conditions for
authoritative interventions to be more readily received).

TASK 5.4
There are several things that you could do in this situation. It is highly
likely that the trainees will have planned the lesson together, so they
should all have some idea of each other’s part of the lesson.
1. Ask (or signal to) teacher 1 (currently teaching) if they could continue in
place of teacher 2.
2. Ask one of the other three teachers (who are waiting to teach) if they
could also teach in place of teacher 2.
3. Decide if teacher 2’s part of the lesson is important. If it isn’t, then
teacher 3 could take over from teacher 1.
4. You take the place of teacher 2 and teach the class.

227
 If one of the other teachers is willing to step in, it should be made clear
Notes on tasks

that their time as a substitute teacher will not be assessed as part of the
course – it would simply be an opportunity to get some extra practice and
keep the lesson going for the students.
 

TASK 6.2
Peter asks Theresa five main questions, which can be applied to most pre-
observation meetings:
1. Tell me about this group of learners.
2. What are the most challenging aspects of teaching this class?
3. Talk me through what will happen in the lesson.
4. What will make you happy at the end of the lesson? What are you
hoping to achieve?
5. What would you find it useful for me to look for and comment on?

The way these prompts and questions are worded is important because of
the goal of building trust – the meeting shouldn’t feel like an interrogation
or a test. Starting the conversation by discussing the learners provides
valuable context for the lesson but is also a relatively easy topic to begin
with for the teacher. The hope is that by the time the conversation reaches
question five, there is enough trust for the teacher to honestly state areas
for development and ask for help with them.

TASK 6.3
Do º Walk around the room. º This is an important way
of observing learning, but
should be agreed with the
teacher first.
º Discuss what’s taking place º Discussions should be saved
with other trainee observers. until the end of the lesson but
talking points can be shared
in advance, e.g., using Post-it
notes.
Don’t º Take over the lesson. º This is generally acceptable
only if the teacher is unwell, or
in the unlikely event that the
safety of students or teachers is
at risk.

228
  
Maybe º Speak to students. º This should be agreed with

Notes on tasks
the teacher first, and done to
gather evidence of learning,
not to teach or chat.
º Make faces to indicate º On the whole we try to
approval or disapproval. strike a balance between
encouragement and not
giving too much away.
Disapproving looks are
not helpful.
º Take photos of the classroom º This can be a useful way
during the observation. of recording teaching and
learning, but must be agreed
with the teacher and the
students beforehand.
º Stay longer than you previously º Sometimes lessons unfold
agreed with the teacher. slightly differently than
planned, and it is probably
better to leave at the very end
of a lesson stage than in the
middle or when the teacher is
setting up something new.
º Give a thumbs up when º A thumbs up is ambiguous but
you leave. it is polite to thank the teacher
when leaving.

TASK 6.4
Peter: My favoured method of taking notes during an observation for
developmental purposes is to write directly onto the teacher’s lesson plan. This
for me not only saves time but also allows me to respond to exactly what I see
and hear without having to think about under which heading I should be writing
something. In the case of Theresa’s lesson, this was a short lesson without too
many stages, and I actually needed fewer notes to support my discussion with
the teacher after the lesson. In other situations I might use an observation
template, similar to the examples in Chapter 6, if specific criteria need to be
addressed (such as lesson planning, classroom management or use of resources).

STAGE NOTES
1 Vocabulary º Very friendly introduction, rapport quickly established
º Supportive, encouraging style
º Confident use of tech including the board – perhaps
students could have written their ideas for free time
activities, rather than Theresa
º Timing a little longer than planned

229
Notes on tasks
2 Speaking º Very clear instructions for the speaking task
preparation º Instructions checked with one student
º Students given time to think and then indicate readiness
using Zoom reactions
º Timing a little longer than planned
 

3 Speaking task º Students in breakout rooms which Theresa monitored

º Good discussions and decisions
4 Speaking task º Pairs told other pairs about their decisions for day out/free
(repeat) time activity
º Support given during this stage when students struggled
º Students gave some good ideas and others enjoyed
listening and asking questions
5 Feedback on º Lovely idea to ask students to vote on their favourite free
content time activity
º Some students gave reasons for their choices – this could
have been expanded to provide more opportunity for
fluency practice
6 Feedback on º Good idea to share right/wrong sentences for students to
form identify and correct
º More focus on pron errors, e.g., bowling, canoeing

TASK 7.2
Method of assessment Example Comments
Observation Any good teaching Practical
qualification
Lesson plans Delta M2 Practical
Test of knowledge e.g., TKT, Delta M1, Professional
DipTESOL unit 1
Portfolio tasks/ e.g., CELTA, DipTESOL Professional/Personal
assignments unit 2 Good for ongoing assessment
Interview DipTESOL unit 3 Professional/Personal
Journal/diary Delta M2, DipTESOL Personal
unit 4 Builds reflection skills, good for
contextualising learning
Project e.g., Delta M3 Practical/Professional/Personal
Integrates knowledge and skills
from various areas

