Throwing Chalk: diary of a trainee teacher

Keep it simple - make sure you explain idioms like "Get Cracking". Make sure that everyone knows exactly what they are meant to be doing. Go round one by one if you have to. They will sit and not do anything if you don't check. They rarely ask. I'm learning that. They ask each other or just do nowt.

So check understanding all the way through the 3 hours. Give feedback on the speaking exercises.

There's a question there of how much do you help them if they're not getting anywhere - to which there are a number of possibilities. Make sure they have firm set guidelines to work with. MODELLING.

I do need to do this more. Use a cloud of words on the board. Get the students to suggest useful words and phrases and subjects for the conversation they are about to engage in. So that they can be more expansive and aren't having to just repeat certain stock phrases and irrelevant material.

I think giving them an attitude: angry, polite - to model worked well but needed to keep them to that. And probably another improvement would be to make notes as they speak, so that I can provide immediate or later feedback and also show that I am listening. My feedback was a bit polite and generic. Lots of well dones etc.

Remember: I am not their dictionary - they are perfectly capable of looking stuff up. And when they do - get them to write a sentence on the board containing the word.

It is very difficult to ensure understanding of everyone all of the time. Perhaps it is like - well beign abroad where you pick out the scraps of the conversation in an immersive way and grow to understand more almost subliminally. In that way the act of talking, writing is important in itself and the fact that you push them to do new things is important.

Remember not to let the more confident and perpetually answering individuals from hogging the limelight. Encourage the quieter ones - particularly the Somali women & also Lulu who is happy to just breeze through the lesson then say she has to leave early. I need to use more Direct Questions and make sure I'm shushing the louder, quicker ones. Ask the name before the question, but then move on if it is embarrassingly silent, but come back with another question to make sure to involve the student and also to get a sense of their level.

I need to sort out discipline on mobile phones and leaving early. This is something I have inherited from the regular teacher and the laid back ethos. It's not easy. They have a lot of issues in their lives and an expectation that they can get away with things. Once a week I need to persuade them to be fully engaged in the matter in hand.

I need to not be afraid to ummm, "Tell them to shut up" to put it bluntly. Demand some respect without ever looking like I'm not in total control. Velvet glove, iron fist. A smiling tyrant. A bit like Stalin. He should be my role model, but with more jokes and less executions and forced labour in Siberia. Well actually, perhaps I'll keep the forced labour bit. And open the windows to stop people nodding off. Good old Stalin, he's an inspiration for tyrants everywhere.

Timing. I still over-run, under-run. Well, not so much of a problem when you're not being observed cos you just need some back up activities or else to wrap things up nicely with some plenary.

So my plenary here - Gosh what a rubbish word that is - what's wrong with conclusion? More formative assessment, more differentiation, more obvious structure tailored to group and individual needs, better behaviour management. Ummm. Yeah. All the usual things. I know. It's just the way it was presented with my previous mentor. That made it feel like a personal attack. Very unsensitive person -> meets ummm slightly too sensitive person = bad atmosphere.

Anyway. I have moved on. I'm good like that. I think. Now I just need to work out this thing about some of them "having" to leave early.

What would Stalin do?

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 18:41 Comments

Ooooh. No one ever told me I was gonna have to do all these essays. Did they? yeah, well, they probably did. I just wasn't listening. And anyway, it's fun at the beginning. It's a novelty & you're proving you can do it. That you've still got it - if you ever had it in the first place that is.

I signed up for an M.A. about 3 years ago in my first foray back into the world of proper learning (Spanish Level 2 Conversation at the local college doesn't really count, does it?) - and when I did sent in my application with all the - I'm great, here's what I've done - stuff on my application form - and they said, yeah, but can you write an 'academic' essay. And I thought, yeah. Well pseudo-academic. And as I was just wittering about books it wasn't that difficult. It's an English/Creative Writing MA - I know, I know what you're thinking... those oh so witty graffitios you get in the toilet at Universities above the bog roll holder: "English degree - please take one."

But while the initial 'essay' was easy enough (if time consuming) it did lead to me having to do lots of research projects, and practical creative writing teaching projects bla de bla bla bla. So there was a lot of work - although obviously it isn't nuclear fission studies.

So, redigressing back to education - and the PGCE - which I - like a fool - decided to do part-time the year before last. Coz, of course, if I'd done it full-time I would have got myself a generous grant, but no, part-timer, that's me. Poverty stricken, that's me.

And so last Easter I had the mother & father of competing assignments with my PGCE & my MA and there was a lack of sleep and a wish that I had been better organised...

But again, I knuckled down and did it. I read the books. I surfed the web and read the articles on education. I downloaded the government Pdfs (Oh how I loath reading pdfs....)

