MAPDLE Trainer Development: Training course design

 

 Photo by Chris Montgomery on Unsplash   

The main assignment for my MAPDLE TD module was to design either a PRESET or an INSET  training course of at least fifty hours. It had to include all the details, starting from a needs analysis and ending with a description of how the course would be evaluated and the participants assessed. As well as establishing the learning objectives and learning outcomes for the course, a full outline had to be included, as well as the rationale behind all the decisions made.

When I started this MA module, I was relatively new to teacher training, so this assignment seemed very daunting indeed, but in the end, it was my favourite of the three assignments. 

In addition to the outline, timings, topics, and resources for each session, I was required to produce my own materials for one of the sessions.

I have been working with a small group of teachers, who have been attending my sessions to increase their confidence, knowledge, and skills after the CELTA course. They are a mixture of native and non-native speakers and have varying levels of experience. As a result of working with these teachers, I identified a need for a continuation of further support and training after the end of the CELTA course. The CELTA is a prestigious qualification. However, it is an introductory course and covers many areas in a short period of time, is intensive, and allows a limited opportunity for depth of topic or reflection.

Although it is acknowledged that all CELTA graduates still require varying degrees of guidance (The University of Cambridge ESOL Examinations, 2021, p.14), they can work independently, often with little support or professional development. After consultation with CELTA trainees and tutors, I managed to come up with a set of learning objectives and learning outcomes that would help to increase newly qualified teachers' level of autonomy and increase their ability to use reflection. The priorities for a training course such as this, according to tutors were to address teachers’ lack of confidence and knowledge for teaching vocabulary, grammar, and skills, the selection and use of appropriate materials, including the use of technology, error correction, and the ability to plan and reflect on lessons. Former CELTA trainees identified their ongoing needs as being, lesson planning, using appropriate materials, providing feedback, teaching vocabulary, grammar, speaking, and reflecting.

Two of the main guiding principles for my course were the Reflective Model (Wallace, 1991) and also the very interesting idea of a Participant-centred approach taken from Wolter (2000) ’drawing on the participants’ knowledge of the local learning/teaching situation in order to achieve a higher degree of ‘fit’ (Wolter, 2000, pp. 311-312). As the course progresses ‘the participants are called on as experts to inform the course instructors how to implement their innovation most effectively’ (Wolter, 2000, p. 315). This suited my goal of producing autonomous teachers, and the structure of my course reflected this in gradually transferring ownership from the trainer to the participants and promoting independence. 

In a short blog, I cant go into all the details of this course, but basically, it involves twice-weekly meeting for two hours each session for a period of twelve weeks, in which there is progression from ‘being a more or less one-way transfer of information to encouraging and fostering a two-way exchange of ideas’ (Wolter, 2000, p.315).  The structure of the sessions and the types of activities used assist the trainees to move being dependent on the trainer for input and structure in the earlier sessions to a position of independence by weeks eleven and twelve. 

As part of the reflective approach, the trainees complete a daily reflective journal and have thirty minutes to discuss these with a 'journal buddy' (Diaz Maggioli, 2012, p. 87) at the beginning of the next session to promote the connection between theory and practice (Mann and Walsh, 2017, p. 87).  The sessions all follow a similar pattern, with the first session of each week comprising input. Mainly experiential approaches are used to enable the participants to ‘experience techniques and approaches from the learner’s viewpoint as a means of stimulating productive reflection’ (Bax, 1997, p. 236). The second session of each week is designed to ‘involve trainees as far as possible in the process of their own development…as relevant as possible to trainees’ working contexts' (Bax, 1997, pp. 237-239). The participants activate, mainly by microteaching, their learning from the input sessions by adapting this for their own contexts, ‘developing ‘experiential knowledge’ of professional action in a controlled and progressive way’ (Wallace, 1991, p. 87).

The unique feature of the Particpant-centres approach is that the final week is the ‘participant as expert’ week (Wolter, 2000). The trainees give a summary of one of their own classes and their learners’ needs, then work in similar- context pairs to make up an entire lesson. This is concluded with peer analysis of the lessons by using an online graphic organiser for trainees to identify and analyse elements of each lesson presented. 

To evaluate the effectiveness of the training course itself Kirkpatrick’s four-level model (reaction, learning, transfer, result) (Kirkpatrick 1959) was used. Although it can be highly subjective, I used a lot of self-evaluation, due to the particular context of this course and the fact that the trainees would all be working independently in various locations around the world.

Although this is a hypothetical course at the moment, I'm really hoping to get the opportunity to put it into action one day in the future.

The materials I designed were for an input session entitled 'What's the most effective way of correcting my learners' errors?', with the main activity being Socratic-type questions to guide the trainees in their consideration and development of error correction techniques. I will write another blog post about this soon.

 Bax, S. (1997) ‘Roles for a teacher educator in context-sensitive teacher education’, ELT Journal, 51 (3), pp. 232-241.

Diaz Maggioli, G. (2012) Teaching language teachers: scaffolding professional learning. Lanham, MD: R and L Education.

Kirkpatrick, D. L. (1959) ‘Techniques for evaluating training programs’, Journal of the American society of training directors, 13, pp. 21-26.

Mann, S. and Walsh, S. (2017) Reflective practice in English language teaching: research-based principles and practices. New York: Routledge.

Wallace, M. J. (1991) Training foreign language teachers. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wolter, B. (2000) ‘A participant-centred approach to INSET course design’ ELT Journal, 54 (4), pp. 311-318.