230
TASK 7.3

 
Notes on tasks
1. If reflecting in writing isn’t something that teachers are used to, then the
effort that should go into reflection is instead spent on trying to write
well. That leads to superficial reflection that doesn’t offer any insights
to the teacher, and often creates the sense that reflecting on teaching is
difficult and unproductive. The ultimate aim of reflecting on teaching is
to learn how to better notice and describe classroom activity, and then to
evaluate it and consider alternative courses of action that might improve
learning. Achieving that aim doesn’t require teachers to write, but
assessing reflection means capturing those thought processes somehow.
2. Apart from writing, teachers might choose to reflect by:
• Speaking – they could do this alone and record their thoughts on a
mobile phone, or they could speak to a friend or colleague and record
the conversation.
• Using their L1 – teachers might find that they reflect differently when
they can use their first language, rather than reflecting in English.
• Acting – teachers might take on a role, such as that of a student in
the room, and reflect from that person’s perspective. Again, this
could be done alone or with a colleague.
• Drawing – teachers might find that the process of reflecting by
creating an image helps them consider things that they would not
have thought about if writing or speaking.

If written reflection is necessary for assessment purposes, teachers who

struggle with it could be encouraged to reflect in one of the other ways
listed above first, and then record their thoughts in writing afterwards.

TASK 8.1
Intensive preservice training course (e.g., CELTA)
• Trainees have no prior teaching experience, so the trainer is clearly the
more knowledgeable party (promotes hierarchy).
• Over the course of an intensive course, trainers and trainees can get to
know each other quite well (promotes equality).
• Observer is in the role of trainer, employed by the training centre and
approved by the certificating body (promotes hierarchy).
• Preservice context means trainees are unlikely to have preconceptions
as to how lesson observation and feedback should be conducted
(promotes hierarchy).
231
 • Number and length of observations and format of feedback determined
Notes on tasks

by the certificating body (promotes hierarchy).

• Criteria for ‘good teaching’ specified in some detail and available to
trainee (if they wish) (promotes equality).
 

• Lessons assessed and graded by the trainer (promotes hierarchy).

Peer observation between two colleagues

• Age and experience may not differ much (promotes equality).
• Teacher and observer probably know each other quite well
(promotes equality).
• Observer probably has no formal title (promotes equality).
• In-service context means that both teacher and observer bring
preconceptions about how observation and feedback should be
conducted (promotes equality).
• No administrative requirements at all (promotes equality).
• No benchmark as to what is considered ‘good teaching’ (promotes
hierarchy – because the benchmark tends to be set by the person in the
role of observer and becomes subjective).
• No assessment, grading, or reporting of details to others (promotes equality).

Routine observation of a teacher by their academic manager

• Age and experience may not differ much (promotes equality).
• Teacher and observer probably know each other quite well
(promotes equality).
• Observer has the title of academic manager (promotes hierarchy – a lot!).
• In-service context means that both teacher and observer bring
preconceptions about how observation and feedback should be
conducted (promotes equality).
• Administrative requirements set by the institution probably determine
the length and frequency of observations, and the format that feedback
takes. They may also link observation feedback to pay, contract renewal
or career progression (promotes hierarchy – a lot!).
• There’s often no benchmark for what constitutes good teaching, or
there may be rigid benchmarks of observable behaviours designed to
make the observer’s job easier (e.g., the teacher must call upon every
student to answer a question at least once) (promotes hierarchy).
• Details of the observation will be saved in the teacher’s personnel file
and made available to the senior leadership team (promotes hierarchy).
232
TASK 8.2

 
Notes on tasks
• For individual feedback, schedule the feedback meeting with the
teacher. Try not to leave a long gap after the lesson, and make sure that
there’s not the pressure to curtail the meeting too soon (e.g., because of
teaching commitments).
• (When fixing the date and time for individual feedback) give the teacher
a reflection sheet to complete and tell them when to return it.
• Read the teachers’ reflections so that you can refer to them in feedback.
• Consider having written feedback ready to give to the teachers once the
discussion has ended.
• If working on a course, running frequent feedback sessions (weekly or
more), try to vary the format so that you’re not doing the same thing
every time.
• Consider how to set up the meeting space, especially seating. The
priority is somewhere quiet and private.
• Get all paperwork ready – lesson plan, materials, the teachers’ reflection,
and your written feedback; possibly student work from the lesson too.

TASK 8.3
Approach Example Comments

State the issue and give ‘One thing that we To the point and saves
your evaluation of it. haven’t covered is the time, but reinforces the
way that you dealt with idea that feedback is the
errors in this lesson, sole domain of the trainer
which I thought was very and doesn’t encourage
effective.’ the trainee to reflect.
‘Let’s turn to timing for
a moment – you ended
up with very little time for
your final stage.’

Raise the general theme ‘How about instructions, Prompts the trainee to
and invite the trainee(s) any thoughts on those?’ think (may be useful
to pinpoint what was ‘Last time we talked in group feedback
relevant. about how you were situations for comparing
using the board – did you the approaches of
think today was better or different teachers to the
worse in that respect?’ same issue), but there is
a danger that it becomes
a guessing game rather
than a genuine moment
of reflection.