But 3 weeks ago, I think I just hit the wall. I wasn't well and I needed to write an essay that had the most detailed title ever. In fact - it wasn't really a title - it was just a list of demands: the learners' journey including these 13 stages and considerations; Quality Assurance and how it impacts on you and your college; Quality Improvement and ...... oh dear.

I read so much. I cared so little. OfSted by the bedsted. And yes, I know it's important but boy was it dull.

So that was that. I did it. It took me a long, long time. It wasn't the most entertaining thing I've ever written and I kept being distracted by everything and anything while I was trying to write it. "I'll just check my email..... Oh, I wonder what the news is....... I think I'll make a cup of tea, make a quick phone call then re-read my notes.... Is it 2am already?" I was worse than a 14 year old.

How I yearned to write some Schemes of Work, some Lesson Plans; please no more Quality Assurance.....

But it's done. And now I feel bereft. The night after I completed it I just didn't know what to do with myself. "What do I normally do with my time?"

I've got one more project/assignment to go for my PGCE (well apart from the hell of my personal portfolio of evidence - but I'm trying not to think about that - that's what Easter's for....).

One more then I can retire from academia....... or do a Phd. Cos as much as I hate it, I think I might be slightly addicted. A Phd in blogging? My assignment is going to be about the uses of Web 2.0 applications in the classroom.

Anyone using Twitter to teach?

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 13:58 Comments

So here I am, admitting yet again to my lack of knowledge. ESOL teaching, as previously said, it wasn't my first choice but in January with most FE colleges full to the brim with student teachers and me wanting to get away from my assigned mentor - it was an opportunity and one that I jumped at. Teaching what? Yeah, I can do that.... Ummm, what does ESOL mean again? It's not TEFL is it?

It's not gonna be hilariously like the 1970s sitcom, 'Mind Your Language', is it? As Wikipedia describes it: "The series focuses on the adult students of the English as a Foreign Language class in a London school. The classes take place in the early evening, and are taught by Mr. Brown, though on occasion other individuals take over the class if he is not available. The class consists of foreigners with varying degrees of English proficiency. The humour of the show is derived from the students misunderstanding English words or terms, and plays up to the cultural stereotype of their individual nation of origin." A series for which the phrase, "not politically correct" was probably invented...

No, it isn't. The learners have some knowledge of English depending on the grade they've been assigned to. (There's a beginners level that isn't taught at my new college - then there's levels 3, 2 & 1 - which leads directly into Level 1, then level 2, then level 3 - which is GCSE equivalent - but with better grammar and less poetry). So that's where I am right now. Teaching English. It is the most fundamental skill of them all. Here is where all potential English students start at some age or other.

And I can't help thinking it's all quite noble. Not from my point of view, but from the students'. They have their reasons to be here and they have their reasons to learn the language, but they don't have to. Lots of people live within their ethnic communities and survive with very little knowledge of English. In fact, in some ways, the larger the community is, and the more resources it has, the less need there is to actually learn the language of the country. Like Brits on the Costa Del Sol or in Dubai, if you've got everything laid on for you: entertainment, shops, jobs, friends - why would you bother learning a difficult second language?

So I bow down (not literally) to my new students and hope that they will be hard working and willing. Although I already know that some of them like to be cheeky and turn up late, and want to leave early and leave their mobiles turned on cos they're expecting a very important call from bla bla bla.....

Except, in there case it might be an important call from their lawyer about their immigrant status, so I've been told I might have to accept that., but ... I'm not so sure, we shall see.

All the same, the mix of students is very interesting, being made up primarily of asylum seekers (and those granted asylum? I'm not sure yet) at the lower ability levels - Iraqi Kurds, Eritreans, Iranians - then moving into the next class and perhaps reflecting how long they've been in the country or whether they knew any English before they arrived - there are Somalian women, people from the Congo - then in the higher ability levels various European nationals: Russians, Polish people, young people from Spain. It's interesting and apparently there is a high level of pastoral care and advice given by the teachers.

Mr A. isn't going to be coming in again because he's been sent back to ...

In the meantime, I need to concentrate on the teaching and find out what works, find out how they respond to my ideas. I need to learn a whole new curriculum and set of 'behavioural & educational outcomes'.

I feel I need to read lots and lots about this subject/style/genre of teaching - ask lots of questions - train and try - go with the flow - test ideas and see what works. It's quite a pure environment - with one obvious outcome if all goes well: they learn to speak, write and understand English. And while you might be able to question the value of some skills (I'm still bitter about spending time learning to draw machine parts for my Geometrical & Engineering Drawing O Level - yeah, thanks computers - you really made my skills with a t-square and pencil pretty obsolete) - I don't think English is ever going to go out of style.

Posted by Stipey Sullivan at 00:06 Comments