233
Notes on tasks

Refer to the student ‘When you gave the Encourages the trainee
reaction and elicit the students that controlled to focus on student
teaching actions or practice task there was outcomes and to notice
decisions that caused it. quite a lot of muttering student behaviours,
in L1 – why do you think but some may not be
that was?’ able to make those
 

connections yet.

TASK 8.6
Peter: With written feedback I tend to favour bulleted notes rather than lengthy
prose, as this makes the information more easily accessible to the teacher.
Lengthy feedback can be overwhelming (even if it is mostly positive) and in my
experience fewer comments can be more useful and impactful. Less experienced
teachers will generally be more comfortable with feedback that they can quickly
understand. However, in some cases, longer feedback may be more appropriate,
for example in an observation where specific criteria need to be commented on.

Teacher Theresa Dyer Observer Peter Lucantoni

Lesson date/time Thursday, 30 Class name -
September
40 minutes
Classroom - No. of students 6

Course and lesson planning

Strengths Think about

º Clear, achievable main and sub º Stage descriptions could be more
aims detailed (e.g., ‘vocabulary’ – is this
º Very comprehensive and detailed presentation? practice?).
plan º Your personal aim was to focus
º Perceptive anticipated problems on error correction, but there were
with solutions few opportunities to focus on form
in the plan.
º Clear, logical staging

Classroom management

Strengths Think about

º Very pleasant and welcoming style º Perhaps have an example for Slide
º Great rapport quickly established 3 (a couple of the students were
quite weak).
º Students quickly put at ease
º Smooth transitions between º There were obvious differences in
various stages levels – ideas for differentiation?

º Activity instructions checked

234
  
Use of resources and materials

Notes on tasks
Strengths Think about
º Confident use of the technology, º Think about asking students to
including whiteboard and write on the WB (rather than doing
breakout rooms it yourself).

Subject knowledge

Strengths Think about

º You had plenty of examples of free º Consider addressing
time activities. pronunciation errors (e.g., bowling,
º You gave a clear explanation canoeing) straight away.
of the use of the present perfect
tense (during the right/wrong
activity).

Understanding of learners

Strengths Think about

º You appreciated the challenges º Consider ways to differentiate
your students faced in learning activities for students needing
online. support.
º While monitoring you were ready
to provide help when needed,
particularly with vocabulary.

Overall

º Considering the challenging circumstances for this lesson (i.e., unknown

students, unknown number of students, teaching online), I think you
performed extremely well.
º Your students were engaged and enthusiastic and performed confidently
with your support.
º They obviously felt comfortable because of the very positive rapport that
you established early on.
º Students were able to plan and talk about free time activities and used
appropriate vocabulary.

Action points

º As two of the students were less confident than the others, it might have
been useful to think about ways to offer them more support during the
speaking activity. Consider planning differentiated tasks to cover all
eventualities when you are working with an unfamiliar group.
º Your personal aim around error correction was not really actioned – you
could use the lesson recording to highlight potential areas for correction
(seeing if there was anything you missed during the class) and address
them in the next lesson.

235
 TASK 9.1
Notes on tasks

For most teachers, programmes will be the least common type of training
that they have attended and many will never have participated in a
programme at all. Examples of such programmes might be a national
programme of teacher training organised by a ministry of education, or a
 

programme of training implemented by a large institution that wishes to

introduce a new teaching methodology in its classrooms.
All teachers ought to have completed a course to qualify initially and begin
teaching, and some may have taken further courses to gain qualifications
at higher levels or to fill gaps in their expertise. For both of us, the majority
of our training experiences as teachers were standalone events that didn’t
form part of a course or programme, and if you are lucky enough to work
in an institution that values teacher learning and staff development, the
same may be true for you.

TASK 9.2
The first thing that stands out is Yi’s schedule – it is extremely intensive,
for the trainees as well as for her. The days when Yi is observing will
be particularly hard work, because observing lessons requires great
concentration and it is difficult to sit at the back of a classroom for two
hours, let alone all day! The schedule also doesn’t allow time for Yi to
have a face-to-face feedback discussion with the teachers after their
observations, so the only feedback they receive is written, and therefore
much more open to ambiguity or misinterpretation. The very condensed
course timetable is ultimately due to financial constraints imposed by
Yi’s institution, which wants to minimise the time that teachers are in the
training room because it means that they are not teaching paying students.
Yi’s trainees have a similarly demanding teaching schedule outside the
course, therefore, so she often finds that they have not completed the
online component of the course by the time she arrives to deliver the
face-to-face workshops (or that those who have did so in a hurry). This
means that Yi sometimes has to allow time for questions or filling in gaps
in knowledge, and her workshops can feel rushed as a result. On the other
hand, Yi sometimes finds that the trainees’ ‘book knowledge’ (Knowing
about) of certain topics is very strong as a result of their previous training
experiences, which have tended to be online, and she can move quickly
into more practical tasks in her sessions.
Yi mentioned that when there is a large number of trainees she works with
another trainer, and this presents its own challenges: they will need to
standardise their assessments of the teachers and the feedback that they give
to them, and as the lead trainer Yi will need to ensure that administrative
tasks are completed so that the trainees receive their certificates. Working
with another trainer brings many advantages, however – the trainees are

236
able to receive more individual attention than they would in a large group,

 
Notes on tasks
Yi has the opportunity to share thoughts and ideas with her co-trainer and
the admin work can be split between them, saving time.

TASK 10.2
Of course, every trainer’s development profile is different, and needs will
depend to some extent on the demands of the local training context. But
frameworks like those in Table 10.1 provide an important yardstick, in this case
for trainers, but also for teachers (e.g., using the Cambridge English Teaching
Framework, see Appendix 1). Being able to diagnose development needs is a
vital skill for teachers, because they need to be able to take charge of their own
development. So if you have successfully used the frameworks in Table 10.1 to
highlight areas that you could work on, consider how you could help trainees
to use a teaching framework to do the same thing for themselves.

TASK 10.3
One way of looking at development is to consider it in terms of relationships
with different groups of people, so this may have been the way that you
decided to group the activities. Teaching and learning are social endeavours
(Johnson & Golombek, 2011), so the groups of people that we interact with as
teachers and as trainers can play a significant role in the development of our
practice. Duncan Foord suggests that teachers think about their development in
terms of five concentric circles of development: at the centre is the individual
teacher, surrounded by, in turn, teacher and students, teacher and colleagues,
teacher and school, and teacher and profession (Foord, 2009, p. 14). This
approach highlights the opportunities for development in routine interactions
with all these groups, and places the teacher at the centre of their development
plan. It also allows for progressively more ambitious activity as the teacher’s
development extends further from their own classroom experience.

nd your professi
ua on
Yo
n d your sch
ua oo
Yo l
your colle
d a
an g
your stu
u

ue
Yo

nd
s
You a

de
nts

You

Figure N.3: Foord’s five circles of development (Foord, 2019)

237
 238
glish Teaching Framework – at the heart of professional development
Cambridge English Teaching Framework – at the heart of professional development
ish Teaching Framework: to help teachers identify where they are in their professional career to help teachers and their employers think about where they want to go next and
get there.

We developed the Cambridge English Teaching Framework: to help teachers identify where they are in their professional career to help teachers and their employers think about where they want to go next and
identify development activities to get there.
Foundation Developing Proficient Expert

derstanding of some language–

Stages Has a reasonable understanding of many
Foundation Has a good understanding of many language–
Developing Has a sophisticated understanding
Proficient of Expert
epts. language–learning concepts. learning concepts. language–learning concepts.
a little of this understanding Demonstrates
Has a basic of this understanding
someunderstanding of some when Frequently
language– Hasdemonstrates this understanding
a reasonable understanding when
of many Consistently demonstrates
Has a good this understanding
understanding of many language– Has a sophisticated understanding of
g and teaching. and teaching.
planninglearning concepts. and teaching.
planninglanguage–learning concepts. whenlearning and teaching.
planningconcepts. language–learning concepts.
Learning and
the learner Demonstrates a little of this understanding Demonstrates some of this understanding when Has aFrequently demonstrates
sophisticated understandingthisofunderstanding
key when Consistently demonstrates this understanding
Has a reasonable understanding
when planning of many key
and teaching. Has a good understanding
planning of key principles of
and teaching. planning and teaching. when planning and teaching.
derstanding of some key principles of teaching, learning and assessment.
principles of teaching, learning and assessment. teaching, learning and assessment.
eaching, learning and assessment.
Can plan and deliver detailed and sophisticated Has a sophisticated understanding of key
Can plan and deliver lessons with some detailed lessons with
Appendix 1

deliver simple lessons with a

Can planHas
anda deliver
reasonable understanding of good
many key lessonsHas a good
with understanding
a thorough understanding principles of
of key of
awareness basic understanding
Hasofa learners’ needs, usingofa some
numberkey awareness of learners’ needs, using a wide range principles of teaching, learning and assessment.
ss of learners’ needs, using core principles of teaching, learning and assessment. teaching,
learners’ needs,learning and assessment.
using a comprehensive range
principles of teaching,
of different teaching techniques. learning and assessment.
of teaching techniques.
niques. of teaching techniques. Can plan and deliver detailed and sophisticated
Can plan and deliver lessons with some Can plan and deliver detailed lessons with good
Teaching, Can design plan and
Cansimple deliver
tests simple
and use somelessons with a Can design effective tests and use a range of lessons with a thorough understanding of
ble tests and basic assessment awareness of learners’ needs, using a number Can designawareness of learners’
a range needs,
of effective testsusing
and a wide range
learning andassessment
basicprocedures
awarenessto of support needs, using core
learners’and assessment procedures to support and learners’ needs, using a comprehensive range
support and promote learning. of different teaching techniques. of teaching techniques.
use individualised assessment procedures
assessment promote teaching techniques.
learning. promote learning. of teaching techniques.
Can design simple tests and use some consistently to support
Can design and
effective promote
tests and use learning.
a range of
Can use available tests and basic assessment Can design a range of effective tests and
assessment procedures to support and assessment procedures to support and
rate examples of language procedures to support and
Provides accurate examples of language promote learning. examples of language points Provides accurate examples of language points use individualised assessment procedures
Providespromote
accuratelearning. promote learning.
at A1 and A2 levels. points taught at A1, A2 and B1 levels. taught at A1, A2, B1 and B2 levels. taught at A1–C2 levels. consistently to support and promote learning.

ssroom language which is Uses classroom

Provideslanguage
accurate which
examples
is of language Uses classroom
Provideslanguage
accurate which is consistently
examples of language a wide range
Uses Provides of classroom
accurate exampleslanguage which
of language is
points Provides accurate examples of language points
te. mostly accurate.
points taught at A1 and A2 levels. throughout
accuratepoints taughtthe lesson.
at A1, A2 and B1 levels. consistently accurate
taught at A1, A2,throughout the lesson.
B1 and B2 levels. taught at A1–C2 levels.
Language
me key terms for ability Uses basic
Has reasonable classroom
knowledge oflanguage
many keywhich
termsis Uses
Has good classroom
knowledge of language
key termswhich is
for describing Uses classroom
Has sophisticated knowledge
languageofwhich is consistently
key terms for Uses a wide range of classroom language which is
guage. for describing accurate.
mostlylanguage. mostly accurate.
language. accurate
describing throughout the lesson.
language. consistently accurate throughout the lesson.

mple learner questions Can answer

Is aware
mostoflearner questions
some key with the
terms for Can answer most learner
Has reasonable knowledge with
questionsof minimal
many most
Has good
key termsCan answer learner questions
knowledge in detail
of key terms with
for describing Has sophisticated knowledge of key terms for
of reference materials.Language help of reference
describingmaterials.
language. use of reference materials.
for describing language. minimal use of reference materials.
language. describing language.
knowledge
Can answer simple learner questions Can answer
Can answer most learner questions with the Consistently most
reflects critically,
learner observes with minimal
questionsother Can answer most learner questions in detail with
and awareness
Can reflect the
withon a lesson reference
help ofwithout materials.
guidance and help of reference materials. colleagues reference
use ofand materials.
is highly committed to minimal use of reference materials.
a lesson with guidance and learn Can reflect critically and actively seeks feedback.
respond positively to feedback. professional development.
. Consistently reflects critically, observes other
Can identify own strengths and weaknesses as a
Can self-assess own needs and identify some on a lesson Is highly aware of own strengths and weaknesses, colleagues and is highly committed to
ance in self-assessing own needs. teacher,Can
reflect on a lesson with guidance and learn andreflect
can support other without
teachers.guidance and Can reflect critically actively seeks
improvement.
Professionalareas forCan respond positively to feedback. and actively supports the and
development of feedback. professional development.
development from feedback. teachers.
otherCan identify own strengths and weaknesses as a
Can self-assess own needs and identify some Is highly aware of own strengths and weaknesses,
and values Requires guidance in self-assessing own needs. teacher, and can support other teachers.
areas for improvement. and actively supports the development of
other teachers.

See the full version of the framework for detailed competency statements: cambridgeenglish.org/teaching-framework

Copyright © UCLES 2018 | CER/6340a/V1/NOV18 See the full version of the framework for detailed competency statements: cambridgeenglish.org/teaching-framework
Appendix 2 Lesson plan
Theresa Dyer
September 19, 16.20–17.00
School in Rome, Italy
Main aim By the end of the lesson, the Ss will have developed
their fluency in the planning and choosing of a fun
free time activity to do as a class.
Sub aim By the end of the lesson, the Ss will have expanded
their range of vocabulary related to free time
activities.
Personal aims To evaluate the effectiveness of error correction
techniques I use in the lesson, in terms of
º when I error correct,
º which errors I choose to focus on.
Class profile I don’t know very much about this class because it’s
their first lesson together. However, their level is roughly
a high intermediate level (B1+/B2) and they are a
mixture of Italian and Spanish native speakers. Most
of the Ss are women (there is one man registered),
but their ages range from 16 to mid-40s. There should
be between 6 and 8 Ss. Some of them are students
(at high school and university) and some are
teachers. There may also be other professions present.
They are generally studying English to help them
in their studies, e.g., to gain entry to university
programmes, or for work.
They have been studying English online for some
time now, so they are used to the online learning
environment and can use most Zoom tools efficiently.
Assumptions Since this lesson is their first one together, the purpose
is also largely diagnostic, i.e., to find out what the Ss
can do in English and where their problems lie. I can
assume that they will have some basic vocabulary
to describe free time activities and they should have
enough language to have a discussion that entails
making suggestions, agreeing and disagreeing.
I can also assume that the task should be quite
engaging and relevant to all the Ss since everyone
has something they enjoy doing in their free time.

239
 Anticipated problems 1. Ss may be limited in the number of free time
and solutions activities they can name in English, so at the
brainstorm stage, I will prompt them and try to
elicit some, e.g., activities you can do indoors:
playing board games, ice skating, or activities you
can do outdoors, e.g., fishing, trekking.
2. Not knowing exactly how many Ss there will be
will have some impact on the timing and the
interaction patterns I set up: if there are only a few
Ss, I will ask them to do the initial speaking task in
pairs. If there are more of them, I will set up small
groups. Pair work will be quicker than group work
so I may have to make timing adjustments as I go
along.
Materials Evolve 3 Student’s Book, Unit 12.5, 2019, Cambridge
University Press (adapted)
T-produced PowerPoint slides
Word document: Right or Wrong?
Time 40 minutes

Stage Stage aim Procedure Timing and

Interaction
Vocabulary To find out what Show Ss the slide with images 5’
free time activities from Evolve 3 and elicit what T–Ss
Ss know in English the free-time activities are.
Concept-check paddle
boarding (if necessary):
To provide ideas Where do people do this? The
for the speaking sea, river, lakes.
task Is it like surfing? The board is
similar.
Can they do this when the
water is calm or not? Calm.

Screen-share the Zoom

whiteboard and ask Ss for
more fun free time activities.
Write them on the WB.
Tell Ss they may use some of
these ideas in the next stage.

240
Speaking To provide the Ss Set the Speaking task: tell 5’
preparation with ‘thinking time’ the Ss we want to plan a fun S
day out for the class and that
they are going to suggest an
activity.
Provide the Ss with prompts to
think about:
where to do the activity, cost,
what we need, how easy/
difficult it is, why it would be
enjoyable.

Give Ss time to think of

an activity (possibly from
the previous vocabulary
brainstorm). They can take
notes, if they want.
Check instructions:
Do you need to write
sentences? No.
Can you just write some
ideas? Yes.

Ask Ss to raise their hands

using Zoom reactions when
they have some ideas.
Speaking To promote fluency Tell the Ss they are going 5’–10’
(task) To provide Ss with to share their ideas with a S–S or Ss–Ss
a first ‘rehearsal’ of partner/s and they have to
the speaking task decide on the best idea to
propose to the class.
Put Ss in BORs [breakout
rooms].
Monitor and input language/
correct mistakes as necessary
without infringing too much
on Ss’ opportunity to develop
their fluency. Close BORs when
the Ss have had enough time
to choose the best idea in
the group (broadcast Ss a
message to choose the best
suggestion, as a reminder).

241
 Speaking To promote fluency Tell the Ss they’re going to 10’
(task To provide Ss with tell the class what the best Open class
repetition) an opportunity to suggestion for a day out Ss–Ss (T
improve on their together was. moderates)
first attempt at the The other Ss have to listen
speaking task because they will vote on the
activity they would like to do,
at the end. They can ask each
other some questions for more
information, if they want.
Nominate different Ss to
present their ideas.

Listen with video off and

take notes of good samples
of language and common
mistakes.
Feedback To provide a Ask Ss to vote on the free time 5’
on content communicative suggestion they liked best T–Ss
purpose for the by using the ‘raised hand’
task and fulfil Zoom reaction and get some
the outcome: reasons for Ss’ choices.
choosing a free
time activity for
the class to do
together
Feedback To focus on Screen-share the Word 5’
on form accuracy document ‘Right or Wrong’ T–Ss
and stave off and ask Ss to identify the
‘fossilisation’ correct sentence/s and to
correct mistakes in the other
sentences.

242
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 Index
Locators in bold refer to figures and tables.

active learning 37, 63 Cambridge Guide to Research in

activities see training session Second Language Teaching and
activities and materials Learning 200
adapted activities 50 card sorting activities 61
aims of the classroom lesson careers in training 205–209
feedback to trainee teachers 100, CELT-S course 176, 177–178
162–163 CELTA course
lesson planning 100, 239 assessment 136, 139, 141–142,
aims of the training session 27–28, 143–144, 145–146
30–32, 85–86 observation of teaching
apprenticeship observations 119, practices 111, 113, 117
127–128 training session delivery 70, 74
articles, as training material 61–62 training session design 26
assessment 135–149 working on a course 26, 177–179
defining assessment in teacher change management 101
training 135–139 Childs, Sharon 9–10
managing challenges 146–149 classroom discussion formats 55
observations 113, 118, 127 classroom improvisation 13, 15–16
the Personal 142–146 classroom noise 130
the Practical 140, 141–142 classroom observation see
as process 137–139 observation of teaching practices
the Professional 139–141 classroom practices 47, 48
purposes of 136–137 classrooms as training venues 74–75
staffroom practices 46, 47 see also training rooms
training courses and conference attendance 204
programmes 179 conference presentations 201
assessment criteria 113, 138–139, context see teaching and learning
143–144, 143–148 contexts
assessor’s role 148–149 continuing professional
Association of Teacher Educators development (CPD) 183,
standards 194–195, 195 193–196, 194–195
audio observation 52 see also teacher development;
trainer development
beliefs about teaching 56, 143 coursebooks 8, 16, 31–32, 60
blogs 203, 204–205 courses see training courses and
boardwork 76–77 programmes
Bolitho, Rod 204 critical incident analysis 58–59
book extracts, as training
material 61–62 deadlines 103–104
borrowed activities 50 delivery see training session
British Council CPD Framework for delivery
Teacher Educators 194–195, 195 Delta course 141–142, 144,
145–146
Cambridge English Teaching design see training session design
Framework 2, 193–194, devices 79
194–195, 195–196, 238

250
DIE! model (describe, interpret, from observations 116, 133, 153,

 
Index
evaluate) 123–124 155, 158–165
Doff, Adrian 10, 18 pastoral support 102
Dörnyei, Zoltán 17 setting up and preparing 157–159
double-marking 179 social context of feedback
Duff, Tony 192 conversations 156, 156–157
spoken feedback one-to-one
education resources 199 154–155, 160–165
emotions, pastoral support 101–103 spoken feedback with
employment as a teacher groups 166–167
trainer 208, 209 training courses and
see also careers in training programmes 178, 180, 186
English for Academic Purposes in training sessions 83
(EAP) 26, 40 when and how to give 154–157
English lesson demonstrations 49–52 written 154, 167–171
evaluating training courses and flipped learning 62
programmes 180–181, 186–187 follow-up activities (training
evaluating your session 84–88 sessions) 83–84
see also feedback on training freelance work 208, 209
evaluative practitioners 14, 85 see also careers in training
experienced teachers
becoming a teaching trainer 205 Gaughan, Anthony 204
how teachers move from novice Guskey, Thomas 83–84, 85, 86
to expert 19–21
as mentors 94, 95 handouts 77–78
personal aspects of training 38 Hawthorne effect 130–131
what effective teachers Heron’s six categories of
know 11–14, 13, 14–16 intervention 96, 96–98
experienced trainers 3, 191–197 Hughes, John 99, 205–206

Fanselow, John 151 IATEFL 196, 203, 204

Faucett, Lawrence 189–190 images as discussion prompts 57
feedback on training impostor syndrome 71
courses 180–181 in-house trainers-in-training
principles of evaluation 85–87 (TinTs) 206–207
programmes 186–187 INSPIRE 184, 185
sessions 84–88 intentional destabilisation 20
trainee reaction questions 87–88 interactive whiteboards (IWBs) 76–77
trainer development 200–201 interpersonal skills 156–157,
feedback to classroom students 196, 197
staffroom practices 46, 47 intervention, Heron’s six categories
training session activities and of 96, 96–98
materials 45–46, 54
training session design 26, 31 journals, for trainer
feedback to trainee teachers development 201–202, 204
151–172 journals, writing for 204
aims 153–154
defining 152–157 key terms
delivery 152–153, 154–156 techniques for teaching
five-stage model for vocabulary 61
discussions 160, 160–165 terminology 4–6
251
 knowledge MacBeath, John 130
Index

assessment 140, 143 Maggioli, Gabriel Diaz 63

defining assessment in teacher management observations 112,
 

training 135, 136 120–121, 128–129

feedback to trainees 151 materials see training session
how teachers move from novice activities and materials
to expert 19–21 mentoring practices 91–107
observation of teaching definition 91–95
practices 112, 113–114 in schools 104–107, 105–106
trainer development 198–200 the trainer toolkit 95–98
trainer expertise 192 on training courses 98–104
training courses and mentors
programmes 174 as assessors 148–149
training session design 28, 35 definition 91–95
what effective teachers trainer development 202
know 14–16 metaphors as discussion
Kubanyiova, Maggie 17 prompts 57
microteaching 52
language teaching, definition mobile phones 79
of 11 modelling techniques 34, 61, 77,
learners see students; trainees 82, 100, 195
learning
change management 101 negative model 50
how teachers learn 16–21 Noble, Matthew 204
the right conditions for teacher note-taking, observations 124–126
learning 18
see also teaching and learning OASIS database 200
contexts objectivity, observation of teaching
learning styles 36 practices 123–124, 131–132
lecturing 62–63 observation of teaching
see also conference presentations practices 109–134
lesson planning apprenticeship observations 119,
assessment 147 127–128
feedback 152, 165 and assessment 138, 142
mentoring practices 98–100 challenges 129–133
observation of teaching developing skills 172
practices 118 evaluating your session 87–88
structure for 239–242 feedback to trainees 116, 133,
training session activities and 153, 155, 158–165
materials 46, 47, 53 management observations 112,
lethal mutation 37 120–121, 128–129
live observation 51 mentoring practices 94, 97, 107
logistics during the observation 122–129
training courses and peer observations 111–112, 113,
programmes 183–184, 119, 127–128
207–208 preparation for 115–122
training sessions 72–74 preservice courses 117–118, 127
loop input 50–51 purposes of 113–115
Lortie, Dan 153–154 reasons for 110–112
LX lesson demonstrations 49 teacher resistance 132–133

252
 trying out teaching practices 52–53 training session activities and

 
Index
types 114–115 materials 60–63
observation of training training session design 33,
practices 202 35–37, 39
online tutoring professional development see
training session activities and continuing professional
materials 54 development (CPD); teacher
training session design 26, 32, development; trainer
34, 41 development
programmes see training courses
paper handouts 77–78 and programmes
Parrott, Martin 184 projectors 76–77
participants’ devices 79 publicising your training session 73
pastoral support 101–103
peer assessment 148 qualifications
peer feedback 167 defining assessment in teacher
peer observations 111–112, 113, training 135, 136–137
119, 127–128 the Professional 140–141
peer support 94 training courses and
see also mentoring practices programmes 174, 180
people skills 156–157, 196, 197 quizzes 60
Personal aspects of training
assessment 142–146 reading groups 203
balancing the three Ps 21–22 reflective practice 38, 143–146
trainer expertise 192–193 see also trainee reflection; trainer
training session activities and reflection
materials 53–60 research in language and education
training session design 33, connection between the teaching
37–38, 39 profession and research 36–37
personal learning networks 203 observations 115
planning see lesson planning programme design 184, 185
planning paradox 67 publication 204
Practical aspects of training trainer development 196, 199–200
assessment 140, 141–142
balancing the three Ps 21–22 schools
training session activities and mentoring practices in 104–107
materials 45–53 observations 109–110
training session design 33, trainers-in-training (TinTs) 206
34–35, 39, 41 Scrivener, Jim 9, 80, 154
preflection 42, 43, 63–64 self-awareness 145
presentation apparatus 76–77 see also reflective practice; trainee
preservice courses reflection
feedback to trainees 157, 160, 166 sessions, terminology 5
how teachers learn 17 see also headings beginning
lesson planning 98–100 training session
observation of teaching signposting 81–82
practices 117–118, 127 skills
trainers-in-training (TinTs) 206 giving feedback 151–152
Professional aspects of training knowing how 15
assessment 139–141
balancing the three Ps 21–22
253
 learnings from experienced see also training rooms
Index

trainers 3 teaching practices

observation 172 activities and materials 56, 60–62
 

trainer expertise 191–197 following-up training 83–84

training courses and pastoral support 101–103
programmes 181, 187 reflection and planning 63–64
see also trainer development terminology 5
smartphones 79 training session activities and
social context of training 156, materials 49–53
156–157, 196 see also feedback to trainee
social media 203, 204–205 teachers; observation of
special interest groups (SIGs) 203 teaching practices
staffroom practices 46–47, 47 TESOL 203
students, use of terminology 5 the trainer’s toolkit 95–98, 173
Thornbury, Scott 37
target audience 73 three Ps of training 21–22
task management 81–82 see also Personal aspects of
teacher beliefs 56 training; Practical aspects of
teacher development training; Professional aspects
terminology 4 of training
training courses and trainee reflection
programmes 174–175, 183 how teachers move from novice
teacher education, terminology 4 to expert 19, 20
teacher trainers see trainers Personal aspects of training 38,
teacher training courses see training 143–146, 144
courses and programmes Practical aspects of training 34–35
teacher training sessions see training preflection 42, 43, 63–64
session design self-awareness 145
teachers trainees
‘egg crate’ 109 managing 79–84
how teachers learn 16–21 terminology 5
how teachers move from novice see also preservice courses
to expert 19–21 trainer development 189–209
teaching and learning developing yourself 197–205
contexts 7–11, 18 pursuing a training career
terminology 5 205–209
three Ps of training 21–22 skills needed 191–197
what effective teachers do 11–14 trainer expertise 3, 191–197
what effective teachers trainer reflection 201–202
know 14–16 trainers
see also feedback to trainee as assessors 148–149
teachers drawing on teaching
teachers’ association 203 experience 2–3
teaching and learning contexts evaluating your training 84–88,
characteristics and 180–181, 186–187, 200–201
implications 7–11 experienced trainers 3, 191–197
opening the session 80–81 lack of support for 1–2
the right conditions for teacher preparing yourself 70–72
learning 18 terminology 4–6
training habitat 28–29, 30 working on a course 175–181

254
 working on a programme 181–187 preparing yourself 70–72

 
Index
see also trainer development training session design 25–43
trainers-in-training (TinTs) 206–207 aims 27–28, 30–32, 85–86
training courses and habitat 28–29, 30
programmes 172–187 session shapes and the three
content 4 Ps 32–42
logistics 183–184, 207–208 translating into delivered
terminology 5 session 67–68, 68–70
working on a course 175–181 see also training courses and
working on a programme 181–187 programmes
training rooms training session titles 73
logistics 72–74 transcripts of lessons 52
managing the room 74–79 Tripp, David 58–59
space and furniture 76 trust, trainees 102
teaching and learning tutors see trainers
contexts 10–11
terminology 5 values
venues 73, 74–75 assessing the Personal 143
training session activities and beliefs about teaching 56, 143
materials 45–66 observations 123–124
discussion formats 55 venues 73, 74–75
discussion prompts 56–57 see also training rooms
follow-up activities 83–84 video observation 51–52
mobile phones 79 video recordings, use in
paper handouts 77–78 training 201
personal aspects of training 53–60 vision 71–72
practical aspects of training 45–53
presentation apparatus 76–77 Wendt, Jon 123–124
professional aspects of Woodward, Tessa 29, 36, 62–63, 99
training 60–63 workload 103–104
reflection and planning next Wragg, Ted 165
steps 63–64 Wright, Tony 204
task management 81–82
training session delivery 67–88 young learners (YL)
evaluating your session 84–88 training session activities and
logistics 72–74 materials 46, 54
managing the training room 74–79 training session design 26,
managing trainees 79–84 31–32, 33, 40

255